Abstract
The present article has the objective to analyze a theme from the International Security area, the Resource Wars, which has acquired prominence since the end of the Cold War in the international community.
The scope of analyses is the relations between this type of war and its impacts in the Human Rights, for better elucidation of this proposal we will do a case study from the conflict in Liberia, which spans from 1989 to 2003.
The division of the article is: we will discuss about the Resource Wars theory, its importance in the International Security area and its applicability in our study. From them we will broach about the conflict appointing the Human Rights condition, highlighting how those were affected and our conclusion in this study.
Key-words:
Resource Wars, Human Rights, Civil War – Liberia.
According to some academics in the international security area, KLARE and RENNER, the dispute for natural resources has had a more streamlined focus, as in the international area as with the national one, since economic interests would be even more intrinsicaly connected to security issues, and for that reason confer more to those actors who detain ownership. The denominated resource wars would happen many times mescleded or obscured by ethnic, reliogous and tribal disputes, denerating a great danger to global peace.
In the Cold War period, the international cenario was divided by the bipolar structure of power, where the great actors, USA and the USSR, disputed influence zones for difunding their regimes. However since the end of the Cold War, political analists debated which would be the central focus point that would define the new international context. Klare´s line of thought is that the protection of the resources, are primary to the understanding of the planification of the international security, and although this is not the answer to that debate, this would answer some question pertaining the current world events.
History and terminology of the resource wars
Klare, in his books, strikes the importance of the natural resources, specially the discovery of oil in the XIX century. Billion delves deeper, denoting that this concern was always attached to the worried of state actors .
The term resource wars emerged in the 1980 decade, in relation to the threats of the USSR about the access to the oil in the Middle East, and as well the African diamonds .
With the end of the Cold War, and consequently the end of the subsides given by the superpowers, the natural resources would acquire a major relevance specially in the states that benefited from that income.
Characteristics of the resource wars
Renner defends that the viability and the possibility of plundering natural resources are key factors to explain the resource wars, although alone those would provide a feasible explanation for those conflicts. According to him, where those conflicts erupt there are a series of factors that can contribute for the deflagration of war: political, social, economic, military .
As for Le Billon, the geographical location, the concentration and the way of the exploitation would be the factors that could influence in the plundering of the natural resources . However the author denotes that wars would not be only financed or motivated by the control of the resources, but that those have a notable part in their agenda, at least economically.
For Collier the primary factor for a conflict to Begin is the possibility that it would be financially worthy and sustainable during its time.
The natural resources attract the attention of a multitude of factions that are focused on the great profits that these can provide. Those, however, would not hesitate to dispute, and this would generate the possibility of a civil war in a country. Enterprises could also get involved, exploiting these resources or developing relations with those rebels groups. Also there are some states, like Liberia, were the own government could perform in manner that could be described as predatory and legalized, taxing their primary products and filling the pockets of the local elite.
Africa in this theme
Klare believed that the map for resource wars would be centralized in a belt around the line of equator. This zone would contain the most important natural resources, oil, water, wood and diamonds . In this picture, Africa strikes by their huge deposits of natural resources, which given its importance, would be intimate slowly connected to the political stability and with the economic development of their coutries.
Liberia is a african state very rich in natural resources, such as wood, rubber, iron ore and diamonds. Although those resources wore not utilized for the development of the nation during the period of were the State suffered with a civil war, which occurred from 1989-2003.
MESSARI, Nizar. Segurança no pós-Guerra Fria: o papel das instituições. In: ESTEVES, Paulo Luiz (Org.). Instituições internacionais: comércio, segurança e integração. Belo Horizonte: PUC Minas, 2003. p. 190.
“De fato, a inexistência de um governo central e forte na Libéria criou um vácuo de poder naquele país que foi preenchido por líderes de facções que precisavam de recursos para permanecer como atores centrais no jogo liberiano. Tais recursos só podiam ser de origem ilícita[...]”
Liberia´s recent history and the beginnings of the conflict
In april 12 of 1980, Samuel Doe a staff sargeant from the Arned Forces of Liberia (AFL), with a military junta realized a coup de ètat against the president Tolbert, him and various persons from the government were assassinated and several citizens fled the country. This process ended a period of domination of the americo-liberians in the politic, since the foundation of the State. The continuous repression and popular dissatisfaction against a dominium of a ethnic group led the way to a violent government for almost 10 years.
The People Redemption Council (PRP), was the government junta which was installed in 1980, had few experience in administration leading to a corrupt government which received huge sums of money in external help from the USA, roughly being 500 million USD from 1980 to 1982 . In this period, Charles Taylor was designated as the minister of the General Services Agency, which supervised the humanitarian aid.
