Here is one for you ROMANTICISTS of Africa.

As far as you guys are concerned every good will for Africa comes with some unintended adverse consequence! And you portray Africans as so hapless. Well, similar situation occured in the diamondeferous region of Sierra Leone and here's what followed. When many of the 'companies" supporting local artisanal mining operations all over the place pull up shops and abandoned the local population that depended on these mining operations for every livilihood, they returned to growing rice. If you know this, rice is the staple food in Sierra Leone and its availability can make or break a government. Rice import is heavily subsidized by any government in power since independent, which does not make sense. But now the locals in the mining areas are expecting hithereto such rice production that if the trend continues domestic demand for rice could be satified within years.

What is the crying for in the Congo? Let the locals find something else to do. This happens everywhere around the world. The economy of the South US depended heavily on Cotton, they even went to war over it, then tobacco. When the production of these crops were shipped overseas, no one cried, they souhgt alternative economies. Now the SOUTH here is formidable in every category.

What is the problem with Africa that someone cries over every change in economic activity?

And blaming the law passed to bring fairness and transparency in the exploitation of their natural resources!

The environmental damage caused by wrekless artisanal mining in North and South Kivu is a time bomb that is waiting to explode. Advocacy groups of a different type will come in and a whole new debate will start. What we need is a holistic approach that includes all stakeholders to address all the issues under one roof: environment, unfair revenue distribution along the mineral supply chain (from the miner, transporter, traders and wealthy comptoir owners in town), human rights, unsafe working conditions for the little guys at the mine, use of very harmful products such mercury for those mining gold, corruption/involvement of members of the security community, rampant fraud denying the Gov vital revenue....then lets see on the basis of all the facts the sustainability of what's going on at the moment and hopefully draw appropriate conclusions that would result in development for the people and not just wealth for a few pockets

"If the advocacy groups aren’t speaking for the people of eastern Congo, whom are they speaking for?” we need to find Kajjemba and put him on Goxi...