...Guns give people immense power, the sort of power you wouldn’t want anyone to be able to possess; the power to hurt, destroy, and manipulate those around them. The book A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, follows the story of young Ishmael Beah during the war in Sierra Leone. It tells step by step the events that led up to Beah being captured and forced to fight in a war at the mere age of thirteen. Those with the most power in this war were the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), they attack villages looking for people to force to fight alongside them but if you were to refuse or if they thought you were not good enough, they would kill you. “The rebels fired their guns toward the sky, as they shouted and merrily danced their way into...
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...gain independence. The Society of United Irishmen attempted to lead the rebellion. The Irish rebels had many reasons behind their rebellion regarding Britain’s brutal hostility. For example, the French had already conquered many of Britain’s allies; and when the French were going to attack Britain, the British planned to use the Irish in the front lines of the attack. Despite the Irish rebels’ desires, they were unable to achieve them because the rebellion never spread beyond areas surrounding Dublin. In fact, the Irish Rebellion of 1798 was futile because of many internal weaknesses within the United Irishmen as well as the dramatic disparity of military and governmental strength...
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...president in 1971. The Syrian government used violence to suppress demonstrations, making extensive use of police, military, and paramilitary forces. Amateur footage and eyewitness accounts, the primary sources of information in a country largely closed to foreign journalists, showed the Syrian security forces beating and killing protesters and firing indiscriminately into crowds. Opposition militias began to form in 2011, and by 2012 the conflict had expanded into a full-fledged civil war. In mid-January 2012 the credibility of the monitoring mission seemed to decline further when a delegation member who had resigned from the group called the mission “a farce,” claiming that Syrian government forces had presented the monitors with orchestrated scenes and restricted their movements. After several Arab countries withdrew their monitors over concerns for their safety, the Arab League formally suspended the monitoring mission on January 28, citing an increase in violence as the reason. Violence seemed to accelerate after the failure of the Arab League monitoring mission. In early February 2012 the Syrian army began a sustained assault on Homs, bombarding opposition-held neighborhoods with artillery over a period of several weeks. Later that month, the Arab League and the UN jointly appointed Kofi Annan, a former secretary-general of the United Nations, as a peace envoy for Syria. Annan’s attempt to negotiate an end to violence, like that of the Arab League in 2011, was undermined...
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...“Terrorists are motivated not only by psychological factors but also very real political, social, religious, and economic factors, among others. These factors vary widely”. Accordingly, the motivations, goals, and ideologies of ethnic separatist, anarchist, social revolutionary, religious fundamentalist, and new religious terrorist groups differ significantly. (Hudson, 1999) Therefore, each terrorist group must be examined within its own cultural, economic, political, and social context in order to better understand the motivations of its individual members and leaders and their particular ideologies. (Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1999, para. 54) I will use Hudson’s assertion as my theoretical framework to analyze if my findings are compatible with a plausible assertion that terrorism is based off social and political views of the people who see their current state as unjust. The National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional or ELN) is a revolutionary guerrilla army; who have fought in the Colombian Civil War since it began in 1964. The ELN advocate a composite Communist ideology of Marxism and Liberation Theology. The ELN was founded by Fabio Vásquez Castaño and other Colombian rebels trained in Communist Cuba; upon the Vásquez Castaño death, the ELN was headed by a series of Roman Catholic priests, exponents of Liberation Theology. (Brittain, 2010) Most notable was the Priest Camilo Torres Restrepo, a university professor, egalitarian and Marxist...
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...rejuvenation of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). This small, underground, revolutionary body planned and directed the insurrection in 1916. The truly dynamic element was a tiny minority within this organization; they were acting on the old republican principle: ‘England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity’. In August 1915, this group formed the IRB Military Council. It was eventually composed of seven members – Thomas Clarke, Sean MacDermott, Patrick Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt, Joseph Plunkett, James Connolly, and Thomas MacDonagh. All seven approved and signed the Proclamation, and together they declared themselves to be the ‘Provisional Government’ of the Irish Republic when the Rising began. They were aided throughout by an Irish-American organization, Clan na Gael, which shared their aims and provided virtually the only channel of contact between the insurgents and Germany, from whom they hoped to receive military backing. The IRB was too small in number and covert in operation to precipitate a full-scale rising. For this purpose, it hoped to use the Irish Volunteer Force (IVF). This organization had been formed in 1913 by moderate nationalists, impressed by the impact of the Ulster Volunteer Force and frustrated by the delay in Britain granting Ireland self-government. It had recruited 180,000 men by mid-1914, but then formally split over whether its volunteers should enlist in British Forces and fight in the European war. Its more extreme rump of 11,000 men strongly...
