hope & oil expectations in são tomé e principe

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Review of African Political Economy No. 117:467-521 ROAPE Publications Ltd., 2008

BriefingsMining Investment &Community StrugglesDaniel Owusu-Koranteng

Dependence on the mineral sector iscentral to economic reforms in Africa.These reforms have the objective of in-creasing economic growth and reducingpoverty. Mineral endowed countries suchas Ghana have been successful in at-tracting foreign direct investment (FDI)to the mineral sector through liberalisa-tion of mining codes, which providegenerous concessions to foreign multi-national mining companies. UNCTAD(2005) indicates that a large proportionof FDI to Africa has gone into the miningsector with the continent attracting min-ing investment to the tune of $15 billionin 2004. This represented 15% of theglobal total and a considerable increaseof 5% from the mid-1980s.

According to Kwasi Barning (n.d.) for-eign exchange earnings from mineralproduction in Ghana increased from$108 million in 1985 to $710 in 1999.This could be attributed to the gold pricehikes, reforms of the mining regulatoryframework of Ghana, which providedmining companies generous tax exemp-tions, facilities for profit repatriation andstability of investment. Mining districtssuch as the Wassa West District becamethe location of eight multinational sur-face mining companies from the late1980s.

Gold Mining in Ghana TheJungle Booms

The gold industry goes through boomand bust cycles. Ghana has experiencedthree gold rushes in periods described asJungle Booms. These were:

1st Jungle Boom: 1892 and peaking in1897. It marked the period of indus-trial mining in Ghana in places likeTarkwa, Obuasi, Konongo and Pres-tea. The resistance against Britishdomination during the Yaa AsantewaaWar disrupted the 1st boom in 1901;

2nd Jungle Boom: from 1925 when ef-forts were being made to revive theeconomic distress associated with theWorld War One. Also disrupted byWorld War Two from 1939;

3rd Jungle Boom started in the mid-1980s as part of the efforts to addresseconomic decline of the early 1970s.

Conditions for the 3rd Jungle Boom in-clude but are not limited to:

Economic decline and debt burden; High Gold prices; Privatisation of state gold mining con-

cerns; Technology for mining low grade ore

and adopting cost effective modes ofmining; for instance, changing fromunderground mining to surface min-ing;

Neo-Liberal economic policies; Strong desire of government to attract

FDI through generous incentives, e.g.AngloGold Ashanti and NewmontGhana Gold Limited have negotiateda retention of 80% of gross mineralsales in off-shore accounts;

ISSN 0305-6244 Print, 1740-1720 Online/08/030467-55DOI: 10.1080/03056240802411115

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468 Review of African Political Economy

Weak environmental standards; Incentives for attracting multinational

mining companies; Weak and liberal regulatory frame-

work which allowed repatriation ofprofits; stability agreements; low roy-alty payments and tax exemptions;over protection for foreign companiesin cases of disputes; poor compensa-tion payment regimes and relativelylower remuneration for employees.

Regulatory Frameworks & theChallenges to Community Rights

The weak environmental standards helpmining companies to externalise envi-ronmental cost, which helps companiesto maximise profits. There are no legallybinding environmental standards; EPAaccepts that there are no laws on cyanidespillages.

Inadequate protection of community rightsin the mining law. For example, whilstthe 1992 Constitution of Ghana makesprovision for citizens to go to the HighCourt on original Jurisdiction on Com-pensation issues, in the case of mining,compensation grievances are supposedfirst to be made to the Minister responsi-ble for mines without direct recourse tothe High Court.

Section 20 of the constitution states thatRecords, documents and informationfurnished or attained should be treatedas confidential and shall not be divulgedwithout the written consent of the holder.This section gives blanket confidential-ity to all information including informa-tion on mining impacts on communitiesand the environment. It thus makes itdifficult for the public to have access toreports such as Environmental Auditreports.

The Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act703) gives the power to the President toacquire land for mining through com-pulsory acquisition or to authorise itsoccupation and use (Section 2 of Act703).

The Challenge to Development& Governance

The expectation is that the success inattracting FDI in the mining sector wouldcontribute to economic development ofGhana and improve the living condi-tions of mining communities.

The UNDP concept of development statesthat the basic objective of human devel-opment is to enlarge the range of peopleschoices to make human development moredemocratic and participatory. These choicesshould include access to income andemployment opportunities, educationand health and clean and safe physicalenvironment. Each individual should alsohave the opportunity to participate fullyin community decisions and to enjoyhuman, economic and political freedoms(UNDP, 1991).

The 1992 Constitution of Ghana guaran-tees property ownership by individualcitizens whilst mineral ownership isvested in the President of the Republic ofGhana. It is the inalienable right ofmining communities to use their landsand resources for economic and socialwellbeing in the context of the UNDPconcept of development.

The mining problem raises the constitu-tional issue of compulsory acquisition ofcommunity lands and properties to beappropriated by private mining compa-nies. Another issue is the appointment ofParliamentarians in mining areas toserve as members of the Board of Direc-tors of mining companies. Parliamentar-ians who have a constitutional mandateto serve the interest of their electorateswork instead to serve corporate interest.

Surface mining is an enclave economicactivity. It is predatory on other sectors ofthe economy. It leads to the loss of land-based economic activities because of thecompetition between farming and sur-face mining for land. Newmonts Ahafomine would displace about 20,000 farm-

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ers at the end of the first and secondphases of the mines operations. Theoperations of Goldfields Ghana Limiteddisplaced 30,000 people in 5 years in thelate 1980s. Low compensation paymentand loss of incomes demonstrates theeconomic phenomenon often describedas the Dutch disease. For example,Newmont paid 69,000 cedis (about $8)for a Cocoa tree to Cocoa farmers inKenyase when a Cocoa tree can earn afarmer about half a bag of Cocoa beansfor a year (about $25 per year) and theeconomic life of a Cocoa tree is between40 and 50 years.

Notwithstanding the failures of compen-sation to adequately account for the lossof assets and earnings government ofGhana officials and mining companyexecutives argue strongly that the ben-

efits of mining outweigh the costs. Thebenefits include:

Payment of royalties: Companies pay3% of gross minerals mined as royal-ties but we need to note that theMining Law sets the royalty paymentat 3-6% of the value of gross mineralsmined;

Mining accounts for about 38% of thecountrys foreign exchange earningsand yet its contribution to GDP is 5-6%. Contribution of gold productionto GDP is far less at about 1.8%;

Payment of Income tax;

Mining employs about 15,000-18,000people which is less than 1% of the totalworkforce in the country (TUC, 2007);

Figure 1: Map of Gold Deposits in Ghana

Briefings: Mining Investment & Community Struggles 469

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Mineral revenues: UNCTAD (2005)noted that from total mineral revenueof about $870 million in 2003, only$46.7 million, or 5%, was retained inthe Ghanaian economy. NewmontsAhafo mine, for instance, would con-tribute $300 million in 20 years to theeconomy of Ghana but the annualgold production for Ahafo mine is500,000 ounces at a production cost of$250 per ounce. In 2008 the gold pricebroke the $1,000 barrier;

Corporate Social Responsibility ofmining companies: Private EnterprisesFoundation (PEF) estimates that cor-porate bodies spend 0.5-1% of profitafter tax on CSR.

Land Use Conflicts

One of the most significant areas ofconflict between mining companies andlocal communities relates to land. Thecompulsory acquisition of large tracts ofindigenous lands for surface miningoperations has unleashed many landuse conflicts. Surface mining operationsare undertaken in rural communitieswhere the people are predominantlyfarmers. Some of the consequences ofmining investment to Ghana include:

Social disruption; Capital flight; Displacement of communities; Resettlement/Relocation problems; Low compensation; Land use conflicts; Loss of biodiversity; Environmental degradation; Increased diseases; Pollution of water bodies; Cyanide spillages: there had been

about 13 officially reported cyanidespillages since the 3rd Jungle boom;

Destruction of sacred/cultural sites; Human rights abuses;

Mine Legacies

Creation of ghost towns; Problems of rock waste dumps and

abandoned pits; Acid mine drainage; Socio-economic problems of resettled

communities; Water stress, e.g. in Dumase the opera-

tions of Golden Star Resources hadkilled 6 streams and the communitysurvives on water supplied by thecompany.

Challenges in Mining Advocacy

The capacity gap between miningcommunities and multinational min-ing companies;

Lack of organisation for mining com-munities;

The tendency of government agenciesto protect corporate interest as againstthe sovereign rights of citizens andmining communities;

Weak legal framework for mining;weak environmental standards; weakregulatory institutions;

Attraction of mining investment inAfrica the race to the bottom;

Intimidation of communities whichresult in the loss of confidence instruggles to protect community rights;

Difficulties in using the judicial sys-tem to redeem community rights. Thecase of forced eviction brought up bythe people of Nkwantakrom againstAngloGold Ashanti, Iduapriem minehas been in court for almost 10 years;

The tendency of research/academicinstitutions and experts to serve cor-porate interests;

Pushing neo-colonial policies as de-velopment agenda to exploit develop-ing countries and deliberatelybranding mining advocacy groups asanti-development agents;

Intimidation of activists and resourceconstraints.

