III. Poaching, Wildlife Trafficking and Terrorism

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Notes

1 Aggrey Mutambo, ‘US State Department Links Poaching to Terrorism’, Daily Nation, 15 November 2013; Catrina Stewart, ‘Illegal Ivory Trade Funds Al-Shabaab’s Terrorist Attacks’, The Independent, 5 October 2013; Monica Medina, ‘The White Gold of Jihad’, New York Times, 30 September 2013.

2 Carla Sterley, ‘Elephants and Rhinos Fund Terror Networks: Illegal Poaching in Sub-Saharan Africa Funds Islamic Fundamentalism’, Consultancy Africa Intelligence, 9 September 2014; Liana Sun Wyler and Pervaze A Sheikh, ‘International Illegal Trade in Wildlife: Threats and U.S. Policy’, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, 22 August 2008, Congressional Research Service, RL34395, 2008, pp. 11, 21; Mutambo, ‘US State Department Links Poaching to Terrorism’.

3 Tom Maguire and Cathy Haenlein, ‘An Illusion of Complicity: Terrorism and the Illegal Ivory Trade in East Africa’, RUSI Occasional Papers (September 2015).

4 See Nolan Feeney, ‘Premiere: Watch Kathryn Bigelow's Short Film about Elephant Poaching, Last Days’, Time, 4 December 2014.

5 Rosaleen Duffy, ‘Al-Shabaab and Ivory (1)’, Marjan Centre for the Study of War and the Non-Human Sphere, 26 September 2015.

6 See Johan Bergenas and Ariella Knight, ‘Green Terror: Environmental Crime and Illicit Financing’, SAIS Review of International Affairs (Vol. 35, No. 1, 2015); International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), ‘Criminal Nature: The Global Security Implications of the Illegal Wildlife Trade’, June 2013.

7 See Tamara Makarenko, ‘The Crime–Terror Continuum: Tracing the Interplay Between Transnational Organised Crime and Terrorism’, Global Crime (Vol. 6, No. 1, 2004); Chris Dishman, ‘The Leaderless Nexus: When Crime and Terror Converge’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (Vol. 28, No. 3, 2005); John T Picarelli, ‘The Turbulent Nexus Of Transnational Organised Crime And Terrorism: A Theory of Malevolent International Relations’, Global Crime (Vol. 7, No. 1, 2006).

8 Some news sources have (much less frequently) also cited Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and Daesh (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS) as beneficiaries. See, for example, Brandon Keim and Emma Howard, ‘African “Blood Ivory” Destroyed in New York to Signal Crackdown on Illegal Trade’, The Guardian, 19 June 2015.

9 US Department of State, Bureau of Counterterrorism, ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’, <http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm>, accessed 16 April 2016. Both the Janjaweed and LRA, for example, appear on the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium's (TRAC) database, <http://www.trackingterrorism.org/>, and in well-regarded publications such as Gus Martin, Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues, 4^th edition (London: Sage, 2013), pp. 277–78.

10 Jacqueline Hodgson and Victor Tadros, ‘The Impossibility of Defining Terrorism’, New Criminal Law Review (Vol. 16, No. 3, 2013); Leonard Weinberg, Ami Pedahzur and Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler, ‘The Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism’, Terrorism and Political Violence (Vol. 16, No. 4, 2004).

11 Alex P Schmid, ‘Terrorism as Psychological Warfare’, Democracy and Security (Vol. 1, No. 2, 2005).

12 See Joint Chiefs of Staff, Department of Defense, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2008).

13 Stig Jarle Hansen, Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group: 2005–2012 (London: Hurst, 2013), pp. 15–47.

14 David M Anderson and Jacob McKnight, ‘Kenya at War: Al Shabaab and its Enemies in Eastern Africa’, African Affairs (Vol. 114, No. 454, 2015).

15 On both claims, see Maguire and Haenlein, ‘An Illusion of Complicity’, pp. 5–11.

16 Nir Kalron and Andrea Crosta, ‘Africa's White Gold of Jihad: Al-Shabaab and Conflict Ivory’, Elephant Action League, January 2013.

17 Ibid.

18 See, for example, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), ‘Criminal Nature’, pp. 12–13.

19 African Environmental Film Foundation, White Gold, directed by Simon Trevor, 2013; Feeney, ‘Premiere: Watch Kathryn Bigelow's Short Film about Elephant Poaching, Last Days’.

