Topic: Conflict Commodities
Country: Albania
Delegate Name: Matthew DeLapp
School: Forest Hills Central High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Albania position papers GLIMUN 2007 committees
Conflict commodities are a source of grief and turmoil that have caused numerous issues throughout the world; more specifically in nations such as Angola, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Although the wars in the countries have exhausted, rebels still hold some regions of the countries today. These regions are abundant sources of diamonds, and the rebel forces enslave the people to mine them so that they can fuel their army, and by doing so fueling armed conflict that may lead to the overthrowing of legitimate governments. That is where the two major conflicts occur: firstly, the mining of diamonds is an encroachment of Human rights, and secondly, it is fueling rebel groups that have intentions of overthrowing governments, which would lead to may more major issues. Albania thinks that in order to stop these events from occurring, we must first work out peaceful negotiations between both sides of the civil wars. If we stop the wars, then there will be no need for rebel groups to force people to mine diamonds in order to finance them. A good way that this can be accomplished would be to set up peace meetings, mediated by world powers, such as the United States and other countries that share the same view. Another problem that has arisen because of the conflict commodities in Africa, are refugees. People have fled the region in fear of the rebel groups, and in a greater fear that they will be enslaved to the diamond mines. Albania believes that these refugees need support, and we would support anything that would give them aid and relief. Albania thinks that these problems are only going to be solved if we come together to help stop this problem. With the help of the UN, we can solve these problems and help to prevent conflict commodities from occurring in the future.
