OIL POLITICS IN ECUADOR AND NIGERIA: A PERSPECTIVE FROM ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY ON THE STRUGGLES BETWEEN ETHNIC MINORITY GROUPS, MULTINATIONAL OIL COMPANIES AND NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS.

• Main Author: Steyn, Maria Sophia
• Other Authors: Prof A Wessels
• Format: Others
• Language: en-uk
• Published: University of the Free State 2005
• Subjects: History
• Online Access: http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-08232005-142307/restricted/

Oil-related struggles by ethnic minority groups against their national governments and multinational oil companies active in their traditional territories in South America and Africa have made headlines across the world in recent years. Fuelled in particular by a post-Cold War world order with its emphasis on environmental and human rights, and the rediscovery of minority groups, oil-producing ethnic minority groups set out in the course of the 1990s to confront perceived and real political, economic, social and environmental marginalisation suffered due to the perpetuation of historical inequalities which became more pronounced and intensified with the onset of oil developments and production in their traditional territories. While the adverse human and environmental consequences of oil production in their traditional territories triggered these oil-related ethnic minority struggles in South America and Africa in the 1990s, their struggles should not be viewed merely in environmental and human rights terms. On the contrary, they are as much struggles against long histories of political, economic and social marginalisation suffered at the hands of their national governments and the dominant cultures in their countries, as they are struggles against the multinational oil companies active in their traditional land. The purpose of this study is to explore the environmental and human impacts of oil developments on oil-producing ethnic minority groups in South America and Africa, by focusing on the oil-related struggles of the Cofan and the Siona -Secoya Indians in Ecuador and that of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni in Nigeria. The Cofan, the Siona-Secoya and the Ogoni were marginalized over an extended period that commenced with the onset of colonial rule in 1533 in Ecuador and the late nineteenth century in Nigeria. Consequently their struggles waged in the course of the 1990s against Texaco and the Ecuadorian government, and Shell and the Nigerian government respectively, are essentially political, economic and environmental struggles to confront both real and perceived domination and marginalisation on numerous levels. In political terms, the Cofan and the Siona-Secoya confronted the real political marginalisation of Indian communities in Ecuador that had relegated Indians to the lowest strata of Ecuadorian society for centuries, while the Ogoni in Nigeria confronted real and perceived political domination in a Nigerian society characterised by political domination by majority ethnic groups. Political marginalisation is very closely related to economic and environmental marginalisation, since both Ecuador and Nigeria depend entirely on natural resource exploitation for their economic survival. As a result, oil production in the territories of the Cofan, the Siona-Secoya and the Ogoni have over time contributed greatly to the national economies of Ecuador and Nigeria, but these minorities have generally not shared in the economic benefits of oil production, while at the same time being forced to cope with the adverse environmental impacts of unregulated and uncontrolled oil developments and production by Texaco and Shell respectively. However, while the Ogoni in general aspire to share in the modernising benefits associated with an oil economy, the Cofan and the Siona-Secoya in Ecuador wage their oil-related struggle in order to counter their forceful incorporation into a modern economy, to protect their traditional lifestyles which are the defining elements of their cultures, and to obtain the right to shape modernity according to their own needs and on their own terms. There is no question that oil production by Texaco and Shell has had a detrimental environmental and human impact on the Cofan and the Siona-Secoya, and the Ogoni respectively, and that the Ecuadorian and Nigerian governments have paid scant attention to the environmental management and regulation of their oil industries, which exacerbated the adverse environmental impacts of oil production in the Oriente in Ecuador and Ogoniland in Nigeria. However, Texaco and Shell were slow to acknowledge and address these adverse environmental impacts of their oil-related activities in the two countries, with Shell only doing so in 1996 in reaction to negative public reaction in Europe to the company's involvement in Ogoniland (and the Brent Spar incident of 1995), while there is to date no real commitment to social and environmental responsibility from Texaco. In addition, very little is being done by the Ecuadorian and Nigerian governments to implement and enforce stringent environmental controls in their oil industries. Until this is done there is no real possibility of a successful outcome to the Cofan and Siona-Secoya, and the Ogoni struggles, and consequently these three minority groups will continue to be subjected to the adverse environmental impacts of oil production and/or its legacy in the forseeable future.