Transnational Crime, Social Networks, and Forests: Using Natural Resources to Finance Conflicts and Postconflict Violence Douglas Farah

JUNE 2011 Public Disclosure Authorized FORESTS, FRAGILITY AND CONFLICT OVERVIEW AND CASE STUDIES Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized JUNe 2011 FORESTS, FRAGILITY AND CONFLICT OVERVIEW AND CASE STUDIES Authors: Emily Harwell Douglas Farah Arthur G. Blundell Acknowledgement This work was funded by the Program on Forests (PROFOR), a multi-donor partnership managed by a core team at the World Bank. PROFOR finances forest-related analysis and processes that support the following goals: improving people’s livelihoods through better management of forests and trees; enhancing forest governance and law enforcement; financing sustainable forest management; and coordinating forest policy across sectors. In 2011, PROFOR’s donors included the European Commission, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the World Bank. Learn more at www.profor.info. Disclaimer This volume was prepared by the PROFOR Secretariat in Washington DC. All omissions and inaccuracies in this document are the responsibility of the authors. The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the institutions involved, nor do they necessarily represent official policies of PROFOR or the World Bank. Suggested citation: Program on Forests (2011), Forests, Fragility and Conflict, Washington D.C. Published in June 2011 Printed on 100% Recycled paper Material in this book can be copied and quoted freely provided acknowledgement is given. For a full list of publications please contact: Program on Forests (PROFOR) 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433, USA [email protected] www.profor.info/profor/knowledge TABLE OF CONTENTS ABOUT THE AUTHORS _____________________________________________________ 1 FOREWORD ____________________________________________________________ 3 OVERVIEW _____________________________________________________________ 5 CHAPTER 1. ___________________________________________________________ 19 Forests, State Fragility, and Conflict Emily Harwell CHAPTER 2. ___________________________________________________________ 67 Transnational Crime, Social Networks, and Forests: Using natural resources to finance conflicts and postconflict violence Douglas Farah CHAPTER 3. ___________________________________________________________113 The Financial Flows that Fuel War Arthur G. Blundell CHAPTER 4. ___________________________________________________________157 Forests, Ex-combatants, and Durable Security: Cross-sectoral implications of postconflict programming Emily Harwell TABLE OF CONTENTS V VI FORESTS, FRAGILITY AND CONFLICT ABOUT THE AUTHORS EMILY HARWELL is a partner with Natural Capital Advisors, LLC with nearly two decades of experience researching natural resource conflict, customary rights and ethnic identity, human rights, and governance reform. She was Research Coordinator for the East Timor Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation, and Senior Researcher on the Commission’s work on the role of natural resources in social and economic rights violations. She has consulted for numerous groups including Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group and the United Nations Development Programme. She has taught at Yale University, George Mason University, and Middlebury College. She earned her Ph.D. at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. DOUGLAS FARAH, a Senior Fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, is a national security consultant and analyst based in Washington DC. A prize-winning former correspondent and investigative reporter for The Washington Post, Farah has written extensively about death squads, drug cartels and other organized crime. In November 2001 he broke the story of al Qaeda’s ties to diamond and weapons networks and had to be evacuated with his family from West Africa because of threats against his life. He is the co-author of Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes and the Man Who Makes Wars Possible (2007) and the author of Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror (2004). ARTHUR G. BLUNDELL was Chair of the Panel of Experts on Liberia, monitoring sanctions for the UN Security Council. He is now helping to negotiate Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) with timber producing countries as part of the European Union’s effort to develop a legal-timber procurement policy. Previously, he worked with the African Development Bank to incorporate forestry into the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and in Washington DC for the Environmental Protection Agency, focusing on risk assessment. He was also a Science-Diplomacy Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science working with USAID. He works with the Biodiversity Neutral Initiative and Natural Capital Advisors, LLC. He lives in Vancouver and has a Ph.D. from Dartmouth College and a BSc (Hons) from UBC. ABOUT THE AUTHORS 1 2 FORESTS, FRAGILITY AND CONFLICT FOREWORD Much of the world has made progress in building stability and reducing poverty in the past 60 years, but areas characterized by repeated cycles of political and criminal violence — and by fragile state and societal institutions — are being left far behind. Organized crime and gang activities, civil war, political conflict, and terrorism prevent citizens around the world from pursuing legitimate social and economic opportunities for themselves and their families. More than 400 million such people are living in poverty because of conflict. Conflict thus remains a central development concern for the countries with which the World Bank works, in all regions and at all income levels. This year, the Bank has raised the issue of conflict in its flagship 2011 World Development Report. The report’s goal is to showcase new thinking and contribute concrete, practical suggestions for addressing conflict and state fragility. One subset of this broad inquiry focuses on the links between natural resources and conflict, particularly civil war. Most research has focused on oil and diamonds, leaving the links between forests and conflict largely unexamined. This collection of background papers to the World Development Report offers a synopsis of these links. It also raises key questions, especially on managing forests in postconflict situations. It finds that forests tend to be at the center of mainly localized, nonviolent struggles for controlling their access, use, and benefit streams. But forests can — particularly through corruption and looting of forest timber — facilitate and prolong violent conflict. Forests themselves may be at risk in the immediate aftermath of conflict, when myriad demands — from government, local populations, commercial timber operations, as well as donors — go uncoordinated. As the world continues to lose roughly 13 million hectares of forest each year, and the extraordinary value of the remaining functional ecosystems becomes apparent to key economic and political actors, wars over the remaining standing trees may yet break out. It is the writers’ hope that this volume’s analysis, case studies, and lessons will help policy makers, offering some understanding of the reasons for the repeated cycles of violence — based on human grievances and environmental degradation — that keep so many people in poverty. Sarah Cliffe and Nigel Roberts, Coauthors of the 2011 World Development Report FOREWORD TO FORESTS, STATE FRAGILITY, AND CONFLICT 3 4 FORESTS, FRAGILITY AND CONFLICT OVERVIEW Resource-dependent countries seem cursed. Civil war is strongly correlated with a country’s ratio of primary exports to gross domestic product — and lootable commodities, like precious metals and rough diamonds, appear to prolong conflicts, once started. Even forestry can fuel conflict when belligerents control territory rich in timber and can provide sufficient security to log and market the timber. Logging seems to have contributed to conflict in at least Cambodia, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, and most notably Liberia. Indeed, the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on timber from Liberia in 2003 as a means of stanching the flow of revenue to the belligerents in that regional conflict. The stresses that forestry places on a country increase the risk of violence. The major pathways for revenue from forestry to contribute to the outbreak, escalation, and continuation of armed conflict include: Forestry fuels corruption, undermining rational management and economic development, thus increasing the risk of conflict. Revenue from forestry is used directly to fuel conflict. Logging operators participate directly in conflict by, for example, trafficking weapons. The security forces paid by logging operators also participate directly in conflict. The forestry sector facilitates money laundering and other financial crimes. Where belligerents can secure forest-rich territory and the trade routes to market the timber, some combination of these stresses can help to push a country into civil war, or at least prolong it. Countries where conflict timber is important appear to share several characteristics. Land ownership is contested, often violently. Indigenous ownership of communal land is unrecognized. Even private ownership can be contested when those forced off their land during the war return to find that others have taken up residence or are using the land. And once the conflict is over and security returns, fights over forest rights can be especially fierce when the rights holders stand to profit from logging

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