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Interventions of WACAM

WACAM is a community-based HumanRights and Environmental mining advo-cacy NGO working to build the capacityof mining communities to have effectiveengagement with multinational miningcompanies. Our organisation had organ-ised communities affected by surfacemining operations around their criticalissues of concern and engaged in advo-cacy and campaigns for the protection ofthe rights of mining communities. Ourinterventions include:

Understanding the struggle and de-veloping the appropriate strategies toempower communities for effectiveparticipation in decisions affectingthem. Information and education astools for empowerment of affectedpeople;

Addresses weak capacities of commu-nities through sensitisation usingRBA;

Formation of community groups toaddress lack of organisation and tobetter articulate communities view/concerns;

Development of youth programmes;

Using community concerns to buildcampaigns at the local, national andinternational levels

Use of courtroom advocacy to redeemrights and test the efficacy of laws/regulations;

Policy advocacy based on communi-ties concerns e.g. mining law reformsand mineral policy for Ghana;

Figure 2: Demonstration by Student Activists, WACAM &Community People Against Newmont in Accra

Briefings: Mining Investment & Community Struggles 471

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Amplifying the voice for the miningcommunities through mediasensitisation and developing linksbetween the media and affected peo-ple.

Community struggles had raised na-tional awareness on mining issues andalso influenced public opinion. Somecomments of important institutions andindividuals on the mining situation inGhana had been captured as follows:

Prof. Kassim Kasanga, an eminent valua-tion Consultant, Land Economist, formerChairman of Land Valuation Board andformer Minister for Lands and Forestrystated in a presentation in 1997 and 2002that there is injustice in the payment ofcompensation by mining companies tomining communities.

The former Minister for Mines, MrsCecilia Bannerman was reported to havesaid that Ghana had run short of gold to beused by the local jewellery industry, inspite of the gold boom (Daily Graphic, 11November 2004).

According to the TUC (2007), miningemploys about 15,000-18,000 people whichis less than 1% of the total workforce in thecountry but causes employment lossesthrough displacement of communities.

Mineral revenues: UNCTAD (2005) men-tioned that out of a total mineral revenue ofabout $870 million generated in 2003, thegovernment of Ghana earned only $46.7million representing 5%.

H.E. Mary Robinson (Former UN HighCommissioner for Human Rights andFormer Prime Minister of Ireland) inNovember 2006 at the UN Global Com-pact meeting in Ghana expressed worryabout the minimal benefits of mining toGhana and human rights abuses/viola-tions in mining communities.

H.E. Vice President of Ghana on 15January 2007 expressed concern about

the minimal benefits from the miningsector to Ghana at the internationalmeeting of the Extractive Industry Trans-parency Initiative (EITI) in Accra.

H.E. the President of the Republic ofGhana in May 2007 was reported in theDaily Graphic that there was the need tochange the mining policy of Ghana to makemining beneficial to the country.

President J. A Kufour stated recently atAGOA Conference that FDI inflowsshould not be in the extractive sector onlybut should shift to manufacturing.

The Western Regional Minister said inSeptember 2007 that activities of miningcompanies had led to loss of livelihoods andpoverty in mining communities.

The Wassa West District Chief Executivesaid in September 2007 that activities ofmining companies had worsened povertyof mining communities.

Conclusion

An assessment of the performance ofMining in Ghana by the World BanksOperations Evaluation Department(OED) noted:

It is unclear what gold mining truebenefits are to Ghana. Large scale miningby foreign companies has high importcontent and produces only modest amountsof net foreign exchange for Ghana afteraccounting for all its outflows. Similarly,its corporate tax payments are low due tovarious fiscal incentives necessary toattract and retain foreign investors. Em-ployment creation is also modest given thehighly capital intensive nature of modernsurface mining techniques. Local commu-nities affected by large scale mining haveseen little benefits to date in the form ofimproved infrastructure or services pro-vision because much of the rents frommining are used to finance recurrent, notcapital expenditure. A broader cost-ben-efit analysis of large-scale mining that

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factors in social and environmental costsand includes consultations with the af-fected communities needs to be under-taken before granting future productionlicences (World Bank, 2003).

Daniel Owusu-Koranteng and his wifeare the founders of WACAM, the WassaAssociation of Communities Affected byMining in the Tarkwa Area, Ghana,West Africa; e-mail: [email protected]

Bibliography

Barning Kwasi (nd), Case study of ForeignInvestment in Mining: The case of Ghana; http://www.unctad.org/infocomm/Diversification/cape/pdf/barning.pdf; accessed 26 March 2008.

UNCTAD (2005), Economic Development inAfrica-Rethinking the Role of Foreign DirectInvestment.

World Bank (2003), An assessment of theperformance of Mining in Ghana; http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servelt/WDS_IBank_Servlet?pcont=details&eid=000094946_03081404004344

Hope & Oil: Expectationsin So Tom e PrncipeGisa Weszkalnys

When there is the smell of oil, minds getstirred up It creates a mirage inpeoples heads. If we do not know how tomanage it, it will be hell here (ManuelPinto da Costa, former president ofSTP, cited in Shaxson, 2007:164).

Perhaps the best hope for STP is that thereis sufficient external pressure from inter-national institutions, creditors and theincipient civil society to ensure greatertransparency in the distribution of oilrevenues. Otherwise, STP is likely tosuffer the same ills as other oil-rich statesin Africa, except that any civil war orsocial unrest is highly unlikely in thegentle Santomean society. STP has alwaysbeen very peaceful and, from this perspec-tive, a highly positive role model for thecontinent (Frynas et al. 2006:19).

There is no certainty yet that theres goingto be economic production of oil. There is agood chance that there may not be. Andpart of me feels, well, thats probably agood thing, for if there was, its just goingto be a disaster (oil industry em-ployee, STP, March 2007).

Do you think theres oil in So Tom?was a question I repeatedly heard duringmy fieldwork. It is a question that hasgripped So Tom e Prncipe (STP), thetiny island state located in the Gulf ofGuinea, for the last 10 years.1 The notionthat there may be vast offshore oil re-sources in STPs waters has spurredintense international interest (e.g.,Bruzaca de Menezes, 2003; Frynas et al.2003, 2006; Seibert, 2005; Shaxson, 2007;Soares de Oliveira, 2007). Oil companies,journalists, economic experts, NGOs, andthe large transnational institutions nowspeculate about the future of So Tom ePrncipe, frequently portrayed as a coun-

Briefings: Hope & Oil: Expectations in So Tom e Prncipe 473

DOI: 10.1080/03056240802411156

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try which has the hope, unlike elsewherein Africa, of becoming prosperous whilstremaining democratic. STP is to set anexample.

For the ethnographer, peoples anxiousquestion about the countrys oil poten-tial re-poses itself as: How might onestudy an oil economy without oil?2 Justhow much oil there is and whether it iscommercially viable, as they say in theindustry, is to date highly doubtful. So, isit possible to speak of an oil economy ifno oil is being extracted, transported,sold, and refined? One way of beginningto examine STPs emergent oil economyis to look at the materialisation of theassumed presence of oil in the country.

There is, for example, the impressive newbuilding of the National PetroleumAgency, co-financed by the World Bankin which a cadre of local technicians isbusy managing the islands future oileconomy. There are public discussionsand newspaper reports on the latestdevelopments. In addition, there are themore and the less desirable by-products:the genuine and the shady businesspeople; the illegal immigrants, tradersand peddlers; the prostitutes; the banks(whose number has almost tripled in thelast few years); the inflation; the risingproperty prices and the real estate specu-lation. There are also the latrines spon-sored by Chevron under its socialprogramme obligations and the trucksrecently given by Chrome Energy inpreparation, it is suspected, for theirparticipation in an upcoming licensinground. Similarly, a relatively non-violentcoup dtat in 2003 has been interpretedas symptomatic of a resource curse af-flicting Santomean society (Frynas, 2006;Humphreys et al. 2006; but see Seibert,2003). As Frynas et al. conclude, [t]heprevalence of resource curse effects werealready apparent even before STP startedproducing any oil (2006:14).

In short, the assumed presence of oil hashad a number of effects and provoked

particular activities in anticipation of an(un)certain future. Numerous consult-ants, NGO representatives, and foreignadvisors have been attracted by whatthey identify as the countrys great needfor expertise in the face of incipient oilwealth. They offer technical assistanceand advice, and hold workshops, publicdeliberations and conferences. Of crucialimportance, in this regard, has been theso-called management of expectations. Itinvolves placing boundaries around peo-ples hopes and dreams, which are as-sumed to be irrational, destabilising andpotentially dangerous. Key to this hasbeen the notion of a resource curse,today a key term in the analysis of oil-rich African states and of Santomeansvocabulary in describing their countrysfuture, as well as a rich example allow-ing us to observe an enactment of socio-economic theory.

