Resource curse

The New York Times ran a piece Saturday entitled "Congo's Riches Plundered by Renegade troops."   Violence in the Congo may seem senseless to outsiders, but it is far from random.  More often than not violence is for control over valuable resources.  The picture above is of tin mine workers in rebel controlled territory in an area of forest where 
Col. Samy Matumo, commander of a renegade brigade of army troops that controls this mineral-rich territory, is the master of every hilltop as far as the eye can see
....On paper, the exploration rights to this mine belong to a consortium of British and South African investors who say they will turn this perilous and exploitative operation into a safe, modern beacon of prosperity for Congo. But in practice, the consortium’s workers cannot even set foot on the mountain. Like a mafia, Colonel Matumo and his men extort, tax and appropriate at will, draining this vast operation, worth as much as $80 million a year
....the ore these fighters control is central to the chaos that plagues Congo, helping to perpetuate a conflict in which as many as five million people have died since the mid-1990s, mostly from hunger and disease....This is Africa’s resource curse: The wealth is unearthed by the poor, controlled by the strong, then sold to a world largely oblivious of its origins.  Economists and political scientists have several differing takes on the economic origins of conflict and it's role in shaping economic performance.
      Yale political scientist (but economist by training) Chris Blattman has written several good blog posts on the topic of natural resources and conflict in Africa.  He has much lengthier survey article with economist Ted Miguel on civil war. 
 Two recent (and both very readable) books on conflict and economic and political development in Africa include Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion  and Robert Bates' When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa.  This is an important and interesting topic, essential for understanding poverty and the lack of economic and political development particularly in some of the (now) poorest places. 

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