Everyone knows about the Iraq war and the purpoted weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein was supposed to be harboring. Very few people however know about the coltan war. This is a "cleaner" war with virtually no American casualties. Its effects are still the same: a removed dictator, a society in turmoil, an (electronic materials) industry that became much richer. It was one the results of the Clinton-Gore administration policies. Now the rest of the world is eyeing the candidates and wondering what to expect from the next president. Barack Obama has not given any clear indication but many believe that he'll espouse the "cleaner" war approach, while his opponent John Mc Cain seems to espouse the Bush doctrine war tactics, with bombs pre-emptively knocking out facilities in other countries that are deemed to pose a threat to America and removing dictators from power.

During the 1990s the converging interests of the United States administration and the Rwanda government, culminated into what is known in some circles as the coltan war in the eastern Congo Democratic.

Also during the same period, technology, was one of the fastest growing economic sectors. The dot com era was in full swing. Internet based businesses flourished. They were mostly funded by venture capital and banks looking to cash in on the Internet trend.

In a March 1999 interview with Wolf Blitzer, Al Gore said, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." The inventor of the Mosaic Browser, Marc Andreesen, credits Gore with making his work possible. He received a federal grant through Gore's High Performance Computing Act. The University of Pennsylvania's Dave Ferber says that without Gore the Internet "would not be where it is today." Al Gore was indeed one of the strongest supporters of the Silicon Valley initiatives and subsequently dot com boom era. He and then president Bill Clinton were among those who understood the importance of technology in keeping the American economy strong and ensuring its leadership in the global marketplace. Al Gore was to Silicon Valley what Dick Cheney is to the Oil companies in Texas today: a wide open door to washington for a given industry.

Staying at the forefront of innovation and striving to keep their businesses profitable, engineers and scientists in silicon valley had already identified more and more refined materials to produce the elements that go into electronic circuits. One of those elements is Coltan, short for columbite-tantalite. There was plenty of Coltan in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which was then called Zaire. Zaire's neighbouring countries Rwanda and Uganda wanted a piece of this countrie's rich soil. Silicon valley on the other hand needed coltan. A fated war became inevitable as opportunity and necessity converged.

Zaire was ruled at the time by President Mobutu Sese Seko, who had taken power of the country through a coup against the Congolese government elected officials in 1965. He never since released the reigns of power.

In the meantime, in neighbouring Rwanda, a long standing power struggle between two ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi was slowly brewing to a climax. As the hostilities began to break between the Hutu and the Tutsi, leading to a civil war in Rwanda in 1994, more than a million Hutu refugees crossed the Rwandan border on into the Zairean territory to seek refuge.

At the same time, In 1994, the Clinton-Gore Administration had taken an increasingly tough stance towards the then president of the Congo Democratic, Mr. Mobutu. A statement the previous year by a U.S. State Department spokesman, Michael McCurry, said the United States "holds President Mobutu responsible for a situation which puts at risk the lives and welfare of millions of his countrymen and the stability of an entire region."

This tough stance on Mobutu ultimately led to the weakening of his political regime and his army. With Mobutu's political system weakening, the stage was finally set for the start a war in the Coltan rich Congo Democratic. The United States acted to advance democracy in the region and to prevent the loss of life of millions of individuals. However, one can't help but wonder, given America's repeated stance about other trouble spots, why did the American administration take such a harsh stance on the leader of a country half a world away if there was no U.S. interest there? The people of the Congo Democratic have had to pay a very harsh price for a democracy still fighting to assert itself in the Congo Democratic. They have paid with more than 5 Million deaths, in the coltan wars between 1998 and 2008.

The CNM foundation (http://www.congonm.com) has been working to raise the world awareness to the plight of Congolese citizens in the eastern part of the Congo Democratic. Hundreds of thousands of women have been raped in this part of the region. Militias INTERAHAMWE are using rape as a weapon of mass terror. Entire villages have been displaced to make way for the coltan seekers from neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.

The main actors that CNM personnel have identified as being instrumental in bringing about the conditions that led to the COLTAN crisis namely, former president Bill Clinton now heading the Clinton Global Initiative, former vice president Al Gore now heading a global initiative on climate change, and the president of Rwanda Paul Kagame, are all being called on to join CNM in an effort of putting an end to rape for the women of Congo and child labor among other ills.

American workers have lost many jobs as a result of outsourcing and are now having to compete with child labor in countries such as Indian, and Congo Democratic. It would be interesting to know how the next administration will tackle these problems which have repercussion on American standards of living.

This article has been writen with the help of the CNM (http://www.congonm.com) group.

You can view one of CNM's videos on the coltan war here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txi4WCyOA8Y