Beneficiaries are actors too.pdf - Southern Institute of Peace ...

NGOs. This has only gone on to add to the suspicion in which
NGOs are viewed; a case in point is the denial of entry to give food
aid in the famine hit Somalia which is in part controlled by the Al
shaabab militia group linked to the Al Qaeda group. This is
testimony to the mistrust that NGOs and other humanitarian
agencies are viewed with in conflict zones, largely because their
independence is questionable especially in light of their funding
base and often perceived euro-centric orientation and ideologies.
Apart from external causes of conflict one of the major causes of
conflicts in Africa are economic motives. Despite the devastation
that armed conflicts bring there are some players who stand to
benefit from them and are therefore responsible for fanning and
fuelling the conflict rather than halting it. The chief culprits in
supporting armed conflicts in Africa are the international arms
merchants and the warring parties themselves. Arms merchants
benefit immensely through the sale of arms to the warring groups
and therefore do not have an interest in seeing the end of the
armed conflict. In Liberia for instance, the control and
exploitation of diamonds, timber and raw materials was one of the
major principal objectives of the warring factions. Control over
those resources financed the various factions and gave them the
means of sustaining the conflict. This is similar to Angola where
protracted difficulties in the peace process owed much to the
importance of control over the exploitation of the country's
lucrative diamond fields. The chance to plunder natural
resources and to siphon the central bank reserves were the major
motives for those who staged a coup to over throw the elected
government in May of 1997 in Sierra Leone.
In addition to the sources of conflict in Africa that have been cited
a number of factors also come into play notably the particular
situations and conditions in various sub regions. In central
Africa, they include the competition for scarce resources such as
land and water in densely populated areas. Several
displacements which occurred as a result of ethnic conflicts and
disturbances have resulted in multi claims for the same piece of
land amongst various families in Rwanda. In most oil rich
countries in Africa conflict has emerged because communities in
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