[stop-imf] On Chad/Cameroon pipeline unfolding disaster

[Robert Weissman]

A departure from our normal exclusive focus on IMF, here's an op-ed by
friends from today's Washington Post:

washingtonpost.com
Africa's Dangerous Treasure
By Korinna Horta and Delphine Djiraibe
Wednesday, March 10, 2004; Page A29

Recently Chad, one of the poorest nations in Africa, received its first
income from the massive Chad-Cameroon oil and pipeline project, the
continent's largest current investment. That ought to be a good thing.
But unfortunately, oil production in African countries has often
brought, instead of prosperity, greater poverty, destruction of the
environment and violent conflict. All the more reason to wonder what
will happen in Chad, a central African nation governed by a dictatorship
best known for corruption and human rights abuses.

The initial indicators are troubling. Soon after the project's official
inauguration last October, the government closed down the country's only
independent radio station, FM Libert=E9, which had close ties to the
country's human rights organizations. Then residents of the capital
city, Ndjamena, witnessed the first public executions in more than a
decade. According to Chadian human rights advocates, the brief trial of
some of the executed was a sham -- a sad chapter in the power struggle
within the oil sector -- and was meant to send a clear message to
critical voices in the country to be silent or risk their lives.

This oil project was supposed to be different, thanks to an innovative
partnership between the World Bank and an international consortium led
by Exxon Mobil Corp. The consortium made construction of the project
dependent on the World Bank's participation as an insurance policy for
its investments in a region that is a potential political powder keg.
The World Bank, the single largest source of funding for development,
co-financed the project, hailing it as a groundbreaking initiative in
which oil wealth would be translated into direct benefits for the poor,
while any damage to the environment would be repaired.

Citizen organizations pleaded with the World Bank to postpone funding
until Chad had built the capacity and established legal frameworks to
ensure environmental protection, respect for human rights and
transparent management of oil revenue. In response to these protests,
the World Bank called for environmental studies, passage of a law in
Chad to ensure transparency in the use of oil revenue and establishment
of an oversight committee to monitor implementation of the law. These
were indeed innovative and welcome measures.

But Chadian human rights and development organizations feared that these
good intentions alone were insufficient and called for more time to
build government capacity. They also insisted on some solid
demonstration of the government's commitment to reduce poverty.

Their concerns were more than justified. During the construction period,
the World Bank's internal watchdogs and project monitors warned
consistently about serious delays in capacity-building efforts, the lack
of public health studies to monitor the spread of HIV-AIDS and other
infectious diseases along the pipeline route, and the failure to
consider the project's regional environmental impact. Massive migration
to the project area has disrupted local communities. Inflation has led
to the threat of famine, and water and sanitation problems have
endangered public health. Damage to crops, the contamination of water
sources and the chronic problem of dust generated by the massive
transport and construction activities have inflicted further suffering
on an already impoverished countryside.

Despite these serious problems, both the World Bank and Exxon Mobil
continue to tout the Chad project as a model for investments elsewhere.
The World Bank claims that the project is a prototype of a new kind of
extractive program that benefits the poor.

Time is running out for Chad, but it is not too late. Measures to
mitigate the environmental and social problems can still be taken and
have become more pressing as new oil is being discovered in the region
and will eventually flow through the same pipeline.

Most critically, now that oil revenue has begun to arrive in Chad, the
World Bank must use its leverage to ensure that these funds will be used
to improve the well-being of some of world's poorest people. It is also
critical that information on the vast new oil exploration efforts being
undertaken in great secrecy is made public. The World Bank's
institutional slogan is "Our Dream Is a World Without Poverty." It
should not allow the Chad project to turn this sentiment into a sad mockery=
.

Korinna Horta is a senior economist at Environmental Defense in
Washington. Delphine Djiraibe is the director of the Chadian Association
for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights.

                                              =A9 2004 The Washington Post
Company