Natural Resources and Violent Conflict - WaterWiki.net

34 michael rossgroups have also turned kidnapping into a major industry. Accordingto a government study, between 1991 and 1999 they earned a remarkable$1.5 billion from kidnap ransoms; many victims were associatedwith the oil industry (Pax Christi Netherlands 2001).What Can Be Done?Three initiatives could help to curtail the use of resources to financerebel armies: a regime to control the flow of conflict commodities, aban on resource futures, and restrictions on ransom payments.Control Illicit Resource Flows. A major effort to restrict the tradein “conflict diamonds” was launched in May 2000, at a conference inKimberley, South Africa. The Kimberley Certification Process Schemeentails an agreement by the diamond industry to trade only diamondsthat can be certified as originating from legitimate sources. 18 It is tooearly to know how well this process will work.Even if it works as planned, the Kimberley process addresses only oneof several conflict commodities. Other types of precious stones—jadeite,lapis lazuli, rubies, and sapphires—have also been used to finance recentconflicts. So have coltan and timber. All of these resources are highly“lootable”—that is, they can be extracted by unskilled workers andhave high value-to-weight ratios. A comprehensive regime to ban thetrade of all conflict commodities would have to address these goods aswell. Although the trade in conflict commodities may never be eliminated,their price can be reduced considerably—thereby reducing theflow of funds to rebel groups.An alternative strategy would target the financial flows generatedby the trade in conflict commodities, instead of the commodities themselves.As Winer and Roule suggest in chapter 5, enforcing restrictionson money transfers in some ways may be easier than enforcing restrictionson the resources themselves.Ban Booty Futures. The United Nations Security Council hastaken measures against the sale of natural resources by rebel forces inAngola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.But the booty futures market creates problems that cannot be solved byad hoc, country-specific sanctions. Sometimes the sanctions come toolate: the sale of booty futures can help to initiate a civil war, while theSecurity Council typically intervenes only after wars have been goingon for months or years. The sanctions may also be directed against thewrong party: they typically apply to rebel groups, not governments—but in Angola, Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo,