Due to the nature of supply chains, and as companies don't buy directly from mines but from smelters, there is always the risk that illegal minerals could be smuggled in.
The United Nations report lays bare exactly how various rebel groups finance their brutality, tracing the flow of illegal minerals from the lush green mountainsides of Congo, formerly Zaire, to Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, and eventually to markets in Europe or smelters in the Far East.
Last month, a group of experts working for the Security Council issued a report that laid out, in unprecedented detail, how the rebels finance their brutality, tracing the flow of illegal minerals from Congo to Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, and eventually to markets in Europe or smelters in Asia.
They should prosecute the greedy people, wherever they come from, who benefit from illegal minerals".
These measures focused on stopping the illegal trade of minerals but did nothing to destroy the actual power base of armed groups.
The discussions, at a regional university in Goma, the capital of North Kivu, will address the presence of local and foreign militias in the region, border controls, illegal trafficking in minerals and weapons proliferation.
The document points to the illegal export of minerals in return for cash and weapons that are channeled to rebel groups, which United Nations peacekeepers are mandated by the Security Council to help dismantle.
The scandal was that he had not gone earlier.Mr Yeddyurappa, a power broker in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was indicted on July 27th in a damning judicial report which said he had presided over the illegal pillage of minerals in his state and collected corrupt payments of at least 300m rupees ($7m).
Also, the international community has failed to stop the illegal trade in minerals, which is funding this most deadly war since World War II.
