April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

"Since you believe so deeply in the moral solvency of President Obiang,
who has been in power since 1979, we fervently request that you exert
some influence and take steps towards the formation of a government of
transition; one in which those who have held positions in the last 32 years
in Equatorial Guinea must not take any part.
"This is not a political demand, as it might seem to you, but a socially and
morally driven one. We cannot continue living under a dictatorship that
eats away at our very souls.
"Mr. Bono, all we are asking is that you find asylum in a safe country for
Obiang, his son Teodorin, first lady Constancia, and his brothers and
cousins, the generals and colonels who maintain this unspeakable regime.
We believe that one-third of the money that any one of them has
deposited in banks abroad would be enough to support themselves for the
rest of their days. The remaining sum has to be returned to the country."
The letter ends with a painful plea for intervention: "Mr. Bono, it is not
fair for me to put my life in your hands. I will not deny, however, that
whatever happens to me will depend in great measure on what you do."
GADDAFI'S OILY STAND AND NEO-PHILANTHROPISTS
The events in North Africa and in the Middle East clearly highlight the fact
that crude oil has been largely responsible for the entrenchment of crude
regimes in the region.
This is particularly visible in Libya where the man who has been in power
for over four decades clings on, threatens to cleanse the country of
protesters house to house and if necessary blow up the oil and gas fields of
the country.
This threat has introduced a new dimension to the volatility of crude oil
supply and threatens to push prices to record high. Call him what you like,
but Mr. Gaddafi and his cohorts have fed from the feeding bottle of crude
oil and taking that from them without a period of weaning is bound to
result in the slaughter and tantrums that is the hall mark of the regime in
Tripoli.
A quick look back at the third week of February 2011 shows that as we saw
a fine being slammed on the oil giant, Chevron, for polluting the
Amazonian region of Ecuador, we heard of the company's philanthropic
move in the Niger Delta.
The gesture is a clear case of philanthropic tokenism. It appears that
Chevron sought to draw attention away from the long-awaited verdict from
Ecuador by moving across the Atlantic and displaying a suspect front of
compassion in the bloodstained and oil soaked creeks of the Niger Delta.
The link and the timing are inescapable.
The company announced with much fanfare a splash of $50 million,
ostensibly to ignite economic development and tackle conflict in the
region - of which, it must be said, the company admitted to being a
contributor in the past.
The money is being funnelled through the company's Niger Delta
Partnership Initiative and the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) and will be spent over the next four years. The
thrust will obviously be to generate employment since the oil company
hires only a tiny fraction of the millions it has impoverished through the
destruction of the creeks, swamps, farmlands and forests that they depend