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Organizing Insurgency by Paul Staniland Essay

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Organizing Insurgency by Paul Staniland, introduces the question, “Do resources like diamonds, drugs, and state sponsors turn insurgent groups into thuggish people or do they help build a more disciplined organization?” The reason this question is asked is because in some cases it suggests that “resource wealth encourages the degeneration of armed groups into greed and criminality” and other evidence shows that “external sponsorship and criminal activity can help leaders build organizations in the face of state repression” (p.142). This question is being presented because with different insurgent groups like the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and the Hizbul Mujahidden, having very similar interactions with state sponsors, could have …show more content…

Within the article Staniland states “The Taliban’s ability to create and maintain both central and local institutions was facilitated by its access to an overlapping social base of Islamists linked to one another through camps and schools of western Pakistan while remaining embedded in local communities” (p.171). Within this passage, it explains that because of the basis of the Islamist religion, the insurgent group was able to spread throughout Pakistan making the Taliban stronger. Similarly to the Taliban, in having a strong basis, are the rebels of Darfur. Before the Darfur genocide occurred, the conflict originally began as an insurgency group against the government. Rebel groups drew from main African tribes of Darfur because they were being oppressed by governmental policies and were looking for a change. The goal of theses rebels was to assert the social, economic and political rights of all the people of Darfur; this goal was likely to resonate with the majority of the population, making the insurgency stronger. Just like the Taliban, the rebels in Darfur had a goal in mind that represented a basis that resonated with the majority of the population making them stronger and explaining why they were such a threat to the government. Subsequently, the basis of the insurgency also has something to do with the effects resources, such as diamonds,

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