9
ARMED CONFLICT AND INEQUALITY
The coltan wars
Today there are a high number of confrontations and conflicts, either between countries, or between groups within them. These conflicts are the consequence of the inequalities between states as well as their territories; the majority are due to political and economic causes.
9.1 Politically motivated conflicts These arise when a state seeks to impose its interests on another state or extend its area of influence. The most frequent ones are:
• Territorial conflicts between neighbouring countries. These are
Many conflicts arise from attempts to gain sovereignty over a particular territory, as this provides rights, such as the exploitation of natural resources. In Africa, for example, control over coltan mines has led to more than 60 border conflicts.
caused by disagreements over land or sea borders, or due to claims relating to an annexed border region. For example, the border disputes between Chile and Argentina; the confrontation between India and Pakistan in Kashmir; the conflicts between the Japanese, Filipinos and Vietnamese in the China Sea; and the conflict between Japan and Russia over the Kuril Islands.
• Separatist conflicts. These arise when a social group seeks to separate or gain independence from an established country. Sometimes, this type of confrontation has underlying ethnic or religious causes. Recent examples are South Sudan, which formally separated from the Republic of Sudan in 2011, the civil war in the Central African Republic, or the Islamist Boko Haram movement in Nigeria.
9.2 Economically motivated conflicts These are conflicts whose main cause is countries seeking to gain control of territory with extensive natural resources. They are the result of the growing competition between countries to control the increasingly scarce strategic goods: land, water, crude oil, diamonds, hardwoods, etc. Representative examples are the confrontations between Japan and China over the Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyu Islands in China), which are eight small islands with important crude oil and gas reserves; the confrontation between South Korea and Japan over the Dokdo Islands (known as the Takeshima Islands in Japan), due to their territorial waters containing natural gas deposits; and also a number of African conflicts (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Democratic Republic of the Congo), which are countries rich in mineral resources such as gold, diamonds, coltan, cassiterite, copper and cobalt.
9.3 Conflict resolution Military conflicts are a threat to international peace and security. Therefore, the UN and the international community usually endeavour to stop them with embargos and other initiatives. They also try to resolve them peacefully and fairly, through bilateral agreements and by taking them to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
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Skills progress Using maps
1 Locate the conflicts cited in the text on a world map. Label each one with the type of conflict.
Resolving conflicts
2 Hold a class debate on what measures could be taken to provide a peaceful solution to military conflicts. Prepare by finding information on this subject.
Promoting environmental improvements
3 Find out about the so-called ‘coltan wars’: causes, countries affected, consequences, etc.
4 Many
military conflicts occur in countries with a low Human Development Index. Use the map above and the statistical data on the Anaya website, and provide representative examples.
