Oil, the only US interest in Africa

Havana. July 7, 2005

Oil, the only US interest in Africa

BY JOAQUIN ORAMAS

This past February, a small group of top US generals visited Africa on separate trips considered far from routine. This group included the head of the United States European Command, General James L. Jones, commander of the Marine Corps, and his deputy commander, Air Force General Charles Wald. Except for the region known as the Horn of Africa, the US European Command supervises all operations in extensive territories.

The backdrop to these visits is widespread growing pressures by the oil industry and conservative political groups in the Unite States to obtain secure energy sources outside the Middle East. In recent months, the northern power has been sending Special Forces troops to Sahel, Mauritania, Chad, Mali and Nigeria. These forces are part of a program called the Pan-Sahel Initiative, designed to provide anti-terrorism training. It has also been described as a program to train regional armies and have them at the disposal of the U.S.

The US Special Forces involved operated out of Germany under the pretext of providing aid to the needy. But it has already been affirmed that small island of São Tomé and Príncipe in western Africa could be the location chosen for a US naval base. Its strategic position in the Gulf of Guinea, where oil was recently discovered in deep waters, was the basis for a meeting between Bush and that country’s former President Fradique de Menezes in 2002.

The regional US allies do not have navies, and São Tomé and Nigeria share an area that appears to possess 11 billion barrels of oil. Many other recently-discovered reserves are also located near the coast. Currently, Nigeria supplies 10% of US oil needs.

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