The Nuba Mountains Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement which  was signed in Burgenstock, Switzerland, this year and brokered by the Government of the USA and the Swiss Federation was meant to facilitate delivery  of humanitarian assistance to the  Nuba Mountains. October Flight Denial List indicates that all areas in the Nuba Mountains controlled by the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement must now be serviced only from Khartoum-controlled areas (i.e., El Obeid in Kordofan Province).  This is a direct violation of the explicit terms of the Nuba Mountains Cease fire, which has been touted by many as a model of how peace can be extended in Sudan.  In fact, what Khartoum's actions of today show is that the regime is simply unwilling to uphold the terms of agreements negotiated, even under the auspices of the US Special Envoy.  This is a sobering  reminder of how extremely difficult it will be to obtain a meaningful peace agreement in Machakos, and just  how vigorous international guarantees and guarantors will have to be if agreements negotiated at Machakos are to be honoured by Khartoum.

This agreement binds all OLS sectors namely the Southern Sudan sector which operates from Kenya; and the Northern sector from Khartoum, not to hinder the ferrying of humanitarian assistance to the people of the Nuba Mountains.  It is obvious the ban serves no other useful purpose except to reveal the government's nefarious attitude towards the Sudanese people it pretends to care for.

The SPLM/SPLA, being led by responsible leadership, is deeply concerned with the behaviour  of those in-charge over the affairs affecting the Sudanese people.  It is time the government demonstrates some responsibility and behaves in a civilized manner by respecting treaties, agreements and conventions it enters into with other nations.

George Garang 
For:   Commissioner for Information and Official Spokesman SPLM/SPLA 
3rd October 2002  - Nairobi
 

“This situation of paralysis leads our people to death”. Bishop of Rumbek, once again denounces with sorrowful tones the dramatic fate of which a great part of the population in South Sudan face due to the recent measures adopted by the Islamic regime of Khartoum. The humanitarian aid flights from overseas, which guaranteed aid to many poor people, have in fact been forbidden. Theoretically the aid flights should be substituted by similar humanitarian operations organised in the Sudanese territory, but the recent measure has put a stop to all kinds of support for vast areas throughout the country. “The lack of rain has produced terrible famine – explains Bishop Mazzolari – and the consignment of food provisions from overseas is an absolute necessity. Over 60 localities are unable to be reached, where the food situation has become a total emergency”. An aspect that profoundly hurts Bishop Mazzolari is that of indifference, which seems to encompass this event. “Deathlike silence has been cast upon this situation, better still, has taken many to their grave” says Bishop of Rumbek. The irony of Mazzolari is bitter and does not conceal the anxiety and pain for a future which appears evermore doubtful. “The international community cannot remain staring cannot continue to remain silent in front of this terrorist and inhuman behaviour of the Sudanese government”.

Rebels on Wednesday claimed to have destroyed a Canadian-operated oil rig in southern Sudan, cutting off the flow of oil, but oil company completely denied the report. 
In a statement issued in neighboring Nairobi, Kenya, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army claimed their commandos attacked and seriously damaged the main rig in the Unity oil fields near Heglig, 750 kilometers (465 miles) south of Khartoum. The attack was carried out Sept. 29, the statement said. 
"Initial reports indicate that it will take considerable amount of time to restore this facility to full operation," the statement, signed by George Garang, said. 
"The gallant commando units are poised to strike again to shut down exploration of oil which has resulted in massive human misery to the people of Southern Sudan and other marginalized areas," it added. 
But officials with the Talisman Energy Corp., based in Calgary, Canada, said the rebel reports were "completely false." 
"There was no attack; there was no battle," Ralph Capeling, the Khartoum general manager of Talisman, said. "Production and drilling are going as normal." 
He would not comment on why the rebels would make such a claim, which rebel officials insisted was true. Past rebel claims of damaging oil rigs in southern Sudan have been found to be exaggerated. 
Government officials were not immediately available for comment. 
Talisman operates the oil fields in southern Sudan and the oil leases are owned by Talisman and a consortium of state oil companies from Sudan, China and Malaysia. 
The SPLA has been fighting for autonomy for southern Sudan from the Islamic government in Khartoum since 1983, demanding religious freedom for southerners who follow mainly traditional beliefs or Christianity. The war is also about control of the region's resources, including the oil fields located along the dividing line between north and south. 
Critics of Sudan's government say it is using the oil revenues, estimated at $500 million last year, to build its military and persecute non-Muslims. 
Talisman officials have denied fueling the civil war in Sudan, which has left more than 2 million people dead from war, disease or hunger. They have set up aid programs to help people living near the fields. 

