Comment Africa has long been rich. Rich in resources, rich in strife, and rich in the contrasts of intercontinental wealth.
Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" cemented the perils of stuff-driven colonialism into the literary consciousness. A trader named Kurtz goes to Africa to establish a trading post and loses his mind, killing those who threaten his bounty even when it was they who helped him achieve it.
Geology endowed the continent with subterranean gifts galore: diamonds, gold, and of course oil.
The feeding frenzy of discovery/plunder that was set in motion by the European powers that colonized Africa continues to this day, but with different players.
Independence from foreign control has only reshuffled the power from one corrupt regime to another, leaving little in the hands of people who grow increasingly frustrated and menacing.
Foremost at the moment is the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. I first told you about MEND in January, when the ethnic Ijaw militant group began taking hostages so that the government in Lagos would compensate them for oil exploration on tribal lands ("Delta Blues" 1/30/06). Those initial hostages were freed, at some ransom paid, but MEND was not appeased.
Just days after Chinese President Hu Jintao inked a four-site exploration deal with Nigeria's leader Olusegun Obasanjo, rebels warned that Chinese operations in the embattled region would be subject to attacks such as MEND has leveled at Shell, Chevron, and other companies already there.
The disturbance in the Niger Delta has cut Nigeria's petroleum production by 25% -- 450,000 barrels per day - and contributed to the swelling price of oil worldwide. The situation shows no signs of improving as long as the Lagos government signs deals without consulting the region's natives, and there is little motivation for Obasanjo to yield to MEND when what they desire is the power to negotiate those very deals.
Why would Obasanjo not allow the owners of the land to negotiate exploration contracts? Nigeria's corruption rank helps explain things: out of 159 countries in the Transparency International 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index, Nigeria ranks 152nd. Obasanjo and bloated functionaries take a hefty cut of income from countries like the US (Nigeria is our #5 supplier and #8 to the entire world).
But the barrel of sleaze is unfortunately deep, and if we scrape the bottom we find even more oil-endowed African states.
Welcome to the Bottom
Take Chad, for example, guardians of the nadir of national honesty. Together with Bangladesh, Chad is a place where you had better calculate bribe money even in something as innocent as a trip to the corner store. A payoff lands you a driver's license, and of course if you grease the right palm, you can have access to any resource-rich land you like.
The Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline motivates 160,000 barrels per day through unstable environs.
Next door in Sudan, the world has been watching for years as hostility boils between rebels in the western Darfur region and Arab Sudanese leaders and militiamen. Over 2 million have been displaced by the fighting, with some 180,000 dead. But Sudanese real estate is still a fine idea for Chinese and Iranian oil concerns, who by many accounts have lent arms to Khartoum's cause in order to stabilize their resource targets.
In his trip to Africa last week, Hu Jintao went just east of Sudan to Kenya, where he confirmed exploration in that country's largely untapped oil reservoirs.
Where are these Kenyan oil fields? Why, of course they lie right next to the country's borders with flaming Sudan and Somalia, where pirates hijack cruise ships and where a 21st Century Hobbesian world is alive and well.
If you're not yet frightened about the world's oil options, you should be.
If you're not from China, you should be even more scared, because whatever your country is doing, it is not moving as quickly and deftly as Hu's Middle Kingdom.
Put on a Happy Face
A case in point here is Equatorial Guinea, a small, Spanish-speaking country on the western coast of Africa. You may remember the swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who, during the 2000 Olympics could not finish his qualifying heat because he had only recently learned to swim - in a hotel pool.
Now, Equatorial Guinea merits a smiley-faced welcome to the State Department by Condoleezza Rice due to offshore oil and gas potential and rank as the continent's #3 petroleum exporter.
The country's leader Teodoro Obiang took control in a 1979 coup, and though Washington favors regime change in some oil-producing regions (i.e. the Middle East), stability of supply and friendliness of leaders is more important than the Democratic Peace theory often pronounced. Indeed, Rice called Obiang a "good friend" of the United States.
But regimes that are given birth in coups often die in coups, and bye-bye go stability and smiles.
This means that not only is democracy negotiable when dealing with oil potential, so is stability.
President Bush copped to the Yankee oil addiction early this year. By 2025 the US hopes to reduce Middle Eastern oil intake by 75%. If that is true, but African leaders are welcomed and bolstered for their black gold, then we haven't kicked the Jones, we've just found a new dealer.
- Sam Hopkins
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