On Nov 18, 2009, at 3:30 PM, Patrick Bond wrote:
You've got to pay a bit more attention, comrade (debate listserve
and CCS Update redo this info every fortnight or so).
* For Ecuador see http://www.accionecologica.org and learn about
Yasuni.
* In Nigeria the best oil activists are at http://www.eraction.org/
These are the people who came up with the slogans 'keep the oil in
the soil, the coal in the hole, the tar sand in the land'.
A few months ago, I watched a very good documentary about Nigerian
oil, Sweet Crude <http://www.sweetcrudemovie.com/>, and interviewed
its director, Sandy Cioffi, and that's not the impression I got of
what people were saying. This is what I heard instead:
<http://www.sweetcrudemovie.com/politicalAction.php>
It is too easy to spend time in Nigeria and reduce the discussion to
what a mess it all is. We reject that. This is the perfect place to
actually and symbolically overcome the "resource curse."
• The Niger Delta would be demilitarized.
• The environment would be remediated with resources from the sale
of oil.
• Volatility in the region would be reduced. The Niger Delta would
become a stable democracy, anchoring the critical Gulf of Guinea.
• A model would be developed for future negotiated settlements with
groups that in the current climate are dangerously labeled as
terrorists. The IRA became Sinn Fein. MEND is much more interested
in political power than perpetual violence.
• Oil conglomerates would have the incentive to do the right thing.
Company officials admit they need binding agreements to show to
stockholders.
I can't read Spanish, I'm embarrassed to say, so I can't read the
Ecuadorean site. But I see nothing at all on ERA site that says
anything like that slogan. Instead I see:
Thus ERA agrees that:
Sustainable Development
= Participation + Wealth + Knowledge
= Empowerment of Local People
= Conservation
Etc. Otherwise, there's very little on the site on energy issues. Many
of the links produce file not found errors. So could you fill this in
some?
Doug_______________________________________________
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