Information Resources

U.N. Reports

The United Nations reports on Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone provide explanations of how the sanctions are supposed to work and how they are being circumvented. The reports explore the role of natural resources in fueling conflicts and contain information on individuals including Leonid Minin and Victor Bout.

Angola
Final Report of the Monitoring Mechanism on Angola sanctions, Dec. 21, 2000
Addendum to the Dec. 21, 2000 report on Angola sanctions, April 18, 2001
The supplementary report on Angola sanctions, Oct. 12, 2001
The additional report on Angola sanctions, April 26, 2002

Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, April 12, 2001

Liberia
The Report of the Panel of Experts on Liberia, Oct. 26, 2001
The Second Report of Panel of Experts on Liberia, April 19, 2002

Sierra Leone
Report of the Panel of Experts in relation to Sierra Leone, Dec. 20, 2000 Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

Private military companies and outsourcing

The General Accounting Office is the investigative arm of Congress. GAO exists to ensure the accountability of the U.S. federal government and examines the use of public funds; evaluates federal programs and activities; and provides analyses, options, recommendations, and other assistance for Congress. Three reports deal specifically with the issue of contingency and outsourcing:

Defense Budget: Need to Strengthen Guidance and Oversight of Contingency Operation Costs.
GAO-02-450 May 21, 2002

Contingency Operations: Army Should Do More to Control Contract Cost in the Balkans.
NSIAD-00-225 September 29, 2000

Base Operations: Challenges Confronting DOD as It Renews Emphasis on Outsourcing.
NSIAD-97-86 March 11, 1997

"A strong and reputable private military sector might have a role in enabling the UN to respond more rapidly and more effectively in crises," reads Private Military Companies and Options for Regulation, a Green Paper published by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in February 2002.

The International Peace Operations Association (IPOA)is an association of military service provider companies - companies who work or are interested in international peace operations around the world. These companies perform tasks such as mine clearance, armed logistics, emergency humanitarian services and armed peacekeeping.

Sandline says that it "works worldwide and is resourced by professionals with many years of operational experience at senior rank within first world armies." Its website has a good collection of articles and papers related to the PMC issue. International Charter Inc. of Oregon (ICI) and Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) also have informative company sites.

The United Nations has collected the organizations documents on mercenaries here.

Arms trade and natural resource exploitation

American Radio Works is public radio's largest documentary production unit; it creates documentaries, series projects, and investigative reports. In November 2001, American Radio Works produced " With this ring: Following the international diamonds trail."

The Campaign to Eliminate Conflict Diamonds is a coalition of more than 100 nongovernmental organizations committed to ending the trade in conflict diamonds and supporting human rights in diamond-producing countries in Africa.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is a statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy that provides data, forecasts, and analyses of world energy production, consumption, imports and exports. The international section, in addition to individual country reports, sort data by types of energy.

London-based Global Witness is a non-governmental investigative organization that has documented links between natural resource exploitation and human rights abuses. The link between revenue from the trade in natural resources such diamonds, oil and timber and the funding of conflict and human rights abuses is central to Global Witness' work.

Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization that monitors global issues such as the arms trade and child soldiers. You can also view HRW's reports by country.

IANSA is an international network of more than 340 organizations from 71 countries working to prevent the proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons.

The first meeting held to discuss the trade in conflict diamonds took place in May 2000 in Kimberley, South Africa. The Kimberley Process involves more than 30 governments, the European Community, the diamond industry and non-governmental organizations and has been establishing minimum acceptable international standards for national certification schemes relating to trade in rough diamonds. <

PRIO, the International Peace Research Institute, founded in Norway in 1959, was one of the first centers of peace research in the world. The institute's basic aim is studying the causes and consequences of peace and conflict. The Center for the Study of Civil War and the Norwegian Initiative of Small Arms Transfers, which has developed a database of small arms and light weapons production and transfers, are two of PRIO's profiled projects.

The Programme for International Co-operation and Conflict Resolution (PICCR) is an umbrella program for initiatives related to the policies and practices of international responses to armed conflict. For one project, Economies of Conflict, PICCR commissioned a series of reports from practitioners and researchers with an eye for what has worked, and what has not worked, in practice.

The Small Arms Survey is published annually by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey. The survey addresses issues raised by the spread of small arms, and provides information on products and producers, stockpiles, arms brokers, legal and illicit arms transfers, the effects of small arms, and national, bilateral, and multilateral measures to deal with the problems associated with small arms.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in addition to conducting scientific research, collects hard data including statistics on weapon developments, arms transfers and production, military expenditure, as well as arms limitations, reductions and disarmament.

Books

Cilliers, Jakkie and Christian Dietrich (eds). 2000.Angola's War Economy, The role of oil and diamonds. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies.

Ellis, Stephen. 1999. The Mask of Anarchy, The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War. London: Hurst & Company.

Hodges, Tony, 2001. Angola from Afro-Stalinism to Petro-Diamond Capitalism. Bloomington:Indiana University Press.

Howe, Herbert M. 2001. Ambigious Order: Military Forces in African States. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Hoe, Allan. 1994. David Stirling, The Authorised Biography of the Creator of the SAS. London: Warner Books.

Lumpe, Lora(ed.). 2000. Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms. London: Zed Books.

Musah, Abdel-Fatau and J. 'Kayode' Fayemi(eds.). 2000. Mercenaries: An Afican Security Dilemma. London: Pluto Press.

O'Callaghan, Mary-Louise. 1999. Enemies Within, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the Sandline Crisis: The Inside Story Sydney: Doubleday.

Reno, William. 1998. Warlord politics and African States. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Spicer, Tim. 1999. An Unorthodox Soldier, Peace and War and the Sandline Affair. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing.

Wood, Briand and Johan Peleman. 1999. The Arms Fixers: Controlling the Borkers and Shipping Agents. Oslo: International Peace Research Institute (PRIO).