Statement by Mr.Dmitry Polyanskiy, First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, at the Security Council on Maintenance of international peace and security: Root causes of conflict — the role of natural resources
We thank the Secretary-General for participating personally in our meeting today and for his informative briefing on the subject.
The aspects that the Bolivian presidency touched on today relating to the issue of States’ sovereignty over their natural resources are extremely important and are apparent in many of today’s regional conflicts, as was rightly noted. Strictly speaking, however, these issues are beyond the scope of the Security Council’s remit and belong in the mandates of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and the Second Committee of the General Assembly.
In that regard, in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the States Members of the United Nations reaffirmed that each one of them “has, and shall freely exercise, full permanent sovereignty over all its wealth, natural resources and economic activity”. Based on that principle, combating illegal activities in the extractive industries is also first of all both the prerogative and the responsibility of the Governments of the countries that own the resources. In that regard, the priority is assisting vulnerable States in strengthening their State institutions and applying sustainable environmental management models in the interests of socioeconomic development and trade.
Resolution 1625 (2005) and presidential statement S/PRST/2007/22 define the parameters for further work aimed at preventing the illegal exploitation of natural resources from fuelling armed conflicts. In our view, however, the Council’s task in that regard lies not in conducting generic discussions but in ensuring strict compliance with the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of particular countries and regions. We consider it unacceptable to politicize these issues by artificially assigning them conflict-generator status and thereby creating a basis for potential crises or worsening existing ones.
We see many examples of how natural resources can become the object of competition, including in the form of armed confrontations both within and between States. As a rule, we see this kind of issue in countries with weak Government control over national mineral resources. However, armed conflict, whether domestic or international, can exacerbate the problems associated with their illegal exploitation, but we want to emphasize that such clashes are caused not by natural resources per se, but as a result of acts of aggression by various forces, and often external actors. In such cases, what we could term “delayed-action mines” laid down in colonial times play a significant negative role.
Former imperial powers also made use during the Cold War of schemes devised in those faroff times for plundering territories under their control. And in our own era, behind the opposing parties to conflicts we find players from outside the region or global corporations, while loud slogans about the struggle for democratic values are a mere fig leaf for commercially driven efforts to take over one or another country’s natural wealth. We believe that the right way to discuss this topic is in relation to situations in specific countries and regions.
For example, the region of the Middle East and North Africa, rich in oil and gas reserves, has always been an area that big States have competed over. The energy issue was a significant contributing factor at the start of the period of shocks prematurely termed the Arab spring. The current crises in Syria and Libya are a clear illustration of the growing link between security and global competition for resources.
The socalled international coalition, operating on Syrian land uninvited by the national Government and unsanctioned by the Security Council, has occupied the territory east of the Euphrates where oil and gas fields are located and together with its client structures has established what is essentially shadow hydrocarbon extraction. A policy aimed at reinforcing this state of affairs, violating Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, is being carried out before our very eyes.
After the acts of aggression against Libya in 2011, the country became a springboard for external players’ struggle for its rich natural resources, and it is still in a fragmented state to this day, despite all of the efforts of the United Nations to implement a model for a political settlement based on unifying the country and its State institutions. We would really like to see Libya’s national wealth serve the interests of ordinary Libyans, not foreign corporations.
And we do not have to look very far to find other examples in the Middle East, where we have the destabilization of Iraq due to a foreign invasion in 2003, as well as the war in Yemen. In both those cases, however, it was terrorist forces that at various points in time got access to their natural resources and used hydrocarbons primarily in order to fuel their destructive activities.
One of the reasons for the continuing turbulence in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is the illegal exploitation and export of natural resources in the interests of large transnational companies conducted by illegal armed groups to finance their activities. Suppressing this kind of activity would help to create the conditions for stabilizing the situation in the country and help it to develop. The question of revenue-sharing from oil and other mineral resources is a serious factor in Somalia’s centrifugal tendencies and has been an obstacle to the completion of federalization in Somalia.
The agreement signed in June 2018 between Mogadishu and the federal states on the rights to the ownership, management and the sharing of income from the extraction of mineral resources was an important achievement. However, doubts remain about the parties’ willingness to comply with those agreements. The problems involved in controlling natural resources where the demarcation of maritime and land borders is concerned have the potential to become a source of inter-State conflicts, and there are many examples of that in Africa.
Take, for instance, the situation concerning the ownership of major oil and gas fields in the coastal areas of the Gulf of Guinea, or the non-recognition of existing borders by the many tribes in the Sahara-Sahel region that have taken up arms to defend their rights to natural resources. The situation in South Sudan is another clear example in which both internal and external players are shamelessly trying to use the country’s natural resources to enrich themselves. The activities of various States and transnational corporations interested in getting access to the resource base of countries of the region is a significant destabilizing factor in a number of Latin American nations.
Unfortunately, little has changed there in the twenty-first century, and the situations in Venezuela and Nicaragua are clear proof of that. We believe it is both dangerous and short-sighted to blame all the problems in countries that are rich in natural resources and that are openly subjected to outside interference and pressure, including through sanctions, on the poor management of those resources.
Framing the question that way is one short step from direct military intervention. History can teach us ruthless lessons about that, but there are many who do not want to take those lessons to heart. The Russian Federation has consistently advocated for the importance of strict respect for States’ sovereign right to manage their natural resources.
Partnerships for their development should be mutually beneficial and based on unquestioning respect for the sovereignty of the host State. Those who claim the role of peacemaker and friend should have no hidden agendas or desire to take advantage of others’ problems for their own mercenary, self-serving interests.