20 Tristan McConnell, ‘Illegal Ivory May Not Be Funding African Terror Group’, USA Today, 14 November 2014.

21 See Jeffrey Gettleman, ‘Elephants Dying in Epic Frenzy as Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits’, New York Times, 3 September 2012; Medina, ‘The White Gold of Jihad’; Richard Schiffman, ‘Ivory Poaching Funds Most War and Terrorism in Africa’, New Scientist, 14 May 2014; Camilla Swift, ‘How Al-Shabaab is Keeping the Black-Market African Ivory Trade Alive’, The Spectator, 16 November 2013; Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, ‘We All Have a Role to Play in Ending the Ivory Trade’, Financial Times, 23 February 2014.

22 Uhuru Kenyatta, ‘The Path to Defeating the Al-Shabaab Terrorists’, Wall Street Journal, 6 October 2013; Marc Nkwame, ‘Tanzania: Uhuru – Poaching, Terror Linked’, Tanzania Daily News, 26 March 2014.

23 Clinton and Clinton, ‘We All Have a Role to Play in Ending the Ivory Trade’.

24 Maguire and Haenlein, ‘An Illusion of Complicity’.

25 Ibid.

26 The Elephant Action League, for example, highlights the apprehension of ‘Somali bandits’ in 2007 to support a broader picture of Al-Shabaab participation in the ivory trade.

27 Authors’ interview with community conservancy manager, Kenya, April 2015.

28 Maguire and Haenlein, ‘An Illusion of Complicity’, pp. 14–15.

29 Elephant populations are estimated at 11,000 in Tsavo and 7,000 in Laikipia-Samburu. See Elephant Database, ‘Kenya: Provisional African Elephant Population Estimates’, 2013.

30 Samuel K Wasser et al., ‘Genetic Assignment of Large Seizures of Elephant Ivory Reveals Africa's Major Poaching Hotspots’, Science (Vol. 349, No. 6243, July 2015), p. 85, Figure 4.

31 Jerome Starkey, ‘Al-Shabaab Fighters Set Up Home in Elephant Reserve’, The Times, 24 August 2015.

32 The East African, ‘Militant Groups Fuel Poaching in East Africa’, 14 October 2010; authors’ interview with wildlife crime law enforcement officers, Nairobi, May 2015.

33 See Elephant Database, ‘Kenya: Provisional African Elephant Population Estimates’.

34 Kalron and Crosta, ‘Africa's White Gold of Jihad’.

35 Authors’ interview with wildlife crime research consultant, Nairobi, July 2015.

36 Hansen, Al-Shabaab in Somalia; Matt Bryden, ‘The Reinvention of Al-Shabaab: A Strategy of Choice or Necessity?’, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), February 2014; Christopher Anzalone, ‘The Rise and Decline of Al-Shabaab’, Turkish Review (Vol. 4, No. 4, 2014).

37 See, for example, Jarat Chopra et al., ‘Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 2060 (2012): Somalia’, 12 July 2013 (henceforth UNMGSE Report, 12 July 2013).

38 Fiona M Underwood, Robert W Burn and Tom Milliken, ‘Dissecting the Illegal Ivory Trade: An Analysis of Ivory Seizures Data’, PLOS One (Vol. 8, No. 10, October 2013), pp. 1–12.

39 See Maguire and Haenlein, ‘An Illusion of Complicity’, pp. 20–22.

40 For information on the role of Al-Shabaab's Ministry of Finance, see Tom Keatinge, ‘The Role of Finance in Defeating Al-Shabaab’, RUSI Whitehall Report 2–14 (December 2014), pp. 9–10.

41 Ibid.

42 UNMGSE Report, 13 July 2012, p. 27.

43 Based on an average tusk weight of 3.8–5 kg.

44 Christian Nellemann et al. (eds), The Environmental Crime Crisis – Threats to Sustainable Development from Illegal Exploitation and Trade in Wildlife and Forest Resources (Nairobi and Arendal: UN Environment Programme and GRID-Arendal, 2014), pp. 78–81; McConnell, ‘Illegal Ivory May Not Be Funding African Terror Group’.

45 Authors’ interview with director of research institute, Western diplomat, Nairobi, July 2015; Keatinge, ‘The Role of Finance in Defeating Al-Shabaab’.

46 See Maguire and Haenlein, ‘An Illusion of Complicity’, p. ix; Nellemann et al. (eds), The Environmental Crime Crisis, pp. 78–81.

47 Authors’ interview with director of private security firm, Nairobi, January 2015; authors’ interview with senior environmental crime analyst, Washington, DC, July 2015.

48 Daniel Stiles, ‘Ivory Trade, Terrorism and U.S. National Security: How Connected Are They?’, <http://danstiles.org/publications/ivory/42.Ivory&National%20Security.pdf>, accessed 20 September 2016.