On Sunday 5th August 2001, the Sudan  People's Liberation Army (SPLA) forces of the Western Upper Nile (WUN) Command and special elements from the SPLA General Headquarters attacked and destroyed the main oil installation at Heglig.  The town of Heglig is the main nerve centre of the Greater Nile Petroleum Company (GNPC).  The GNPC is a consortium of four oil companies. These are Talisman Energy of Canada (25%), Petronas of  Malaysia (30%), China National Petroleum Corporation (40%) and the state owned Sudapet Limited (5%).  The raid which took place at 6.00am SLT was very successful as the flow of oil has now been disrupted.  The main oil installation building including offices and stores have been  badly damaged.  However, more details including casualties will follow.
While the attack at Heglig was in progress, SPLA forces in the area simultaneously raided Wangkai government military garrison as well as Bentiu town.  In both attacks Government of Sudan (GOS) suffered heavy losses in men and material.
The Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army  and the Sudan  Peoples' Liberation Movement (SPLA/SPLM) Leadership congratulates Commander Peter Gadet, officers, NCOs and men of WUN command as well as Commander Bior Ajang of SPLA Headquarters and all the units under him who took part in the execution of these successful operations. 
The attack on Heglig is only the start  of the Movements' effort to stop exploration, development and export of oil until a final political settlement of the Sudan conflict is reached.  These operations will continue until this objective is achieved.
Finally, the Movement once again takes this opportunity to reiterate its earlier warning to oil companies that their investments whether in form of installation or otherwise, remain legitimate military target should they remain in the area.  Although the Movement does not target oil personnel, we call upon the oil companies to heed the voice of prudence  and seriously consider evacuation as these companies will be solely responsible for any collateral damage.

Dr. Samson L. Kwaje 
Commissioner for Information and
Official Spokesman SPLM/SPLA

The SACBC said it was worried that "by negotiating new concessions in areas that have not been 'cleansed' of communities regarded by the Khartoum government as disposable", Soekor would "contribute to the escalation of the conflict in Sudan". 

"Oil is key to the war in Sudan. During our visits to Sudan, we saw for ourselves the results of the forced removal and displacement of tens of thousands of southern Sudanese to make the oilfields and pipeline safe from attack," said Cardinal Wilfred Napier, President of the SACBC, in a press statement.

"We are convinced that oil is at once a major cause of the war and a means used by Khartoum to increase its military capacity," he added. 

South Africa's Department of Foreign Affairs told IRIN on Monday that it had no disagreement with Soekor or the Department of Mineral Affairs and Energy. Roger Ballard-Tremmer, Director for its North Africa Desk, said the department had briefed Soekor about the situation in Sudan, which was normal procedure, especially in sensitive situations like Sudan.

"We briefed them about the political and the economic sitiation. We are not prescriptive and we cannnot dictate to companies as to where they do business... all we can do is advise them," he said.

Ballard-Tremmer said that no decision was taken by Soekor about their plans for Sudan during that meeting, and that Foreign Affairs would, of course, continue to keep an eye on the situation. 

Soekor was formed in 1965 by the South African government and falls under the Department of Mineral Affairs and Energy. Its main purpose is to reduce the country's dependence on imported oil, and it explores for oil and gas off the South African coast as well as abroad, with a particular focus on Africa and the Middle East.

Earlier this month, a high-ranking delegation from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) visited Sudan. South Africa's deputy minister for minerals and energy, Susan Shubangu, was part of that delegation - officially as a party member and not in her capacity as deputy minister.

The South African bishops said their concern over Soekor's intentions had been confirmed by Shubangu's comments in Sudan, which stated the South African government's commitment to "developing relations with Khartoum in the areas of oil extraction and mining".