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...diamonds? What groups were hurt by it? As defined in the case study, conflict diamonds are gemstones that are mined or stolen by rebels fighting internationally recognized governments. Any of the anti-government/rebel forces/guerrilla troops/or other nonconformist groups within the areas of question or which could fall into this category or situation. The case study points out two groups who benefited the most under this circumstance; the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) (specific to the Sierra Leone region in West Africa) and the UNITA rebels (specific to the Angola region). These rebels inflicted physical pain on the villages which they took over in order to harvest and sell the diamonds. In their efforts to strong-arm villages, they terrorized men, women, and children by amputating their bodies. The mutilation count in the Sierra Leone region was estimated to be somewhere in the 20,000 count. Not only was immediate physical pain inflicted by these rebel organizations, but the money from diamond sales in these regions went to funding their anti-government and civil wars. This produced a continuous circle of effects. 2. What three sectors were concerned with the problem of conflict diamonds? What was the interest of each, and in what way did their interests converge? The (1-Business Sector) diamond industry, (2-Government Sector) the United Nations, several governments (no doubt those producing the diamonds, including Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Canada, and Australia)...
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...outcome of the Revolutionary War, but one of the more important contributors was Major General William Howe. William Howe was born on August 10, 1729 (Showalter, 2015) to Sir Emmanuel Howe and Charlotte Howe. His father was a viscount, a noble just under the rank of Duke. He was also the illegitimate uncle of King George III (Pavao, 2014), giving Howe’s family a tie to the throne. In his youth, William was educated at Eaton. Years later, when he was seventeen, his father bought him a Cornet’s Commission, allowing him to become an officer in the British Army. Thus Howe’s military career began. In 1756, The French and Indian War began. William was promoted to a Major over the 60th regiment...
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...There are many views that people have of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Castro is a figure with opinions on both ends of the spectrum. While he is not worldly popular at this point in his life, he was immensely beneficial to his country. Fidel Castro, leader of Cuba for the past 50 years may not be viewed in the best light, but he did phenomenal things for his people which makes him one of the most undervalued and overlooked political figures. Fidel Castro Ruz was born in Biran, Cuba on August 13, 1926 (Britannica, 2014). Born into a middle class sugar farm owning family, Castro grew up relatively affluent but his origins pointed to anything but a revolutionary career. “I was born into a family of landowners in comfortable circumstances. We were considered rich and treated as such. Everyone lavished attention on me and treated me differently from other children. These other children went barefoot while we wore shoes; they were often hungry, at our house there was always a squabble at the table to get us to eat.” – Fidel Castro (Castro, 2009) Fidel Castro’s family was not Rockefeller rich, but had far more than many other people did in Cuba at the time. Due to this he attended an elite Catholic private school. Castro was very much into politics, while attending the University of Havana he joined a student group that opposed political corruption. He was a member of the Orthodox Part, also known as the Cuban People’s Party (Geyer, 1991). With Fidel Castro’s exceptional public speaking skills...
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...diamond industry, the United Nations, several governments and Human Rights campaigners who all wished to end the trade in Conflict Diamonds which were gemstones that were being mined or stolen by rebels fighting internationally recognized governments. To end this, they embarked an unusual collaboration called the Kimberly Process. The Kimberly Process was a scheme for tracking diamonds all the way from the mine to the jewelry shop, so that consumers could be assured that the gems they were buying were conflict free. 1. Conflict Diamonds are diamonds that are illegally traded to fund conflicts. In recent times, conflicts in some of the poorest parts of Africa have often focused on rebels controlling their country’s natural resources and assets, for example, oil, wood, minerals and also diamonds. They are diamonds that had originated from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments. Conflict diamonds came to the attention of the world media during the extremely brutal conflict in Sierra Leone in the 1990s. The groups that were benefited from the trade in conflict diamonds were the combatants, including the Revolutionary United Front. Diamonds played a key role in obtaining funds to provide these combatants with food, clothing, transportation, and most significantly, weapons. Finding buyers wasn’t particularly hard and rebel groups such as the...
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...More and more of these are armed conflicts, you would think that this would be a reason to have only experienced shooters in these conflicts. Nothing is less true, every day children are used to fight for either the government or the armed forces which are fighting the government. But what actually does make a child a child soldier?, UNICEF defines a child soldier as “any child- boy or girl under the age of 18 which is part of an armed force.” Today there are thousands of child soldiers around the world. In these conflicts they are not only as a soldier but they are also used as suicide bombers for religion causes, spies, lookout and many more tasks where children are...
