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sively concentrating its war effort on FARC and the ELN, targeting people considered to be sympathisers of these groups. Armed groups are intentionally driving people from their homes and land in an attempt to remove potential bases of support for the other parties in the conflict. Similarly, UNITA is employing a brutal new tactic: forcing rural people into towns, surrounding them and cutting off food supplies, in order to delay and derail the MPLA's concentration and use of resources to gain victory and stability in the interior (The Economist 25 September 1999:2). The Angolan civil war has also seen indiscriminate shelling of besieged towns by both UNITA and the MPLA, resulting in massive destruction and untold human suffering. While it is not known whether UNITA has been involved in any high profile kidnapping cases, their counterparts in Colombia (FARC; ELN) have obviously realized that kidnapping demanding ransom money, serves their immediate financial needs. It is also an important means of political intimidation, challenging the state's power and coercing local political leadership into adopting pro-guerrilla policies. At least 800 people have been victimized in this way, including majors, local and national politicians, journalists, and top MNC officials (Global Witness 1998; Amnesty International 1999). From the above it is evident that the Angolan and Colombian cases satisfy two of the characteristics depicted in the triangular model on page 1: state failure and violent conflict escalation. Their `strong empirical statehood' failure is evident by the little progress being made to, for example, equip the judiciary and train the police to protect and enforce human rights, or to curb the culture of impunity and lawlessness (Amnesty International 1999). Corruption and the absence of ethical values are also a key variable ± for example, in Angola, certain government ministers and the generals sell weapons and fuel to UNITA, while the latter pays with diamonds (The Economist 25 September 1999:2). Profiting from large commissions on weapons purchases has also become lucrative business (Mail and Guardian 1 July 1999:3). In the next Part, both variables will be linked with the third one ± resource capture. THE RESOURCE CAPTURE, CONTROL AND EXPLOITATION VARIABLE In terms of the central hypothesis, Angola and Colombia's first and second `vulnerabilities' have already been stated and discussed: their inception as partially disintegrating ex-colonial states, and their inability to overcome political, socio-economic and cultural constraints to state and nation building in a domestic situation of civil war. What remains, is to indicate how the capture, control and exploitation of high value/low volume (and strategic) resources (diamond, cocaine and oil) continue to keep state failure and the `perpetrators' thereof, afloat. This key component in the triangular model is not necessarily a new phenomenon in the Angolan and Colombian experiences. Neither is it only linked to mineral resources, but it involves also land capture. Historically, the capture, control and exploitation of gold and emeralds (in Colombia) and oil and diamonds (in Angola) had been a primary objective for colonial rulers. With Angola becoming a new proxy `flash point' during the Cold War, the US, Soviet Union and Cuba were also motivated by the need to secure future access to the country's oil and diamond wealth. While cocaine, as a lucrative economic good of supply and demand, gained significance only during the 1980s, there can be no doubt that it has since taken a central place in transforming the economy and reshaping political and social relations. For most of Angola and Colombia's contemporary history, non-state actors have played a key role in the above regard, whether it be guerrillas, powerful eÂ lite groups, drug cartels, or MNCs. Similarly to the MPLA and UNITA's experience at the demise of the Cold War, having lost support from Moscow and Havana, FARC and the ELN began to increasingly rely on cocaine capture, control and/or exploitation to finance their struggle. In areas prized for their commercial and/or strategic value, rural communities are particularly vulnerable as armed groups vie for control. Examples in this regard are the diamond-rich Luanda Norte province and strategic city of Huambo in Angola (its total destruction resembling Berlin at the end of World War Two), and the coca producing southern provinces of Colombia. The applied `dirty war' strategies (mentioned before) also frees-up large tracts of land for (eÂ lite) commercial-scale ranching and agri-businesses, destroying the livelihood of tens of thousands of poor farmers and their families in Colombia (the wealthy banana producing district of Uraba is one example). Thanks to oil, diamonds and cocaine, Angola, and to a lesser extent, Colombia, have not become fully marginalized from global trade networks and benefits. Global demand for these lucrative resources has led to their selective integration ± a process almost solely controlled by either a small affluent ruling eÂ lite (also oligarchy), and/or powerful non-state actors responsible for securing supply, while external (MNC) involvement has facilitated sustained demand (see figure 1). Ordinary citizens have been mostly excluded from the financial benefits incurred, while other sectors (e.g. agriculture) from which they could have earned a living have experienced increased marginalization and collapse (see Part 3). Under conditions of democratic rule, good governance and legal controls, the availability and global demand for oil and diamonds would make state reconstruction possible. However, with these preconditions almost absent or weakly developed, those with the military and financial power moved in to secure their own 26 ISSN 0256±6060±Unisa Lat. Am. Rep. 16(2) 2000