Cardinal Napier called on South African Mineral and Energy Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka "to intervene to stop this overt support for a party to the Sudan conflict that is seriously alleged to have committed serious violations of human rights".

In another development, the Russian-Belorussian oil company, Slavneft, announced on 20 July that it had signed a joint venture agreement to develop an oilfield in Sudan, and was now awaiting a production sharing agreement by the end of the year, Reuters reported. Slavneft said that analysis of data from the ninth oilfield and gas block in central Sudan had suggested the possible existence of several oilfields, the report said.

Slavneft had earlier said it was offered data from the ninth and 11th blocks, in central Sudan, and the 15th block on the Red Sea. The company said it was also considering a stake in the international consortium - which includes Gulf Petroleum of Qatar; the Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC) and the Sudanese state oil firm SUDAPEC - exploring the Melut Basin in southern Sudan, Reuters reported. 

Most of Sudan's crude oil is currently produced in the 225,000 barrel-per-day Unity (Wahdah)/Western Upper Nile oilfield operated by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, comprising CNPC (which owns 40 percent), Malaysia's Petronas (30 percent), the Canadian firm Talisman Energy Inc (25 percent) and SUDAPEC (5 percent), it added. 

International oil companies operating in Sudan have come under fire from human rights organisations and church groups, which allege that Sudanese government troops and pro-government militias have been conducting rights abuses and depopulating oil concession areas to make way for oil production.

As recently as Saturday, US Special Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan Andrew Natsios said he had raised as a particular concern the issue of government attacks on the Nubah Mountains. He cited reports from aid workers who had alleged that the army was displacing populations to clear the way for oil drilling, and said that military attacks in May had displaced 40,000 to 50,000 people. 

Meanwhile, Sudan on Sunday warned Kenya that it may stop importing Kenyan tea and coffee if the government there banned Sudanese oil imports. 

Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il said it was natural for Sudan to export oil to Kenya, and that any Kenyan government hindrance of the trade would have an adverse impact on both countries, AFP reported. Sudan imported US $150 million worth of Kenyan tea and coffee each year, leaving the balance of trades between the countries in Kenya's favour, he added.

On Wednesday 18 July, Sudan issued a press statement in which it defended the announcement by Kenya a week earlier that the country's oil companies had been given official permission to import oil from Sudan at zero tariff. 

Khartoum said that, in allowing the importation of goods without tariff, Kenya was merely fulfilling its duty under the terms of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), of which it was a founding member
.
Kenya came under pressure from human rights groups - and the US government, according to Sudanese news reports - to rescind that decision, and Isma'il's comments came in response to media queries about an alleged measure by the Kenyan authorities barring delivery of a Sudanese oil shipment to Kenya.

Meanwhile, representatives of the Sudanese Anglican Church living in Kenya said at the weekend that the country's role as a mediator of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development peace process would be compromised by its importation of oil from the Sudan.

At a church service in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, church leaders accused Khartoum of displacing more than two million people in southern Sudan in its quest for oil, and said that if Kenya imported oil from the regime, then it could not be trusted as a mediator in the Sudanese conflict. 

Financial Times; May 16, 2001
By David Bichan

Last year, the Foreign Office took the unusual step of publicly asking a British company to abandon one of its largest investments abroad. The company was Premier Oil and the country was Burma. The UK government argued that so oppressive was the local military dictatorship that no foreign investment that might prop it up should be allowed. 

Premier took the equally unusual step of ignoring its government's advice - and today goes part of the way towards explaining why. 

Its "social performance report", to be presented at the company's annual general meeting today, is hardly a resounding rebuff to the Foreign Office. It does not directly answer the UK government's point that Premier's presence in Burma gives the regime a badge of respectability and economic assistance through tax revenue. But it helps the case for constructive engagement in Burma, at least for the communities surrounding Premier's 70km pipeline, which transports the gas from the Andaman Sea into neighbouring Thailand. 

"It's not our company's role to question the money going to the government or what use it makes of it but rather to understand what our local impact is and to ensure it is as beneficial as possible," says Richard Jones, Premier's corporate responsibility manager. "This social performance report just measures social performance but it is our way of showing we are socially responsible." 

