2-27-08, 9:10 am
The most recent and failed uprising of opposition groups to the government of Chad is another episode in the drama lived by a people in one of the poorest nations on Earth.
What can we say about the battles that were on the verge of overthrowing the current president, Idriss Deby, the first elected in Western democracy style elections 12 years ago and who comes and goes from power.
The accusation that Sudan supported the most recent armed actions against the government is not very believable when other foreign actors use all types of methods to control the nation’s oil.
On this occasion, France backed the status quo with a European military force, which gave rise to those who assure that 'as long as Chad doesn’t advance and the poverty worsens, Paris will continue propping up and overthrowing presidents via conspiracies and coups.' But the interests of the French are not those that totally dominate in their former colony and the adjacent zones.
THE FOUL SMELL OF OIL
Oil and natural gas are the main fuels that keep today’s world running. No magnet attracts transnational capital more than 'black gold.' No other source tops the fabulous profits and it is the most monopolized of the neoliberal economic system.
The US based Exxon-Mobil is the most notorious in the plundering of resources in the region. 'Blessed' by the World Bank, it led the investments in the 1,050 kilometer Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline, the longest in Sub Saharan Africa —from the Chadian port of Doba to Cameroon’s Kribi—, which transports 225,000 barrels of oil daily since four years ago.
Exxon Mobil and Chevron contribute almost 65 percent of the total capital of US $3.5 billion, while the disastrous situation of the two African countries made it necessary to obtain backing from the World Bank, which gave only US $130 million, only a symbolic 3 percent, because what dominates is the ability to pressure the governments so as to maintain the favorable conditions for exploitation by the big corporations.
The World Bank classified the oil pipeline a Class A project, a category which, in this case, doesn’t rate excellence, but risk. It supported plans which leave important zones of great environmental and cultural value unprotected, favored the destruction of sacred places, principally of the Pygmies of Cameroon who were displaced through coercion with serious damage to their health.
DOUBTFUL BENEFITS
The benefits for the population of Chad, of whom 80 percent live in poverty, are dubious. For example, in Doba, the school that Exxon Mobil had 'donated' three years ago has an enormous hole under the blackboard and the health center lacks basic hygienic conditions and equipment. Likewise, the methods used by the US Company favored the emergence of Mafias, which take half of the worker’s salary.
The oil pipeline, completed in 2004, showed Exxon Mobil and the other companies’ disregard for the affected populations. The benefits that were going to contribute to Chad were estimated at US $3.8 billion in the first ten years, but they became a nightmare for the poorest of the population.
The abuses reached such an extent that small farmers like Andre Deoutal were forced to sell for a pittance the land where his entire family lived. He complained: 'We are poorer that before, prices have risen, the families are broken up,' he told EFE.
In the end the World Bank gave its approval of a project showing the hypocrisy of its discourse about good government, corruption and reducing poverty. It imposed the construction of an oil pipeline that only brought greater wealth to the corporations and the governments in power.
Meanwhile, the battles between the army and the opposition are now history, until the next chapter. What remains is the bleeding of the Chadian population which must repay the huge debt without benefiting from the natural resource belonging to them.
From Granma
