Oil Workers Kidnapped in Nigeria

Although Americans are most familiar with the abuses associated with Middle Eastern oil, which promotes terrorism and stabilizes brutal dictatorships, the greatest abuses are elsewhere. In Nigeria, a militant group claiming to fight foreign control of oil kidnapped nine oil workers, destroyed an oil pipeline, and promised to fire missiles at oil tankers (link #1).

[Link #2] The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has given oil companies and their employees until midnight on Friday night to leave the region.

It recently blew up two oil pipelines, held four foreign oil workers hostage and sabotaged two major oilfields.

The group wants greater control of the oil wealth produced on their land.

The warning came as militants and the army exchanged fire after a government helicopter gunship attacked barges allegedly used by smugglers to transport stolen crude oil.

Correspondents say the militants provide security for the smugglers.

Nigeria is Africa's leading oil exporter and the fifth-biggest source of US oil imports, but despite its oil wealth, many Nigerians live in abject poverty.

Whereas the oil problems in the Middle East are those of excessive stability, those of Latin American and African oil-producing nations are those of instability. In Nigeria, oil companies employ mafia tactics and use slave labor; the pro-Western government embarks on policing campaigns that as far as I can glean from news reports make Palestine and Iraq seem idyllic. Whereas in Latin America there's a tide of socialism, which of course mitigates the abuses of oil politics, in Nigeria the government keeps supporting rampant abuses by Chevron-Texaco, Exxon-Mobil, Shell, and other big oil corporations.

Apparently independently of the above mayhem, Bush has just announced his program to expand nuclear power for civilian use (link #3). On paper, this proposal sounds like a good idea: despite accidents, nuclear power still kills fewer people than oil or coal power - in fact, opposition to nuclear power is one of the canonical examples risk perception theories cite of a discrepancy between real risk and people's perception thereof. However, I suspect this proposal is flawed for three reasons: one, there's only enough uranium for 40 years of nuclear power at current consumption rates; two, if recent events are any indication of American competence, terrorist attacks on nuclear plants will abound; and three, I can believe that Bush is capable of instituting programs that do good, but not when it's bad for the oil interests he's in bed with.