The Illegal Ivory Trade is Funding Terrorists!

[MachineGhost]

[quote=http://www.the-platform.org.uk/2016/03/ ... terrorism/]While excessive demand in East Asia has been widely publicised, the beginning of the supply chain has remained relatively neglected. This is the part where militant terrorist organisations throughout Africa are funding their activities through the sale of systematically poached ivory, or the ‘White Gold of Jihad’.

It has long been supposed that the illegal ivory trade is funding terrorism in Africa. The recent surge in activity of religious extremist groups arising in opposition to the actions of government-backed armies in Somalia, Nigeria and Uganda has been prolific. The basis of this assumption becomes clear where ivory is worth more than gold, corruption is rife, and fighters have been shown to earn more working for Islamist groups such as Al-Shabab than as soldiers in the Somalian army. Armed groups such as Boko Haram, Al-Shabab and Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) had to be getting their money from somewhere. Ivory-clad elephants seemed like an obvious solution, especially in the years before their protection became so necessary and, in parts of Africa, so successful.

Bryan Christy’s recent master class in investigative journalism for National Geographic finally proved these assumptions to be true. By planting infallibly fake elephant tusks containing minute GPS trackers into the supply chain between Garamba and Sudan, Christy was able to track the tusks as they made their way to Kafia Kingi, widely recognised to be the safe haven hideout of Kony and the LRA. Accounts from LRA ‘defectors’ substantiate the claim that this evidence presents; elephants were being slaughtered for their ivory by LRA soldiers and subsequently traded for the food and weapons that keep them afloat. In the words of Kony himself, “it’s only the ivory that will make the LRA strong”.

It is not just the Christian fundamentalist LRA that is using ivory as currency to fund their campaign of extremist brutality. Boko Haram and the Janjaweed militia have also been implicated, and it has been calculated that approximately 40 per cent of Al-Shabab’s funding comes from proceeds made from the illegal ivory trade. The trade becomes alarmingly relevant when the Islamist group responsible for the 2013 Westgate Mall bombings and similar attacks on perceived ‘western’ targets are being funded through the brutal mass-murder of elephants and their protectors. The ivory trade is not just fuelling the demise of the African elephant, but also contributing to the murder of thousands of innocent people.

While terrorism in Africa may still seem far away for many, Boko Haram’s recent rebrand that has given the so-called ‘Islamic State’ a foothold in Africa shatters this illusion. It is hard to ignore the threat that Daesh poses in the west, though many have managed to ignore the destruction they employ elsewhere. The recent Paris attacks were incredibly shocking both in volume and in proximity to British soil. Car bomb attacks in Ankara are becoming frequent and devastating in their impact. Brussels spent Christmas in lock-down. Beachgoers on ‘western’ resorts on the coast of Africa are being increasingly targeted. London has just raised its terror alert to ‘high’ following a direct threat from Daesh of a ‘Doomsday-style’ attack so terrible that it will ‘turn children’s hair white’. Suddenly terrorism does not seem so far away, but, unfortunately, a solution to its aggressive proliferation does.[/quote]