[Dryerase] The Alarm!--War Notes

[Alarm!Wires]

War Notes
A bi-monthly column following the developments of our new permanent war, 
the war on terrorism

By sasha k
The Alarm! Newspaper Columnist

Nigerian Oil
Nigerian Information Minister Jerry Gana recently said that Nigeria has 
come under US pressure to drop out of OPEC and increase oil output.  
“The United States is trying to put pressure on us.  They are luring us 
to pull out of OPEC.  But we know how our interests would be best served 
and so we are not going to leave OPEC,” Gana told the Associated Press.  
Nigeria is the fifth largest exporter of oil to the United States.  With 
the growing likelihood of a US-instigated war in the Middle East, the US 
is trying to decrease its reliance on Middle East oil producers by 
importing more oil from other sources, like Nigeria. OPEC, which sets 
production quotas for member nations, stands in its way.  Rilwanu 
Lukman, the Nigerian presidential advisor on oil, said that if the oil 
cartel collapsed, the price of oil could drop from the current 
twenty-five dollars a barrel to as low as ten dollars a barrel.  
Nigeria, along with Algeria, recently complained to OPEC that its quota 
was too low.

Oil production in Nigeria has been a brutal affair for many of Nigeria’s 
citizens.  Little of the $20 billion that Nigeria makes from oil each 
year ever reaches the inhabitants of the regions from which the oil 
comes.  But people are fighting back.  Oil facilities have been 
sabotaged and Western and Nigerian oil workers have been kidnapped in 
attempts to extort payment from the oil producers.  In July, a group of 
women, tired of waiting for clean water, electricity and other needs, 
seized a series of ChevronTexaco facilities, paralyzing the producer’s 
Nigeria operations.  One facility is still occupied.  “Everybody’s 
copying each other,” a ChevronTexaco spokesperson said in reaction to 
the widespread and effective protests. Because of the sabotage and 
violence, international oil companies such as ChevronTexaco, Exxon Mobil 
and Royal-Dutch Shell are trying to move their oil extraction facilities 
off shore.

This week, the body of Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by the Nigerian 
government in 1995, was found.  Saro-Wiwa helped organize resistance to 
oil production and pollution in the land of the Ogoni, a minority group 
in Nigeria.  The Ogoni protests caused Royal-Dutch Shell to withdraw 
from Ogoniland in 1993.  They have yet to return.

Oil, Oil and More Oil
The April coup attempt in Venezuela was quite likely also part of a 
long-term US strategy to gain control over the world’s oil supply.  Oil, 
of course, plays a key role in the US conflict with Iraq.  Up until 
1972, the US and British—the only two nations clamoring for war with 
Iraq—controlled seventy-five percent of Iraqi oil.  But the Ba’ath Party 
(the political party of Saddam Hussein) nationalized Iraqi oil in 1972.  
This nationalization of the Iraqui oil supply has been a key factor in 
the formation of US policy on the region ever since, including the 1991 
Gulf War and the continuing sanctions.  If the US were to allow 
sanctions to be lifted without a regime change in Iraq, the French, 
Russians and Chinese—who have maintained good diplomatic relations with 
Saddam Hussein’s government—would be the beneficiaries of the oil 
development and trade agreements they have with Iraq. US and British oil 
companies would be left out in the cold.

More criticism
The pull the US has had over other countries because of the September 11 
attacks is wearing off.  Shortly after US Secretary of State Colin 
Powell visited Malaysia, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, 
considered a key ally in the US war on terrorism in Asia—the so-called 
second front—criticized the US led “war on terrorism.”  While Mahathir 
is very critical of terrorism and has detained scores of suspected 
Islamic militants without trial, he said that a war on terrorism cannot 
be fought like a conventional war. Mahathir said that instead the root 
causes of terrorism must be dealt with.  Mahathir has always been a very 
sharp critic of US-led development and economic strategies.  
“Globalization and free trade along with democracy are being touted as 
the saviors of the world and in particular the poor,” said Mahathir. 
“But” he continued “our experience up ‘til now is that we are being 
destabilized and robbed.”  Linking terrorism and globalization, Mahathir 
went on to say that countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America were 
“terrified of being colonized once again through economic 
pressure....They are being terrorized in the same way that the 
terrorists are threatening the world.”  But instead of helping poor 
countries, the rich spend billions of dollars on defense. The root 
causes of terrorism—poverty and disenfranchisement—are not addressed by 
this system.

Indonesia Update
After Malaysia, Powell went on to Indonesia and announced that the Bush 
administration was going to push Congress to lift restrictions on US 
military aid and ties with Indonesia.  The restrictions were put in 
place in 1999, after the army committed human rights atrocities in East 
Timor, now an independent country. Congress is likely to follow the 
administration’s suggestion.

The administration has also taken the extraordinary step of asking a 
federal judge to block a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil for alleged human 
rights abuses in Indonesia, claiming that such a lawsuit could undermine 
the “war on terrorism.”  The lawsuit was filed by the US-based 
International Labor Rights Fund for eleven villagers from Aceh, in 
northern Sumatra.  It contends that Exxon Mobil knew of human rights 
abuses committed by Indonesian military guards it hired at its Aceh 
facility.

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