Background & History

On 30 June 2007, the US representationin STP invited ex-pat Americans, offi-cials and the local whos who to anearly Independence Day party. This washeld in STPs fortress So Sebastio, builtin the 16th century by the Portuguesecolonial settlers and turned into a his-torical museum after independence in1975. With its limited resources, themuseum is an effort to display a nationalhistory for a young independent Africanstate. Within its thick walls now came tomingle the existing and possibly the newpowers that be. US presence on theisland is currently limited to the vastcompound of the Voice of America thatbroadcasts from here all over South-WestAfrica and an occasional naval shipsitting just outside So Toms shallowport, a faint echo of what has apparentlybecome a near continuous US navypresence in the region. The US hasprovided training for Santomean mili-tary under the African Partnershipprogramme, and US Seabees have car-ried out works in local schools andhospitals. Their main task, however, has

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been to help build up STPs coast guardfacilities and to complete, in 2007, one ofthe radar elements of the maritime do-main awareness system. The systemfacilitates the rapid exchange of dataamong participating countries and seeksto cover the entire Gulf of Guinea region,which has been declared of strategic USinterest, not least because of its existingand potential oil resources (McFate, 2008;Shaxson, 2007; Soares de Oliveira, 2007).

A fortnight later, 12 July, it was STPsown Independence Day. The festivitiestook place in Porto Alegre, So Tomislands southernmost community, con-nected to the capital by a single coastalroad. I hitched a ride with the Americanambassador who had flown in fromGabon, down the road that was to berepaired for the occasion with Equato-rial-Guinean money. But it didnt getdone on time, possibly because the moneyran out or, as some people suggested,because too much of it disappeared intothe pockets of entrepreneurs. The cer-emony was attended by a series of localofficials and foreign diplomats, includ-ing the Portuguese, the Brazilian, theFrench, the Nigerian, and the Gaboneseambassadors. Finally, a helicopter ar-rived with the president and his guestsof honour, the presidents of Gabon,Congo-Brazzaville and Equatorial-Guinea. A bus, recently gifted by Tai-wan, carried them from the airfield thathad been cut into the dense forest, to thelocation of the festivities. As a display ofSantomean state and nation, the Inde-pendence Day festivities appear impro-vised, charming and a little parochial.Yet they are also a display of foreign andinternational powers that are seeking tocircumscribe STPs place on the geopo-litical map of oil.

The expectation of vast offshore oil re-sources has given STP a significance ithasnt had since its days as Portugueseentrept and as world-renowned cocoaproducer. Despite the recent $314m debtrelief under the HIPC scheme, STP is

likely to remain one of the poorest Afri-can countries and almost totally depend-ent on foreign aid. Its approximately160,000 inhabitants are the descendantsof African slaves and contract workers,mainly from Cape Verde, and the Portu-guese colonial settlers who lived on theislands from the 16th century onwards,and introduced sugar, coffee, and cocoa.STP remained a plantation economyuntil the end of the colonial period(Seibert, 2006:46). Political independ-ence was achieved in 1975, followed bythe establishment of a socialist one-partysystem. The economy was nationalisedand the former plantations were broughtinto state ownership. Cocoa productionbased on plantations had been unprofit-able since the 1920s (Frynas et al. 2006:2;Seibert, 2006:45) and by the late 1970smismanagement and falling global co-coa prices led to its virtual collapse. Fromthe late 1980s, STP underwent a democ-ratisation process, accompanied by eco-nomic reforms and the dismantling ofthe large estates and privatisation oflanded property with uneven, but over-all disappointing, results. Cocoa stillrepresents 90% of all exports, and thecountrys economy remains extraordi-narily fragile. In this context, oil seemeda blessing.

Oil extraction in STP appeared to becomea real possibility with developments inultra deep-sea exploration, coupled withthe growing significance internationallyof West African oil. The 1990s werecharacterised by new discoveries andrapid growth in production, for example,in Angola and Equatorial Guinea. Asidefrom some speculative onshore drillingsin the 1970s and 80s, STPs petro-era isgenerally seen to have started in 1997,with the ill-fated agreement signed witha small company called ERHC (Environ-mental Remediation Holding Company).Oil can now appear a firm part of STPpolitico-economic identity. As one of thedirectors in the National PetroleumAgency noted in conversation, Santo-means have always associated them-


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selves with oil. But this oil economy hashad a difficult start (see also Frynas et al.2003; Seibert, 2006; Shaxson, 2007 &Soares de Oliveira, 2007). First, togetherwith ERHC the STP government set up adubious joint venture petroleum com-pany named STPetro. Both ERHC, andsubsequently Mobil, were guaranteedrights to exploration and revenue shares,which vastly exceeded what is deemedstandard in the industry. Especially theERHC deal, later acquired by the Ameri-can-Nigerian Chrome Energy, is nowwidely criticised as detrimental to thecountrys interests. Border disputes withNigeria led to a lengthy process ofnegotiations. These were settled in Feb-ruary 2001 with the agreement of a JointDevelopment Zone (JDZ) of which Ni-geria holds 60% and STP 40%, governedby a so-called Joint Development Au-thority (JDA) with a head office in Abuja.President Fradique de Menezes, whocame into office in 2001, is viewedfavourably by most foreign observersimpressed by his attempts to correct themistakes made by his predecessor, bycalling on foreign assistance and byemphasising the countrys intentions toremain transparent. In a first biddinground in 2003/4, only Block 1 wassigned off for $123 million to a consor-tium of three companies, Chevron Texaco(51%), ExxonMobil (40%) and the Nige-rian-Norwegian Dangote Energy EquityResources Limited (9%). A further roundin 2005 for Blocks 2, 3 and 4 involved toomany small, unknown corporationspartly with Nigerian connections. Thisresult was seriously questioned (Procura-doria Geral, 2005) but not annulled.

Exploration has yet to show significantpositive results: Chevron Texaco deemedthe finds of its first drill in Block 1 of theJDZ, conducted in 2006, as not commer-cially viable. In early March 2007, theChinese company Sinopec and the Ca-nadian corporation Addax operating inBlocks 2 and 4, announced that they hadhired an Indian vessel to conductdrillings in 2008, but these drillings are

likely to be postponed until 2009. Chev-ron, too, announced plans to perform asecond drill in 2008. In late 2007, ExxonMobils interests in Block 1 were boughtby Addax. In short, STPs future as apetro-state appears elusive. STP has re-ceived a $49 million share of the signa-ture bonus for Block 1. Much of this hasbeen spent on advances received fromNigeria, including $13 million towardsthe operational costs of the JDA in Abuja(see also Seibert, 2006). Even if there is acommercial discovery any time soon,actual exploitation is not expected tobegin before 2012 or later. Outstandingpayments for the signature bonuses forblocks 5 and 6 seem increasingly un-likely. Risking and hoping, however,will continue.

Diagnosing the Resource Curse

Newspaper articles on STP have specu-lated how the discovery of offshore oilmight change So Tom e Prncipe rap-idly and dramatically. In 2002, the NewYorker magazine published a long articleasking, Who needs Saudi Arabia whenyouve got So Tom? Only two yearslater, Fortune magazine posed the wor-ried question, Will oil spoil this AfricanParadise? Most recently, The Guardiansuggested, quoting a representative ofInternational Alert one of the largeinternational NGOs seeking to preventoil-related conflict in STP that it wouldbe best if there was no oil at all. Similarly,academic research on STP oscillates be-tween diagnoses of an incipient resourcecurse, facilitated by a long-standing sys-tem of clientelism and corruption, andhalf-hearted assertions that the tiny coun-try might follow a different path from itspetro-neighbours. In 2007, So Tomansparticularly from the urbanised, edu-cated parts of society including civilservants, administrative and private sec-tor employees seemed disappointedregarding the advent of oil. They increas-ingly considered it futile to expect oil toimprove their situation. Many of themhave participated in one of the numerous

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seminars and workshops held on thetopic of oil and are keenly aware of itspotentially negative consequences. Theirself-consciously reasonable outlook, Iwas told, is markedly different from thehigh hopes that were being traded in thestreets, bars and homes of Santomeansonly a couple of years ago, and which areclaimed to be still prevalent among theuneducated poor, living in the formerplantations.

Continuing high hopes and expecta-tions are generally blamed on the gov-ernment and politicians, trying to gainvotes and attract investment to the coun-try, or on the media, keen to build up apicture of STP as the new Kuwait.Sensationalist reports on the prospectsof STP in the early 2000s dealt in hugelyinflated figures of several billion of bar-rels of oil reserves. A third source ofexaggerated expectations are expert docu-ments. I heard angry comments, forexample, about an irresponsible IMFworking paper, published only in thesummer of 2006, which begins by statingthat So Tom and Prncipe is on theverge of becoming an oil-rich country(Seguar, 2006:4). The paper assumes asits base line the existence of a 500 millionbarrel oil field in the JDZ, and suggeststhat provided there is adequate regula-tion a prosperous future for STP will bealmost certain. While the IMF may insistthat this is purely a working paper, withall its implications of provisionality, andmoreover, does not reflect the view of theorganisation at large, to more scepticalobservers such pronouncements seemdangerously open to deliberate orinadvertent misinterpretation.

