Crude World (36 page)

“Has just devoured”:
See “Where Coup Plots Are Routine, One That Is Not,”
New York Times
, March 20, 2004.

At the outset, the American companies:
See IMF report issued in October
1999, “Equatorial Guinea: Recent Economic Developments,” p. 18. Copy posted at
www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/1999/
cr99113.pdf
.

He bought, for $55 million:
See “Teodoro Obiang s’offre un palace volant,”
Afrique Centrale
, January 10, 2004, and Roberts,
Wonga Coup
, p. 51.

His indulgences were almost modest:
See “Malibu Bad Neighbor,”
L.A. Weekly
, January 18, 2007.

For a weeklong Christmas cruise:
For a dispatch on the cruise, see
New York Daily News
, August 16, 2006.

It should be noted that Teodorin’s official salary:
For details on Teodorin Obiang’s salary and other financial details, see the written testimony of Arvind Ganesan, of Human Rights Watch, to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, September 24, 2008. Copy posted at
www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/
testimonycfm?id=3572&wit_id=7452
.

More than a decade after:
On malnourishment, see “The Boom That Only Oils the Wheels of Corruption,” by Cesar Chalala,
International Herald Tribune
, August 6, 2004.

“The staggering increases on paper”:
See Jedrzej George Frynas, “The Oil Boom in Equatorial Guinea,” African Affairs, volume 103, number 413, p. 540, published in October 2004.

“We hope this letter finds you well”:
Contents of the letter were detailed at the hearing and a copy of the letter was provided to the author. The financial details of Obiang’s accounts at Riggs come from the previously cited Senate report, “Money Laundering and Foreign Corruption.
”

“Sir,” Kareri wrote:
A copy of the letter was provided to the author.

The president’s playboy son:
See “African Minister Took Cut of Oil Contracts,”
Financial Times
, October 25, 2006.

He noted that he was:
According to a copy of the affidavit received by the author. In “African Minister Took Cut of Oil Contracts,”
Financial Times
reported on the affidavit.

“by far the most generous”:
See previously cited IMF report “Equatorial Guinea: Recent Economic Developments.”

And often, in Equatorial Guinea:
See the IMF report “Republic of Equatorial Guinea: 2003 Article IV Consultation—Staff Report,” p. 11. Copy posted at
www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2003/
cr03385.pdf
.

“A significant earner of income”:
See the previously cited Senate Permanent Subcommittee Report on Investigations, p. 50.

When its report was published:
The hearing was held on July 15, 2004.

Those sessions were private:
The meeting took place on April 12, 2006, in

Washington, D.C. 48
A torturer was receiving:
See “Mba’s House: Bush Administration Renting Embassy Property from Known Torturer,” posted at
Harpers.org
on October 25, 2006.

3 Rot

Even Senegal:
Haiti and Congo ranked higher than Nigeria in a United Nations survey of human development. As Michael Watts of the University of California at Berkeley noted in “Sweet and Sour,” a paper published in 2008 by the Institute of International Studies at UC-Berkeley, “According to former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, at least $100 billion of the $600 billion in oil revenues accrued since 1960 have simply ‘gone missing.’ Nigerian anti-corruption czar Nuhu Ribadu claimed that in 2003 70percent of the country’s oil wealth was stolen or wasted; by 2005 it was ‘only’ 40 percent. By most conservative estimates, almost $130 billion was lost in capital flight between 1970 and 1996. Over the period 1965-2004, the per capita income fell from $250 to $212 while income distribution deteriorated markedly. Between 1970 and 2000, the number of people subsisting on less than one dollar a day in Nigeria grew from 36 percent to more than 70 percent, from 19 million to a staggering 90 million. Over the last decade GDP per capita and life expectancy have, according to World Bank estimates, both fallen. The Bank put it this way in 2007: ‘Per capita GDP in PPP [purchasing power parity] terms fell 40 percent from $1,215 in
1980
to $706 in 2000. Income poverty rose from 28.1 percent to 65.5 percent and other indicators of welfare—notably access to education and health—also declined.’ According to the United Nations Development Program, Nigeria ranks in terms of the Human Development Index—a composite measure of life expectancy, income, and educational attainment—number 158, below Haiti and Congo.”

