Dear Editor: I write in response to this item in the 1/22/2023 issue of your email newsletter, Extra Extra Western Friend – “Quaker Response to War in Ukraine.” I wish someday to see “Quaker Response to War in Congo-DRC.” More than seven million dead, including Quakers. All I see now is Friends participating in, and benefiting from, child slavery. And in Uganda, Quakers being lynched and fleeing for their lives. Is it something about Ukrainians being white and heterosexual?
Please read the following report from the Daily Mail, 1/30/2023, “Devastating Photos from Cobalt Mines in DRC Power Apple, Tesla, and more.”
https://tinyurl.com/ChildCobaltMiners
This report doesn’t even account for slaves tied to coltan-mining in Eastern Congo, which has killed seven million people. Some of them are Quakers. But we can ignore them, because, after all, they are Black.
I acknowledge that this virtual communication is made possible by the labor of the people of the Congo, including tens of thousands of child slaves, mining coltan, cobalt, and other materials.
– David Albert, Olympia Friends Meeting (NPYM)