49 See Jennifer G Cooke, ‘Wildlife Poaching and Insecurity in Africa’, CSIS, 14 July 2015; Diogo Veríssimo, ‘Kathryn Bigelow and the Bogus Link Between Ivory and Terrorism’, The Conversation, 16 January 2015; Jessica L Anderson, ‘The Danger of False Narratives: Al-Shabaab's Faux Ivory Trade’, Africa in Transition, blog of the, Council on Foreign Relations, 5 June 2015; Nellemann et al. (eds), The Environmental Crime Crisis, pp. 78–81.

50 Mutambo, ‘US State Department Links Poaching to Terrorism’.

51 M Brooke Darby, ‘The Escalating International Wildlife Trafficking Crisis: Ecological, Economic, and National Security Issues’, statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittees on African Affairs and East Asian and Pacific Affairs, 21 May 2014.

52 Anna Mulrine, ‘To Combat Terror, Pentagon Should Help Fight Africa Poaching, Ex-General Says’, Christian Science Monitor, 12 September 2014.

53 US Department of State, Bureau of Counterterrorism, ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’.

54 Keith Somerville, Africa's Long Road since Independence: The Many Histories of a Continent (London: Hurst, 2015), pp. 251–52.

55 Ibid.

56 Alex de Waal, ‘Who are the Darfurians? Arab and African Identities, Violence and External Engagement’, African Affairs (Vol. 104, No. 415, April 2015).

57 Stiles, ‘Ivory Trade, Terrorism and U.S. National Security’; Alex de Waal, ‘Counter-Insurgency on the Cheap’, London Review of Books (Vol. 26, No. 15, 2004).

58 Somerville, Africa's Long Road since Independence.

59 Stiles, ‘Ivory Trade, Terrorism and U.S. National Security’.

60 Prepared statement by Ginette Hemley, senior vice president, Conservation Strategy and Science, WWF, and Tom Milliken, elephant and rhino leader, TRAFFIC for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hearing on ‘Ivory and Insecurity: The Implications of Poaching in Africa’, 24 May 2012, p. 54, <https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112shrg76689/pdf/CHRG-112shrg76689.pdf>, accessed 19 September 2016.

61 See Louise Charbonneau, ‘Sudanese Poachers Kill Elephants amid Central Africa Chaos: UN Experts’, Reuters, 2 September 2015.

62 International Crisis Group (ICG), ‘The Central African Crisis: From Predation to Stabilisation’, Africa Report No. 219, June 2014, pp. 13–15.

63 Ibid.

64 Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, Darfur: A New History of a Long War (London: Zed Books, 2008); Kasper Agger, ‘Behind the Headlines: Drivers of Violence in the Central African Republic’, Enough Project, May 2014.

65 CITES, ‘CITES Secretary-General Expresses Grave Concern over Reports of Mass Elephant Killings in Cameroon’, 28 February 2012.

66 Phys.org, ‘Poachers Massacre 89 Elephants in Chad’, 19 March 2013; IFAW, ‘Killing Spree Slaughters 86 Elephants in Chad’, 18 March 2013.

67 Peter Canby, ‘Elephant Watch’, New Yorker, 11 May 2015; Ledio Cakaj, ‘Tusk Wars: Inside the LRA and the Bloody Business of Ivory’, The Enough Project, October 2015; WWF, ‘At Least 26 Elephants Massacred in World Heritage Site’, 10 May 2013.

68 CNN, ‘Cameroon Elephant Slaughter Latest in String of Killings’, 27 March 2013.

69 IFAW, ‘Criminal Nature’.

70 Emmanuel de Merode et al., ‘Status of Elephant Populations in Garamba National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo, Late 2005’, Pachyderm (No. 42, January 2007); K Hillman Smith and J A Ndey, ‘Post-War Effects on the Rhinos and Elephants of Garamba National Park’, Pachyderm (No. 39, 2005) pp. 106–10.

71 Cakaj, ‘Tusk Wars’, pp. 17–18.

72 See Gérard Prunier, Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide (London: Hurst, 2005), pp. 97–100.

73 Flint and De Waal, Darfur, pp. 33–70.

74 Stiles, ‘Ivory Trade, Terrorism and U.S. National Security’.

75 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Department of Defense, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms.

76 Stiles, ‘Ivory Trade, Terrorism and U.S. National Security’.

77 Jok Madut Jok, War and Slavery in Sudan: The Ethnography of Political Violence (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001); Prunier, Darfur.

78 Julie Flint et al., ‘Darfur Destroyed: Ethnic Cleansing by Government and Militia Forces in Western Sudan’, Human Rights Watch (Vol. 16, No. 6(A), 2004).

