Contemporary Conflict Analysis in Pmperriue 35
become more dependent upon mobflising tradable commodities, such as minerals,
timber or drugs, to sustain their military and political activities. As local mourn
gain importance for belligerents, so the focus of military activities becomes cen-
tred on areas of economic significance. This has a critical effect on the location of
conflicts, prompting rebel groups in particular to establish permanent strongholds
wherever resources and transport mutes are located ... war economies, including
commercial activities tend to shift from an economy of proximity, to an economy
of networks [which] involve mostly private groups (including international organ-
ised crime groups, transnational corporations, and diasporas)... beyond financing
a conflict, the exploitation and commercialisation of natural resources can also
help armed groups to develop an extensive and diversified support network, which
integrates all people having an economic stake in the exploitation of resources."
P le Billon, The political economy of resource wan, Angola's war emnomy The
mleof oil and diamondr, J Cilliers & C Dietrich (eds), Institute for Security Studies.
South Africa. 2000. p 30.
Defining identity politics as claims to power on the basis of particular identities,
national, clan, religious or linguistic, Kaldor considers that 'identity poliiics' dif-
fers because although all wars have involved in one way or another a clash of
identities. "Earlier identities were either linked to a notion of state interest or to
some forward looking project ideas about how society should be organised."
Kaldor. op cit. p 6.
T R Gum, Minorities, nationalists and ethnopolitical conflict, Mana@ng global
chaos: Sources of and responses to international conflict, C A Crocker & F 0
Hampson with P Hall (eds), US. lnstitute of Peace, Washington DC, 1996. Three
years earlier, in 1993. Ted Gum had identified 5 000 distinct ethnic groups and
uncovered around 80 significant and ongoing ethnic conflicts. 35 of which are in
an incipient or active stage of civil war. T R Gum, Minoniies at risk: A global view
of efhnopolifical conflicts. United States lnstitute of Peace Press, Washington,
D.C., 1993.
In fact, in many countries the weakening of state suuctures has involved among
others: economic and social decline; decline in state revenues; the spread of crim-
inality, corruption and inefficiency; growing of organised crime and the priuati-
sation of security as well as the emergence of paramilitary groups. Ibid. p 4. See
the excellent study by R Jackson, Quasi-states: Sovereignry. infernational rela-
tions, and the third world. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & London.
1990.
Holsti, op cit, pp 16-18.
Ibid, pp xi-x. Cenuing on the aetiology as well as the internal character of con-
temporary warfare, Christopher Clapham for example developed a typology of
insurgency to reflect the evolution of these mostly internal conflict types over time
and in different circumstances. He referred to liberation insurgencies (the goal is the
achievement of independence from colonial or minority rule); sepamfisr insurgen-
cies (representing the aspirations and identities of particular ethnic groups or
regions within an existing state, either by seceding or pressing for an autonomous
status); reform insurgencies (seeking radical reform of the national government) and
finally warlord insurgencies (directed toward a change in leadership and conuul of