Central Africa: Ivory, Insurgency and Crime in Central Africa - the Sudans
Connection
Analysis
By Keith Somerville
18 September 2014
At the beginning of August, the minutes of a meeting of intelligence chiefs
from African states were released, revealing the extent to which poaching
and the smuggling of ivory and rhino horn were being used to fund insurgent
groups in South Sudan, Al Shabaab in Somalia and the Ugandan Lord's
Resistance Army (LRA).
A separate report - published in the
<
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/08/14/1403984111.full.pdf+html?sid=7
5f430ff-06f1-4e5c-b6d1-1bd04809edbd> 19 August volume of Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences - estimated that poachers have killed 100,000
elephants in Africa in the last three years. The rate of killing has been in
excess of 7% - even higher in Central Africa - while the average annual
population increase is only 5%. This suggests a process of attrition that
could lead to the extinction of the elephant, including in South Sudan.
Ivory funds insurgency and militias
The African intelligence meeting minutes, reported by South Africa's Mail
and Guardian, said that poaching was a serious political/security problem as
well as an environmental one and that there was "a great deal of evidence of
fledgling linkages between poaching and wildlife trafficking... and
transnational organised criminal activities, including terrorism and weapons
proliferation". They said that they had information that groups from South
Sudan were benefiting from the poaching and trafficking of wildlife. The
security chiefs recommended that the matter be treated as a transnational
security concern.
They were less forthcoming about the role of African armed forces -
including the Sudanese government-backed Janjaweed militias and the Ugandan
army - in poaching and the smuggling of ivory. Khartoum has traditionally
been a route for ivory smuggling and the strong Chinese role in economic
projects in Sudan increases its importance as a transit point for the
illegal tusk trade.
Central Africa, where Sudanese poachers are active and help run the
smuggling routes out of the continent, has a particularly high rate of
killing of forest elephants. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
and Interpol estimate that the region's scattered elephant populations
declined by 64% between 2002 and 2011.
The Sudan connection
Not all the poaching can be attributed to insurgent groups, but in areas of
central and east Africa they are playing a major role. There is evidence of
links between the Janjaweed in Darfur and the LRA; and also highly-mobile
Chadian groups opposed to the Deby government.
The Arabic-speaking communities from which the Janjaweed have been drawn
have traditionally been involved in cross-border trade within the region and
there is evidence of them carrying out poaching raids as far west as
Cameroon as well as in Chad and CAR, and of being a key link in the chain
that gets the ivory out of Africa to Vietnam, China and other destinations
in Asia.
One piece of evidence that links the Sudanese militias to poaching across
neighbouring states is the ammunition retrieved by Maisha Consulting, a
group assisting a number of states with anti-poaching measures. They have
found ammunition that matches series and types held by the Sudanese army's
arsenal in Khartoum - the Sudanese military being the main sources of arms
and ammunition for the Janjaweed.
The event that drew most attention to the role and interconnections of
insurgent groups in poaching was the killing two years ago of up to 450
elephants in Bouba N'Djida National Park, northern Cameroon. Local wildlife
officials blamed horse-borne poachers from the Janjaweed and allied Chadian
groups.
The Sudanese militia, notorious for its role in the Darfur conflict, has
also carried out extensive raiding in Chad. Its other role, as a buyer and
smuggler of ivory poached by other groups, is said by the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (
<
http://www.cites.org/eng/news/SG/2012/20120525_SG_US-Senate_testimony.php>
CITES) to involve trading weapons and ammunition for ivory with groups like
the LRA, which enables them to survive as a military force.
The plethora of armed groups in Darfur, especially the pro-government
militias, are blamed as well for regular and destructive raids into CAR's
Dzanga Sangha reserve and Chad's Zakouma national park, where an estimated
3,000 elephants have been killed in three years. Large groups of heavily
armed poachers on horseback from Darfur are blamed by the Chadian
authorities for the poaching.
The Chadian government has now committed heavily armed military units to
protect the park, less from a commitment to protect wildlife than to prevent
ivory being used to fund Chadian rebels groups.
CITES and UNEP studies suggest that the elephant is extinct in Sudan, with
the only populations to be found in South Sudan.
South Sudan's elephants in crisis
The conflict in South Sudan is having a serious effect on the elephant
populations there. In July 2013, the South Sudanese government and the World
Conservation Society (
<
http://www.wcs.org/press/press-releases/south-sudan-protects-elephants.aspx
> WCS) launched a programme to protect the country's remaining herds.
They had declined over the years of the second Sudanese civil war from in
excess of 80,000 in the 1960s-70s to an estimated 5,000 in 2013. These last
remaining elephants were under threat from poachers, many linked with South
Sudanese armed groups, and the LRA. The WCS said at the launch of the
programme that the future of the elephants was particularly endangered by
the presence of rebel militias fighting the SPLA.
The Boma national park in Jonglei state has one of the most important
savannah ecosystems in the region. Fighting in mid-2013 between government
forces and the Murle rebel group led by David Yau Yau led to the destruction
of park infrastructure, the killing of three wildlife rangers and the almost
total disruption of conservation and wildlife protection programmes in the
park and surrounding areas.
A report by Born Free USA and the US Centre for Defence Analysis suggested
that the killing of park officials was carried out by the South Sudan armed
forces (SPLA) sent to drive out Yau Yau's fighters. The officials killed,
including park warden Brigadier Kolo Pino, were all from the Murle
community.
Earlier this year, in Lantoto National Park, in Central Equatoria state on
the border with the DRC, at least six elephants were killed for their tusks.
The park's warden, Colonel Joseph Taban, reported that continuous poaching
was being carried out by groups armed with machine guns. There was no clear
evidence which groups - whether rebels or criminal gangs - were involved.
Taban said the weapons being used were very different from the bows and
arrows used by local people to poach for meat.
The park borders the Garamba National Park in DR Congo, where the LRA, the
Ugandan army and the Janjaweed have all been suspected of engaging in
poaching. Born Free USA has said that SPLA forces and former members of the
army have also been heavily involved in poaching in Garamba.
The conflict between President Salva Kiir and forces loyal to Riek Machar,
which began in December last year, has had devastating humanitarian
consequences, with over 10,000 dead and nearly two million displaced. It is
also having a serious environmental effect, and reducing the economic
options, beyond oil, open to the country. The possibilities of wildlife
tourism are declining rapidly.
An advisor to the Ministry of Wildlife Conservation and Tourism, Lt-Gen
Alfred Akuch Omoli, said recently that, "Since the start of this conflict we
have noticed that poaching has become terrible.
Rebels are poaching and the government forces are also poaching because they
are all fighting in rural areas and the only available food they can get is
wild meat". Officials have also noted an increase in elephant poaching for
their tusks, but avoided saying whether this was by rebel groups, local
people or government forces.
The WCS's deputy director for South Sudan said in June that a number of the
elephants given radio collars under the protection programme launched in
2013 had been killed. The WCS warned in December 2012, a year before the
start of the civil war that without a decline in poaching South Sudan's
elephants could disappear within five years. The security, humanitarian and
economic effects of the civil war could hasten their demise.
Keith Somerville is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of
Commonwealth Studies, teaches journalism at the Centre for Journalism,
University of Kent and edits Africa News and Analysis
(www.africajournalismtheworld.com)
Received on Thu Sep 18 2014 - 09:22:05 EDT