African oil for U.S., African security for Europe
By Pat Reber
WASHINGTON, April 14, 2004 (dpa) — A new scramble is on for Africa, and the United States wants to secure the vast continent of 800 million people not only for its oil but also as a buffer against future terrorist threats to Europe.
Instead of being left in the dust, as Washington was at the 19th century Berlin Conference, where European powers divided up the dark continent, the U.S. military is already out in front with its own new programmes.
For example, the U.S. European Command, based in Germany, has already forged an anti-terrorist coalition in northern Africa that recently pursued the leader of the tourist-snatching, Algerian-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) across Niger and into Chad. The leader, a man who goes variously by the names Saifi Amari and Abderrazak le Para, escaped, but 43 followers were killed and 18 were detained.
At a seminar Tuesday in Washington, U.S. General Charles Wald, deputy commander for the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), used bold terms to outline ambitious plans for Africa. The ideas presented at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative, free-market think tank, will likely anchor discussions at a European-wide meeting May 22 in Luxembourg, Wald said.
Key to Washington’s push is increasing U.S. reliance on oil from West Africa and the offshore Gulf of Guinea reserves, which currently meet about 15 per cent of U.S. needs and are expected to rise to 25 per cent of U.S. needs over the coming decade. In addition to the apparent abundance of offshore oil, the direct trans-Atlantic shipping access allows U.S.-bound tankers to avoid congested and potentially dangerous Middle Eastern bottlenecks.
As U.S. interest in Africa’s oil has grown, so have the al-Qaeda terrorist network and other groups seeking to make inroads around Africa. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had a base in Sudan during the 1990s and was blamed for the 1998 twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Moroccan terrorists are believed to have been at the core of last month’s Madrid railway bombings, which killed nearly 200 people.
With just the narrow Straits of Gibraltar separating Europe and Africa’s burgeoning population, Wald painted a bleak picture if the dual threats of terrorism and AIDS is allowed to develop unchecked.
“Europe is a safe haven for a lot of terrorists. They can grow and recruit there. That’s going to raise more and more of an issue. Those … 1.3 billion (Africans) 20 years from now, is that going to be a curse or a benefit to Europe?” Wald asked.
Seminar participants suggested that Europe could stem its plummeting economy and “voluntary self extermination” – the phrase David Hale of Hale Advisers LLS used to describe Western Europe’s low birth rate and population decline – through expanded economic and military cooperation with Africa and more liberal immigration policies.
“Western Europe doesn’t need us any more,” Wald said, sounding an increasingly familiar note among U.S. military officials. The region must “step up and help the United States. We’ve been protecting their economies for 50 years.”
Other participants at the seminar anticipated that consumers of Africa’s raw materials would pay higher prices in the coming decades as China and other Asian economies demand more resources on the open market.
China, for example, already had 4,000 troops stationed in Sudan to protect an oil line its workers built, according to David Hale of Hale Advisers LLC.
“This is a very major geopolitical development (which) will be for Africans a great growth opportunity,” Hale said.
Hale also projected that at the current rate of imbalanced development, Frankfurt and other European cities would become urban centres for “old women” being cared for by black Africans and Middle Eastern women.
Wald advocated a comprehensive approach that would address Africa’s AIDS problems and economic development, as well as the need to build regional military alliances to provide rapid-fire peacekeeping responses.
“What Africa needs more than anything is intellectual capital,” Wald said. “It’s not that they are dumb people, … but they can learn from our ethos.”