Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World by Eduardo Galeano

Author:Eduardo Galeano [Galeano, Eduardo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, History, Politics, Writing, Essays, Philosophy, Sociology, Race, Latin America
ISBN: 9781466869387
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 1991-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

The United States sells about half the weapons in the world and buys about half the oil it consumes. Its economy and lifestyle depend to a large degree on arms and oil. Nigeria, the African dictatorship with the largest military budget, is an oil country. The Anglo-Dutch consortium Shell takes half that oil, and the U.S. company Chevron takes most of the rest. Chevron operates in twenty-two countries, but more than a quarter of all the oil and gas it pumps comes from Nigeria.

THE PRICE OF POISON

Nnimmo Bassey visited the Americas in 1996, a year after his friend and companion in the Ogoni struggle was murdered. In his travel diary, he recounts some telling stories about the giant oil companies and their contribution to public well-being.

Curaçao is an island in the Caribbean, so named, they say, because its breezes cure the sick. Shell built a huge refinery there in 1918 and has been showering poison on that little island of health ever since. In 1983, local authorities ordered the refinery shut down. Experts calculated the company owed a minimum of $400 million in recompense for damages to the environment, not counting damages to the inhabitants.

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