Janvier Murairi is president of Association pour le Developpement des Initiatives Paysanne(ASSODIP), and a leading Congolese human rights researcher and activist based in North Kivu, eastern Congo. ASSODIP, is one of 12 members of the local civil society coalition called the Support Platform for Traceability and Transparency in the Management of Natural Resources, or GATT-RN. Murairi and his team conduct their research in mining areas of North Kivu. In the context of recent public debate about conflict minerals, the impact of the Dodd-Frank legislation, and mining investments in the region, he was interviewed September 29, 2014 for Pragmora.com.
BACKGROUND
Bisie is a remote town in the Walikale district in eastern DR Congo. It has lucrative deposits of tin (cassiterite), along with coltan, diamond, uranium, cobalt, and bauxite deposits. Since its discovery in 2004, tin has been extracted through artisanal and small-scale mining. In 2006, the Mining and Processing Congo company (MPC) was granted exploration permits for the Bisie Mine with the expectation that a large-scale mining operation would follow. In August 2011, the Canadian company Alphamin acquired a majority interest in the Bisie Tin Mine and today is the sole owner.
Throughout most of the past decade, the Bisie mineral deposits have been under the physical control of various rebels groups and a renegade brigadeof the Congolese Army. Today, Alphamin awaits government permits to begin modern industrial mining of its Bisie Tin resources; however, conflicts with local artisanal miners have not yet been resolved.
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