That's the problem, isn't it? Your country is relatively scarce in resources, and you have only one resource that's in demand. If you don't have control over that resource you basically don't have anything.
They have a lot of control over their oil. Private oil companies - Exxon, BP, etc., only hold 5% of the world's resources all together.

As for non-violent resistance; look at the civil rights movement in the south of the USA. The racists in power didn't go out easy.

CR