From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERreplaced the traditional quest for military victory. In the upperechelons, the war to control territory brings in its train the chance toextract revenue from the population, or from natural resources.At thebottom of the heap, war guarantees young men adrenalin, power, andincome, while it destroys the very economy that could offer thempeaceful alternative livelihoods.Ninety-five per cent of hard drug production occurs in countriesthat are engulfed by civil war, i.e. in areas outside the control of arecognised government. 150 While many local conflicts, as in Darfur,involve fighting over scarce resources, the world’s deadliest conflictsare more often fuelled by abundant resources. Globalisation hasincreased the opportunities to profit from exporting minerals, oil, andtimber from war-torn areas to international markets (and is oftenlinked to the growth in organised international crime).Resource wealth enriches combatants and allows them toprosecute war; it has provided the continuing motive for fighting inaround one-third of wars from 1990 to 2002. 151 The resources varyfrom country to country and include timber in Cambodia; gems andopiates in Afghanistan; natural gas in Baluchistan; diamonds inAngola, Liberia, and Sierra Leone; oil in Sudan; coca and gold inColombia; and the lucrative combination of copper, coltan, cobalt,gold, and timber for those who continue to plunder the DRC.CITIZENS AND STATES BUILD PEACEViolence, like other sources of insecurity, requires action on manyfronts, but it especially requires efforts to build an effective andaccountable state and to empower the individuals and communitiesmost at risk from its depredations – poor people, women, and sociallyexcluded groups such as ethnic and religious minorities.Faced with a world of threat and vulnerability, poor people are farfrom being passive victims, although they are often forced to makealmost impossible choices in juggling risks. Poor people work toaddress chronic violence, defuse potential conflicts, resolve them oncethey strike, and help each other to cope with their impact. Oftenreligious leaders seize the initiative from combatants. In August 2002in Nigeria’s Kaduna state, the epicentre of the country’s inter-communal282