natural resources in conflict

cote d'ivoire

Côte d'Ivoire was once the economic powerhouse of West Africa: a stable and affluent country which had managed to avoid the descent into civil war that had plagued so many of its neighbours. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was known as the ‘African miracle'. And yet in September 2002, an army mutiny escalated into a full-scale rebellion, resulting in the country being split into a rebel-held north and a government-held south. Several failed peace agreements later, the country remains divided in a military stalemate. The standoff has led to a culture of impunity characterised by human rights violations such as extortion, harassment and intimidation of civilians by government forces and harassment, arbitrary arrests, extortion of money and robbery by the rebels. There are also reports of extra-judicial executions and the use of child soldiers by both sides.

Natural resources are key to the financing of the conflict. In September 2005, Global Witness investigations discovered that diamonds mined in rebel-held Forces Nouvelles areas were being smuggled into Mali and Guinea and then onto the international market. A UN Panel of Experts report found that the rebels were using cocoa and cotton, as well as diamonds, to fund their war effort and for personal gain. In December 2005, three years after the conflict started, the Security Council extended the arms embargo against Côte d'Ivoire to include a ban on rough diamond exports from the country.

Natural resources are also important in funding the government and government-associated militias. Some 40% of the world's cocoa comes from Côte d'Ivoire. Cocoa makes up 35% of the country's export earnings. The majority of cocoa plantations are in the government-controlled south of the country. The UN Panel of Experts estimated that 20% of government military spending had come directly from the cocoa industry in the form of contributions, loans and grants. This is in addition to the routine contributions made by the industry via taxes to the treasury. For example, in August 2003, the chairman of one of the cocoa industry's regulating bodies admitted giving large sums of the institution's money to President Gbagbo to enable him to ‘defend Ivorian people'.

The situation in Côte d'Ivoire suggests worrying signs of a war economy that is thriving on a combination of access to land and control over natural resources, coupled with social and ethnic violence. Given the recent history of other West African countries and the presence of Liberian militias in parts of Côte d'Ivoire, failure to address this control over natural resources could constitute a danger not only for the country but also for the entire region.