Oil Companies Aid Sudan In Repression, Report Says

by Jim Lobe

The 750-page document, 'Sudan, Oil and Human Rights', is the most comprehensive effort to date to detail the history of one of Africa's most ruinous civil wars, particularly the role played in it by oil companies, which began pumping crude for export from Sudan in 1999.

Much of the government's earnings from selling the oil have been used to buy advanced military weaponry with which to prosecute its war against a 21-year-old insurgency, called the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/SPLA), according to the report.

Sudan earned $580 million from oil in 2001, using about $250 million of it to buy helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft and other weapons, it adds.

"Oil development in southern Sudan should have been a cause for rejoicing for Sudan's people," said Jemera Rone, HRW's specialist on Sudan. "Instead, it has brought them nothing but woe."

The problem is not unfamiliar. A number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), rights groups and the World Bank have produced studies recently showing that many developing countries with abundant natural resources -- especially oil -- suffer corruption, massive rights abuses and chronic instability and violence as various internal groups, usually sponsored by outsiders, try to gain control over the source of the wealth.

The current conflict between the predominantly Arab Islamic government and the SPLM/A dates from 1983, when Khartoum moved to impose Islamic law on the southern part of the country whose population consists mainly of Christian and animist Africans.

Some two million people have died from the war over the past two decades; four million more have been displaced.

Peace negotiations backed by the United States, Norway, Britain and several regional neighbors were launched in July 2002 at Machakos, Kenya, and have made significant progress. Both sides have indicated in recent weeks they believed a final agreement was possible by the end of the year.

One of the key issues that remains to be resolved is how revenues from the oil fields, which lie mainly in the southern third of the country, will be allocated to Khartoum and the south, particularly in the event that the region votes to secede from Sudan in a plebiscite anticipated by the 'Machakos Protocol' within six years of a final peace agreement.

Even if such an accord is reached, says the report, existing ethnic divisions within the south, including among groups that are now part of the SPLM/A, might still hinder an end to conflict.

The new report details the history of the war, including the government's political and military tactics, and documents how Khartoum used the transportation infrastructure -- roads, bridges and airfields -- built by the companies to launch attacks on civilians in the oil region of Western Upper Nile (WUP) State.

At various times during the war, the government has used militant Islamist militias to prosecute the war on its behalf, adds HRW.

It has also armed various southern factions against the SPLM/A in a divide-and-rule strategy that has probably created permanent tensions in the region, notably between the Dinka ethnic group, which has dominated the SPLM/A, and Nuer factions, whose loyalties have moved from one side to the other.

Although the U.S. oil giant Chevron was an early pioneer in exploring for oil in Sudan, it sold off its interests in the mid-1980s after several expatriate employees were killed in a rebel attack.

Aside from the Khartoum Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC) and Sudapet Limited, the most important oil companies operating in the south have been foreign.

They include Talisman Energy Inc. of Canada, China National Petroleum Company (CNPC); Petronas of Malaysia; Sweden's Lundin Oil; OMV of Austria; the Qatari Gulf Petroleum Company; and France's TotalFinaElf, which has the largest single concession but is not now developing it.

Talisman, whose operations in Sudan became a major target of rights activists in North American and Europe, and Lundin were lead partners in two key concessions in the south. But as a result of the publicity generated against them both withdrew in the past year, Talisman in late 2002 and Lundin last June.

India's ONGC Videsh Ltd. bought Talisman's share and has since begun operations.

The report charges that foreign oil companies that have invested in Sudan all tended to turn a blind eye to government attacks on civilian targets, including the bombing of hospitals, churches, relief centres and schools.

"Oil companies operating in Sudan were aware of the killing, bombing, and looting that took place in the south, all in the opening up of the oilfields," said Rone. "These facts were repeatedly brought to their attention in public and private meetings, but they continued to operate and make a profit as the devastation went on."

In addition to media reports, relief and church organisations active in the south, human rights NGOs and even UN envoys reported on the devastation, particularly in the last five years as oil production got underway.

Yet, with the exception of one denunciation of a reported attack on a civilian center by Talisman's chief in 2002, none of the firms has conceded the abuses that have taken place, let alone provided compensation to the more than 100,000 people forcibly displaced by the Sudanese army or its allies to make way for the companies' operations.

In a number of cases, the companies actually denied that abuses were taking place, even to the extent of taking journalists on tours of the oilfield, the report said.