Hope in relation to oil, and an allegedcargo cult attitude, are considered prob-lematic. If unrealistic hopes get disap-pointed, it is feared, the result is likely tobe increased social conflict. In my con-versations with World Bank technicians,UNDP employees, staff of the PetroleumAgency, NGO workers, and ordinarylocals two imaginaries of the future were

dominant. In the academic literaturethey are known as the resource curseand the related Dutch disease. Theresource curse has become an influentialheuristic since the late 1980s both in thescholarship concerned with resource eco-nomics and in the large global financialagencies (e.g. Humphreys et al. 2007).The term was invented to explain whatappeared inexplicable: countries rich inoil, diamonds, or other natural resourcesdid not always enjoy rapid developmentequally in all sectors (Auty, 1993;Humphreys et al. 2007; Karl, 1997;Rosser, 2006; Sachs and Warner, 2001;Watts, 2004). Today the curse is vari-ously taken to imply detrimental eco-nomic performance, violent conflict,corruption, or the entrenchment of au-thoritarian political regimes (Rosser,2006:7-8). The Dutch disease is some-times seen as a version of the resourcecurse or its herald. The notion de-scribes the effect of the influx of huge oilrevenues, the depreciation of the localcurrency, the neglect and decline of othereconomic sectors, first and foremost, ofagriculture.

Students and observers of STP havespotted signs of the resource curse andthe Dutch disease in the reliance onforeign aid, in the way Santomeans eat(an estimated 50% of their diet consists ofimported produce), in the well-knownbut rarely punished corrupt behaviour ofSTPs elite, and in just about everybodyslaid back lifestyle summed up by theCreole term lve-lve (e.g., Frynas et al.2006). There are also the rural flight, thewage increase, and the inflation, whichare all understood to be key symptoms(Soares de Oliveira, 2007). STPs fragileposition has not been helped by thenotorious instability of its government.The 2003 coup dtat is sometimes inter-preted as an early expression of discon-tent with the way the government(mis-)handled STPs arrival in the oil era.However, it may be more precise to saythat rather than oil having caused thecoup, the coup comes to matter because of


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now common negative expectations re-garding oil in STP. What is interesting,here, is the plethora of activities that hasbeen effected, directly and indirectly, bythe anticipation of a resource curse and,conversely, the economy of expectation,consultancy and advice that this antici-pation has provoked. This is the resourcecurses performative effect (cf. Osborneand Rose, 1999) in the tiny equatorialisland state.

Anticipation

On paper, So Tom e Prncipe appearsto constitute an exemplary oil economy.Its legal framework regarding oil is con-sidered to be even better than that regu-lating the Chad-Cameroon pipeline,which was for some time held up asexemplary in the African context (Pegg,2005). The so-called Abuja declaration,signed with Nigeria, defines a will totransparency in the JDZ. STP possessesan Oil Revenue Management Law en-acted in December 2004, which includesthe establishment of a National Petro-leum Council and, currently, an over-sight commission and a publicinformation office. In addition, a Na-tional Petroleum Agency (ANP) has beencreated. STP also has a National OilAccount as well as a Permanent Fundfor future generations. More recentlystill, the Santomean government hasendorsed the UK-led Extractive Indus-tries and Transparency Initiative (EITI)and is busy setting up a national com-mittee.

The countrys status as a legal exemplaris partly due to what I term the anticipa-tory activities of international experts,transnational agencies and the nationalgovernment itself. These activities in-clude the technical assistance given bythe World Bank, UNDP, or more recentlythe Millennium Challenge Corporation,but go beyond that. They include theprojects implemented by internationalNGOs and the advice given by well-meaning experts who see the tiny coun-

try a convenient laboratory for theirtheories. Crucially, laws, documents, andpaper alone are deemed insufficient inguaranteeing a prosperous and well-managed future for STP. Santomeanshave little faith in the effectiveness oftheir state institutions and judiciary sys-tem which they know lets those doingwrong get away with impunity. And alook at other petro-states in the regionshows that laws and committees do notreadily translate into well-governed re-source driven economies. Anticipatoryactivities have not stopped at the level ofthe state, the law or institutional reform.What is especially needed, it was sug-gested to me, is the creation of civilsociety and a change in mentality.Here, I will briefly discuss four ratherdifferent projects that all intend to con-tribute to STP achieving this institutional,social and behavioural transformation.

In 2003, a team of professors and gradu-ate students from the Earth Institute atColumbia University, New York, underthe leadership of the institutes directorJeffrey Sachs travelled to STP to imple-ment a legal advisory project. Invited byPresident Menezes, and partly spon-sored by the Open Society Institute, theColumbia team advocated a holistic ap-proach that took into account all thevarious aspects of Santomean society,including malaria, sanitation, and elec-trification. A central objective was todevelop a framework for transparency inpublic expenditure. Their efforts werehighly appreciated: they lay the basis forthe petroleum law, and delivered a pres-tigious project that helped the countrydemonstrate its willingness to good gov-ernance.

The Columbia team was key in makingoil an explicitly public issue. They tookadvantage of the National Forum, organ-ised as a response to the 2003 coup dtatand intended to bring unity to the coun-try destabilised by military and socialunrest and split into factions. In thiscontext, the team organised meetings in

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56 roas, villages, and towns, to explainthe current and potential future develop-ments regarding oil in STP. Deliberativegroups, led by local facilitators, an-swered questionnaires to assess peo-ples wishes and expectations regardinga future with oil. The Columbia teamnow commends its intervention as asuccessful process of deliberation withmeasurable effects (Sandbu, 2004; butsee also Humphreys et al. 2006). TheForum, the questionnaire, and the delib-erations are claimed to have transformedpeoples preferences in such a way thatthey would be more reasoned, less self-ish and more public-spirited (Sandbu,2004). They have been regarded as im-portant instruments in re-constitutingboth officials and ordinary Santomeansas future inhabitants of an oil-rich coun-try.

The World Banks current InternationalDevelopment Assistance for STP includes$5 million for a so-called GovernanceCapacity Building Project. It supportspublic finance management and helpsbuild the institutional framework of thenascent petroleum sector. The focus onoil, governance and public finance man-agement is to be continued in the comingyears with further $4 million budgetarysupport funding. It reflects the WorldBanks changing policy of wedding pov-erty reduction programmes to supportfor the extractive industries sector (as inChad-Cameroon pipeline case, Pegg2005). Institutional thinking now partlyreflects a scholarly critique of previousapproaches made, for example, byMichael Watts (2001; 2004), which goesbeyond a simplistic resource determin-ism. Bad governance, rather than oil perse, becomes seen as the central cause ofthe resource curse. Critical to the Govern-ance Capacity Building Project in STPhas been the design of a national petro-leum law, the establishment of a Court ofAccounts as a general auditing body and the set up of a National PetroleumAgency. The training provided by oilcompanies involved in STPs Joint De-

velopment Zone and rivaled by thosefinanced by and conducted in Taiwan has supposedly provided civil servantsand government employees with indis-pensable skills and knowledge. ANPstaff have been busy preparing a licens-ing round for the Exclusive EconomicZone, and the revision of STPs oil lawfor the purpose. The ANP has also heldseminars on issues to do with oil. Forexample, in April 2007, a day-long semi-nar on Local Content served to presentthe findings of a study commissioned bythe ANP, financed by the World Bank,and conducted by a Portuguese consul-tancy firm. It attracted a sizeable audi-ence of perhaps 100 civil servants andstate administrators, people from thebanking and business sector, from inter-national organisations, NGOs, and oilcompanies. It demonstrated to people theneed for preparation, especially the crea-tion of mechanisms to maximise thewealth that oil is likely to generate. Theaim, to borrow James Fergusons term isto thicken the presence of the oil indus-try in STP (Ferguson, 2005).

The London-based NGO InternationalAlert (IA) has had a presence in thecountry for several years. Together withUNICEF and with partial funding fromUSAID, it has set up a media centre forlocal journalists and two communityradio stations. Together with the PublishWhat You Pay Campaign, IA held twoconferences in STP which allowed civilsociety actors from diverse countries inthe region to exchange experiences andinformation about living with oil, in-cluding institutional and contractualframeworks, economic and political re-percussions, the relevance of the EITI, theimportance of fiscal discipline, and themanagement of expectations. It also or-ganised a trip to Norway, on which amixed group of parliamentarians, localbusiness representatives, journalists andcivil society representatives were intro-duced to how Norway has become aprime example of an oil economy whichmanaged to escape the resource curse.


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All these activities have been part of aconcerted effort to strengthen civil soci-ety in STP, which is considered ratherweak and ill-prepared for the coming ofoil.

