Page 427 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

424 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

empire still held gorgeous sway over a submissive East. Far removed though
these extravagant fancies may be from the realities of the international balance
of power, the yearnings and passions which give rise to them are actual enough,

and infinitely more potent and seductive to those who experience them than the
cooler intimations of reason.
These dreams and expectations were given full rein at the conference of
heads of state of member countries of OPEC at Algiers in March 1975. The
participants in the conference made no secret of their determination to use their

control of the greater part of the proven reserves of crude oil in the world to
force, if they could, a massive shift of wealth and resources from the Western
industrial nations and Japan to the economically backward countries of Asia
and Africa, and to widen the area of conflict between the two groups of nations

from that of oil alone to embrace all the raw materials produced by the
Afro-Asian states. The temper of the conference was shown by the ‘solemn
document’ issued at its close, which harped upon the necessity for the
‘adequate and timely’ transfer of modern technology from the industrial
countries to the ‘developing countries’, and for ‘the removal of the obstacles

that slow the utilization and integration of such technology in the economies of
the developing countries’ - a programme which seemed to call for the educa­
tion and technical training of the greater part of the populations of Asia and
Africa at the expense of the West and Japan.

‘The price of petroleum’, the document continued,‘must be maintained by
linking it to certain objective criteria, including the price of manufactured
goods, the rate of inflation, the terms of transfer of goods and technology for
the development of OPEC member states.’ To remind the West of its depen­
dence upon the goodwill of OPEC, and of its need to tread carefully if it wished

to retain this goodwill, the document also recorded the displeasure of its
signatories at ‘the threats, propaganda campaigns and other measures’ which
had been mounted in some quarters in the West in an endeavour to affix blame
on OPEC for the economic depression then overtaking the industrial world.

Such campaigns, the document warned, should cease forthwith, along with
‘any grouping of consumer nations with the aim of confrontation’ - a reference
to the International Energy Agency which had been established by sixteen 0
the OECD nations in November 1974 with the prime object of ensuring

adequate oil supplies for its members in the event of any future embargo or
politically motivated cut-backs in production. The OPEC governments were
also displeased with the authorization by the United States Congress a s ort
time earlier of the creation of a National Strategic Petroleum Reserve of 1,

million barrels by 1981, a move which they characterized as aggressiv ’
However, they were prepared to overlook these transgressions an to con1
to meet the ‘essential requirements’ of the industrial countries for 01 ’ pr° .
that these countries did not erect ‘artificial barriers’ to impede the <

operation of the laws of supply and demand - which was a pre y