Conflict economics

Frontline club member, photojournalist and regular in these parts, Marcus Bleasdale gets the Q&A going over at the Santa Barbara’s Independent prior to a talk he is giving a UCSB next month. Marcus’ work focusses on Africa, in particular the Democratic Republic of Congo. Money, he says, is at the root of all conflict,

These problems persist because someone is making money out of them. Every conflict, you can strip it down to bare bones and find out there’s a financial reason that it is happening, whether it’s natural resources, whether it’s power, whether it’s oil, whether it’s land, whether it’s water. There’s always an economic reason. Whether it persists because people aren’t aware or concerned, that’s another issue. But the fact that it exists in the first place is because of economics. link