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5 - Conflicts Involving Oil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

Abiodun Alao
Affiliation:
King's College, University of London
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Summary

I have to confess that, if in the past, I ever thought about oil at all, it was only when filling up the car…. But [after my visit to Angola] I now think about oil all the time. There are images from Angola, which I will never forget. Images that are direct consequences of the oil curse…. it is clear that for the curse to become a blessing, people of oil-producing communities must be able to see how much money there is, where it is coming from and where it is going.

Joseph Fiennes

I come from an area where 25% of oil is produced. I should be like a Kuwaiti or Saudi Arabian Prince, moving round Europe and America in beautiful suits and buying gold watches. But who are those doing that: the many compatriots from the arid zones and we are most deprived.

Hope Harriman

Next to solid minerals, the natural resource whose linkage with conflicts has generated perhaps nearly as much interest and attention in Africa is oil. This is due to a number of factors, including the resource's high degree of profitability, the environmental consequences of its exploration, the international nature of its politics, and its role in the ethnopolitical and socioeconomic affairs of the endowed countries. In recent years, however, also important in explaining the recognition accorded to oil, is the string of “sympathies” that seem to be coming to local communities believed to be suffering from the consequences of oil exploration.

Type
Chapter
Information
Natural Resources and Conflict in Africa
The Tragedy of Endowment
, pp. 157 - 206
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2007

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