Oil and the small country...

John Vidal on the likely struggle ahead of the small island of Sao Tome, to make the new oil industry work for them. He contrasts the postive possiblities, with the relative instability that face Equatorial Guinea ten years after the discovery of oil there, and following an investment of more than $3bn in a country of about 500,000 people, and an economic growth rate of 65%:

"Oil has brought attempted coups, massive corruption, xenophobia and paranoia. There have been frequent coup attempts in Equatorial Guinea, but the most serious was last March, when 25 men, including South Africans and Germans, were arrested in Malabo for allegedly plotting to overthrow the president. The next day, a further 70 men, including Old Etonian Simon Mann, were arrested on a plane at Harare airport in Zimbabwe, en route, it was claimed, to Equatorial Guinea from South Africa. The men said they were going to act as guards for a mining company in the Democratic Republic of Congo".