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From the Vol.1,No.12 issue of Electronic Intelligence Weekly
AFRICA NEWS DIGEST

Nigerian Oil and Gas Reserves Targetted in U.S. Strategic Shift

An indication that the U.S. is making a strategic shift toward procurement of oil and gas supplies from West Africa was the recent announcement that two U.S. oil companies have stepped up plans to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in Nigeria. Sources at the Ministry of Petroleum Resources told the Nigerian daily This Day, that Chevron-Texaco and Phillips Petroleum, as well as Norway's state-oil firm, Statoil, have submitted proposals for the construction of the new LNG plants in Nigeria's Niger Delta area. Chevron Texaco is handling the West Niger Delta LNG project, while Phillips, in alliance with the Italian firm Agip, is working on the Brass LNG project. The Special Assistant to the President on Petroleum Matters, engineer Funso Kupolokun, who confirmed ongoing discussions on the three new LNG projects, said Nigeria was poised to begin to make "as much money from gas as we are making from oil."

The most recent estimate of Nigeria's hydrocarbon resources, found that gas resources will last for the next 75 years, based on the current rate of depletion. The current projection is that crude-oil reserves will last 34 years.

On oil, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) signed a joint operator agreement May 21 with three multinational oil companies headquartered in the United States. The Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Jackson Gaius-Obaseka, said that the agreement was not regular government business, but an international venture, driven by a strong commitment to boost Nigeria's crude oil production. "What we are doing today is a partnership," he explained, adding, "We are going for the first time as contractors to work on the block with the Americans." David Johnson, who signed for Phillips operations, described the event as a "turning point" in Nigeria's history of oil exploration activities.

EIR Proved Right in Expose of Fake Sudan 'Anti-Slavery' Organizations

"Attacks on Sudan Slave Trade Exposed as Fraud," was the headline of a July 16, 1999 EIR article, exposing the so-called "slave trade," and "mass slave redemptions" as a British-directed hoax, used to whip up support for rebel leader John Garang of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. Now, almost three years later, the media, including many who had trumpetted the original "slavery" story—the Irish Times, London Independent, Washington Post, and International Herald Tribune—as well as CBS-TV's "60 Minutes," and the magazine Christianity Today, have dug into "the great slave scam," as it was termed by the Irish Times.

"These articles are the culmination of deep, long-standing concerns about the activities of several organizations involved in what has become a Western-financed 'redemption' industry in parts of Sudan," writes author David Hoile, from Media Monitors. "The claims by organizations and people such as John Eibner and the Swiss-based Christian Solidarity International (CSI) and British Baroness Caroline Cox's Christian Solidarity Worldwise (CSW) to have redeemed more than 65,000 Sudanese slaves have also been called into question."

As explained in a Feb. 23, 2002 article by the Irish Times, which started the investigations going: "According to aid workers, missionaries, and even the rebel movement that facilitates it, slave redemption in Sudan is often an elaborate scam. In reality, many of the 'slaves' are fakes. Rebel officials round up local villagers to pose for the cameras. They recruit fake slavers—a light skinned soldier, or a passing trader, to 'sell' them. The children are coached in stories of abduction and abuse for when the redeemer, or a journalist, asks questions. Interpreters may be instructed to twist their answers. The money, however, is very real. CSI can spend more than $300,000 during a week of redemptions at various bush locations. After their plane takes off, the profits are divvied up—a small cut to the 'slaves' and the 'trader', but the lion's share to local administrators and SPLA figures."

Continues the Irish daily: "The warning signs have been there for years ... the numbers didn't add up. And yet no questions were asked. The dollars rolled in and the redumptions continued." The Irish Times questioned the involvement of Baroness Cox and CSW, as organizations who supposedly redeemed 3,000 "slaves."

In an open letter in 2000, senior SPLA commander Aleu Ayieny Aleu stated that "slave redemption" had become a "racket of mafia dimensions." He also revealed, as an example, that one of his lighter-skinned relatives, SPLA Captain Akec Tong Aleu, had been "forced several times to [pose] as an Arab and simulate the sale of free children to CSI on camera." Aleu declared: "It was a hoax. This thing has been going on for no less than six years."

HIV Scandal: 'South Africa's Jails of Death'

About 6,000 of the 10,000 prisoners released monthly from South African jails are HIV-positive, according to Judge Johannes Fagan, the inspecting judge of prisons. He gave the statistics while briefing the National Assembly's Correctional Services Committee May 21. He stressed that it was essential for the general fight against HIV/AIDS, that infected inmates receive proper treatment. He noted that overcrowding remained the root cause of health problems and the spread of contagious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. He noted that the number of "natural" deaths was rapidly increasing, and that almost all of these—1,169 last year—were AIDS-related. Conditions in overcrowded prisons were "not conducive to [the] longevity of those who are HIV-positive," he said.

Fagan noted it was not only sentenced prisoners who are dying; prisoners awaiting trial are also dying. Of the about 175,000 inmates in South African prisons, some 55,000 were awaiting trial, many for years. Forty percent of those awaiting trial, more than 20,000, were in prison "only because of poverty," as they could not afford to pay even the very low bail amounts set for them. "This is crazy," Fagan told the parliamentary committee.

Southern Africa's Ruling Liberation Parties Holding Summit

The Zimbabwe newspaper The Herald reported May 22 that liberation parties, which run the governments in southern African countries, have agreed to hold a summit in Victoria Falls aimed at enhancing unity, "in the face of orchestrated interference in domestic affairs by foreign imperial forces." Parties that are to attend the meeting include Frelimo of Mozambique, Swapo of Namibia, MPLA of Angola, Zanu-PF of Zimbabwe, and the African National Congress of South Africa. Other parties that have been invited, include the Botswana Democratic Party and the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy led by President Levy Mwanawasa in Zambia.

Although the parties have yet to set a date for the summit, Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF national chairman John Nkomo said May 21 that consultations were at an advanced stage, and that the meeting would probably be held in the next few months. Nkomo said ruling liberation parties have asked Zimbabwe to host the summit, which, among other issues, would discuss land redistribution, the history and duty of liberation movements in southern Africa, how to deal with foreign interference, and the effects of globalization and its impact on the revolutionary parties.

"We do believe that there is need for a regional strategy in particular as it concerns revolutionary parties in government especially those parties that fought to dislodge colonialism in their countries," said Nkomo. He added that preliminary meetings to examine the threat of the new wave of neocolonialism had already been held with several ruling liberation parties in the region. These meetings agreed that there was need for a systematic coordination for dealing with neocolonialism. He said the imperial forces were targetting liberation parties, pointing to the British-sponsored opposition Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe as exemplary.

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