[No mention of US role in kakistocracy formations; nor the corps
hiring of security firms to lay mines to secure construction zones;
see second piece below article]
full piece at http://www.nytimes.com
May 16, 2001
Chad's Wait for Wealth From Its Oil May Be Long
By NORIMITSU ONISHI with NEELA BANERJEE
KOM�, Chad - A dozen men waited under the one giant tree that stood -
luckily for them, given the brutal midday sun - just across from the
front gate of Exxon Mobil's office here. They were waiting for lunch
time, and one of the new Toyota Land Cruisers carrying an expatriate
boss, who might, at long last, stop at the gate and offer them work.
A couple of them said they had been here nearly three years. None had
worked a single day so far.
Yet many more job-hunters joined them after Oct. 18, the day the
presidents of Chad and Cameroon came here with officials of the World
Bank and a consortium of three of the world's biggest oil companies -
Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Petronas of Malaysia - to begin one of the
biggest projects in African history: a $3.7 billion, 665- mile
pipeline to carry crude oil from landlocked Chad, through neighboring
Cameroon, to the Atlantic coast.
The new arrivals have swelled the population of a village of straw
huts that has sprung up next to the headquarters of the project. Its
hopeful denizens have named the new village �a Attend - It's Waiting,"
in French.
"They tell us to wait - `Wait, wait, be patient' - so we are waiting,"
said Julien Djimasd�, 31, who has stood at the gate every day since
October. "Me? I have not lost hope. We are waiting and hoping that one
day luck will smile on us."
A generation ago, the prospect of oil in a desperately poor former
French colony like Chad would have been regarded as an indisputable
stroke of good luck. But intervening years have bared an enduring
paradox: sudden wealth does not lift poor nations out of their
poverty, but instead creates societies afflicted with a wealthy,
corrupting elite, and widespread poverty that caused endless conflict.
[snip]
http://www.house.gov/mckinney/news/pr010416.htm
Covert Action in Africa:
A Smoking Gun in Washington, D.C.
April 16, 2001
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney OPENING STATEMENT
I want to thank you all for coming today.
I especially want to thank our esteemed speakers for traveling in some
instances quite a long way, to be with us today.
Our speakers are courageous individuals who have gone to many of
Africa's most dangerous and desperately poor locations, not for wealth
or riches, but in order to merely discover the truth. They provide us
with a remarkable insight into what has gone on in Africa and what
continues to go on in Africa today.
Much of what you will hear today has not been widely reported in the
public media. Powerful forces have fought to suppress these stories
from entering the public domain.
Their investigations into the activities of Western governments and
Western businessmen in post-colonial Africa provide clear evidence of
the West's long-standing propensity for cruelty, avarice, and
treachery. The misconduct of Western nations in Africa is not due to
momentary lapses, individual defects, or errors of common human
frailty. Instead, they form part of long-term malignant policy
designed to access and plunder Africa's wealth at the expense of its
people. In short, the accounts you are about to hear provide an
indictment of Western activities in Africa.
That West has, for decades, plundered Africa's wealth and permitted,
and even, assisted in slaughtering Africa's people. The West has been
able to do this while still shrewdly cultivating the myth the that
much of Africa's problems today are African made�we have all heard the
usual Western defenses that Africa's problems are the fault of corrupt
African administrations, the fault of centuries-old tribal hatreds,
the fault of unsophisticated peoples rapidly entering a modern high
technology world. But we know that those statements are all a lie. We
have always known it.
The accounts we are about to hear today assist us in understanding
just why Africa is in the state it is in today. You will hear that at
the heart of Africa's suffering is the West's, and most notably the
United States', desire to access Africa's diamonds, oil, natural gas,
and other precious resources. You will hear that the West, and most
notably the United States, has set in motion a policy of oppression,
destabalisation and tempered, not by moral principle, but by a
ruthless desire to enrich itself on Africa's fabulous wealth. While
falsely pretending to be the friends and allies of many African
countries, so desperate for help and assistance, many western nations,
and I'm ashamed to say most notably the United States, have in reality
betrayed those countries' trust�and instead, have relentlessly pursued
their own selfish military and economic policies. Western countries
have incited rebellion against stable African governments by
encouraging and even arming opposition parties and rebel groups to
begin armed insurrection. The Western nations have even actively
participated in the assassination of duly elected and legitimate
African Heads of State and replaced them with corrupted and malleable
officials. Western nations have even encouraged and been complicit in
the unlawful invasions by African nations into neighboring counties.
These accounts today are a public indictment of European and American
governments and businessmen. Something must be done to right these
wrongs. Something must be done to restore Africa to peace and
prosperity.
I invite you to listen and learn first hand of the West's activities
in Africa.
