Gerhard SEIBERT, Lusotopie 2003 : 245-260

The Bloodless Coup of July 16 in São Tomé e Príncipe*

São Tomé e Príncipe (STP) has not yet extracted a single drop of oil and is not expected to do so until 2007. Nonetheless, due to its potential oil wealth the recent military coup in the small island-republic has attracted a lot of international attention. Many foreign observers have little doubt that oil politics were the cause of the takeover. Some have suggested that it was only matter of time before competition for power ahead of the oil rush evolved into political instability. President Fradique de Menezes was cought by surprise by the coup in his country while he was at the 6th Rev. Leon Sullivan Summit in Abuja attended by thirteen African heads of state. The chairman of the summit, Rev. Andrew Young, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and mayor of Atlanta immediately blamed oil as the cause of the coup. He declared : «I don't know what happened in São Tomé, but I know nothing happened until someone announced there was plenty of oil »\

There is no doubt that the prospect of oil wealth has been in the minds of all islanders and has created great hopes. The licensing round for the first nine of the twenty-seven blocks located in the Joint Development Zone (JDZ) jointly managed with Nigeria was started in April and should be completed on October 18, 2003. Available seismic data suggests that the offshore blocks could hold between four and 11 billion barrels of reserves at depths of between 1,500 and 2,500 metres. The Joint Development Authority (JDA) set a minimum signature bonus of $30 million for each block2. As part of STP's 40% of the profits of the JDZ, in early 2004 the country might get about $100 million in signature bonuses, twice the size of the annual national budget.

However, while oil has certainly played a role in the events, it cannot be considered to be the dominant cause. Such a view would neglect the role of other domestic factors in the genesis of the coup. This article draws attention to both the political developments in STP that formed the background of the coup of July 16, 2003 and the increasing regional and international importance of the tiny country as a future oil producer.