However, Mr Jones still believes the report to be a landmark. "No other extractive sector company of our size has undertaken such a thorough investigation of its status in relation to corporate social responsibility," he claims. Relative to other oil groups, Premier is tiny: 750 employees worldwide and a turnover last year of Pounds 115m. So far it is mainly high-profile oil companies such as Shell and BP that have felt impelled to produce corporate social responsibility reports, audited by their regular financial auditors, to account for their activities in tricky places such as Nigeria and Colombia. 

The only close parallel to Premier's dilemma in Burma is that of Canada's Talisman Energy in Sudan. Talisman has just produced a corporate social responsibility report to justify its involvement, along with Chinese and Malaysian oil companies, in an oil project at the centre of Sudan's long-running civil war and to ward off allegations of complicity in abuses by security forces and in displacing local people. 

PwC, auditor of the Talisman report, has been criticised by human rights groups for its limited verification of Talisman's claims, with auditors sticking to the oil concession areas and failing to take in the views of displaced refugees in southern Sudan. The issue has acquired particular sensitivity in the US. Some congressmen are demanding that the Securities and Exchange Commission suspend trading in Talisman shares. The SEC has not gone that far but is planning to demand additional disclosure from foreign companies listed in the US but doing business in countries, such as Sudan, embargoed by the US. 

Premier, by contrast, started to act earlier and a bit differently. It began preparing its social performance audit in late 1999, several months before the Foreign Office made its demarche. And because of its limited resources it got EQ Management, a social responsibility consultancy with former Body Shop executives among its founders, and Alyson Warhurst, professor of strategy and international development at Warwick University, to frame the scope of the report; Compass Research, an Australian-owned market research agency in Burma, to ask the questions; and Warwick University's corporate citizenship unit to do the auditing. 

Contracting out the study has the virtue of making it look more independent. "In the audit of Shell's report on Nigeria, KPMG goes out to verify the data given to them. We, on the other hand, have got outsiders to gather as well as verify the data," says Mr Jones. 

The data in this first Premier report, which covers only the views of employees, local communities and shareholders, contain little that is pipeline, but are not employed by the company, complain about a rise in local prices, which they cannot afford. That is a common feature of oil money flowing into undeveloped areas. Some Burmese, evidently worried about the gas pipe exploding even though it is buried, also say they would like more technical information from Premier. Evidently this is the sort of information their military rulers would not give them. 

Premier's future social audits may be more controversial, because the company says it will cover not only business partners and sub-contractors but also aid agencies and "displaced communities" in Burma. The latter two groups may have views more along the lines of Her Majesty's government.  For the moment, however, there is almost an agreement to disagree between Premier and the Foreign Office. British diplomats stressed last week that it is not Premier's business practices in Burma that are suspect but the fact that it is there at all. Yet the company's presence has been useful to the UK government for the release of James Mawdesley, a human rights activist, from his Burmese jail cell last year. "We were uniquely positioned as a passer of messages (between London and Rangoon)," says Mr Jones. 

For its part, the Foreign Office now seems disposed to let Premier subscribe to a code of security principles that the UK and US governments drew last year for oil and mining companies to follow in unstable countries. Last December, Premier was excluded from joining BP, Shell and others as initial signatories because of its presence in Burma. This could change when the code is reviewed later this year. 

Certainly Premier is keen to join. It may also be able to pass on to others what it has learnt. Petronas, the Malaysian state oil company, has been sounding out Premier on the issue of social responsibility. This is scarcely surprising. Petronas owns 25 per cent of Premier and is the company's partner in Burma. But Petronas also happens to be Talisman's partner in Sudan. 
 

By Cathy Majtenyi

A minimum of 42,000 people living in the Nuba Mountains of central Sudan may face starvation later this year unless emergency food and other supplies are flown into the area, a team of food security experts has recently warned.

Poor rains, soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, aerial bombardment of the area by the Sudanese government, and a lack of access to the fertile lowlands because of the on-going war are the major factors for this food shortage, concludes a report released in mid-April by the Nairobi-based Nuba Mountains Food Security Working Group.