Taylor was persecuted, going to Libya were He received military training and in 1989 invade Liberia with roughly 100 men, starting the first civil war.
Conflitc
This conflict stroke the process of ethnic discrimination. Taylor was an americo-liberian, by father and by mother a gio. He began a campaign of mass murder of the khrans ethnic group, this being the president ethnic group and the mandigos, a muslim ethnic group, which had control of great part of the economic power of the coutry.
Taylor following the footsteps of his cleptocratic predecessors, organized the continuation of the conflict for the exploitation of the Liberian natural resources (specially diamonds, wood and iron ore), enriching him. This was the common behavior among the other factions as well, including the peace enforcing mission the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG).
The process of conquest was extremely fast, leaving only Monrovia and its outskirts for the government, until in September 1990, a month after the ECOMOG forces arrived in the country, Doe was murdered, and Amos Sawyer was designated interin president by the ECOMOG. There was a succession of peace treaties, which were violated by both parties.
In 1992, the Cotonou peace accord was stablished, which served as the basis for all the accords that followed. The main difference was the change of the focus of the demands by both parts and his ascension to the government. However despite the broad scope of the treaty the dynamics of the conflict forced new accords, leading that in 1995 to 1996 there was a stability period, which was broken when renewed fighting erupted in august 1996. The Abuja peace accord ended the war and stipulated that elections would be realized in 1997, which Charles Taylor won by a landslide.
His government was filled with accusations of abuse and corruption, beyond the visible disrespect of the peace treaties signed earlier. The war against the LURD (Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy) started when it invaded the Liberian borders from Guinea. The government unstable by the economy in shambles and for the lack of international support, was pushed in almost the same manner as to what Doe suffered in the first war, and in the same manner that Taylor couldn´t conquer Monrovia, the LURD stopped by its outskirts. This impasse was broken when in 2003 the Movement for Democracy in Libéria (MODEL) and the indictament of Taylor by the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), forcing Taylor to surrender and auto-exile in Nigeria.
Human Rights – Application in the Liberia case
The president Taylor won the Liberian elections of 1997 by the fear he had instilled in the population during the first part of the civil war, which had a span time of 1989 to 96. The country was in disarray with the economy and the politics being profoundly devastated, more than half of the population had the status of refugee or internally displaced persons (IDPs) and divided by various factions, among then the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), which Taylor was a member, being this the strongest of the groups in terms of arms and territory. Among other groups there were the: AFL, ECOMOG, United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO). During the war all factions were responsible of terrorizing the population. Aside the insurgents, the security forces were responsible for countless human rights violations, being among the most prolific in this area the security forces and the Counter Terrorism Unit, the last one making a joint venture with the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) in the Lofa county.
By violating the human rights, the Liberian State was not only disrespecting its own constitution, but also the Letter of African Human Rights and the People, of which is a signatory.
Fonte: ACHVARIANA, Vera; REICH, Simon F.. No place to hide: refugees, displaced persons and the recruitment of child soldiers. International Security, v. 31, n. 1, Summer. 2006. p. 143
Attacks to refugee and IDPs camps were frequent. Those had the purpose of pillaging, acquiring a workforce, recruiting and discourage the support of rival factions. By this there were common practices amongst those raids, such as, extrajudicial executions, detention without a trial, torture, condemnation based on false accusations, slave work, extortion, arbitrary prisons, rape, among other atrocities. According to table 1, around 21 thousand children were members of armed bands, committing violent acts, and themselves being victims of the rebels.
Even after the war human rights violations continued to occur, being that a huge part of the NPFL combatants were made part of the Security forces of Liberia. The Security forces of Liberia and the Counter Terrorism Unit were responsible for the homicides, disappearances, harassment, persecution of critics and opponents to the installed regime and the free press.
With the advent of the second part of the civil war, 1999 to 2003, the ethnic division that gave a reasoning behind those atrocities made itself more clear. A great part of the combatants of this second civil conflict were veterans of the first, including the children, which could not be absorbed by society in the short period of peace.
One of the consequence of the war that we can remark is the non reintegration of combatants among the society, including children, meaning that we have the loss of almost two generations by the violence of the conflict, and/or the psychological violence done to or from the combatants.
The SCSL prosecuted in 2003 the Liberian president, Taylor, in the face of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and gross violations of the International Humanitarian Law, committed in Sierra Leone, being at this moment in prison in Hague waiting for the trial.