survival by capturing, controlling and exploiting these valuable resources. While the overwhelming majority of the population are left to their own fate `between bare subsistence and violent pillage', the eÂ lite have been able to link up to the global networks of wealth, power, information, communication and trade. Angola and Colombia share this commonality though, ironically, illicit cocaine profits during the mid-1980s, brought about a significant boom which construction, real estate, infrastructural development and investment in Colombian cities. Cocaine (with foreign revenues of between US$ 3±5 billion annually), have resulted in Colombia gaining a `hegemonic position' in a major sector of the global criminal economy (Castells 1998:196±197). Oil and diamonds have failed to do the same for Angola. The emphasis should therefore not be on availability, but on exploitation. For, in the words of De Beers diamond conglomerate chairman, Nicky Oppenheimer: `natural resources are morally neutral ± the key element is not the resource itself, but how it is exploited, which makes the difference between becoming a curse rather than a blessing' to Angola (The Mining Journal 19 November 1999:1). Coca plant cultivation, however, is not morally neutral, but intended outrightly to serve a highly profitable illegal and destructive purpose. It is also a matter of demanddriven and exports oriented economics. Cocaine is profitable ± every step along the way ± from coca cultivation to processing to street selling. A coca grower earns between US$ 1000 and 10 000 for enough coca leaves to produce a kilo of cocaine which has a street value of US$ 800 000. A hectare of coca may yield up to three times the income of a hectare of bananas (The Economist 26 February 2000:23). While it is difficult to indicate any specific price value for uncut diamonds as it depends on the carat measurement, it is common knowledge that uncut diamonds are substantially more profitable than, for example, coffee or cotton ± primary commodities being exported by Angola and Colombia. Both coca (cocaine) and diamonds continue to enjoy a considerable price advantage over most legal cash crops. This becomes evident when comparing potential coca/cocaine earnings with the world market prices for coffee, cotton and maize (see table 3). The illegal smuggling of diamonds, and coca cultivation often provide rural dwellers and subsistence farmers the best hope of escaping a life of extreme poverty. They have long abandoned hope of making a decent living from legal crops alone. Worse in the case of Angola, the state has largely abandoned them to care for themselves. Ironically, their shift to producing (or mining) these lucrative resources in itself, has become an incentive for guerrillas, paramilitaries, private `security' firms and narco-traffickers to violently seek control of the areas in which rural farmers and dwellers engaged in coca cultivation (Colombia) and diamond mining (Angola). For example, both the largest concentrations of FARC guerrillas and the biggest expanse of coca fields are located in Southern Colombia. Securing òutlets' for cocaine smuggling, and ìnlets' for weapons procurement, FARC controls about 50 small ports in the Gulf of Uraba (North Pacific Ocean) (Sweeney 1999:4; Messiant 1998:162±164). Linking institutional failure to resource exploitation, it suffices to observe that, in the case of Angola, there is no orderly mining regime, operating within a transparent and predictable legislative and fiscal framework ± in fact, there is an almost total absence of `strong imperial statehood' (Sweeney 1999:1; Buzan 1991; Zacarias 1999). This state of affairs has proved conducive to the capture, control and exploitation of these high value commodities by corrupt, greedy and power hungry eÂ lite groups. One example is the rich Catoca diamond mine in North-eastern Angola, seized from UNITA in 1996, and now protected by a private security force controlled by a national army general (International Herald Tribune 7 April 2000:2). Ironically, the MPLA leadership's comment that `the country's revenues are meant for resolving the country's problems' has been devoid of real meaning to the extent that deprived Angolans have much reason to view oil and diamond revenues as a threat to their survival (Global Witness). However, the resource capture variable is determined by a complex situation, involving different actors with TABLE 3 World Market Prices for Selected Commodities Commodity Unit Price 1996 1997 1998 1999* Coffee (arabica) US$/kg 2,65 4,10 2,90 2,35 Cotton US$/kg 1,77 1,74 1,44 1,29 Maize US$/metric ton 165,00 117,00 102,00 93,60 * provisional Source: IMF's The Primary Commodities Prices ISSN 0256±6060±Unisa Lat. Am. Rep. 16(2) 2000 27
Page 1 and 2: VOLUME 16 NO 2 2000 UNISA CENTRE FO
Page 3 and 4: UNISA CENTRE FOR LATIN AMERICAN STU
Page 5 and 6: Editorial The wide range of interes
Page 7 and 8: ABSTRACT In an attempt to identify
Page 9 and 10: final military liberation in 1819)
Page 11 and 12: enrichment. Solving the resource ca
Page 13 and 14: ample resources in many sectors, en
Page 15 and 16: Spanish rule in Nuevo Reino de Gran
Page 17 and 18: syndicates exploit to the maximum t
Page 19 and 20: then, seriously considered compromi
Page 21 and 22: and Colombia with a reason to bypas
Page 23 and 24: war has made state and nation build
Page 25 and 26: FIGURE 2 Development diamond Source
Page 27: particularly in the case of Colombi
Page 31 and 32: `capture', control and financial ex
Page 33 and 34: mercenary `security' companies and
Page 35 and 36: Mail and Guardian, (1999). Àngola'
Page 37 and 38: The cultural formation of Brazil an
Page 39 and 40: The following is an effort to provi
Page 41 and 42: the twentieth century many ruptures
Page 43 and 44: NOTES 1 For an excellent history of
Page 45 and 46: ABSTRACT Undertaking a research pro
Page 47 and 48: shaman's way of life, coupled with
Page 49 and 50: sclerops) and the otter (Ptenorura
Page 51 and 52: (which are strictly shamanic in cha
Page 53 and 54: others (Wolf 1991:58; Sharon 1978:3
Page 55 and 56: apprenticeship from evil spirits an
Page 57 and 58: explore both this world and other p
Page 59 and 60: spiritual support. Although the hea
Page 61 and 62: Academic freedom in Brazil by Pedro
Page 63 and 64: during military rule against schola
Page 65 and 66: President Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Page 67 and 68: Guyana Guyana dedicated a cover sto
Page 69 and 70: The current YanomamoÈ scandal: Nee
Page 71 and 72: UCLAS Reports Cultural studies high
Page 73 and 74: The similarities between South Afri
Page 75 and 76: Brazilian fragata Bosisio participa
Page 77 and 78: International donors meet in Teguci
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Soccer meets economics * PeleÂ and
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UCLAS news in brief LATIN AMERICA A
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PIANO PERFORMANCE AT UNIVERSITY OF
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also visited the Dean of the Facult
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