The Honest Broker:
Dealing With Natural Resource Conflicts in the Twenty First Century
by Parker Murff
From 1991 to 2002, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leoneans were destroyed by the violence that ravaged the country. The atrocities committed by the Revolutionary United Front went unnoticed for years; they seized the diamond fields to fund their violent rebellion. Agonized amputees, victims of the attacks of the RUF—men, women, and children—cried out for an end to the violence, but their cries were unheard until the crisis was brought to the global stage with the intervention of the United Nations.
With a dramatic global increase in population, industrialization, and “personal wealth” in the last century (Klare), the increasing scarcity and tergiversation of ownership of precious resources has contributed greatly to the rise in violent conflict in the post-Cold War Era. By comparing the case of Sierra Leone, in which the role of the United Nations was critical in bringing about the end to the Civil War and the end of the “blood diamond” trade (Campbell), with the case of the conflicts concerning the use of the Nile River, in which Egypt is shown to have used its political and economic power to claim the majority of the Nile, leading to continuing conflict today, the importance of powerful, multilateral, disinterested third parties is seen to be crucial to resolution of conflicts concerning natural resources in today’s world.
In 1991, the Revolutionary United Front started to seize the diamond fields of Sierra Leone; they smuggled the diamonds through neighboring Liberia, whose government not only knew of the diamond smuggling, but supported it (Riley), into the world market and into the hands of Al-Qaeda, who in return for the diamonds, supplied the RUF with an almost endless supply of weapons (Campbell). The RUF stole from the Sierra Leoneans their main source of capital and attacked the people, using the weapons from Al-Qaeda to bomb government buildings, mow down advancing national soldiers, and sever the limbs of hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leoneans to send multiple messages to those who might harbor some anti-RUF sentiments: one, that a person with no limbs could not vote for the RUF (Campbell)—instilling terror into the hearts of many Sierra Leoneans—and two, that the RUF had control over the country because it had control over the diamond fields (Campbell).
President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, elected just before the conflict began, adhered to the regulations of the Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) instead of hiring mercenaries to retaliate against the RUF. This loyalty to the ideals of peace and stability “led to favor with the World Bank, IMF, the United Nations, and ECOWAS [Economic Community of West African States]” (Campbell). Seeing that the government of Sierra Leone could not end this international diamond smuggling ring on its own, the United Nations formed the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) and initially deployed “260 military observers” to Sierra Leone and, when the RUF continued its atrocities, despite the “demands” of the United Nations (Security), the United Nations increased its “military component of UNAMSIL to 17,500” (Security). Through extensive work by the UNAMSIL peace-keeping force, “47,000 fighters…had been disarmed in Sierra Leone [and] 25,000 weapons had been destroyed” (Campbell). It was only with the intervention of a powerful, disinterested third party like the United Nations, playing the role of the ‘honest broker’, that peace and stability were returned to Sierra Leone and the “blood diamond” trade was brought to a halt by the agreement of the international community on the Kimberley Process—which provides a certificate of origin for each diamond so that none are obtained illegally or through violence (Campbell). Through the cooperation of the international community via the United Nations, Sierra Leone was able to transform the role of diamonds “from a peace liability to a peace asset” (“Conflict”) as well as associate with another major African diamond producer, Botswana. The association with Botswana allowed the economy of post-war Sierra Leone to stabilize and not depend so heavily on the diamond trade.
Also, the net worth of legally exported diamonds from Sierra Leone went from $1.2 million in 1999 to $140 million in 2005 (Campbell). In addition to its integral role in bringing peace to the region, the United Nations also set up a Special Court for Sierra Leone to try every known participant in the diamond smuggling operation. The court’s power extends all the way to former Liberian president Charles Taylor, a known conspirator who benefited greatly from the “blood diamond” trade (Campbell), who is being held on trial currently for his crimes against humanity (Hudson).
The presence of a multi-issue, disinterested third party to play the ‘honest broker’ brought about the end of conflict in Sierra Leone, the absence of one in the political chaos surrounding the distribution of the water of the Nile has caused the conflict to continue and remain unresolved to this day. Multiple agreements have been made in the past between Egypt and upriver countries such as Sudan, but Egypt has used its political and economic power to claim most of the water for itself (Klare), depriving the nations upriver from Egypt of such a precious natural resource that becomes more and more scarce every day (“Uganda”).
The Nile is the only irrigable water source in East Africa, and more than eight countries directly depend upon the waters of the Nile not only to irrigate their crops and keep themselves alive, but also to turn a profit in an agriculturally unprofitable climate and geographic area (Barbour). Many African enterprises along the Nile are private pumping stations that keep the areas around the station from plunging into poverty.
Recently, rising global temperatures have caused a major drought in East Africa that has caused major water sources to diminish dramatically. For example, the shores of Lake Victoria, a major source of freshwater for Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, as well as a major contributor to the Nile, have receded six feet because of the drought (“Uganda”), and the water level of Lake Tanganyika has gone down by five feet since the 1960’s (“Uganda”). The increasing scarcity of such a precious resource has caused political tensions between East African countries to intensify and the issue of the equitable distribution of the waters of the Nile has become a matter of increasing importance (Klare).
The first agreement concerning distribution of the Nile, the 1929 Nile River Waters Agreement, gave Egypt claim to more than two-thirds of the Nile and prohibited countries upriver from Egypt, such as Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, the Sudan, and Khartoum were prohibited from developing water-saving projects of their own (Klare). In the mid-twentieth century, the Sudan began to demand recognition of its need for more water and in 1959 another agreement was made concerning the distribution of the Nile, but the 1959 agreement failed to solve the problem; once again, Egypt used its heavy-handed politics to claim the majority of the river for itself, while maintaining an economic relationship with the Sudan in which the Sudan could only develop water-saving projects if Egypt could share in the “costs and benefits” (Haynes), and, in reward to the Sudan once it agreed, Egypt gave it a great deal more water in the new distribution plans (Klare).
Still, countries like Ethiopia, where 76 percent of the Nile originates, Eritrea, and Kenya (Klare), are forbidden from developing projects to collect and save enough water to provide for their rapidly urbanizing and very rapidly growing populations (Klare).
When so many lives depend upon sources that are so vulnerable and easily claimed by more dominant parties, the ‘honest broker’ is crucial to resolving conflicts over natural resources. Because of the vast amount of conflicting interests, the conflicting necessities of the many involved parties, and the utter ambiguity of legitimacy to claims over natural resources, a successfully negotiated agreement between the parties themselves is almost impossible without one party dominating the other, as Egypt and Sudan dominate the smaller surrounding countries regarding the distribution of the Nile (Klare). However, with the presence of an ‘honest broker’ in the conflict, like the presence of the United Nations in the civil war in Sierra Leone, the conflict can not only be resolved successfully, but the stipulations of the agreement can be successfully enforced, like the enforcement of the Kimberley Process within the international community as well as the success and power of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.
The honest broker not only brings equality, fairness, and justice into the resolution of a dispute, but also closure, as seen by the end of the “blood diamond” trade in Sierra Leone (Campbell). In the drama of conflicts over natural resources, the most important role is that of the honest broker. Any body of people, whether it be strong organizations like the United Nations or a third neighbor, can be the honest broker, we just have to be willing to help our neighbors as ourselves.
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Internet Source:
Hudson, Alexandra. "Taylor trial resumes with tales of brutality." Reuters Canada 7 Jan. 2008: 1-3. 15 Jan. 2008.