brief 38
Digging for Peace
Private Companies and Emerging Economies in Zones of Conflict
Lena Guesnet, Jolien Schure, and Wolf-Christian Paes (eds.)
The year 2009 marks the tenth anniversary of the Fatal Transactions advocacy network, an umbrella group of European and African non-governmental organizations which campaigns for the transformation of resource-related conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa.
As one of the founding members of the network, our colleague Anne Jung of Medico International, said during the conference (see pp. 12–13 of this brief), Fatal Transactions began its work following reports of atrocities committed in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sierra Leone. It soon became clear that natural resources, such as crude oil, diamonds and different minerals, were playing a crucial role in these, and other conflicts. It is the revenue from the production and sale of these resources, which allows both government forces and rebel groups to import arms and ammunition. Following the end of the Cold War, large parts of the African continent had begun to slide off the strategic map of the international powers (a trend, which was partially reversed after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001). The development contributed to the decline of political regimes from Monrovia to Kinshasa, as well as to the growing prominence of natural resources in African conflicts (often substituting for military aid from international patrons). Not only did conflict commodities play an important role in greasing the wheels of war economies across the continent, they also changed the way wars were being fought. Whereas previously the strategic goal had been to control territories and populations, ultimately aiming to capture political power, modern-day warlords are often content to occupy mines and transport corridors.
RSS Feed