PS2 caused war in Africa

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http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/playstation-2-component-incites-african-war/1231745

Has the video game industry dug up its very own blood diamond?

According to a report by activist site Toward Freedom, for the past decade the search for a rare metal necessary in the manufacturing of Sony's Playstation 2 game console has fueled a brutal conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

At the center of the conflict is the unrefined metallic ore, coltan. After processing, coltan turns into a powder called tantalum, which is used extensively in a wealth of western electronic devices including cell phones, computers and, of course, game consoles.

Allegedly, the demand for coltan prompted Rwandan military groups and western mining companies to plunder hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the rare metal, often by forcing prisoners-of-war and even children to work in the country's coltan mines.

"Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms," said Ex-British Parliament Member Oona King.

So where's the connection to Sony? According to Toward Freedom, during the 2000 launch of the PS2, the electronics giant was having trouble meeting consumer demand. To pump out more units, Sony required a significant increase in the production of electric capacitors, which are primarily made with tantalum. This helped drive the world price of the powder from $49/pound to a whopping $275/pound, resulting in the frenzied scouring of the Congolese hills known for being ripe with coltan.

Sony has since sworn off using tantalum acquired from the Congo, claiming that current builds of the PS2, PSP and PS3 consoles are sourced from a variety of mines in several different countries.

But according to researcher David Barouski, they're hardly off the hook.

"SONY's PlayStation 2 launch...was a big part of the huge increase in demand for coltan that began in early 1999," he explained. "SONY and other companies like it, have the benefit of plausible deniability, because the coltan ore trades hands so many times from when it is mined to when SONY gets a processed product, that a company often has no idea where the original coltan ore came from, and frankly don't care to know. But statistical analysis shows it to be nearly inconceivable that SONY made all its PlayStations without using Congolese coltan."

Currently, the Playstation 2 is the best-selling video game console of all-time, having sold through over 140 million units.
Click to expand...

Discuss.
 
Connecting this to Sony is a stretch I think. Whats going on in Africa is unfortunate, but laying blame on the PS2 is silly. I doubt Sony called up some assholes in Darfur and told them to up the mining.
 
Coltan is just a commodity, and Sony was and is one of probably thousands of companies who manufacture electronic components using it. Unless they can show a specific connection between Sony and Congolese coltan, it makes about as much sense to blame Apple, Dell, Pioneer or any other random electronics company as it does to blame Sony.
 
Mankind in general always passes the buck, we should first take a look at how they are getting the materials first. Interesting post, but it is going to be hard to pin that down on Sony.
 
I read this from Yahoo... I find the statement "Kids in Congo were dying to gather the materials to make the Playstation game machine so that other kids can shoot imaginary aliens..." is totally bogus and outrageous (there's a connection, but come on, that means everyone owns a PS2 is a killer).
 
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Did anyone stop to think that maybe mining is the least of these "kids" worries? Maybe mining is actually a desirable job there? Maybe it gives them security and food they would otherwise not have?
 
[quote name='Zing']Did anyone stop to think that maybe mining is the least of these "kids" worries? Maybe mining is actually a desirable job there? Maybe it gives them security and food they would otherwise not have?[/quote]

I don't know about that.

The rebels are pretty ruthless, I'm sure the working conditions in the mine are nothing you'd ever even want to see.

It is true that in a sense you're damned if you do, damned if you don't with some of the war torn countries. Until they get their act together IMO all you can do is not fund the rebels with any of your business interests. Best you can do is not do business with rebels and instead go to African countries ruled by less corrupt leaders where workers get paid something closer to a fair wage.

I'm not saying Sony is to blame here, I don't know but I assume they bought this metal from an unscrupulous middleman. I mean, Sony are no angels (root kit, RIAA, etc) but they aren't part of diamond cartels either (although they are part of the music product cartel ;) ).
 
In Africa there is always a struggle between the have and the have nots. You can't get anything from Africa without someone having to die to get it for you.
 
Maybe we should be looking at the slave drivers and assholes that cut off people's arms and blaming them.

If we had to stop using every product that cause someone or something harm, we'd be back to making all our own houses and horse wagons. Then again, you can't use the horse in such a demeaning way.
 
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