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...of an oddly matched group : the diamond industry, the united nations, several goverments, and human rights campaigners. All wished to end the trade in conflict diamonds, gemstonesthat are mined or stolen by rebels fighting internationally recognized goverments. The $6 billion a year diamond industryhas long been dominated by the De Beers Corporation. Founded in south Africa by Cecil Rhodes in the 1880, the beers strategy has been to own as many diamond mine as possible and to sell its rough (uncut) stones exclusively to a small group of preferred dealers at prices set by the company. To maintain its control over supply, De Beers operated buying offices all over the world, “sweeping up” diamonds produced in mines operated by others. The result, for many years, was a virtual monopoly. De Beers has also been a shrewd marketer, pouring millions of dollars over the years into advertising. Using the slogan “a diamond is forever”, the company cultivated and association between diamonds and romance. The company first promoted solitaire engagement rings, later, it shifted its marketing focus to the so called eternity ring, a band of multiple smaller stones aimed at older married couples. In the early 1990s, event in several diamond-rich African nations converged to tarnish the gem’s carefully cultivated image of love and purity. During the cold war, many partisans in civil conflicts in Africa received funding from either the united states or the soviet union, both anxious to maintain...
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...northern Sierra Leone. He attended primary and secondary school in Magburaka, Tonkolili District and afterwards worked numerous jobs in Magburaka. Moving forward to 1956, he joined the Royal West African Forces where he became a wireless operator and cameraman, in which he served till he made junior rank of corporal. After Sierra Leone received its independence in 1961, the country began to fill with plenty of government corruption and poverty. In 1970 Sankho served seven years in prison for participating in an abortive coup against Siaka Stevens. When Sankho was released from prison, he moved to Sierra Leone second largest city called Bo. The city Bo was well known as the homeland for diamond dealers of Lebanese. This is where he would use the knowledge of his training in the military as a video cameraman and wedding photographer. His job was a disguise to better learn the village, the people of the village and to come in contact with the political college students at the local college. This disguise allowed him to also set up his first plan to murder two gem dealers and use the money to finance the beginning of his rebel movement. He then moved to Libya with a group of students expelled from the university. He eventually started a group called the Revolutionary United Front also known as RUF. This group was believed to be 15,000 members strong. In the beginning Sankho intentions were to idealistically rid Sierra Leone of its military-backed corrupted politicians, but...
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...Iran: A Concise Look at Current Political and Economic Situation Yousef Langroodi - Translation by RF, Revolutionary Flowerpot Society March 12, 2011 Translation of an article from Raah-e Kargar/Workers' Path. A Concise Look at Current Political and Economic Situation by: Yousef Langroodi / March 11, 2011 A look at the current conditions in Iran makes it clear that the Islamic Republic continues to face unprecedented economic and political crises. It has not only not been able to take a step toward solving any of the problems it faces but has been spreading and deepening the dimensions of the crises with the policies it has pursued. The Islamic regime, which in previous months had been using all its capabilities to portray the anti-dictatorial movement as defeated, suddenly -- and with the advent of the protests and demonstrations on February 14 and then 20th and then the Protest Tuesdays that ensued -- saw the reality of people confronting it. On this year's Char-shanbeh-soori [ceremonies held for the last Wednesday of the year], the Islamic Republic will find out well and truly where it stands, and to what extent it has been able to control people's movement and their struggles. This Char-shanbeh-soori, which is to be held off on the last of the Protest Tuesdays of the current year [Iranian calendar, which ends March 19], will be another occasion for a nationwide opportunity for the people to shout, Death to Dictatro!, and to show this regime of Guardians...
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...James Petz The Tunisian Revolution: The Beginning of the Arab Spring In Tunisia and other Middle Eastern countries, revolutions have broken out. The Tunisian revolution, or the “Jasmine Revolution,” was the start of the Arab Spring, or the collective term for these modern revolutions in the Middle East. I chose to study and write about the Tunisian Revolution because I am very interested in Middle Eastern and modern studies. In my contemporary global studies class, we briefly studied modern revolutions, but I would like to research more on this topic. These revolutions are still causing chaos today, which is part of the reason it is so interesting to me. To start my research, I came up with a few questions about the revolutions, which guided my research. These questions were: Why did the citizens start to revolt? What is happening during the aftermath of the revolution? What effect does this revolution (Tunisian) have on other countries? Why has Tunisia succeeded while other countries have not had the same success? These questions were very helpful when it came to doing research. While doing my research some websites were helpful, when others did not have quite the same usefulness. The two best sources that I used for my research were Britannica and Aljazeera. These sources had great insight on the revolution in Tunisia, especially the Aljazeera article “Political Violence and the Efforts to Salvage Tunisia’s Revolution.” Aljazeera has even sent field agents...
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............................................................................................. South Kordofan – the Epicentre of Sudan’s Conflicts ..................................................... A. The Government’s “Hot Dry Season” Campaign ....................................................... B. The Sudan Revolutionary Front ................................................................................ III. Internal Nuer Conflict in Unity State ............................................................................... A. Historic Disunity ........................................................................................................ B. Bul Nuer Rising .......................................................................................................... 1 2 2 4 7 7 8 IV. Merging Conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan ................................................................. 10 A. South Sudan’s Civil War in Unity .............................................................................. 10 B. Sudanese Rebels’ Fighting in South Sudan’s War ..................................................... 1. Rebels against rebels ............................................................................................ 2. Cycles of revenge and the...
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