"Congo Gold" airing on CBS's 60 Minutes - Examiner

On Sunday, November 29th, CBS will air a feature entitled "Congo Gold" on it's 60 Minutes program. Congo Gold will follow renowned human rights advocate John Prendergast to the Democratic Republic of Congo and document the link between gold mining and the war atrocities that have taken the lives of over four million people.

Prendergast wrote an op-ed in the Boston Globe on August 1, detailing part of his journey:

"Being held at gunpoint by 30 drunk and angry militia in the middle of the night on a deserted road in one of the most dangerous war zones in the world was not our plan when we started out the day. But my traveling companions and I were digging into the links between the illicit mining of Congo's "conflict minerals'' and a deadly war, and we didn't expect a walk in the park. We had visited a gold mine contested by some particularly vengeful armed groups, and this militia had lost out in controlling the mine and wasn't happy about the result. After hours of negotiations, guns poked into ribs, and death threats, we emerged relatively unscathed and $1,000 poorer. Congolese civilians, however, are rarely so fortunate."

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