The report, titled "Food Security in the Nuba Mountains 2001 - Situation, Needs, and Recommendations," calls for the provision of 200 metric tonnes of donated grain; 21 metric tonnes of dressed seed; six two-wheeled mini-tractors complete with fuel, basic spare parts, and tools; an array of essential livestock drugs; and US$450,000 to pay for transportation costs.

"If these additional interventions can be implemented in time. The assessment concludes that not only will the risk of hunger-induced mortality/migration be minimised but also that agricultural production for this coming season could be safe-guarded," says the April 18 report.

The report follows two months of investigation by a team of seven Nuba and expatriate food security experts. They walked 500 kilometres, surveying households using rapid rural appraisal and household budgeting techniques. They concluded that a minimum of 42,000 people need help. The Nuba Food Security Working Group, which consists of six non-government organisations, is now looking at ways to cope with the impending famine.

But that is no small task. To begin with, since 1992, the Sudanese government has sealed off the Nuba Mountains from all contact with the outside world, in part to flush out forces of the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M).  The United Nations has been unable to negotiate access through its Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) initiative; all access to the Nuba Mountains is illegal.  According to an agreement signed in 1989 between Khartoum and the OLS, the Nuba Mountains are considered to be a part of northern Sudan and is therefore ineligible to receive food and other aid.

The UN did receive permission to send an assessment mission into the Nuba Mountains in 1998, says Waren Awad, assistant food security program officer with the Nuba Relief, Rehabilitation, and Development Organisation (NNRDO), which is a member of the food security working group. "But so far no aid has been given to the Nuba Mountains," he says.

The ramifications of this isolation for the people on the ground, as well as the fall-out from the internal displacement and the food insecurity situation, are enormous, says an aid worker who prefers not to be identified. "The choices [for the people] are either to move to the peace villages in government-held areas or to suffer the indignity of starvation.

"The vast majority of people who stay in the SPLM-held territories have made this conscious decision to stay, because they very much fear that the whole Nuba culture is going to be wiped out. Because they make that choice, they suffer as a consequence," said the aid worker. 

And the random bombing of the area by the Sudanese government makes it all but impossible to even investigate the situation. For instance, the head of the food security team was sitting in a small aircraft on the Kauda airstrip on the morning of April 17 on his way back to Nairobi when an Antonov swooped down and dropped 14 bombs around the airstrip. On the ground were several hundred people - including Bishop
Max Macram of El Obeid, Africanews correspondent Stephen Amin, and Koinonia President Fr. Renato Kizito Sesana - to see the aircraft off and to welcome another in-coming airplane loaded with food and other supplies. Both airplanes managed to escape; two Nubans were killed on the ground.

If the Nuba Mountains Food Security Working Group is able to dodge the flight ban and the bombs and actually deliver the food and other aid, it will be the first time that such a large-scale relief intervention will be introduced into the Nuba Mountains, says Awad. And that may have unintended, negative spin-offs unless it is handled properly, he says.

For instance, since last year, the NRRDO has been working with the Nuba Economic Commission (NEC) on a programme called the Commodity Injection Pilot (CIP), designed to build up economic markets in the Nuba Mountains as a way of ensuring self-sufficient economic development and food security.

Before that, households had been receiving cash in an earlier programme called Cash Injection/Local Purchase. The idea was that people who needed food could purchase surplus food from farmers, which would form the beginnings of a market. However, people also used the cash to buy salt, soap, thread, batteries, and other supplies from Jellaba Arab traders from outside the Nuba Mountains; hence, the money left the area.

In this newest project, the NEC purchases commodities from outside and re-sells them to local traders, who then sell them to consumers. Prices are cheaper than those that the Jellaba traders charge, and cash stays in circulation in the Nuba Mountains.

But a large injection of food supplies might distort the fledgling market, says Awad. "Grain would be flown from outside the area. I think it would be a matter of relief rather than providing an occasion for running this food security programme. Generally in the Nuba Mountains, relief is not a good thing.

"It would be much better if the grain was produced locally," he says. "We need some aid, but only that people could be able to produce for themselves next year. By nature, Nuba people produce their own grain."