A further element in this process of STPconstituting itself as prudent and trans-parent oil state has been the signing upto EITI, the UK-led initiative which aimsto devise principles to assure transpar-ency in the extractive industries sector. Akey mechanism has been the publicationof company payments and revenuesreceived by governments which are moni-tored by the national EITI committeesthat bring together the presumed oppos-ing stakeholders: governments, the in-dustry and civil society. In STP, the setup of the EITI committee was pursuedwith much pressure in the second half of2007, due to a looming deadline. Ironi-cally, the initial delay and subsequenthaste with which the process was con-ducted has led to concerns about a lackof transparency and civil society in-volvement in this process. There werealso tensions regarding the parallel set-up of the Oversight Commission in-cluded as a monitoring body in STPs oilrevenue management law. Planning ofthe two entities initially went aheadseparately but there is now talk aboutmerging them to achieve greater effec-tiveness. Interestingly, some of thoseinvolved ascribed a clear advantage toglobal initiatives, such as EITI, overlocal ones. Even though they are notbinding they are felt to carry more weightthan a commission anchored in STP lawwhich is deemed, in large part, ineffec-tive.

Conclusions

STPs oil economy is an economy inwhich expectations have been a keyobject of concern. Their production, cir-culation and exchange are carefullyguarded. One of these expectations isnow the resource curse itself. Its flipsideis the expectation of transparency and

good governance. In other words, at-tempts to control and manage peoplesexpectations have generated other kindsof hope in STP. Both types of imagina-tions of the future are made and promul-gated partly through the initiatives andprojects, seminars and workshops, thereports and legal documents that I havediscussed, here. Depending on the re-sults of the upcoming drillings, Santo-mean national planning may soon haveto consider a no-oil scenario.

While the hope for oil in STP has notcompletely faded away, one can seepeople quietly welcoming the delay inthe take-off of the countrys oil economy.Especially for members of the urbaneducated class on whom this researchhas focused, and for whom the curse ofoil appears to be a real possibility, time issalvation. The postponement of the oilfuture, they say which is produced by aset of political, economic, technical, andgeological conditions and circumstances might allow STP to prepare itselfsufficiently or to continue seeking alter-native routes for development. This brief-ing has highlighted the significantresources have been poured into prepar-ing STP for its potential oil future. It alsosought to open up a critical perspectiveon the huge claims involved. Betweenthem, the activities of advisory agencies,government, NGOs, and oil corporationsexplicate potential futures and the famil-iar (and insufficiently researched) conse-quences of the extractive industries,specifically oil, in order to divert them.But will they make a real difference?Indeed, are there any simple solutions tothe resource curse, which research in-creasingly shows to be a highly complexset of affairs? Or will these activitiessimply aid in a sophisticated make-believe?

Gisa Weszkalnys, University of Oxford,[email protected]

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Endnotes

1. This preliminary analysis draws on eightmonths of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in2007, conducted with support from the BritishAcademy and the John Fell Research Fund. Itincluded more than fifty interviews withrepresentatives of the local administration,transnational agencies, oil corporations, NGOs,as well as ex-pats and ordinary Santomeans.The project has benefited tremendously fromdiscussions with Andrew Barry as well as fromthe comments of the participants in the Oil andPolitics Conference, Goldsmiths, London, May2007.

2. The research intends to contribute to a growingbody of work on oil by human geographers andanthropologists (e.g., Apter, 2005; Barry, 2004,2006; Ferguson, 2005; Roitman & Roso n.d.;Sawyer, 2004; Watts, 2001, 2004).

Bibliography

Apter, A. (2005), The Pan-African Nation: oil andthe spectacle of culture in Nigeria, Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

Auty, R. (1993), Sustaining Development in MineralEconomies: The Resource Curse Thesis, London:Routledge.

Barry, A. (2004), Ethical Capitalism in, GlobalGovernmentality by W. Larner & W. Walters(eds.), London: Routledge; (2005), Cracks inthe Oil Economy: Hubberts Peak, paperpresented at International Center for AdvancedStudies, New York University, April 2005.

Bruzaca de Menezes, A. (2003), Implicaesscio-econmicas da explorao de petrleo emSo Tom e Prncipe, Instituto Superior deEconomia e Gesto, Lisbon: Universidade Tcnicade Lisboa.

Collier, S. J. & A. Lakoff (2005), Regimes ofLiving, in Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics,and Ethics as Anthropological Problems by S. J.Collier & A. Ong (eds.), Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Ferguson, J. (2005), Seeing Like an OilCompany: Space, Security, and Global Capitalin Neoliberal Africa, in American Anthropologist,107(3):377-382.

Frynas, J. G. & M. Paulo (2007), A New Scramblefor African Oil? Historical, Political, andBusiness Perspectives, in African Affairs 106(423): 229-251.

Frynas, J.G., G. Wood & R.M.S. Soares deOliveira (2003), Business and Politics in SoTom e Prncipe: From cocoa monoculture topetro-state, in African Affairs 102(406): 51-80;

(2006), Business and Politics in So Tom ePrncipe: From cocoa monoculture to petro-state(updated version), http://www.sase.org/conf2003/papers/frynas-wood-deoliveira.pdf

Humphreys, M., W. Masters & M. Sandbu(2006), The Role of Leaders in DemocraticDeliberations: results from a field experiment inSo Tom e Prncipe, in World Politics 58: 583-622.

Humphreys, M., J. Sachs & J. Stiglitz (2007),Escaping the Resource Curse, New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press.

Karl, T. (1997), The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Boomsand Petro-states, Berkeley, CA.: California UP.

Leach, M., Scoones, I. & B. Wynne (eds.) (2005),Science and Citizens: Globalization and the Challengeof Engagement, London: Zed Books

McFate, S. (2008), Briefing: US AfricaCommand: Next Step or Next Stumble, AfricanAffairs, Vol. 107(426): 111-20.

Osborne, T. & N. Rose (1999), Do the SocialSciences Create Phenomena? The Example ofPublic Opinion Research in, British Journal ofSociology 50(3): 367-396.

Pegg, S. (2005), Can policy intervention beat theresource curse? Evidence from the ChadCameroonpipeline project, in African Affairs 105 (418).

Procuradoria Geral da Repblica So Tom ePrncipe (2005), Investigao e AvaliaoSegundo Leilo Zona de DesenvolvimentoConjunto; http://www.juristep.com/rela-torios/PGR.pdf; accessed 6 March 2008.

Roitman, J. & G. Roso (n.d.), Being Off-Shore:the Submersion of Equatorial Guinea in Regionaland International Enjeux (unpublished manu-script).

Rosser, A. (2006), The Political Economy of theResource Curse: A Literature Review, WorkingPaper 268, Institute of Development Studies,University of Sussex.

Sachs, J. & A. Warner (2001), The Curse ofNatural Resources in European Economic Review,45: 827-838.

Sandbu, M. (2004), Does Deliberation Matter?A study of deliberative democracy in So Tome Prncipes National Forum; http://martins-andbu.net/papers/deliberation.pdf

Sawyer, S. (2004), Crude Chronicles: indigenouspolitics, multinational oil, and neoliberalism inEcuador, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Segura, A. (2006), Management of oil wealthunder the permanent income hypothesis: Thecase of So Tom e Prncipe, IMF Working PaperWP/06/183.


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Seibert, G. (2003), Coup dtat in So Tom ePrncipe: Domestic causes, the role of oil andformer Buffalo Battalion soldiers, ISS Paper81, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria; (2006),Comrades, Clients and Cousins: Colonialism,Socialism and Democratization in So Tom ePrncipe, Leiden: Brill; [1999] (2006), Comrades,Clients and Cousins: Colonialism, Socialism andDemocratization in So Tom e Prncipe, Leiden &Boston: Brill.

Shaxson, N. (2007), Poisoned Wells: The DirtyPolitics of African Oil, New York: PalgraveMacmillan.

Soares de Oliveira, R. (2007), Oil and Politics inthe Gulf of Guinea, London: Hurst & Co.

Watts, M. (2001), Petro-Violence: Community,Extraction, and Political Ecology of a MythicCommodity in, Violent Environments by N.L.Peluso & M. Watts (eds.), Ithaca & London:Cornell University Press; (2004), Resource curse?Governmentality, oil and power in the NigerDelta, Nigeria, in Geopolitics, 9(1): 50-80.

Editors NoteAlso see ROAPEs back issues: The Bush Ad-ministration and African Oil: The SecurityImplications of US Energy Policy by DanielVolman (No. 98, December 2003, pp.573-584);also by Volman, US Military Involvement inAfrica (No. 103, March 2005, pp.187-189);America, China & the Scramble for Africas Oilby Michael Klare & Daniel Volman (No. 108,June 2006, pp. 297-309); US to Create NewRegional Military Command for Africa:AFRICOM by Daniel Volman (No.114, Decem-ber 2007, pp.737-744) and last,Chad-CameroonOil Pipeline: World Bank and ExxonMobil inLast Chance Saloon by Jeremy H. Keenan(No.104/5, June/September 2005, pp. 395-405)which specifically looks at the issues raised inthis Sao Tom briefing:

One of the biggest issues facing globaldevelopment is that oil exports havecontributed so little to the welfare ofdeveloping countries. The paradox ofplenty, or the resource curse as it isgenerally known, is that countries rich innatural resources, especially oil, tend tosuffer from lower living standards, slowergrowth rates and higher incidence ofconflict than their resource-poor counter-parts. Between 1970-1993, for example,resource-poor countries, without petro-leum, grew four times more rapidly thanresource-rich countries, with petroleum,

despite the fact that they had half thesavings. The World Bank and Interna-tional Monetary Fund (IMF) have bothconfirmed that the greater a countrysdependence on oil and mineral resources,the worse its growth performance.