79 Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch, ‘U.S. Calls Killings In Sudan Genocide: Khartoum and Arab Militias Are Responsible, Powell Says’, Washington Post, 10 September 2004.

80 Ogenga Otunnu, ‘Causes and Consequences of the War in Acholiland’, Conciliation Resources, 2002.

81 Somerville, Africa's Long Road since Independence, pp. 260–63; Kevin C Dunn, ‘The Lord's Resistance Army’, Review of African Political Economy (Vol. 31, No. 99, 2004).

82 The blending of Acholi beliefs with aspects related to Catholicism has served as a bonding element for non-Acholi troops that joined the LRA, particularly the overwhelmingly Catholic Zande. See Philip Lancaster et al., ‘Diagnostic Study of the Lord's Resistance Army’, International Working Group on the LRA, June 2011, pp. 32–34; Kristof Titeca ‘The Spiritual Order of the LRA’, in Tim Allen and Koen Vlassenroot (eds), The Lord's Resistance Army: Myth and Reality (London: Zed Books, 2010), pp. 59–73; Joseph Kony quoted in Anthony Vinci, ‘Existential Motivations in the Lord's Resistance Army's Continuing Conflict’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (Vol. 30, No. 4, 2007), p. 342.

83 Somerville, Africa's Long Road since Independence.

84 UN Security Council, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the Activities of the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa and on the Lord's Resistance Army-Affected Areas’, S/2013/671, 14 November 2013, p. 11.

85 Alexis Arieff et al., ‘The Lord's Resistance Army: The U.S. Response’, Congressional Research Service, R42094, September 2015, p. 7.

86 Cakaj, ‘Tusk Wars’, pp. 4–8. Other recent estimates put the numbers of LRA fighters today in the low hundreds; see Arieff et al., ‘The Lord's Resistance Army’, pp. 1–3.

87 Small Arms Survey, Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA), ‘The LRA in Kafia Kingi’, October 2013.

88 Lancaster et al., ‘Diagnostic Study of the Lord's Resistance Army’, p. 23.

89 WildlifeDirect, ‘3 Still Missing After LRA Attack in Garamba’, 22 January 2009.

90 Lancaster et al., ‘Diagnostic Study of the Lord's Resistance Army’, pp. 28–29.

91 Cakaj, ‘Tusk Wars’, pp. 7, 10–14.

92 Ibid.; The Resolve, ‘The Kony Crossroads: President Obama's Chance to Define His Legacy on the LRA Crisis’, August 2015.

93 Bryan Christy, ‘How Killing Elephants Finances Terror in Africa’, National Geographic, 12 August 2015.

94 Cakaj, ‘Tusk Wars’, p. 12.

95 Wasser et al., ‘Genetic Assignment of Large Seizures of Elephant Ivory Reveals Africa's Major Poaching Hotspots’.

96 The Resolve, ‘The Kony Crossroads’.

97 Ledio Cakaj, ‘Joseph Kony and Mutiny in the Lord's Resistance Army’, New Yorker, 3 October 2015.

98 Cakaj, ‘Tusk Wars’, p. 10.

99 US Department of State, Bureau of Counterterrorism, ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’.

100 US Department of State, ‘The Lord's Resistance Army’, fact sheet, 23 March 2012; UN, ‘Consolidated United Nations Security Council Sanctions List', 1 November 2016; Aaron Maasho, ‘African Union Declares Uganda's LRA a Terror Group', Reuters, 22 November 2011.

101 Emma Leonard, ‘The Lord's Resistance Army: An African Terrorist Group?’, Perspectives on Terrorism (Vol. 4, No. 6, 2010).

102 Ibid.; Sverker Finnström, Living with Bad Surroundings: War, History, and Everyday Moments in Northern Uganda (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008).

103 For a detailed analysis of the Juba negotiations, see ‘Part Three: Peace and Justice’, in Tim Allen and Koen Vlassenroot (eds), The Lord's Resistance Army – Myth and Reality (London: Zed Books, 2010).

104 Ibid.

105 Nkwame, ‘Tanzania: Uhuru – Poaching, Terror Linked’.

106 Mulrine, ‘To Combat Terror, Pentagon Should Help Fight Africa Poaching, Ex-General Says’.

107 Maguire and Haenlein, ‘An Illusion of Complicity’; Vanda Felbab-Brown, ‘It's Corruption, Stupid: Terrorism, Wildlife Trafficking, and Obama's Africa Trip’, Brookings Institution, 22 July 2015.

108 Authors’ interview with a Western diplomat, Nairobi, January 2015.