ACAS Blog Series: The Geopolitics of Petroleum

Some of us working on Africa are finding oil issues very much in the forefront of our interests at the moment, and in academic year 2008-2009 we decided to form a discussion group with faculty and students working on other regions to look at oil and interregional issues of development around petroleum.

Oil issues include a very wide range of problems: food security, scarcity of resources (sometimes referred to as the problem of peak oil), global climatic changes as a result of hydrocarbon consumption, human rights, and resource wars over oil (in Sudan, Chad, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nigeria, and Western Sahara, inter alia). As the price of oil rose to over $100 a barrel last summer, oil issues came to dominate U.S. foreign policy (competition with China for oil, the Bush Administration’s position on Venezuela, and OPEC), as well as domestic policy (tax policy, energy conservation initiatives, preservation of wilderness, etc.). Some issues have been extensively debated (for example, peak oil), but others—such as the impact of the high price of oil on the oil-importing economies of Africa—have scarcely been mentioned in analyses.

We felt the need to understand more fully both the political dynamics of the contemporary struggles over oil and to provide a framework within which governments, local communities and the oil transnationals can all be held accountable for the consequences of their policies. Ultimately, we hoped that our group could lay out for future research some dimensions of a just and responsible political machinery for national and international governance of this central resource. But in the short term we settled for a better understanding of one dimension– how US foreign policy intersects with energy policy–of this multidimensional, multinational issue.

This collection of brief articles represents some of the work of our study group. Comments may be sent to Professor Meredeth Turshen (turshen@rci.rutgers.edu)

Contents

“Everything Must Change So That Everything Can Remain the Same”: Reflections on Obama’s Energy Plan
By Constantine Caffentzis, University of Southern Maine

AFRICOM and the Geopolitics of African Oil.
By Daniel Volman, African Security Research Project

‘Syriana’ as a Teaching Tool
By Angus Kress Gillespie, Rutgers University

Film Review: Michael T. Klare’s Blood and Oil
By Mark Major, Rutgers University

Reader’s Guide: Crude Democracy: Natural Resource Wealth and Political Regimes
By Roy Licklider, Rutgers University

Action Alert: Sudan

From: Sudan Human Rights Organization (SHRO)
Re: Urgent Action re Sudan

A military tribunal in Sudan, which has been set to try 31 persons accused of attempting to overthrow the government, ordered the defense council today to submit their final defense statement immediately. When the defense council asked for time to prepare the statement they were told that the tribunal should finish by the end of the day–and that they will file the trial for judgment whether the defence statement is submitted or not.

The trial of accused persons (army officers and civilians) was seen by many of the observers as flagrant violation to human rights standards due to the fact that it is military court trying civilians and the court sessions were not open to the public. The final development ensures that the court is acting under direct orders from the regime, and that the accused are likely to face a capital punishment.

In light of the appalling human rights record of the current Sudanese regime in general and its brutal treatment to its opposing or suspected opposing military personnel in particular, the Sudan Human Rights Organisation is very concerned about the fate o f the accused persons. SHRO calls upon all governments, human rights activist and organisations to exercise the maximum possible pressure on Sudanese government to stop the murder of the accused persons.

Write to:

Dr Mahdi al amin
Sudan Ambassador to USA
Sudanese Embassy
2210 Massachusettes Ave N.W.
Washington DC 20006
Fax: 202-667-2406 or 202-745-2615

Lt. General Omer Hassan A. al bashir
People’s Palace
P.O. 281
Khartoum sudan

abdel Basit Sabdarat
Attorney General’s Chambers
Khartoum Sudan.

Chief Justice
Judiciary Building
University ave.
Kharoum Sudan

The following are among the accused:

1. Col. Jamal Yousif Mohamed Saleh
2. Lt. Col Al Abbas Ali Al Abbas
3. Lt. Col. Othman Abdel Rahman Hamid
4. Lt. Col. (Navy) Ahmed Mahmoud Mohamed Al Hassan
5. Lt. Col. Ismael Ahmed Mohamed Isawi
6. Lt. Col. Badr Al Din Al Haj
7. Lt. Col. (Engineer) Tarig Mohamed Ahmed Abu Libbda
8. Maj. Al Dardeery Al Haj Ahmed
9. Maj. Camelio Loutari
10. Maj. Salah Hamid Karbous
11. Maj. Al Bashir Hamid Beraima
12. Capt. Ali Ofkash Mohamed
13. Sgt. Maj. Issal Deen Gasmal Seed Mohamed
14. Sgt. Yahiya Dahiya Musa
15. Retired officers:
16. Col. (Ret.) Omar Mohamed Othman Abdel Rahman
17. Col. (Ret.) Fadl Al Seed Abdalla
18. Col. (Ret.) Abdel Marouf Hussein Abdel Rahman\
19. Civilians (never in the military): 20. Al Daawi Ibrahim Al Sheikh
21. Abdel Moneim Hassan Sharwani
22. Salim Borainma Salim
23. Diyab Ibrahim Diyab

Sudan Human Rights Organization: E-mail: shro@dircon.co.uk