See also, Association of Concerned AfricanScholars at http://concernedafricascholars.org

Founded in 1979, the Association of ConcernedAfrica Scholars (ACAS) is a group of scholarsand students of Africa dedicated to formulatingalternative analyses of Africa and US governmentpolicy, developing communication and actionnetworks between the peoples and scholars ofAfrica and the United States, and mobilizingsupport in the United States on critical, currentissues related to Africa.

Copper & Controversy inthe DR Congo

Henry Kippin

This briefing is concerned with the min-ing industry in the DRC, which spanscopper-cobalt, diamonds, gold, uraniumand tin.1 It pays particular attention tosome recent headlines and controversiesin the copper industry, especially in thelight of a report from British NGO GlobalWitness published in October 2007. Acommonly-heard perspective on the DRCsuggests that, following ostensibly demo-cratic elections in early 2007, a resurgentformal extractive sector represents thecountrys best chance of emerging from aseemingly continuous cycle of povertyand conflict. Yet as this briefing willshow, any material benefits to the Con-golese population will be contingentupon two key factors: a successful reso-lution to the governments commissionto review its mining contracts, and thepotential impact of increasing Chineseinvestment in the country.DOI: 10.1080/03056240802411180

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The Copperbelt which runs throughZambia and Katanga province in theDRC is said to contain 34% of theworlds cobalt and 10% of the worldscopper. Although Zambia is betterknown as a copper exporter, huge depos-its lie in the DRC, and during the 1980sthe countrys output amounted to asmuch as 7-8% of global production(Global Witness, 2006:13). During the1990s however, the industry was run toground as state-owned companyGecamines collapsed, along with theeconomic and social infrastructures con-structed around it. And as the countrydescended into war following the top-pling of President Mobutu in 1997, thedestiny of several of its mines changedhands according to the complex andappalling machinations of a conflictinvolving multiple protagonists and in-terests.

In 2002, negotiations between PresidentJoseph Kabila and rebel forces in the eastof the country precipitated a fragilepeace of sorts, and brought forth a periodof transitional government in the coun-try. Many of the problems the Congolesegovernment now seeks to address stemfrom this period, wherein several contro-versial mining contracts were arrangedamidst the embers of the conflict and arestructuring of Gecamines.

This period of restructuring was overseenby the World Bank, and was centred onrewriting the countrys mineral andforestry codes to facilitate private sectorparticipation2 the result, according toGlobal Witness, was that numerouslucrative mining agreements were signedin opaque deals between unaccountableand unelected political leaders, miningcompanies and other economic opera-tors (Global Witness, 2007:3). One sucharrangement which will be exploredbelow has captured the imagination ofthe international press, lending some-what of a soap opera element to thecontract review begun in April 2007.

Newly elected officials in the Ministry ofMines well understand the importanceof their review, both in terms of securinga better deal for the treasury on royal-ties and ownership, and also in terms ofimpressing on the international commu-nity a perception of positive change inthe country. This is especially importantnow that Chinese interest has begun toimpact in tangible ways with miningconcessions acting as potential bait forluring large-scale investment into indus-trial infrastructure.

Global Witness & the TGI

The October 2007 report from GlobalWitness identified four serious weak-nesses in the contract review, the Tribu-nal de Grand Instance (TGI) being carriedout in Lubumbashi. In brief, these were:

1) A lack of transparency and clarity;

2) An unrealistic timeframe for com-pletion of the review;

3) Inadequate safeguards to protectits independence; and

4) Limited involvement of civilsociety.

If left unaddressed, argued the report, afeeling would remain that a potentialturning point for the industry would bemissed, and that western investors wouldcontinue to tread warily in the sector. Inaddition, D.R. Congo is a signatory to theExtractive Industries Transparency Ini-tiative (EITI), which requires (albeit vol-untarily) that the details of miningcontracts are made available for interna-tional scrutiny. Such weaknesses in thereview process would certainly under-mine these sentiments. In sum, it wasargued that if the above concerns werenot addressed, the outcome would repre-sent business as usual in the industry(Global Witness, 2007:2-3).

Briefings: Copper & Controversy in the DR Congo 483

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Potential shortcomings of the TGI are,however, only half of the story, as busi-ness as usual owes a great deal to themanoeuvrings of private operators in theCongo. In Katanga, this is epitomised bythe Central African Mining and Explora-tion Company (CAMEC) a Britishcompany that has been involved in ahigh-profile dispute over the validity ofthree exploration licenses. The tale ofCAMECs assets in the region is a goodillustration of the types of issues theMinistry of Mines must deal with if theirreview is to make any meaningful differ-ence, and is a testament to the complexnature of liberalised mining in Africa.

Spinning Controversy

CAMEC is seen as a relatively newcomerin Katanga, yet has established a rapidvisibility (and easy headlines) thanks toassociation with some well-known per-sonalities. Its chairman is Zambian PhilEdmonds, former England spin bowlerand also chairman of White Nile Ltd.which enjoys significant assets in theSudanese oil industry. Another Rhode-sian3 is Billy Rautenbachwith wantedfor fraud in South Africa, and wasdeclared persona non grata by the DRCgovernment in July 2007.4

The CAMEC controversy centres aroundthree copper-cobalt mining licenses(Mukondo, C19 and C21),5 which wereoriginally owned by Gecamines, butwere transferred to a joint-venture be-tween two different companies in No-vember 1998. One of these CentralMining Group was controlled by then-Minister of State in the Presidency Pierre-Victor Moyo; the other was RidgepointeOverseas Development Ltd., controlledby Rautenbach.

It is alleged that the deal was made aspart of an agreement between formerPresident Laurent Kabila and Zimba-bwean President Robert Mugabe (withwhom Rautenbach has enjoyed a favour-able relationship), in return for military

intervention on behalf of the Congolesegovernment. The licenses were trans-ferred apparently without compensa-tion, and, even more controversially,Rautenbach himself was Chief Executiveof Gecamines at the time. In retrospect,this appears to be quite a staggeringconflict of interest.6

The fate of these licenses in the followingten years is confusing,7 but what is clearis that they were passed between compa-nies owned by Rautenbach and JohnBredenkamp himself another Zimba-bwean tycoon and sometime associate ofIan Smith during the 1970s. Fast forwardto 2007, and the three aforementionedlicenses were secured by CAMEC as partof an 80% take-over of Boss Mining once again, a company linked withRautenbach. To add another twist to thetale, Rautenbach is currently a signifi-cant shareholder in CAMEC, with astake of approximately 17% at the time ofwriting.

Examining the C19, C21 and Mukondolicenses has been a central plank of theTGIs review of mining contracts. DeputyMinister Kasongo has been outspoken inhis criticism of CAMEC and Rautenbach,and the company even alleged that anintended take-over of Canadian com-pany Katanga Mining launched in Au-gust 2007 was fatally undermined due todeliberate timing of the aforementionedlicenses being revoked. In the event, aTGI hearing of 17 September approvedand reinstated the contested licenses perhaps confirming some of the fears ofGlobal Witness, and certainly providinga boost to CAMECs share price.8

The story, albeit in truncated form, high-lights the real limits to government con-trol over its mining industry, and servesas an abject example of the precipitouseffects on extractive industries of civilconflict, shock adjustment and unac-countable government. And whilst Glo-bal Witness may be correct as to the needfor transparency and strength from the

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countrys new political leaders, this willcontinue to be undermined without simi-lar sentiments of openness and account-ability from the myriad companies andindividuals involved in the industry.

China in the D.R. Congo

Of course, proper regulation of the cop-per industry in the DRC is of even morepressing concern to the west now thatChina has begun to make its presence feltin the country. In addition to a growingmultinational presence, Chinese invest-ment has also been framed in terms ofexchange of massive bilateral, multi-sectoral investment ostensibly in returnfor future concessions in copper, dia-mond and gold-producing areas. Recentevidence of this is a proposed $5 billlionloan earmarked for transport, health andeducation infrastructure projects, includ-ing a new railway connecting the miningregions in the south to the western port ofMatadi. The loan has reportedly con-cerned the IMF, who had seen their ownlending initiative halted in 2006 due topoor implementation of its conditions.DRC country representative Xavier Marethas also warned of the potential macr-oeconomic impact of the loan which, heargued, could problematically distortimports, exports and the exchange rate.9

The international community is clearlyaware of the need for investment in thecountry, yet it appears that this move byChina has taken some people by sur-prise. In actual fact, this is not the firstinstance where Chinese business inter-est in Africa has been enhanced by thewillingness of its government to prop upgovernments with large-scale finance. InAngola a seemingly done deal betweenIndian oil multinational ONGC, Shelland Angolan state agency Sonangol wasoverturned at the last minute in favour ofChinese company Sinopec. The clincherwas a Chinese $2bn loan, which allowedthe Angolan government to bypass theconditionalities upon which IMF sup-port had been predicated (Alden,

2007:44). It is not hard to understandwhy the Congolese government sees thistype of support as an attractive option.As Alden (2007:135) puts it: seen froman African perspective, the most signifi-cant dimension on Chinese engagementis that it is a potential source of invest-ment capital and development assist-ance which western sources are eitheruninterested or unwilling to provide.Nevertheless, it seems that, in one impor-tant sense, Global Witness is absolutelyright about the turning point the DRCcurrently finds itself at. If the countryspopulation are to see any benefit frominvestment in its resources, the processof mining contract negotiations mustcontinue to be robust and accountable and so, too, must the behaviour of theinvestors it seeks to examine. This is trueacross the board, whether Chinese orotherwise.