According to a press statement by the Sudanese foreign ministry following a meeting between Sudanese officials and European Union (EU) ambassadors in Khartoum, Justice Minister Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin explained steps taken by his government and UNICEF for putting an end to the practice of abduction of children and women by "local tribes" in Bahr el-Ghazal. 

Yassin called upon the EU to back efforts for "eradicating this phenomenon" and invited the EU representatives to offer "practical proposals" for that purpose. 

The minister answering questions raised by the EU side about abduction, the Public Order Act and freedom of belief and worship, the statement added. 

In response to a question on the infamous Public Order Act, Yassin said his ministry was the first to criticise this act and the human rights violations carried out by the Public order Police. 

The law, which applies only to Khartoum state, was discussed by the Council of Ministers which formed a committee under the chairmanship of the justice ministry for studying the Act with a view to replacing it with a nation-wide one that "is fair and free of human rights violations," Yassin added. 

The United Nations human rights investigator for Sudan called on Thursday on foreign oil companies to ensure that their operations in the war-torn country do not abet violations including forced evictions. 

Gerhart Baum, who took up the independent post three months ago and visited Sudan from March 9 to 17, accused the Islamist government of bombing civilians in the rebellious south and forcibly uprooting local populations to allow oil exploitation. 

The German lawyer, in a speech to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, said both government forces and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the main rebel group in the 18-year civil war, continued to kill, abduct, rape and starve civilians.

But Baum stopped short of calling on Western and Asian oil companies -- which include Canada's Talisman Energy Inc and Sweden's Lundin -- to suspend oil activities. 

Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who remains a member of parliament and serves as U.N. envoy to the Balkans, is a key board member of Lundin. He said last week that the foreign presence brought Sudan possibilities for peace and development. 

Rights groups say that revenue from crude exports that began in 1999 is helping to pay for the war waged by the Arabic-speaking north against rebels seeking autonomy for the black African, non-Muslim south. Last week, a Sudanese opposition group called on firms to suspend oil operations. 

"During my visit I gathered further evidence that oil exploitation leads to an exacerbation of the conflict with serious consequences on civilians," Baum told the main U.N. rights body, holding its annual six-week session in Geneva. 

"...I received information whereby the government is resorting to forced eviction of local population and destruction of villages to depopulate areas and allow for oil operations to proceed unimpeded," he said. 

Baum declared: "While the main responsibility for stopping this forced displacement is with the parties to the conflict, I appeal to all oil companies operating in Sudan to fully comply with their corporate responsibilities with a view to minimising any negative impact of their operations, particularly before planning new ones." 

Government officials had informed him of the "social benefits" linked to oil exploitation and had assured him that "displaced individuals are compensated accordingly", he added. 

Asian oil firms also active 

The U.N. envoy said that he would continue to monitor "the link between oil exploitation and human rights abuses". 

Baum told reporters that he hoped to visit the oil areas in the autumn at government invitation. He noted that Chinese and Malaysian oil companies were active in Sudan's nascent industry. 

Talisman ran into a storm of criticism after taking a 25 percent stake in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), a consortium producing nearly 200,000 barrels per day of oil from Unity state in southern Sudan. Its partners are Chinese, Malaysian and Sudanese state oil companies. 

In January, Talisman's general manager in Sudan, Ralph Capeling, told Reuters that the firm was making a "significant contribution" by providing schools, clinics and water wells. 

Rather than heed U.S.-backed calls for divestment from Sudan, Talisman shareholders last year backed the principle of monitoring compliance with an international code of ethics for Canadian business and voted for an independently audited report on its operations in Sudan to be completed within a year. 

Baum also met seven opposition politicians, arrested in December while meeting a U.S. diplomat, whom he said had been held in solitary confinement in a Khartoum prison for 75 days. 

They face trial next week on charges of spying and plotting to overthrow the government. 

Gerhart Baum, who visited Khartoum and Nairobi from March 9 to 17, told a news briefing here that Sudan was trying to improve its international image. 

He said the situation had gotten better, although he said serious violations continued. "During my visit I gathered further evidence that oil exploitation leads to an exacerbation of the conflict and bears consequences to civilians," he said. 

He was speaking before presenting a report to the 53-member UN Human Rights  Commission, currently holding its annual session here. 

