Press Responses - June 5, 2000
CBC Commentary
Aired on June 5th, 2000
On April 16th, I joined thousands of others on the streets of Washington, D.C. to protest against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Although set up to eliminate poverty and stabilize the global economy, many people from the right and the left, the North and the South believe that, not only have these institutions failed to make the world a better place, they have made it worse.
The mood in Washington was jubilant. People everywhere, singing, marching, chanting. We want more world and less bank. We want people before profit. Thousands, and not just in Washington, voiced the need for radically different international financial institutions ? institutions that listen to and work on behalf of poor people and the environment. Were we heard by the Bank? Apparently not.
On June 6th, the World Bank is asking its Board, of which Canada is a member, to approve a project to lend half a billion dollars of public money to Exxon-Mobil, Chevron and Petronas for an oil and pipeline project in the West African countries of Chad and Cameroon. Exxon?s CEO is on record saying that poor developing countries cannot afford environmental protection. If they insist on such measures, he threatened, foreign investment might go elsewhere. Chevron, is facing a U.S. court case for human rights abuses committed in Nigeria. Petronas is a partner in an oil project in Sudan, which, according to a recent study commissioned by the Canadian government, is intensifying the 17-year old civil war.
The project will drill 300 oil wells in southern Chad, a war-torn region, and construct a pipeline across ecologically and culturally sensitive areas in Cameroon. The oil is one hundred percent for export to the US and Europe. The World Bank maintains that this investment will address poverty. Royalties from the project will go directly into Cameroon?s budget. Transparency International has rated Cameroon as the most corrupt country in the world, for two years in a row. Chad is in the midst of a civil war. Violence in the project region linked to the prospect of massive oil revenues has left hundreds of people dead, according to Amnesty International.
The oil will be transported in a single hull tanker, when most industrialized countries require double hull tankers to avoid oil spills made famous by Exxon. Other environmental risks associated with the project include that the pipeline will build a road system in what is now largely intact tropical forest, threatening the way of life of indigenous people, popularly known as Pygmies. The pipeline, which will leak like all pipelines, will make 17 major river crossings.
The World Bank is assuring its Board that these issues have been addressed but neither corruption, nor risks involved in developing oil in the midst of war are discussed in the project documents that went to the World Bank Board. Human rights and environmental groups in Chad and Cameroon, supported by international groups, are calling for a moratorium on the consideration of the project until the necessary minimum conditions in terms of good governance, human rights and environmental protections are in place.
Were we heard in Washington? Not by the Bank. But perhaps we were heard by our governments who have the ultimate say on the Chad-Cameroon Oil and Pipeline Project.
Pamela Foster, is the Coordinator of the Ottawa-based Halifax Initiative, a coalition of environment and development organizations concerned about the practices of the World Bank and the IMF.
