Editing Blood diamond (section)

== Financing conflict ==
[[Philippe Le Billon]] describes the [[conflict resources]] argument resting on the suggestion that the most valuable resources, if available to the weaker force in a conflict, can motivate and serve to sustain it.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Le Billon|first=Philippe|date=2008-04-14|title=Diamond Wars? Conflict Diamonds and Geographies of Resource Wars|journal=Annals of the Association of American Geographers|volume=98|issue=2|pages=345–372|doi=10.1080/00045600801922422|issn=0004-5608|doi-access=free}}</ref> Commodity prices on global markets, however, are not an adequate proxy for the economic value of a natural resource to participants in armed conflict. Critical factors include location, mode of production, and subsequent route to market. Gemstones are exceptionally light and small in relation to their value as observed by Richard Auty who presents the stark contrast – tens of thousands of times the price per kilogram – of diamonds compared to other resources and consequently how lootable they are.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Auty|first=Richard|date=March 2004|title=Natural resources and civil strife: a two-stage process|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14650040412331307822|journal=Geopolitics|volume=9|issue=1|pages=29–49|doi=10.1080/14650040412331307822|s2cid=144859889|issn=1465-0045}}</ref>

Deep mining for [[gold]], [[Kimberlite|kimberlite diamonds]] or other minerals requires the operation and maintenance of a capital-intensive facility; alluvial deposits by contrast, can be exploited cheaply using artisan tools for however long the relevant land is secured. [[Alluvial diamond mining|Alluvial diamonds]] are therefore more easily exploited by rebels. These differences between primary and secondary diamonds in resource diffusion and cost of extraction are the basis for Lujana et al.'s rejection of non-resource based claims for Botswana and Sierra Leone's different experience of stability and conflict, since both countries have extensive diamond resources but in different formations.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Lujala|first1=Päivi|last2=Gleditsch|first2=Nils Petter|last3=Gilmore|first3=Elisabeth|date=August 2005|title=A Diamond Curse?|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022002705277548|journal=Journal of Conflict Resolution|volume=49|issue=4|pages=538–562|doi=10.1177/0022002705277548|s2cid=154150846|issn=0022-0027}}</ref>

Despite efforts to frustrate the sale of resources emerging from conflicts, a notable workaround is the agreement of what Michael Ross terms 'booty futures',<ref>Ross, Michael L. (2005). Booty futures. Working Paper, University of California, p30.</ref> citing examples mostly from the 1990s concerning diamonds and oil from conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, the Congo Republic, and Democratic Republic of Congo. In these agreements, worth tens of millions of dollars, both rebels and government parties to conflict negotiate deals to realize value now from the prospect of resource exploitation in the future. This enables the presence of valuable natural resources to finance fighting for either side without being in production or even in the possession and control of said fighters. Natural resources still funding fighters who don't possess them he argues is particularly 'dangerous' because this finance is available to those otherwise losing, or even yet to initiate armed conflict, so can make new conflicts possible or have the effect of lengthening those where defeat may have come sooner.

The different mode of production of kimberlite and alluvial diamonds explains why the presence of the latter in fought over areas fuels conflict in ways the former does not. The need to realise financial value from the resource, means that the availability of 'futures' contracts, and suitability for looting, are key to its influence. Gemstones and rare minerals are much better suited to this activity than heavier or otherwise less portable resources, however valuable those may be in times of peace.

These findings have moved campaigners, policymakers and diplomats to devise regulatory interventions intended to prevent natural resources from funding continued fighting in the hope that this might hasten an end to those conflicts. In the twelve years that followed the end of the Cold War, resolutions imposing sanctions on resource exporters in ten different conflicts were passed by the [[United Nations Security Council]].<ref>Le Billon, Philippe (2003) Fuelling war: Natural resources and armed conflict. Adelphi Paper 357, Table 3 p66</ref>