The World Bank estimates:
See “Worse Than Iraq?,”
Atlantic Monthly
, April 2006.

A few years ago:
See the Human Rights Watch report, “Criminal Politics,”
footnote on p. 49. Copy posted at
www.hrw.org/en/reports/2007/10/08/
criminal-politics
.

As for the money:
See the International Crisis Group report “Nigeria: Want in the Midst of Plenty,” published July
19
, 2006. Posted at
www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4274
.

This is known, in economics:
For more details on the Dutch disease and its solutions, see Joseph Stiglitz’s “We Can Now Cure Dutch Disease,” the
Guardian
, August 18, 2004, and Christine Ebrahim-Zadeh’s “Dutch Disease: Too Much Wealth Managed Unwisely,”
Finance and Development
, March 2003, as well as Paul Collier’s
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It
, pp. 38–40.

“Oil kindles extraordinary emotions and hopes”:
Ryszard Kapuscinski,
Shah of Shahs
,
P. 35
.

His revolt was crushed in twelve:
For a description of Boro’s rebellion, including the use of Shell’s boats, see Karl Maier’s
This House Has Fallen: Midnight in Nigeria
, pp
. 122
–125, and John Ghazvinian’s
Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil
, p. 24.

In 1994, as martial law:
See “Nigeria Crude: A Hanged Man and an Oil-Fouled Landscape,” by Joshua Hammer,
Harper’s Magazine
, June 1996. Hammer notes that Saro-Wiwa’s comment was in response to a leaked memo from the Nigerian military that stated, “Shell operations still impossible unless ruthless military operations are undertaken for smooth economic activities to commence … Recommendations: Wasting operations during MOSOP [Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People] and other gatherings making constant military presence justifiable. Wasting targets cutting across communities and leadership cadres especially vocal individuals of various groups.”

With casually violent ways:
See “Nigeria’s Trigger Happy Police,” BBC May
11
, 2001. Posted at
www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/
1322017.stm
.

“Dependence on primary commodities”:
The report by Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “Greed and Grievance in Civil War,” was published in
Oxford Economic Papers
54 (2004), pp. 563–95. Collier’s description of the findings is contained in a paper, “Economic Agendas of Civil Wars,” which he presented at a November 30, 2001, meeting in Bonn, Germany, convened by the German Foundation for International Development and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

A dozen people were reported killed:
My description of the fighting in
Tombia comes from a variety of sources, including local residents and the following news stories: “Self-styled Rebel Seeks Independence for Oil-Producing Niger Delta,” published on July 16, 2004, by IRIN, the United Nations-affiliated news agency; “Villagers Flee Troops, Militia Fighting Near Nigerian Oil City,” by Dulue Mbachu, Associated Press, September 10, 2004; and “Politics of Oil Inflame Age-old Delta Hatreds,” by Dudley Althaus, Houston
Chronicle
, December 17, 2004.

According to a joint report:
See “Strategic Gas Plan for Nigeria,” a joint report published in February 2004 by the UNDP and World Bank Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme. Posted at
www.esmap.org/filez/pubs/58200861713_
strategicgasplanfornigeria.pdf
.

According to official statistics:
Cited in “Curse of the Black Gold,” by Tom O’Neill,
National Geographic
, February 2007.

