EQUIPO NIZKOR |
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06Oct04
An African microstate confronts the curse of oil.
Visiting Sao Tomé and Principe, it is hard to imagine that this two-island microstate in the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of West Africa, is the epicenter of the world's next oil boom.
The 140,000 citizens here, mostly fisherman and cocoa farmers, are among the poorest people in the world. Most subsist on the equivalent of less than $1 a day and live in shanties with no electricity or running water. Malaria is rampant. The government, virtually bankrupt and crippled by foreign debt, can do little.
Yet President Fradique de Menezes looks at the surrounding equatorial waters and dreams of the four billion barrels of oil that may lie beneath, which could give his country one of the world's highest per capita incomes.
"We have come late to the oil business," he recently told a group of visiting American business executives. But Menezes imagines this former Portuguese colony as Dubai, Taiwan and Diego Garcia wrapped into one.
Like Dubai, Sao Tomé could become a regional trade hub. Like Taiwan, it is an island nation that could become an economic engine by reinvesting in its people.
Like Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the strategically positioned Sao Tomé could be vital as Washington increasingly deals with what General James Jones, the commander of U.S. European Command, which covers most of Africa, calls the continent's "large ungoverned regions." Jones's deputy, General Charles Wald, says Sao Tomé could be an ideal site for a so-called temporary Forward Operating Location from which U.S. forces could jump to regional hot spots like Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia.
The United States already projects itself across Africa through a Voice of America transmission station on Sao Tomé. The Americans are studying how to expand the tiny airport and dredge a deep water port. Menezes, who was briefly deposed in a bloodless coup last year, makes no secret of his desire for a U.S. security umbrella. "We are a tiny island with big neighbors," he says. "We welcome the Americans."
The Americans could not come too soon. West Africa already provides 15 percent of U.S. crude imports, which should increase to 25 percent within 10 years.
So how can Sao Tomé and its gulf neighbors seize the potential and avoid the perils of their oil boom?
First, security. "If you don't protect your wealth, you are not safe," General Wald [US European Command Deputy Commander] tells regional leaders. The United States is already training African forces in counterterrorism and peacekeeping [sic], but West Africa's small navies are dilapidated. The Nigerian Navy was embarrassed recently when a 12,000-ton tanker seized for smuggling, the African Pride, simply vanished from a Nigerian port.
U.S.-Nigerian naval exercises in September should be the beginning of a major U.S. effort to train and equip local defense forces. To ensure professional militaries, funding for International Military Education and Training should be increased. With American help, gulf countries should establish a regional coast guard to protect offshore rigs and shipping routes.
[Source: By Stanley A. Weiss, International Herald Tribune, Sao Tomé and Principe, 06Oct04. Stanley A. Weiss is founder and chairman of Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan Washington-based organization. This is a personal comment.]
 | This document has been published on 20Oct04 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. |