I don't yet consider the news to be bad. This could very well have been done by a lawmaker who actually wants the opposite which in this case would be to expand artisanal mining.
The DRC isn't all that different from the US. Look at the gay marriage issue. Did it come about because people wanted to make gay marriage illegal? Of course not! In most states lawmakers who wanted to make gay marriage legal introduced legislation to make it illegal. Why? It puts them on the coveted defensive position and makes people who aren't bad guys look like they are.
We already know where Banro stands on this issue. They want to find a way to allow the Congolese to use their mineral rich soil to provide for their families and villages. The problem is once the money starts to roll in the bad guys hire muscle and then take the gold for themselves and often the foreigners who helped them gain the upper hand in the first place to control the others with fear and violence.
Banro can not fix that problem. The best they can do is allow the miners to exploit the easier to mine upper ore and also train them in not only mining but in everything. How to build a town...education, medical, law enforcement, governing, utilities and so on. Banro does this and they do it well.
The rest is up to the DRC and the international community. The DRC needs to ensure the towns and villages do not exploit their own citizens and do not fight each other. The international community needs to ensure foreign governments and regimes are not able to profit from the exploitation of the DRC. When they try sanctions need to be implemented and if those don't work then it ramps up. It could be militaries blocking trade routes, air strikes and in some cases boots on the ground.
