Blog
ACAS Blog Series: The Geopolitics of Petroleum
By Meredeth Turshen | 2 June 2009
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.
...read moreAFRICOM and the Geopolitics of African Oil
By Daniel Volman | 2 June 2009
On 1 October 2008, the new Africa Command (AFRICOM) officially became operational as America’s newest combatant command, with its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, to oversee U.S. military activities on the continent. Until the creation of AFRICOM, U.S.-African military relations was conducted through three different commands: the European Command, which had responsibility for most of the continent; the Central Command, which oversaw Egypt and the Horn of Africa region along with the Middle East and Central Asia; and the Pacific Command, which administered military ties with Madagascar and other islands in the Indian Ocean. This reflected the fact that Africa was chiefly viewed as a regional theater in the global Cold War, or as an adjunct to U.S.-European relations, or—as in the immediate post-Cold War period—as a region of little concern to the United States.
From The Geopolitics of Petroleum ACAS Blog Series
...read moreFilm Review: ‘Blood and Oil’
By Mark Major | 2 June 2009
Middle Eastern oil resources have long been considered “a stupendous source of strategic power” by the United States, evidenced by a State Department memo from August 1945. According to progressive energy analyst Michael Klare in the new documentary Blood and Oil, the same oil resources are also a “source of weakness” for the US. Based on Michael Klare’s book of the same name, Blood and Oil examines the relationship between oil and US foreign policy. Serving as the film’s commentator, Klare sheds light on the importance of access and control of oil in presidential doctrines from FDR through the Bush administration. He argues that the control of the world’s energy resources has been foundational to US foreign policy since World War II. Blood and Oil demonstrates how US foreign policy and energy policy are essentially intertwined.
From The Geopolitics of Petroleum ACAS Blog Series
...read moreReader’s Guide: Crude Democracy
By Roy Licklider | 2 June 2009
The central argument of the book is that resource revenues (including but not limited to oil) can support as well as undermine democracy. This, of course, runs directly contrary to the current accepted wisdom of the resource curse, that countries with substantial resources can generate sufficient rents to function as states, often including substantial payoffs to well-connected individuals, without having to get their populations to agree to pay taxes to support them; such efforts would presumably have involved some sort of accountability to the population, leading to democracy.
From The Geopolitics of Petroleum ACAS Blog Series
...read more‘Syriana’ as a Teaching Tool
By Angus Kress Gillespie | 2 June 2009
To my way of thinking, the confusion engendered by the film creates a teachable moment. Many Hollywood films are so straightforward that there is little justification for including them in the college curriculum. But this one is so complex as to be a puzzle, an interesting challenge. By the same token, it creates a real opportunity for the discussion leader to serve a real need, to help the students figure out the puzzle. As a discussion leader, I cannot claim any special brilliance or insight. What gives me the edge is the simple fact of watching the film several times. Each time I watch the film, it becomes a bit clearer. On multiple viewing, there are many “Aha!” moments.
From The Geopolitics of Petroleum ACAS Blog Series
...read more“Everything Must Change So That Everything Can Remain the Same”: Reflections on Obama’s Energy Plan
By Constantine Caffentzis | 2 June 2009
Is President Obama’s oil/energy policy going to be different from the Bush Administration’s? My immediate answer to this prophetic question will be philosophical: a firm “No” and a more hesitant “Yes.” The reason for this ambivalence is simple: the failure of the Bush Administration to radically change the oil industry in its neoliberal image has made a transition from an oil based energy regime inevitable and the Obama Administration is responding to this inevitability. Consequently, we are in the midst of an epochal shift so that an assessment of the political forces and debates of the past have to be revised and held with some circumspection.
From The Geopolitics of Petroleum ACAS Blog Series
...read moreOpen Letter: Rwanda Tribunal Must Prosecute RPF War Crimes
By Meredeth Turshen | 1 June 2009
“The ICTR is to be commended for vigorously prosecuting numerous perpetrators of the 1994 genocide. Yet, despite the UN’s insistence on impartial justice for all international crimes committed in Rwanda in 1994, the ICTR has failed to indict a single RPF soldier for killing civilians during that period. Such one-sided justice stands in sharp contrast to the impartial justice achieved by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which have resolutely prosecuted all sides of those conflicts,” writes more than 70 scholars and human rights advocates in a joint letter calling on the United Nations Secretary General, the US President, and the UK Prime Minister to ensure that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) fulfils its mandate by prosecuting soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) who committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rwanda in 1994.
...read moreAn Open Letter to Amnesty International re: Fathi El Jahmi
By Jacob Mundy | 31 May 2009
“Last year in Crystal City, I listened to your powerful speech, where you talked about standing up for marginalized and oppressed people. Today, I am sad to tell your organization’s credibility has suffered, because your team that had concluded a visit to Libya has betrayed my brother. Instead of holding the Libyan regime accountable for murdering Fathi. It gently asked Mr. Qadhafi’s regime to consider explaining the circumstances of Fathi’s death to his family,” writes Mohamed El Jahmi, brother of deceased Libyan dissident activist Fathi El Jahmi.
...read moreReflections on Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
By ACAS | 29 May 2009
Pambazuka News has a series of articles remembering the life and works of Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem. KPFA’s Africa Today spoke with Prof David Johnson (CUNY) about Tajudeen this week.
...read moreVideo: Shell, Chevron and Nigeria
By Kristin Peterson | 26 May 2009
Today Democracy Now! featured Antonia Juhasz talking about her new report, “The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report”.
