According to the BBC, it was announced yesterday that Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua would soon write a letter handing over power to his vice president. Yar’Adua has been hospitalized in Saudi Arabia since November with heart and kidney ailments — there was even speculation he was dead. It was news many had been dreading even though it has looked to be inevitable for a long time. The current vice-president Goodluck Jonathan is from the south (Yar’Adua is from the north) and this may create further ethnic strains.
As President, Ya’Adua had been slow-moving but perceived as honest. He had also brokered a promising peace deal with the rebels in the violent, oil-rich Niger delta. Now, the rebels in the Niger River delta in Nigeria are have announced the end of the cease-fire.
Despite pledges of retraining for thousands of militants and development aid for the impoverished Niger Delta region, little has been done since the government announced an amnesty program for militants in August… The militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, warned that it would resume attacks on oil company pipelines and personnel, a threat analysts said was credible. (New York Times)
In late January, Royal Dutch Shell announced that a pipeline in the delta had been sabotaged.
Nigeria is not the only place facing increasing violence in resource-rich areas. One always hopes for the best in a new year. And like most New Year’s resolutions, these hopes always crash into the never-ending constant of human nature.
The new decade seems to be getting off to a violent start. Here are a few more ominous events of the first month of 2010.
Pakistan is once again facing problems in Baluchistan.
A Pakistani provincial government plans to cancel a $3 billion joint venture copper and gold project owned by Canada’s Barrick Gold (ABX.TO) and Chilean copper miner Antofagasta (ANTO.L), a provincial mining official said …
The cancellation of the license — apparently meant to ease anger in Pakistan’s poorest province over outsider exploitation of its natural resources — would further damage Pakistan’s image as a destination for foreign investment and would throw a wrench into the plans of the mining companies. (Reuters 1/12/10)
And although Indonesia seems to be doing fairly well in gas-rich Aceh, its problems in Papua in the east are flaring up again.
At least seven persons were wounded in an attack on a convoy of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold’s Grasberg mine, including Freeport employees American Howard James Lochart and South African Sandy Wilson, as well as Cindy Mokodampit, the 13-year old daughter of a Freeport employee.
A series of attacks on company employees last year between June and November killed three people, including an Australian engineer performing contract work at the Grasberg mine, the world’s largest gold mine and third-largest copper mine. Grasberg is also the focus of protests by locals who claim they are not benefitting from the extraction of Papua’s resources. (Mineweb 1/25/10)
The area near the Grasberg mine has experienced violence and environmental devastation for more than three decades. The same in Nigeria, Baluchistan also for decades. When it comes to dealing with the combination of long-standing bad relations with the central government, ethnic tensions and natural resources, it seems there are no easy answers, a lack of political will and focus, and a tone-deaf approach towards resolution. Yar’Adua will be missed.