This briefing has highlighted two recentcontroversies that have brought the Con-golese mining industry back into theinternational press in recent months. Asstability in the country has improved, themining industry once again appears tobe an attractive place to make money,and the two examples given here reflect ascramble for position within the indus-try as metals and mineral markets boomunder Chinese demand. Having comethrough democratic elections with rela-tive success, the challenge for the DRCsnew government is now to build aneconomic infrastructure that can deliverincreasing prosperity and security to itspopulation. Separating controversy fromcopper is of fundamental importance tothis task.

Henry Kippin, Research Director, AfricanDevelopment Information Services andHonorary Research Fellow, PoliticalEconomy Research Centre (PERC), Uni-versity of Sheffield; e-mail: [email protected]

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Endnotes

1. See AfDevInfo report (2007), ExtractiveIndustries in the DR Congo: http://www.afdevinfo.com/htmlreports/CG32.aspx

2. Bank Information Centre, World BankImplicated in Controversial DR Congo MiningContracts, 22 Nov. 2006; accessed at http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3021.aspx; see alsoFinancial Times, World Bank faces Questionsover Congo Mining Contracts, 17 November2006.

3. Edmonds is from northern Rhodesia nowZambia; Rautenbach is from Zimbabwe.

4. See Mining Weekly (Creamer Media, SouthAfrica), DRC Confirms CAMECs Rautenbachwas Deported, 23 July 2007.

5. C19 and C21 (also known as 467 and 169respectively) are licenses for profitable copper-producing areas of Katanga region. The C19area is home to the Luita copper/cobaltprocessing facility, which is supplied by mineswithin the C19 and C21 areas. According toCAMEC, Gecamines had estimated C19 andC21 to contain circa 1.5 million tonnes copperand 500,000 tonnes cobalt. See CAMEC officialwebsite at http://www.camec-plc.com/countries/droc.php. In addition to this, theMukondo concession has been described aspotentially one of the most lucrative in the world.

6. A similar concluion was apparently reachedby the UN Security Council Panel investigatingthe issue; see United Nations (2002), Final Reportof the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitationof Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealthof the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UNReport Ref: S/2002/1146

7. For a comprehensive review of the process, seeBarry Sergeants indispensable article inMineWeb: CAMEC Selling the Family Silverthrough lack of Copper and Cobalt, 18September 2007; accessed at http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page67?oid=27246&sn=Detail

8. Financial Times: Camec boosted as revokedCongo license is regained, 20 September 2007.Confirmation was received in March 2008 thatCAMECs licenses in the DRC are safe. As partof this resolution, CAMEC has agreed to increasestate (Gecamines) share in their copper/cobaltventures.

9. See Financial Times: Alarm over Chinas CongoDeal, 19 September 2007; and Reuters, IMFWorried over Chinas $5bln loan to Congo, 3October 2007; accessed at http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL03119345

Bibliography

Alden, C. (2007), China in Africa, London &New York: Zed Books.

Global Witness (2006), Digging in Corruption:Fraud, Abuse and Exploitation in KatangasCopper and Cobalt Mines, Global WitnessReport, July 2006; (2007), The Congolese MiningSector in the Balance, Global Witness Briefing, 1October 2007.

The Zimbabwe ArmsShipment Campaign

Miles Larmer

Little good news has yet emerged fromZimbabwes 2008 elections. However,the refusal by Durban dockworkers inApril to unload Chinese arms importsdestined for Zimbabwe was an impres-sive display of solidarity by unionisedAfrica, one that was supported by wideraction by civil society throughout south-ern Africa and internationally. Veteransof the Anti-Apartheid Movement willhave recalled the action of unioniseddockworkers in the British port of Liver-pool in July 1987, who similarly blockedthe export of uranium to South Africa, aspart of solidarity actions against theapartheid state.

The dockworkers initiative provided astark contrast to the apathy of most (butnot all) southern African Heads of Statein confronting the reality that the Zimba-bwean elections were being stolenthrough a systematic process which com-bined bureaucratic delay and system-atic, and highly organised, militia andmilitary violence. This violence was di-rected by the Joint Operations Commandagainst opposition supporters and civilsociety organisations, to disrupt (and

DOI: 10.1080/03056240802411198

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even eliminate) the structures of theMovement for Democratic Change (MDC),by physically harming its members, sup-porters and lawyers, stealing ID cardsnecessary for voting and driving peoplefrom their localities, thus preventingthem voting. Perhaps most importantly,the action against the shipment exposedthe inaccurate though widely held viewthat Mugabes African critics supportand are influenced by pro-western andimperialist positions, and who can there-fore be characterised and dismissed asthe agents of neo-colonialism.

Whilst the movement against the armsshipment was a dramatic and, at least tosome, surprising initiative, this displayof solidarity did not appear out of no-where. Rather, it can be understood toreflect a number of underlying processeswhich are examined here. The first is ageneral (although highly uneven)strengthening of independent civil soci-ety movements across the southern Afri-can region over the last decade. Secondly,it was a demonstration of the growingalienation of the South African govern-ment (although not the African NationalCongress as a party) from its alliancepartners, the South African CommunistParty (SACP) and the Congress of SouthAfrican Trade Unions (COSATU), aswell as much of wider civil society.Thirdly, it represented the fruits of strenu-ous (and, at times, apparently fruitless)efforts to build regional solidarityamongst trade unions and social move-ments in solidarity with Zimbabweancounterparts over the last five years.Whilst the MDC leadership has focusedon gaining the support of the interna-tional community (an effort which hasenabled Mugabe to portray the MDC asthe puppets of western powers), Zimba-bwean civil society particularly labour,womens and church-based organisa-tions have steadily built cross-borderlinks that bore fruit in this campaign.

Timeline of Events

Following the first round of the Zimba-bwean elections on 29 March 2008, thedelay in the release of results whichwould have shown a victory for theMovement for Democratic Change (MDC)provided cover for systematic violenceagainst opposition supporters and othercritics of the ruling Zimbabwe AfricanNational Union Popular Front (ZANU-PF) party. In this context, the arrival ofthe Chinese container ship, the An YueJiang, off Durban harbour on 14 Aprilprompted fears that the Zimbabweanauthorities were arming themselves inpreparation for the further repression ofMDC supporters during the secondround of elections (fears based on his-torical precedence and ones whichproved well founded, with widespreadviolence subsequently forcing MorganTsvangirais withdrawal from the sec-ond round of the Presidential electionson 27 June). The ships manifest, leakedto the South African press and the SouthAfrican Transport and Allied WorkersUnion (SATAWU), the union which rep-resents dockworkers, revealed that theAn Yue Jiang was carrying 77 tonnes ofarmaments destined for onward trans-portation to Zimbabwe: these were spe-cifically rocket-propelled grenades,mortars and small arms, three millionrounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortarrounds.1

The reaction of the South African govern-ment was predictable: January Masilela,the South African Defence Secretary,declared that the shipment had beenapproved that week by the NationalConventional Arms Control Committee(NCACC), which he chairs. Masilelaconcluded: This is a normal transactionbetween two sovereign states and we donthave to interfere.2

In contrast, Randall Howard, GeneralSecretary of SATAWU, publicly declared:

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We do not believe it will be in the interestof the Zimbabwean people in general ifSouth Africa is seen to be a conduit ofarms and ammunition into Zimbabwe at atime when the situation could be de-scribed as quite volatile.3

Howard, who also serves as the Presi-dent of the International Transport work-ers Federation (ITF), contacted the ITFSecretariat in London, initiating the in-ternational arm of the campaign.

Meanwhile, human rights groups inSouth Africa quickly petitioned the Dur-ban High Court for a freeze on themovement of the arms. The petitionersincluded the Bishop of Durban RubinPhilip, supported by the South AfricanLitigation Centre (SALC) and the OpenSociety Institute of Southern Africa(OSISA).4 They obtained an interim legaljudgement on 18 April that the armscould not be transported overland inSouth Africa, by utilising the Conven-tional Arms Control Act of 2002. TheInternational Network on Small Arms(IANSA) Johannesburg office supportedthese efforts and also mobilised theresources of its London-based secre-tariat. IANSAs aim was the impound-ing of the ship, to stop not only theoffloading of the arms in Durban, butalso their movement elsewhere.5 Thiswas not successful; although the inter-dict was granted, the Ann Yue Jiang leftDurban harbour on the day of the courtjudgement.

