Natural Resources and Violent Conflict - WaterWiki.net

340 john braythat speaking to the government on its own was not enough to facilitatethe desired changes; there must be involvement by other institutions,including international financial institutions.In 2001 Talisman budgeted $2 million for community developmentprojects: not all of it was spent, but the balance was put into trust to beallocated when appropriate projects were identified. Greater Nile PetroleumOperating Corporation as a collective entity spent $1.8 million onupstream community projects and a further $850,000 on downstreamprojects along the oil pipeline to Port Sudan. Talisman undertook toensure the continuity of its own projects at least until 2005, whetherthe sale of its assets to ONGC Videsh went ahead or not. Communitydevelopment projects may be good in themselves, but critics of the oilcompanies say that they are of little weight in the wider context ofcivil war.Questions for the Future. The most important question is the outcomeof the Sudan peace process. If the government and the SPLA areable to agree on a cease-fire and a political framework to decide thecountry’s future, then many other problems will become much easier tosolve. Reports of the negotiations in February 2003 were relatively optimistic(for example, Rosenberg 2003). Even if an agreement is signed,this will be the beginning of a new stage rather than the end of thepeace process. Both sides will require years to build up the institutionsneeded to bring lasting stability.Myanmar (Burma)Myanmar has many issues in common with Sudan. Both countries haveahistory of conflict between an authoritarian regime and ethnic minorities,and in both cases petroleum is emerging as one of the primesources of foreign exchange. Western petroleum companies have facedvigorous campaigns calling on them to withdraw, particularly in theUnited States and the United Kingdom. The U.S. company Unocal facesa long-standing legal case under the Alien Torts Claims Act on accountof accusations that it is complicit in human rights abuses inflicted bythe Myanmar army.Opportunities. Commercial development of Myanmar’s oil industrybegan during the British colonial period in the nineteenth century.However, from 1962 until 1988, the country’s military regimeadopted the so-called Burmese Path to Socialism. Foreign oil companieswere nationalized, and Myanmar aspired to a policy of economicself-reliance. This policy changed in late 1988 following a series of