Resources_Reading Memo

Concerning the topic of mineral resources and violence I would like to comment on two points. First will be the analysis of causes of armed conflicts in DRC from the article by Ann Laudati and the second one will be the economic performance of African states as the explanation of increase in the amount of armed conflicts in Africa which was discussed in the article of Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler.

The article written by Ann Laudati Beyond minerals: broadening “economies of violence” in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo challenges the preponderant belief that mineral resources and their control are the main causes of armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Laudati claims that the bigger issue can be the land control than the resources control and economic activities of armed groups as well (e.g. hemp, charcoal, timber, taxes etc.). One of the arguments is the fact that even DRC´s regions without mineral resources are today experiencing armed conflicts. What really surprises me is that the author doesn´t mention the case of Katanga which is definitely one of the mineral-richest regions of DRC with a lot of insecurity and separatist groups, for example the Kata Katanga. To me it seems that exactly the case of Katanga actually shows that minerals are still very important, even though it might not be the only reason. But I think that the fact that the government profits a lot from the minerals located in that area and doesn’t redistribute fairly these incomes back to the region is one the main reasons for separatist tendencies and hence the violence. And of course the government has to oppose these tendencies because it doesn´t want to lose these resources. But of course I agree with the author that this can´t be the only reason for insecurity or even armed conflicts.

Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler in their article On the Incidence of Civil War in Africa examine the increasing number of armed conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. They explain this reality with economic reasons – mainly the particular poor economic performance of these states. I definitely agree with clear linkage of the amount of conflicts to the economic performance because a large part of the conflicts has economic causes. However I feel that it can actually be a more complex problem and the there might be more reasons for this African particularity and it can be interesting to discover these other probable problems. There might be probably the influence of ethnic factors or of the colonization and decolonization eras or maybe others as well. The authors however mention problems concerning the social structure as one the alternative causes as Kaplan suggested.