ABSTRACT
Dining with the devil is not likely to be comfortable, but it may be worth a try. Brian Anderson was Shell’s chief executive in Nigeria during Sani Abacha’s rule. This is what he term dining with the devil— the mere proximity is potentially contaminating. This is difficult if one uses the long spoon recommended in the proverb on dining with the devil. In the 1990s, Shell had a major operation producing oil in Syria. Syria had been a client state of the Soviet Union and many senior people had been trained in Russia. There is no doubt that with government salaries being extremely low many public servants had various other forms of income. The Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt in early 2011 encouraged demonstrations in Syria as well. The response has been a brutal and continued suppression of protests in cities all over Syria. Trust can only be developed by establishing human and friendly contact.
