Resources as a factor in causation of war

A UPC (Union of Congolese Patriots) fighter controls workers at the gold mine in Iga Barriere, 18 June 2003, Ituri region, northeast of Democratic Republic of Congo.

 Source: Eric Feferberg/AFP via Getty Images 

In this series looking at the factors that lead to current wars, resources surprisingly feature in only three, in Sudan, Kivu and Colombia.

Sudan has a complex history of political differences of ethnicity, and regions, boiling down to a struggle between two military leaders, but it is all made more intense by mineral resources of gold, copper, iron, chromium, uranium  and oil. 

Kivu, a province on the eastern border of the Democratic republic of Congo, has resources of Gold, Coltan (Tantalum/Niobium ore, used in electronic equipment), Cassiterite (Tin ore), and Wolframite (Iron, Manganese and Wolfram ore). The 70-120 odd militias in the Kivu province exploited the trade in these minerals, helping to finance their operations. It is debated, but probable, that these minerals serve to maintain the violence in the province. 

In Colombia, coca is the resource that motivated and financed the FARC guerrillas.

What can be done to inhibit the ability of armed gangs to exploit resources?

There may be a model in the shape of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme which was set up by the United Nations General Assembly in 2003 "to ensure that diamond purchases were not financing violence by rebel movements and their allies seeking to undermine legitimate governments".

There are three steps to the scheme:

1 The country producing the diamonds must ensure that a traded diamond does not finance a rebel group

2 Every diamond gets a Kimberly Process certificate

3 No diamond is to be imported from, or exported to, a non-member state.

The Kimberley Process has been criticised, but it is a start and may serve as a model for other precious materials. It could also possibly be extended to goods which come from mines where the human rights of the workers are not respected. 

Here is a useful overview of resources involvement in wars.

Here is the start page for this series on the causes of ongoing wars in 2024