Throughout the delta:
For a description of bunkering and the amounts of oil involved, see the Human Rights Watch report “The Warri Crisis: Fueling Violence,” published December 17, 2003, and posted at
www.hrw.org/en/node/12203/section/i
. It states, “Theft of crude oil, known as illegal oil bunkering, accounts for perhaps 10 percent of Nigeria’s daily production and is a highly organized operation. Governor Ibori has stated that as much as 300,000 bpd [barrels per day] (or 15 percent of production) are lost because of bunkering activities. The major oil companies operating in Nigeria have stated that this is likely an overestimate; for the whole Niger Delta, illegal oil bunkering probably reaches a maximum 150,000 or 200,000 bpd. But these figures also fluctuate significantly, responding to periodic efforts to police the riverine areas more effectively. There are other claims that the theft of oil is greatly underreported, reaching more than 250 million barrels for the year 2002 (that is, more than 650,000 bpd). The illegally bunkered oil is sold to refineries in Nigeria, in nearby West African states (including Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon), or further afield.”

Two navy admirals:
See “Nigerian Admirals Pay the Price for Stealing Captured Oil Tanker,” London
Times
, January 8, 2005.

Shell faced a public relations disaster:
A lawsuit against Shell is nearing trial in a federal court in New York. The suit accuses Shell of encouraging systematic human rights violations in Nigeria. See “14 Years After Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Death, Family Points Finger at Shell in Court,”
The Guardian
, May 27, 2009. Shell denies the accusations. The company has stated that
before Saro-Wiwa’s 1995 trial, “We said Ken Saro-Wiwa had a right to freely hold and air his views. After the trial verdict was announced, we said publicly that carrying out the death penalty would damage the process of reconciliation in Ogoni land.” Shell’s statement is available at
www.shell.com/home/content/nigeria/
about_shell/issues/human_rights/
hum_rights.html
.

The report was remarkable:
Shell has not published an official version of the report, but the leaked draft is widely available on the Internet. National Public Radio has posted a copy at
www.npr.org/documents/ 2005/aug/shell_wac_report.pdf
.

In MEND’s first months:
See “Nigerian Militants Free Italian, Hold Three Other Foreigners,” Agence France Presse, January 18, 2007; “In Nigeria’s Violent Delta, Hostage Negotiators Thrive,” by Chip Cummins,
The Wall Street Journal
, June 7, 2007; “The Risk Premium,” by Mimi Swartz,
Texas Monthly
, June 2008; and “Blood Oil,” by Sebastian Junger,
Vanity Fair
, February 2007.

4 Contamination

It is an irony:
For an excellent review of the link between oil roads and deforestation, see “Causes and Consequences of Deforestation in Ecuador,” published in 2001 by the Center for the Investigation of Tropical Rainforests. The study notes, “Since the early 1970s about 30 percent of the Ecuadorian Amazon has been deforested and/or polluted and entire indigenous cultures, such as the Cofan and Huaorani, have been placed in danger of extinction as a result of the oil industry and accelerated colonization facilitated by the oil roads.” Copy posted at
www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/
jefferson.htm
.

More than 18 billion gallons:
Texaco, which is now owned by Chevron, has an extensive Web site that offers the company’s account of what happened; it’s located at
www.chevron.com/ecuador/
. The company’s principal opponents have their own Web site, located at
www.chevrontoxico.com
.

The first offering from Texaco:
See “Tribe Members Didn’t Resist Gifts of Food, Fuel,” in
Newsday
, May 22, 2005.

“complete autonomy”:
A copy of the affidavit was provided to the author.
See also “Ecuadoreans Want Texaco to Clear Toxic Residue,”
New York Times
, February 1, 1998.

Thanks to oil:
See “Drilling into Debt,” published in 2005 by Oil Change International.

Instead of investing:
The default in 1999 was for reasons of poverty—Ecuador’s strapped government did not have the funds to meet its debt obligations. In 2008, the problem wasn’t money as much as law and politics—President Rafael Correa described the debts as “immoral and illegitimate” because, his administration said, they were negotiated on unfair terms and without proper authorization. See “Correa Defaults on Ecuador Bonds, Seeks Restructuring,” by Stephan Kueffner,
Bloomberg
, December 12, 2008, and “Ecuador’s Debt Default: Exposing a Gap in the Global Financial Architecture,” by Neil Watkins and Sarah Anderson,
Foreign Policy in Focus
, December 15, 2008.