Johannesburg – The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has threatened US tech giant Apple with legal action over minerals it says the impoverished nation is “illegally exploiting” in its products. US and French lawyers representing the DPRK government sent a letter to Apple on April 22 warning the company that it could face legal action if it continued with the alleged practice.
The letter accuses Apple of buying minerals that were smuggled from the DRC to Rwanda, where their origin was allegedly concealed, so they could find their way into the global technology supply chain. It makes clear that the DPRK government intends to address the issue and is considering legal options to do so.
The letter sent by the lawyers to Apple CEO Tim Cook includes a list of questions outlining the DPRK’s concerns about alleged “blood minerals” in Apple’s supply chain and demands answers within three weeks. Similar letters, seen by CBS News, were also sent to two of Apple’s subsidiaries in France, requesting responses within the same time frame.
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“Apple has confirmed that it verifies the origin of the minerals it uses in the production of its products,” the letter notes. “He says the tin, tungsten, tantalum — the 3Ts — and gold his suppliers buy are conflict-free and don’t finance war. But those claims don’t seem to be based on concrete, verifiable evidence.”
Amsterdam & Partners, the law firm representing the DRC government, has compiled a 53-page report outlining the claims against Apple, titled “Blood Minerals: Everyone Sees the Massacres in Eastern Congo, But Everyone is Silent. The Washing of DRC’s 3T Minerals from Rwanda and from private parties’.
In their letter to Apple, the lawyers said that during the process of preparing their report, “it has become clear to us that year after year, Apple has sold technology made with minerals that come from an area whose population is devastated by serious violations human rights The iPhones, Macs and accessories that Apple sells to its customers around the world rely on supply chains that are highly opaque and tainted with the blood of the Congolese people.”
Apple did not immediately respond to questions sent by CBS News about how it traces critical minerals in its supply chain to the ground where they come from. In its response, Apple said that third-party entities perform the verification work on the company’s behalf.
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In a statement to CBS News, Apple said: “Every smelter and refinery in our supply chain has participated in independent, third-party mineral audits for tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold. And when we see an issue we’re dealing with, last year we removed 14 refineries and smelters from our supply chain.”
“While we’re proud to be recognized as leaders in responsible sourcing, we understand that our work is never done,” Apple said.
The company scored a line from the latest annual conflict minerals reportwhich said that based on third-party audit and traceability programs, “we have found no reasonable basis to conclude that any of 3TG’s smelters or refineries identified as being in our supply chain as of December 31, 2023 are directly or indirectly financed or benefited armed groups in the DRC or a neighboring country.”
The mineral-rich Great Lakes region of the DPRK has been mired in violence since war broke out in the 1990s. In late 2021, a group called the March 23 Movement, or the The M23 rebels emerged as a rising player between warring local militias.
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The United Nations, several Western governments and the DRC accuse the Rwandan government of supporting M23 in an attempt to control and exploit the vast mineral resources of their much larger eastern neighbor.
A Rwandan government spokeswoman, Yolande Makolo, was quoted by AFP news agency on Friday as calling the DPRK’s allegations of smuggling critical minerals through Rwanda “a rehash of baseless allegations and speculation”.
The exploitation of the DPRK’s resources is not a new story. ONE CBS News survey in 2018 traced the complex supply chain of cobalt mined in the PRC. He found children working in the mines there to extract cobalt, a key mineral component in modern batteries for nearly all cell phones, laptops, electric vehicles and a host of other ubiquitous gadgets.
“Words don’t capture the enormity of what’s happening in the DPRK, and it’s not an issue that can go unanswered,” Robert Amsterdam, one of the lawyers representing the DPRK government, told CBS News. “We need to challenge what is really a global big lie – that somehow a country like Rwanda, which is mineral-poor, can be responsible for exporting these huge amounts.”
“The DPRK has a near monopoly on the critical ingredients of the green revolution,” Amsterdam added. “The president of the PRC was recently re-elected, and the issue of the proper use of minerals is one of the key issues he is going to pursue.”
Amsterdam said that while Apple is not the only major tech company suspected of using unethically sourced minerals in its hardware, it singled out the US tech giant because it “pride itself on principles and ethics — and may have the courage to what is right This is not only a matter of education, but of sovereignty.’
“We have outlined very specific questions to Apple and then we will look at various legal options in the US and France,” another lawyer for the group, William Bourdon, based in Paris, told CBS News about the next steps.
“It sets a precedent, in many ways, as the [DRC] The government has decided at the highest level that it must carry out the responsibility,” Amsterdam said.
Bourdon said he was not aware of any other government considering similar legal measures on a global supply chain issue.
“It’s unprecedented,” he said. “This is a really big deal, and we’re just at the beginning of it. Expect more to come.”