BBC NEWS -- September 2, 2009 - By Karen Allen reports from South Kivu
"It was midnight when Elise and her husband were woken by armed men.
Soldiers of Congo's National Army burst into their shack, sent the husband into another room, and then raped the mother-of-five at gunpoint.
"They put their guns on my chest and said: 'Don't talk, don't cry, don't complain'… then they started to rape me," she said.
The perpetrators were not the feared militia of the FDLR, who are currently the focus of a major military operation in South Kivu.
They were from the FARDC - the National Army that now controls this area in eastern DRC.
It is an area carpeted with minerals such as coltan and cassiterite, which are used in the production of consumer durables and gadgets sold in the rich world...
... During US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to the country, grand statements were made to get the military out of the mines, but change requires clear political will.
"We have to destroy the commercial circus of the mines, by reasserting the control of the state," said Mabolia Yenga, a mines trouble-shooter who advises Congo's ministry of mines.
Commercialising the mining sector is not a magic bullet, but it might be a start if the big operators are closely watched.
Mr Yenga believes that for minerals like coltan and cassiterite, a process of certification to ensure the mining does not fund violence - such as with the Kimberley process for diamonds - is long overdue.
But such a process would require input from Congo's neighbours, which act as transit points for illicit exports.
Neighbours such as Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda have long been accused of benefiting from Congo's mines, operating "under the wire" and gaining from the country's instability.
The Congolese government wants to invite mining companies back in and use the tax revenues from mining to rebuild this shattered country.
It is a hard message to sell to a population which has seen virtually no infrastructural growth from it's mineral riches - simply war.
But it may be a small step to making mining more transparent in Congo. It may also help to ensure that some of the 1.8bn mobile phones in the world are a little "cleaner."
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