Baum said he had received information that the authorities were resorting to the forced eviction of people and destruction of villages to depopulate  areas. 

He said the main responsibility for stopping displacement was for the parties in the conflict. But he added: "I appeal to all oil companies operating in Sudan to fully comply with their corporate responsibilities with a view to minimize any negative impact of their operations." Arbitary arrests, the kidnapping of women and children and bombings remain major concerns for the German rapporteur, who hopes to visit Sudan again later in the year. 

First: At about 4:00 p.m. today Wednesday, March 28,2001, more than twenty armed Security Forces elements in four pick up cars raided "Abdel Majeed Imam Cultural Centre" at Safia of Khartoum North. 23 individuals including 4 ladies were at the centre at that time and all were arrested.

Second: All the detainees were taken to the Security Offices north of Faroug Cemetery where they are severely beaten and tortured. They are also filmed using a video camera. A citizen named Ahmed Aljinaih was especially targeted during the torture. Up to 11:00 p.m. only Miss Sumaia Mubarak, the centre administrator, is released.

Third: All the centre assets including the furniture, a library, and original paintings were confiscated and instantly removed. A store belonging to the landlord, Ambassador Ahmed Yousif Altinai, was broken and searched. A hunting rifle belonging to the landlord was also confiscated.

Fourth: Abdel Majeed Imam Cultural Centre is an institution licensed and registered with Sudan Ministry of Culture.

Fifth: Arresting and torturing these citizens, and, confiscating the assets of the above mentioned centre violates the rights to life, personal and property safety, the freedom of expression, and the freedom of association as provided for by the Constitution of the Republic of Sudan (1998) and the international conventions ratified by the Government of Sudan in 1986. 

The Sudanese Human Rights Group (SHRG)

March 28, 2001
 

Roger Gallaway, one of three members of parliament to have visited Sudan earlier this month on a trip partly financed by Talisman Energy, said he was shocked by media reports of comments made by Secretary of State for Africa and Latin America David Kilgour. 

“That company (Talisman) is behaving in a way that is unacceptable to any fair-minded, knowledgeable Canadian." Kilgour was quoted as saying. "Canadians who hold shares in Talisman should sell them." 

Quizzed on this in parliament, Kilgour did not confirm or deny that he made those remarks. "The government of Canada does not call for the divestiture of shares in any company, including Talisman," he said. 

"The government of Canada is very concerned about the incalculable suffering that is going on among the people of southern Sudan and we call on all companies involved in Sudan to make sure they do everything they can to bring that tragedy to an end." 

Gallaway said Kilgour should "retract his statements or, in fact, do the honourable thing" and resign from the cabinet if the statements attributed to him were accurate. Gallaway said he had not contacted Kilgour to verify the statements. 

Gallaway, another Liberal MP and a member of the opposition Canadian Alliance, visited Egypt and Sudan earlier this month. Gallaway said the trip was financed by the National Council on Canadian-Arab Relations. 

That group is largely financed by Talisman, a member of the controversial Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company consortium, along with Chinese and Malaysian partners, producing oil in the war-ravaged south of the country. 

Human-rights activists have accused the consortium of helping finance the Sudanese government's efforts to crush the rebellion in the south. 

Gallaway also agreed at the press conference that he and his fellow MPs had flown from Khartoum to Southern Sudan on board a private plane owned by the consortium and that the members of parliament had not contributed to the costs   of the flight. 

But he strongly denied that he had been influenced by what a New Democrat (left of centre) member of parliament described as "a junket paid for by Talisman." 

Gallaway, who said he met with human-rights and church groups as well as members of the Sudanese opposition, claimed Wednesday: "Every individual and group met stated conditions would be worse in the terms of the environment and human rights if Talisman were to withdraw. 

"In fact, we could find no one who would say that Talisman should get out of Sudan. Some complimented Talisman for their community development initiatives, while some said they could do more." 

The New Democrat MP, Svend Robinson, who was not on the trip to Sudan (and Egypt), said after Gallaway's press conference: "What we have witnessed is a complete, blanket whitewash of Talisman following a junket paid for by Talisman." 

