(Richards, 1993). In a sense, the young people were all but pushed into the path of the RUF as a means to escape the poverty and squalor they found themselves in. In a way, they found it within themselves to capitalize on their grievances and succumb to their greed. Diamonds then became a kind of incentive for violence. This applied not only to RUF fighters, but eventually to their opponents also. There were very few ‘traditional’ battles fought during this war, but the ones that did occur were always in and around diamond rich areas. Keen notes that, “thousands of civilians were expelled and kept away from diamond-rich areas… rebels often forced diamond prospecting work to continue and then took diamonds” (CITE KEEN 2005). A women whose home …show more content…
Of course, there is an argument that greed is simply a human emotion that exists within every human being therefore every human being has the capacity to feel it and capitalize on it. Regardless, there is something more to it than that. When looking at cases such as Sierra Leone, it is so easy to approach the civil war as simply a group of terrorists hell-bent on causing destruction wherever they went. There is no denying that the violence, destruction, and atrocities committed by the RUF were horrific at best. However, it is important to understand that the RUF, like many other rebel groups, do not simply materialize out of nowhere. There is something that generates a willingness and an enthusiasm to resort to violence simply to gain (or regain) access to resources. Western understanding of greed are so vastly different to the rest of the world’s understanding of greed. In the world of big business, capitalism, and dog-eat-dog mentalities, greed manifests itself as a means for the rich to continue to get richer. Stock manipulation, excessive spending, risky investments, and a severe lack of empathy are often associated with much of the world’s richest people (of course there are exceptions but for the sake of the argument, the stereotype stands). Indeed those government officials and corrupt politicians of the developing world view greed in much the same way. However, for rebel groups like the RUF, greed is something that manifests itself due to what can be argued as a justified set of unanswered and ignored grievances. There is a deep-rooted and misunderstood hatred that builds and builds to the point where people reach a breaking point. The protests and subsequent violence and looting in Ferguson, Missouri just this year is a contemporary example of this. The kind of greed that