Oil fever
Posted: 23/10/2007 - 12:29 PM
Author:
James D. Hamilton reports in the October 2007 of THE ATLANTIC that the oil production of Saudi Arabia, which accounted for 19 percent of world oil exports in 2006, has been declining, down a million barrels a day over the last two years of data. Hamilton speculated that the Saudis’ Ghawar oil field, the largest known deposit in the world, may be in decline. He suggests that “the era when excess Saudi capacity could cushion geopolitical disruptions in oil supplies may well be over, even though the threat of such disruption is greater than ever.”
The price of oil on world markets hits new highs week after week, month after month. The biggest reason for this is probably the uncertainty surrounding Iran for the past few years. The quarrel between Iran and the United States over Iran’s move to acquire nuclear capability, contributes to increased and continuing instability in the Middle East, the region which produces most of the world’s oil supply. The growing strength of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela itself, a seriously important oil producer, and in the larger region, contributes to anxiety in Washington and other Western capitals.
For all the different reasons, the price of oil has reached a point where the Belize oil fields are now “flat out” experiencing an oil rush. On the one hand, foreign oil investors are falling all over themselves to buy political influence over the oil licenses in Belmopan, while the ruling Belizean politicians themselves and their faithful cronies are openly salivating with greed for the greatest financial bonanza in the history of Belize – the oil bonanza.
As Belizeans can attest from our experiences with Belize Natural Energy (BNE), when the crude oil pumping, trucking and exporting take place in Belize, the money goes somewhere where we can’t see it. The ruling politicians and the owners of BNE are happy with whatever the arrangement is, but the people of Belize have yet to see a highway, a bridge or a stadium which they can point to and say – our oil money built this.
The young people of Belize need to learn the engineering technology of oil exploration and extraction so that they can benefit from the jobs in our oil fields. But the older people of Belize need to study the twentieth century political histories of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Nigeria. The discovery of oil changed the socio-politics of these nations dramatically. Saudi Arabia, after the discovery of oil, became a dictatorship of the Saud family, which became a royal family with the collusion of American oil companies. Iraq became a war zone where Saddam Hussein emerged in the 1970’s as the baddest man in town. Hussein’s was a dictatorship which was very friendly with Washington from 1980 to 1988, when the Americans helped Saddam wage war with Iran. But after Saddam invaded Kuwait, Washington became angry with their former ally, and essentially invaded Baghdad in 2003 and hanged Hussein earlier this year. Iraq had become a killing field where one of the world’s greatest civilizations had existed. The trouble began when oil was discovered early in the twentieth century. Because of the British parliamentary tradition which was inherited by Nigeria after independence, that large West African nation fluctuates between democratic and military rule. But whoever is in power, by ballots or bullets, the looting of oil revenues enriches emergent oil cartels. The benefits of the oil do not reach the masses of the Nigerian people.
Democracy does not really exist in oil producing states, because the foreign oil companies do not have time to worry about ground community issues like the environment, clean water, and access to higher education. The foreign oil companies, where the domestic politics of producing countries is concerned, have as their first priority a government which is reliable, which is to say “powerful,” and can protect their oil rigs, their trucks and their pipelines. The discovery of oil in a small country like Belize means that those who have power, will not easily relinquish same.
The upcoming general elections will be the most tense in the history of Belize. It has become obvious that the PUP leaders feel that they cannot afford to lose. On the other hand, it is well known that the UDP are skilled at losing. If you look only at how the majority of Belizean citizens voted on general election day, then the PUP have won four straight general elections. (There was an aberration in 1993 which enabled the UDP to win more seats even though they received fewer votes than the PUP.) The PUP had won eight straight national elections from 1951 to 1979.
The PUP know how to win, and in the next general elections they have a greater reason to win than ever before. The PUP leaders and cronies have oil fever, and the implications of such a fever are already being felt. It’s no longer about democracy and the will of the people. Already, inside the PUP it is a case of their members and followers being instructed and directed. This has been so for decades. Now they will seek to extend this autocracy to the general public. It happens wherever oil fever begins to burn. Such a fever is now burning in Belize. For real.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|