An outrageous example of such imperial conduct was the World Bank’s recent actions against Chad. As a condition for a loan, the bank had demanded that Chad deposit its oil revenues in a London escrow account, agree to spend a set amount on “poverty reduction,” and submit its budget for approval by an imperialist-backed “oversight committee.” When the government of Chad balked at this violation of the country’s sovereignty, the World Bank froze its oil account.

Asking imperialist governments and corporations such as ExxonMobil to enforce “transparency” and “good governance” is like calling for the fox to guard the henhouse. It’s intended to divert attention from the main source of pillage in the world: Washington, London, Paris, and other imperialist powers.

What happens to the massive wealth from Africa’s oil wells, diamond mines, hardwood forests, and cocoa plantations? Chad, for example, receives only 12.5 percent of revenues from its oil pipeline—ExxonMobil and other imperialist monopolies get the lion’s share.

The so-called oil curse is a self-serving myth. It boils down to the following message: African nations “can’t handle” too much oil, or any other wealth, so imperialist governments are needed to step in and tell those countries how to run their economies: by turning over their natural resources to the energy monopolies and keeping them in bondage to finance capital.

Corruption is not the source of poverty but a symptom of something more fundamental: the system of imperialist domination and capitalist exploitation. Bribes, extortion, and violence are a normal part of capitalism—only the imperialist powers carry out their piracy on such a massive scale that they pass laws to call it legal, and then enforce it with military might.

Today Washington is moving to expand its dominance in Africa and edge out its competitors, especially in oil-rich West Africa and the Gulf of Guinea. About 15 percent of U.S. oil imports come from Africa, and that figure may grow to 25 percent in a decade. That’s why Washington is stepping up its military presence there, from its “Trans-Sahel Counterterrorism Initiative” in West Africa to a planned U.S. base in São Tomé and Príncipe.

Imperialism, not oil, is the curse the peoples of Africa face. Working people around the world should call on Washington and other imperialist powers to pull all their troops out of Africa, cancel the foreign debt, and end all economic sanctions against African countries.
 
 
Related articles:
World Bank freezes Chad’s oil assets abroad  
 
 
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