Oil pump in Zaire province, Angola. jbdodane/Flickr. Some rights reserved.Before the dramatic fall in international oil prices over the past year, a decade-long commodity super-cycle helped unlock oil resources in frontier markets across Africa. High oil prices brought hundreds of billions of dollars into the continent, giving political leaders in Africa’s petro-states the means to cement their power at home, but also wrestle a larger share of their energy stakes from western and Chinese oil companies alike.
In Africa’s New Oil, Celeste Hicks traverses these post-millennium petro-states to consider whether they can avoid the gross corruption, environmental destruction, and violent conflict that has been attributed to the oil industry on the continent. In an ambitious and pioneering account, Hicks travels from the scrublands of the Sahel, down to the Gulf of Guinea, and across to soon-to-be producers in east Africa, to sketch out the dynamic politics and development prospects on Africa’s new oil map.
Oil and development in Chad
Rebels in Eastern Chad, September 2008. Sam Mann/Demotix. All rights reserved.In Chad, the thickest part of her thin volume, Hicks begins her story with dead rebels at her feet. In mid-2009, at the direction of Chad’s president Idriss Déby Itno, the "Armée Nationale du Tchad" laid waste to 200 rebel fighters outside the town of Am Dam. Hicks, a former BBC correspondent, is invited by the Chadian government to see the smouldering battlefield first-hand. The army’s victory brought an end to a longstanding rebel threat. On two separate occasions since 2005, rebel groups from eastern Chad rocketed across the desert on pick-up trucks to nearly topple President Déby in the capital N’Djamena. Reaching the gates of his palace, only a resolute presidential guard and French logistical assistance prevented a coup. Now in power for a quarter of a century, Chadians commonly refer to Déby as "Le Grand Survivant".
