AFRICA - Africa’s oil and Africa’s future

Rome (Agenzia Fides)- Pope Benedict XVI’s warning with reward to disregard for the environment and damage caused by the oil rush describe with dramatic precision the situation in Africa where new and old powers fight for control of hydrocarbons.
In his message for World Peace Day 2007, presented today 12 December, the Holy Father writes “Experience shows that disregard for the environment always harms human coexistence, and vice versa. It becomes more and more evident that there is an inseparable link between peace with creation and peace among men. Both of these presuppose peace with God. The poem-prayer of Saint Francis, known as “the Canticle of Brother Sun”, is a wonderful and ever timely example of this multifaceted ecology of peace.”
African areas where oil triggers conflict include Nigeria, Chad and Sudan. In Nigeria recent kidnapping of European oil technicians employed in Niger Delta oil plants highlight not only violence to be condemned but also the destruction of the environment and exploitation of resources and local people denied benefits.
In Chad, recently started oil extraction has been accompanied by intensification of guerrilla activity, sponsored, according to various observers, by local and extra African powers anxious to take control of the local oil deposits. In Sudan the fragile peace between North and South is threatened by possible conflict over oil profit sharing. The conflict in Darfur, several experts say, is motivated by desire to exploit oil reserves hitherto unexploited.
Other African oil producers such as Angola and the Republic of Congo have just come out of terrible wars in which oil was one of the stakes, if not the only one.
Oil when well managed can be for poor countries a springboard for the development. The Catholic Church in Africa has repeatedly urged governments and multi-national oil companies to respect the local people’s right to access the profits obtained by hydrocarbons in the form of school and hospitals and real opportunities for development. Unfortunately in most cases the logic of self interest and violence prevails. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 12/12/2006 righe 37 parole 400)