[Peace-discuss] Info re. Darfur/Sudan/Somalia

[Morton K. Brussel]

World view

Race for riches is Africa's torment


Daniel Whitaker
Sunday November 12, 2006
The Observer

Somalia and Darfur are the latest unhappy corners of Africa to erupt  
in violence. The dead will join more than five million others who  
have perished in wars in the past bloody decade. Surely, if it was  
any other continent, the world's efforts would be focused on ending  
the carnage. 'But that's how things are in Africa,' many will shrug,  
'still the dark and savage continent.'

This epidemic of war is as destructive as those of Aids and malaria.  
But the chief fuel to this flame is not an innate aggression by  
Africans, as many commentators suggest. Tragically, in most cases, it  
is the blessings bestowed by nature on the continent and the strong  
desire of economically powerful outsiders to get them. Ethnic and  
religious rivalries are real, but too often serve as a smokescreen.

Take the demographic mosaic of Sudan, where there were tensions  
between groups seen as more Arab and more African. But what has most  
made Sudan a violent place has been the discovery of oil. The  
Khartoum government has already lost control of the south, where most  
of its reserves lie. The plains of Darfur have been only partly  
surveyed, but look promising.

The China National Petroleum Corporation bought the rights to Block  
6, the largest oil and gas concession field still controlled by  
Khartoum, which lies mostly in Darfur. Production costs are believed  
to be a bargain 22 cents (less than 12p) a barrel, and with Rolls- 
Royce Marine reportedly supplying tens of millions of dollars worth  
of pumping equipment this summer Block 6 production is alleged to  
have risen from 10,000 to 40,000 barrels a day. Earlier this month  
China's President Hu Jintao spoke forcefully in support of Sudan's  
right to sort out Darfur as it saw fit, while his oil-thirsty country  
is now Sudan's main military supplier. The signals from China's  
recent summit with African leaders are that the Chinese will only  
push harder in future to gain their share of the spoils.

This echoes the first Sudanese civil war. 'Oil has brought death,'  
said Malony Kolang, a chief of the southern Nuer people in 2000.  
'When the pumping began, the war began. Antonov aircraft and  
helicopter gunships began attacking the villages... Everything around  
the oilfields has been destroyed.'

To the east lies Somalia, where the descent into war is portrayed as  
historical enmity between Somalis and their Ethiopian neighbours. Yet  
Ethiopia's Christian regime runs a big risk in its border incursions,  
given that a large portion of its own people are Muslim and of Somali  
descent. The real reason is likely to be that the Ogaden region,  
which borders Somalia, sits on a not yet exploited gas field. The  
Malaysian oil giant Petronas has bought three concession blocks  
there. Addis Ababa fears a resurgent Somalia will seek to annex  
Ogaden. The likely coming war there is in part gas-powered.

The same story is repeated all over Africa. Congo's diamonds and  
cobalt brought a civil conflict bringing in six neighbouring  
countries, though again linguistic and ethnic differences were  
painted as the war's underlying cause. Angola's oil and diamonds  
fuelled its own civil conflict, this time portrayed as an ideological  
dispute between left and right. In Sierra Leone and Liberia it was  
diamonds alone that played such a role. In Nigeria, again, oil. By  
contrast, Africa's countries of quiet stability - such as Senegal,  
Tanzania, Mozambique or Ghana - are those with little to interest the  
prospectors.
Those preferring the explanation of African savagery point to the  
slaughter of Rwanda. But there, too, one of the most under-reported  
tensions behind the conflict was the shortage of valuable grasslands.

Africa faces a wide range of challenges. It is tragic that the  
scramble for its wealth is only adding to them.
· Daniel Whitaker is an economist who has worked in Africa for five  
years
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