Abstract:
This study a was conducted in order to observe the relationship between natural resources and conflicts in Rwanda with a case study of land conflict in Karangazi sector in Nyagatare district. Its specific objectives were to assess the extent to which citizens have access to land in Karangazi sector, to explore the extent to how land leads to conflicts in Karangazi sector and to find out the strategies to address land conflicts in Karangazi sector. The population from which the sample was delivered was 52834 people and the sample was 100 respondents from Karangazi sector. Both independent, dependent and intervening variables were shown and their relationship, it has indicated that legal framework, culture and religion have acted as an intervening factor for the cause of the conflict. The sampling technique used was cluster sampling. Data were collected by use of questionnaires; both open-ended questions and closed-ended questions were administered to the respondents and cluster sampling method was used. The analysis of the research was done by the use Statistical Package for the Social Science and the results discovered that natural resource (land) strongly causes conflict in Karangazi sector. SPSS, descriptive and inferential statistics were used and provided table showing the numbers of the respondents with their percentages whether it was very low, low, moderate, high and high. Age, marital status, education and employment status were considered when selecting the respondents of whom sought to have the right information. Different respondents have mentioned land as the great element that causes conflicts where some of them said that they have been forced to return their land to those whom they have been brought it from while others said that they have been forced to sell their land at low price and claimed to be landless. The study was concluded by demonstrating that the two variables are completely associated, small sample size which taken from Karangazi sector of Nyagatare district in Eastern Province was based on which made the results to be generalized for only small size study, further researchers in the same field should enlarge sample size to have extended connection between natural resources and conflicts in Rwanda.
