The United States (US), in its anxious search for energy security, was said to have embarked on a risky strategy to arm and train the militaries of oil-producing countries in West African, as part of an expansion of the Global War on Terror.
Over the past 15 years, amidst a deepening crisis in the Middle East and tightening petroleum markets, the U.S. has quietly institutionalized a West African-based oil supply strategy, closely focused on an “Oil Triangle”, centered around the Gulf of Guinea.
But a new International Policy Report published by the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC, three University of California experts have cautioned against the motives, actions and potential consequences of this strategy, and argued that militarization policies are not only short-sighted but also deeply flawed.
The report, “Convergent Interests: U.S. Energy Security and the Securing of Nigerian Democracy”, written by professors Paul M. Lubeck, Michael J. Watts and Ronnie D. Lipschutz, analyzes the intersection of present and future oil demand, the domestic politics of Nigeria, especially the Delta, and American military policies in Muslim Africa.
The authors are of the view that “Militarization will exacerbate an already tense situation in Nigeria, having nothing to do with terrorism, which has the potential to destabilize the rest of the region.
Only a concerted effort to support Nigeria’s democratic forces and its legislature’s oversight of the country’s presidency can ensure American and Nigerian security interests and quell wholesale theft of oil revenues as well as the insurgencies, criminality and social banditry now rampant in the Delta” the report said.
The Department of Defense, the report said, has decided to establish an African military command�s to spearhead an oil and terrorism policy, which will oversee the deployment of U.S. forces in the area and supervise distribution of money, material and military training to regional militaries and proxies. “Given the internal security problems often found in resource rich countries, it is much more likely that the newly-acquired skills and equipment will be directed against domestic opponents than global terrorists”.
The report revealed as follows; � that the United States is relying on increased oil production from the African Oil Triangle to reduce its dependence on Middle East petroleum, but this could involve replacing one set of insecurities with another.
� the Niger Delta, the source of the majority of the region’s oil and gas production, is a site of on-going and violent contestation between local ethnic groups, oil corporations, and the Nigerian government, resulting in repeated reductions and shutdowns in oil flows. It also noted that the World Bank report disclosed some 80 per cent of Nigeria’s oil monies flow to one percent of the population, while 75 per cent of the country’s people live on roughly one dollar per day .
� American military interest in the Gulf of Guinea has been stoked by the energetic activities of an oil lobbyist whose connections include a Jerusalem-based think tank, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and other neoconservative institutes and consultants .
� Pentagon analysts and generals claim that vast uncontrolled spaces in Saharan and Sahelian Africa are rife with terrorists seeking to damage the United States, even though the evidence for such claims is woefully thin. Nevertheless, a $500 million “Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative” (TSCTI), which will tie African militaries to American policies, is in the works. The Center for International Policy is a non-profit, multi-issue research and advocacy organization that promotes a U.S. foreign policy based on international cooperation, demilitarization and respect for basic human rights.
Feb192007