SATAWU and the other campaignersnow sought to ensure that the arms werenot offloaded elsewhere in southern Af-rica; Howard declared:

We again strongly call on all Africangovernments and dock workers to refusethe vessel docking access and to refusehandling the weapons with a view toensuring that the vessel leaves Africanshores immediately. We call on the UnitedNations to bring pressure to bear on theChinese government to practically dem-

onstrate their commitment to recall andstop using the politics of deception Satawus interest only lies with the sixcontainers of lethal weapons on boardbeing boycotted and returned to Beijinguntil the political crisis in Zimbabwe isresolved, in the context of the possibility ofgenuine democracy reinstated based onthe will of the people there. To that extent,we urge local, African and global media toensure that this important humane storyremains in the public discourse until thevessel returns with the weapons on boardas the struggle did not end in Durban on18 April 2008.6

The ITF now used its expertise andnetwork of contacts in the industry totrack the vessels movements.7 The shipinitially sailed north to Mozambique;labour unions were alerted to the shipsimminent arrival and prepared to lobbytheir government. However, the An YueJiang lacked a permit to dock in Maputoand the authorities declared that it wouldnot be accepted into Maputo port be-cause, in the words of Transport andCommunications Minister Paulo Zucula,we wouldnt allow it into Mozambicanwaters without prior arrangements.8 Itthen turned south, as Mozambique re-vealed that its next scheduled destina-tion was Luanda, in Angola. Thepossibility that the ship might land ineither Namibia or Angola, both of whichhave governments previously sympa-thetic to the Mugabe government, raisednew concerns. After liaison with theirSouth African counterparts, civil societyorganisations mobilised in Namibiaagainst the An Yue Jiang, which initiallysought to refuel at Walvis Bay. On 24April, 200 Namibians, mobilised bychurch-based organisations and the Le-gal Assistance Centre, marched to theChinese embassy in Windhoek in protestagainst the shipment. Bishop ZephaniaKameeta told the demonstration that thearms shipment threatened to destroygood relations between China and Af-rica.9

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This emphasis on in-country activityreflected a major priority for IANSA andother organisations, that the campaignshould be locally owned. As JosephDube, IANSAs Africa Coordinator basedin Johannesburg argues, the SADC Headsof States reluctance to respond to out-side voices on Zimbabwe meant it wascrucial that the campaign activities werereflective of the priorities and approachesof civil society in the countries involved,so that it could not be portrayed as awestern-controlled campaign.10 IANSAsLondon-based Secretariat sought to en-sure continued media interest in theships movements, linking it to its widercampaign for an international ArmsTrade Treaty. Sustaining press coveragebecame more difficult once the vesselwas out of South African waters.

On 24 April, the ship was rumoured to beheading for Lobito. The following day,the Angolan government declared that itwould allow the An Yue Jiang to dock inLuanda, but that the vessel would onlybe allowed to offload merchandise des-tined for Angola.11 The Angolan Councilfor Human Rights was mobilised, andlocal trade unionists were contacted, butit proved more difficult to establish anopen campaign against the shipment inAngola (for reasons examined below). Atthe same time, the ship was recalled toChina by its owners, the state-ownedChinese Ocean Shipping Company(Cosco). The An Yue Jiang remained inLuanda harbour for some days, off-loading cement and other supplies. Itwas reported to have left Luanda on 6May.

In mid-May, there were widespread re-ports that the arms had in fact foundtheir way to Zimbabwe having beenoffloaded in (variously) Luanda, theDemocratic Republic of the Congo, orCongo-Brazzaville. Some civil societyorganisations and the ITF ridiculed theseclaims, whilst the Chinese embassy inSouth Africa explicitly stated that theweapons were being returned to China.12

Nevertheless, doubts have been raisedregarding the success of the campaign,something which is addressed below.

Local & Global solidarity, Old &New Tactics

The brief and successful campaignagainst the arms shipment incorporatedboth traditional and more modern socialmovement tactics. On a regional andinternational level, email, web links andcell phones enabled the rapid sharing ofinformation. Organisers were able toidentify and contact civil society activ-ists in particular countries where it wasfeared the arms shipments would betaken to next, or possibly be transportedthrough, to reach Zimbabwe. The latestintelligence was shared in seconds withactivists across the region and the world.

Important activist and campaigning net-works served to coordinate the globalcampaign: Avaaz and the InternationalNetwork on Small Arms (IANSA) bothplayed an important role, establishingand circulating a petition, which wasthen posted on many websites. Mean-while, a host of bloggers monitored thereported movements of the vessel usingLloyds of Londons Maritime Intelli-gence Unit; this proved impossible for acouple of days, when the An Yue Jiangstransponder was temporarily turned off.13

Of course, such short-term internationalcampaigns, organised largely in hyper-space, have a tendency to escape thecontrol of their initiators. Stories, peti-tions and emails were forwarded con-tinuously with little reference to theirorigin; blogs blend unverifiable fact withoccasionally unpalatable opinion.Internet-based techniques are undeni-ably useful for such urgent campaignswith specific aims, but also carry thedanger of a loss of ownership andlegitimacy when applied to longer-termcampaigns with more complex objec-tives. In this case, stories and rumoursregarding the ship abounded on the

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internet it was reported to have beenlanded in Pointe Noire in Congo-Brazzaville,14 and rumours circulatedthat the ship had been offloaded ontosmaller vessels at sea, despite the techni-cal impossibilities involved; the ITFsought to scotch such rumours, but thiswas not entirely successful.15

One important story which continues tocirculate on the internet is that origi-nated by Zimbabwes Deputy Minister ofInformation Bright Matonga, who an-nounced some weeks ago at a pressconference that the arms shipment hadin fact been delivered to Zimbabwe.16 Hisclaim was not supported by other gov-ernment officials and was specificallydenied by the Minister of Defence, but ithas continued to circulate. The ITF,having tracked the movements of the AnYue Jiang closely, ultimately to its returnto Shanghai in mid-June, are certain thatthe arms remain onboard, with no op-portunity for them to be unloaded unob-served.17

If much of the campaigns internationalpublicity and profile was generated onthe internet, it was on the ground inSouth Africa where the campaign began.Here, it was initiated by rank-and-filedockworkers, utilising one of the oldestforms of solidarity action a refusal byworkers to handle goods. Durban is ofcourse a centre of working-class actionwith a long and proud history; the 1973dock strikes were central to the resur-gence of the internal struggle againstapartheid. SATAWU was established in2000 to represent not only dock workersbut also railworkers, who have initiatedmilitant and sometimes violent wagecampaigns in recent years. SATAWUwas central to the campaign, represent-ing the local membership which couldensure the boycott of the goods waseffective, but also utilising its interna-tional linkages to the ITF in particular.The ITF, as well as monitoring the move-ments of the vessel, also sought to mobi-lise labour organisations in the region,

but was hampered by both communica-tions problems, and by the uneven devel-opment of international labour linkagesin southern Africa. They worked withInternational Trade Union Confedera-tion officials to identify union contacts inAngola and Mozambique who couldalert local dockworkers to the issue. TheITF also worked alongside establishednetworks of international NGOs; here,the need for consultation and coordina-tion of activities did not always reflectthe need for urgent concrete actions.

South-South Solidarity

The campaign of solidarity in southernAfrica in general, and South Africa inparticular, would not have been possiblewithout nearly a decade of patient soli-darity work by a range of civil societyorganisations and social movements,linking Zimbabwean activists and theircounterparts in the region. In a context inwhich the South African governmenthas been habitually sympathetic to itsZimbabwean counterpart, the range andextent of this solidarity has generallybeen overlooked by observers.

Those involved in such initiatives havefaced considerable challenges. In Johan-nesburg, the wider Gauteng provinceand other parts of northern South Africa,the influx of millions of Zimbabweanrefugees over the last decade has fuelledthe xenophobic feelings of many poorSouth Africans. The widespread stere-otyping of Zimbabweans resident inSouth Africa as both criminals and asworkers desperate enough prepared toundercut South African wages createdsignificant anti-Zimbabwean feeling, ex-pressed in the horrifying wave of xeno-phobic attacks in South Africa in May2008. Against this, organisations suchas the Solidarity Peace Trust have soughtto raise awareness of the oppression ofZimbabweans at home, and their suffer-ing inside South Africa, for example theirpoor treatment by inadequate immigra-tion services. The Centre for the Study of

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Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) inJohannesburg hosted many of these ac-tivities. OSISA and the Media Institute ofSouthern Africa played an importantrole in coordinating meetings in Johan-nesburg from around 2002, whilst ElinorSisulu played a leading role in raisingmedia attention of the plight of Zimba-bwean refugees in South Africa.18 Thesegroups struggled to mobilise the vastZimbabwean exile population in thecountry few were willing to drawattention to themselves, thereby riskingtheir precarious residential status. Nev-ertheless, it was precisely these organi-sations and the networks they createdwhich were key to the rapid organisa-tional and legal mobilisation which tookplace over the arms shipment; indeed, itcan be argued that such a responsewould not have been possible withoutthe pains

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