Introducing one of Bush’s new cabinet pals ...

In response, environmental Friend of the Earth United States (FOE) and the UK-based human rights group Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) (pdf file 112kb) filed a complaint with the US State Department last August against Cabot and several other western corporations for their role in aiding the rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo by conducting business there, essentially inadvertently aiding a violent conflict that contributed to widespread human rights abuses.

RAID and FOE filed a complaint with the U.S. State Department last August claiming Cabot and other western corporations had violated the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) “Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises,” a set of international standards for responsible corporate behaviour.

The UN panel said in its report that a “three-year investigation found that sophisticated 'elite networks' of high-level political, military and businesspersons, in collaboration with various rebel groups, intentionally fuelled the conflict in order to retain control over the country’s vast natural resources. The panel implicated many Western companies for directly or indirectly helping to fuel the war.”

The State Department is the agency in charge of deciding whether US companies breach the OECD guidelines. Despite the allegations included in the UN report and the complaint filed by the two activist groups, the State Department has refused to launch an independent investigation into whether Cabot, under Bodman’s leadership, and the other US companies might have contributed to the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to the UN report, an increase in the export of columbo tantalite, otherwise known as coltan from which the metal tantalum is extracted, in 1999 and 2000 resulted in “a sharp increase in the world prices of tantalum … leading to a large increase in coltan production in eastern DRC … While the processors of coltan and other Congolese minerals in Asia, Europe and North America may not have been aware of what was happening in the DRC, the Panel’s investigations uncovered such serious concerns that it was decided to raise the international business community’s awareness …”

Cabot is the world’s largest refiner of coltan. The other US corporations identified in the UN report, Kemet and Vishay, both purchase processed tantalum from Cabot. Under Bodman’s leadership an unknown amount of the coltan Cabot Corporation was purchasing could have originated from the DRC. Cabot Corporation has stated publicly, “to the best of its knowledge none [of its coltan came] from environmentally sensitive areas in Africa, but it can’t be sure”.

As Energy Secretary, Bodman will be looking out for the energy behemoths he used to commiserate with while he was chairman and chief executive of Cabot, Vice President Dick Cheney being one of them. Many of those energy corporations have donated millions to fund President Bush’s inaugural parties. And Cheney wants Bodman to reward their pals by making a convincing case why the President’s controversial energy policy should sail through Congress, the environment be damned.