Introduction

Abstract

The following document is reprinted with the permission of our ACAS colleagues in the US (see their web site at http://acas.prairenet.org/). ACAS has chosen to address the role of western oil companies in Africa in order to see if activists running campaigns in the US, Africa and Europe could together develop a more robust position on oil, development, human rights and the environment. Our aim is to share analyses, strategies and tactics and to help other groups make oil a focus of their work in these four years of the US oil presidency. This issue of the Bulletin will, we hope, open a vigorous debate about oil and energy alternatives, about extractive industries and development, as well as about globalization and the looting of Africa's other resources, including biodiversity.