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afrol News, 18 July - West and Central African Catholic Bishops united in Equatorial Guinea have denounced the flagrant discrepancy between the oil wealth in several of the region's countries and the human misery experienced by the majority of its inhabitants. The bishops blamed this on the "complicity" between oil companies and politicians in the region. The Association of Episcopal Conferences of the Region of Central Africa (ACERAC) met in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, from 7 to 14 July. The catholic bishops at the conference represented the churches of Congo Brazzaville, Central African Republic, Chad, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. One of the questions raised at the conference however treated the whole of West and Central Africa. It released a joint pastoral letter entitled 'The Church and Poverty in Central Africa: the case of oil,' addressing the situation in the oil exporting countries Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Congo Brazzaville. With old producers like Nigeria and Gabon and new producers like Equatorial Guinea and Chad, the region is becoming one of the world's leading oil producers, the bishops note. "Twenty-five percent of American oil will soon be imported from sub-Saharan Africa, with an important share coming from our countries," the document noted, according to a translation by a UN news service. However, the large revenues from the region's oil riches had not contributed to poverty alleviation and "high illiteracy, mortality and malnutrition rates still characterise the region" while roads, health care and education "leave much to be desired," the bishops complain. On the contrary, the region's people were paying a heavy price for oil production activities. The effects of onshore production were heaviest, as "biodiversity is endangered, and the population is subjected directly to inflation and endemic diseases." But also offshore production had its environmental and economic toll, as a study is "under way in Congo" was demonstrating. Moreover, there was an "imbalance between the harm suffered as a result of expropriations, on one hand, and compensatory measures, on the other. Oil companies violate commitments made with regard to environmental protection, the provision of jobs and markets," according to the bishops' conclusion. The oil riches had also fuelled regional conflict. The bishops noted that within states, there were often animosities between oil-producing regions and others. "The territorial location of oil wells and the unequal distribution of oil incomes have become arguments in favour of a new splintering of our countries," they said, adding that secessionist, regionalist and ethnic-based trends that jeopardise the cohesion of states were being justified by factors such as injustice in the exploitation of natural resources in given areas. Many other power struggles had also been centred on controlling the large revenues stemming from the oil - which has also been used to finance arms and private militias in some areas. This was "sometimes with the complicity of oil companies," which, "based on their interests, have given financial and logistical support to belligerents in the region." This had become one of the main causes of insecurity "on the borders of as well as within our countries," the bishops added. The bishops explained the whole mischief by"complicity" between oil companies and politicians in the region, where oil incomes are used to keep regimes in power and "contracts are drawn up in absolute secrecy." They add that "the contracts our states sign with the [oil] companies are surely to the advantage of the latter and reinforce our economic dependence." Finding a way out of this misery, the bishops propose that local governments should "ensure that commitments made by the oil companies and any other enterprises engaged in oil mining are respected" and to "avert conflict by investing not in arms but in peace-building activities." They further urged the transnational oil companies to fully respect "the lives of our people, our environment and our individual and social rights." Recent and ongoing conflicts in oil rich zones of Nigeria and Congo Brazzaville seem to underline the bishops' point. Environmental conflicts related to oil production in Chad/Cameroon and Nigeria are also going on. In Cameroon's west and Nigeria's southeast, separatism is mostly based in oil riches transported out of the area. In Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, extreme social contrasts have been created, and in all these countries except Nigeria, the revenues have consolidated undemocratic and unpopular regimes.
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