We can state as a few consequences of the war, the non reintegration of combatants in the society, including children, meaning the loss of almost two generations for the conflict, and/or by the psychological violence that was done by and suffered from the combatants.
Conclusion
The resource wars that were analyzed in this article were in the intra state level, not being a new kind of conflict, which according to Klare, the scholars in the security field knew for some time that those types of conflicts have a correlation between the exploitation of the resources and the financing of those civil conflicts. However the author, remarks that only in the year 2000 that this relation was made more explicit to the world.
Its needed to notice that the end of the Cold War, has given the attention to the natural resources, especially in the States that received investments by the two superpowers of the time, as in the case of Liberia, which was one of the countries that received more money from the USA in the 1980 .
Kalyvas has the interpretation that the civil wars from the post Cold war era were not as different that is believed, from the ones that occurred in the period before this fact, nor with the relation to its coercive character, neither with the recurrent practices of pillaging and violence.
The interest in the maintenance of the conflict would have been the main object of those rebel groups involved in the civil wars, consequently lengthening its span, allowing violations of human rights to become more frequent in societies that face this type of insurgency. Constant attacks to civilians occurred for the purpose that they worked in the minefields; keep themselves out of the conflict, for this they used hands and other members mutilation; the power was gained and maintained for a grand part due fear, for this as well the procedure was of the use of collective rapes, murder, and so forth. Those actions to maintain the conflict were made an integral part of the Liberian society, making terrible damages with unforeseen consequences. Those damages were with such a large scope that they ranged, from enlisting children and their participation in the conflict; the tactics of dominium, used for the population in the controlled regions; as well as rape with a twist of sadistic behavior it was usually performed in the front of the family, which was usually killed or mutilated in front of the raped; attacks to refugee and IDPs camps; and the great number of those unstabilizing the entire region of West Africa.
At the end of the war Liberia had changed itself in pratical terms in a móbile society, with 1.461 million of IDPs and refugees, from a total population of 2.6 millions . The conflict had a life span of 14 years and according to the dossier from the Secretary General of the United Nations presented to the Security Council we have a estimate of 250 thousand people casualties, half of them being civilians .
Hence forth, based on Kalyvas theories, we cannot infer that the civil wars of today, like the one in Liberia, are new phenomenon, different from the ones that occurred before the end of the Cold War. We cannot that its developments like the great amount of refugees and IDPs and the use of child soldiers are recent in the international theater. If the resource wars is not a new type of war but a new denomination for conflicts that had a remark in the end of the Cold War, therefore their impacts upon the human rights should be the same than any civil war. One thing for sure, the most affected in any kind of conflict are and always will be the civilians.
Notes
LE BILLON, Philippe. The geopolitics of resource wars: resource dependence, governance and violence. London: New York: Frank Cass, 2005, p. 2.
Ibid. p. 3.
RENNER, Michael. The anatomy of resource wars. 2002 . Disponível em <http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP162.pdf>. Acesso em: 01 maio. 2008. p. 14-6.
LE BILLON, Philippe. op.cit. p. 8.
KLARE, Michael T. Guerras por los recursos: el futuro escenario del conflicto global. Barcelona: Ediciones Urano, 2003. p. 263.
MESSARI, Nizar. Segurança no pós-Guerra Fria: o papel das instituições. In: ESTEVES, Paulo Luiz (Org.). Instituições internacionais: comércio, segurança e integração. Belo Horizonte: PUC Minas, 2003. p. 190.
CONCILIATION RESOURCES. The liberian peace process: 1990-1996. 1996. Disponível em <http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/liberia/contents.php>. Acesso em: 8 dez. 2008.
ANISTIA INTERNACIONAL. Liberia: El ofrecimiento de <<asilo>> de Nigéria al presidente Taylor conculca el derecho internacional. 2003. Disponível em: <http://www.amnesty.org/es/library/asset/AFR34/015/2003/es/dom-AFR340152003es.html>. Acesso em: 06 set. 2008.
KLARE, Michael T. op.cit. p. 258-9
CONCILIATION RESOURCES. op.cit.
UTAS, Mats. Victmicy, girfriending, soldiering: tactic agency in a young woman's social navigation of the liberian war zone. Anthropological Quarterly, v. 78, n. 2, Spring. 2005. p. 411.
CONSELHO DE SEGURANÇA DAS NAÇÕES UNIDAS. Report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on Liberia. 2003. Disponível em: <http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N03/491/10/PDF/N0349110.pdf?OpenElement>. Acesso em: 22 dez. 2008.
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[ARTICLE] Resource Wars and it´s impacts in the human rights:Liberia conflict basket case
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