...read moreUSA/Africa: Underfunding Global Health
By William Minter | 10 May 2009
President Obama’s global health budget plan, pegged at $63 billion over six years and announced on May 5, one day in advance of the full budget statement, met with predictably mixed responses. The administration spin was that it was a major new commitment to a comprehensive approach; health activist groups charged that it actually marked a cut from prior commitments made in campaign promises and by Congressional pledges.
Zimbabwe: Human Rights Defenders Under Attack - Act Now!
By Africa Action | 5 May 2009
Today the government of Zimbabwe rearrested Jestina Mukoko and 15 others on trumped up charges of “banditry, terrorism and insurgency”. The arrest follows the appearance of Jestina and her comrades before a Harare Magistrate at which they were formally indicted remanded in custody. We cannot be silent in the face of this outrageous attack on human rights defenders. The only crime committed by Jestina Mukoko, a long time civic leader in Zimbabwe and her co-accused is standing up against tyranny in Zimbabwe and speaking out in defense of human rights and democracy. As Martin taught us, it takes the silence of good people for abuses of this nature to persist. We call upon people of good conscience all over the world to add your voice in calling for the unconditional release of Jestina Mukoko and her comrades. Zimbabwe’s compromised courts cannot be trusted to deliver justice to activists who have been targeted and victimized for their principled stand on human rights and democracy. There is no chance for these activists getting a fair trial under the unreconstructed judicial system in Zimbabwe.
Africa: Education on the Brink
By William Minter | 29 April 2009
With the International Monetary Fund gaining new prominence and new resources following last month G20 summit in London, debate is intensifying on to what extent promises for reform in the institution are illusory. In a report released last week, the Global Campaign for Education looked at the implications for education, concluding that so far policy changes by the Fund in response to the global recession are more cosmetic than substantive.
South Africa: Political Liberation, Economic Capitulation
By Khadija Sharife | 28 April 2009
Its that time of year again: shiny posters pasted to lampposts (beckoning people toward the light?); politicians pole dancing for votes, faces (and hands) scrubbed clean of deception; the largely uninformed and inactive flesh-and-blood electorate prying open ‘magic-voting-button’ boxes to retrieve dusty, moth bitten cloaks of idealism, stapled with old newspaper cuttings and dented dreams (its a little banged up, but now is your time!). But the duct tape is coming loose; the dream, unraveling - and this, far from the madding crowd - those swept up in the heady sensationalised narrative of the Mbeki-Zuma drama, fatally reducing the inherited and endorsed economic legacy of apartheid (and often contradictory internal dynamics) to a leadership clash between two pack leaders vying for the alpha or first male’s throne (seated atop the same system, so does it really make a difference?).
...read moreThe Future of the South African Dream: Howard University, April 28
By Sean Jacobs | 20 April 2009
The Future of the South African Dream: Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma and the April 2009 Elections. Tuesday, April 28 2009. 6:30PM - 8:30 PM. At Howard University, Ralph Bunche International Affairs Center. 2218 Sixth Street NW. Washington, DC. 20059. Admission free - All are welcome!
...read moreThe Potomac-SAIS report on North Africa: Paid Analysis, Partisan Fear Mongering, Bad Policy
By Jacob Mundy | 14 April 2009
At the end of March, a relatively obscure Washington, D.C., think tank called the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies published a report — in conjunction with the conflict management program of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University — arguing largely in support of Morocco’s 2007 autonomy proposal to solve the Western Sahara dispute. Framed in terms of US policy towards North Africa (Why the Maghreb Matters), the report is a thinly veiled effort to provide academic and political legitimacy to a one-sided view of the Western Sahara issue. The effects of this partisan bias are quite clear in the report. Yet the arguments suffer from a debilitating series of misrepresentation, fallacies and contradictions. If translated into actual policy, they would prove counter productive at best, disastrous at worst.
...read morePutting Today’s “Pirate” Attack in Context
By ACAS | 9 April 2009
“A US ship, owned by a Pentagon contractor with ‘Top Security’ clearance, was seized off the Somali coast. Reports say the US crew has retaken the ship. But the question remains: Why are the pirates attacking?” writes Jeremy Scahill on his blog.
...read moreThe nuclear chain of command: South Africa and the Bomb
By Khadija Sharife | 7 April 2009
The crash of the Berlin Wall — stripping the apartheid government of the primary pretext sustaining apartheid — and implicit US support, would see Prime Minister de Klerk dismantling the regime’s nuclear programme, employing Dr Wynand Mouton, then-rector of the University of the Free State and retired nuclear physicist, to destroy the body of evidence related to the nuclear programme. No amnesty was required for the estimated 1000 specialists involved in the industry.
...read moreAfrica and the Global Economic Crisis
By William Minter | 2 April 2009
The G-20 have completed their meeting in London today, with a communique promising new action to deal with the global economic crisis. But few, including the participants, are likely to be fully satisfied with the results. And there are parallel discussions taking place not only among protesters but also in multiple other
fora, including the United Nations General Assembly, which some are now referring to as the G-192.
Kenya: Crisis Renewed
By William Minter | 26 March 2009
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a report of the killing of two human rights activists in Kenya early this month, and excerpts from statements on the recent situation in Kenya, both from the March 6 special issue of Pambazuka News “Kenya: The bomb waiting to go off … again,” One is by L. Muthoni Wanyeki, executive director the Kenya Human Rights Commission, and the other a press statement by Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Arbitrary, or Summary Executions.
...read more