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By Louise Watts
LONDON (AP) — The conflict in eastern Congo is being fueled and funded by a tussle for mineral resources that end up in cell phones, laptops and other electronics — deepening the stakes in a war that sprung out of festering hatreds from the Rwandan genocide.
Rebel militias and Congolese army troops are fighting each other for control of mineral-rich land. They can then sell the raw materials they mine and use the proceeds to fund their activities and arms — which prolongs the conflict.
"The links are very clear between the mining activity going to finance these groups, and these armed groups we know have been benefiting financially from the mining areas," said Lizzie Parsons, a member of the Congo team at London-based Global Witness, a non-governmental organization that investigates natural resource exploitation.
Congo's present conflict stems from a rebellion started four years ago by renegade general Laurent Nkunda, who claimed the country's transition to democracy had excluded the Tutsi ethnic group. Despite agreeing in January to a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, he resumed fighting in August.
He alleges the Congolese government has not protected ethnic Tutsis from the Rwandan Hutu militia that escaped to Congo after helping slaughter half a million Rwandan Tutsis in 1994.
But analysts say that the heart of conflict is the struggle for minerals.
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