Chad is also a story of blood oil

Chad is also a story [see Alex De Waal's article at ] of blood oil, in my opinion, and the blood is on the hands of the World Bank and western governments. Recall that in the 1990's the World Bank agressively backed western oil companies to overcome all obstacles and construct the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, delivering Chadian oil to gaping western fuel tanks. (Ironically, at the time the World Bank was running ads on CNN warning us that increasing fossil fuel consumption might contribute to global warming!) The Bank's public justification was that extracting the oil was the only hope for development in Chad. Some of us opposed the pipeline and the World Bank's role, on the grounds that Chad had no effective government and a history of conflict, and that the oil money was unlikely to be of real benefit to Chadians under those conditions. The oil has been in the ground for millions of years; we argued for keeping it there a few more years until we could be sure it would be well used. Obviously the conflict in Chad predates the oil exploitation, but the World Bank literally poured oil on the flames, providing something much more valuable for rival factions to fight over. Now we are seeing the kind of 'development' oil has brought to Chad: more years of civil war and the resulting human suffering. Will we be surprised to see western governments install or prop up whichever 'government' is likely to keep the oil flowing?