Robinson insisted there was clear evidence of "Talisman's complicity in this bloody war." 
 

Washington, March 28 – 2001 (AFP) - US lawmakers on Wednesday, accusing oil companies of indirectly supporting the war in Sudan, said the oil firms operating in that African country should be banned from borrowing money on US capital markets.

"Given the connection between oil development and the Sudan government's prosecution of the war, we recommend that foreign companies engaged in the development of Sudan's oil and gas fields be prohibited from raising money in US capital markets," said congressman Donald Payne.

Payne's call, made at a congressional hearing, came a week after Sudanese opposition similarly appealed to foreign oil companies to freeze their activities in Sudan, saying the Islamist government in Khartoum was using the revenues to finance its war in the south.

The British-based charity Christian Aid earlier this month also called on oil companies to suspend operations in Sudan because of atrocities it blamed on the Sudanese government and "sponsored militias".

The charity said that tens of thousands of civilians have been killed or displaced in a policy to drive them from oil fields in Sudan.

A growing number of foreign firms have become involved in developing Sudan's oil fields despite a raging 18-year civil war between successive Islamist governments in Khartoum and the mainly Animist and Christian south.

With reserves estimated at more than one billion barrels and current production at 200,000 barrels per day, Sudan became an oil exporter in September 1999.

Crude output is expected to rise to 400,000 barrels a day, according to estimates from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

An increasing number of oil companies are involved in oil prospection and production in Sudan. They include CNPC of China, Petronas of Malaysia, Talisman of Canada, Gulf Oil of Qatar, OMV of Austria, and Lundin of Sweden.

British Petroleum holds shares in PetroChina, whose mother company is CNPC, and the French firm Total has a broad concession in Sudan where it cannot prospect because of the fighting.

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney told the hearing that airstrips and roads being built by oil companies were being used to attack civilians in the brutal war.

"People are being bombed and strafed with the knowledge and complicity of Talisman energy," she accused.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has undertaken a review toward US policy on Sudan and is being urged by lawmakers to appoint a special envoy to deal with the country and its Islamic government, said last week he continued to assess the situation there.

But McKinney took President George W. Bush's administration to task for its apparent lack of decisions. "Does Africa even exist in the Bush administration?" she asked.
 

Repeating its view that Sudan is "the world's most violent abuser of the right to freedom of religion and belief," the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom today called on the Bush administration and Congress to step up efforts to help end that country's 18-year civil war. The fighting has killed some 2 million people and displaced 4 million others.

In a series of recommendations, the Commission called for the appointment of a prominent special envoy to work for an end to the war but urged the President not to name an ambassador to Sudan at this time.  It also recommended increasing the amount of food aid to be delivered outside channels that the Khartoum government can veto and stepping up assistance to southern Sudan and the opposition National Democratic Alliance.  Other recommendations include diplomacy to pressure Sudan's government into stopping its slave raids and its air raids on civilian and humanitarian targets; strengthened economic sanctions; and a new requirement for foreign companies doing business in Sudan to disclose those activities to American investors when raising funds in U.S. capital markets.

The recommendations follow up on those the Commission made in its first Annual Report delivered May 1, 2000.  "The government of Sudan continues to commit egregious human rights abuses ? including widespread bombing of civilian and humanitarian targets, abduction and enslavement by government-sponsored militias, manipulation of humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war, and severe restrictions on religious freedom," the Commission found.  "While the Clinton Administration did take some steps to address the situation ? its actions fell well short of the comprehensive, sustained campaign that the Commission believes is commensurate with the Sudanese government's abuses.  The Commission urges the Bush administration to mount such a campaign."

Commissioner David Saperstein, speaking for the Commission at a press conference, urged the following:

1.   The U.S. government should appoint a nationally prominent individual who enjoys the trust and confidence of President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell and who has appropriate authority and access whose sole responsibility is directed to bringing about a peaceful and just settlement of the war in Sudan and an end to the religious freedom abuses and humanitarian atrocities committed by the Sudanese government.  The U.S. should not appoint an ambassador to Sudan at this time.

2.   The U.S. government should continue to increase the amount of its humanitarian assistance that passes outside of both Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) and should press OLS to deliver aid wherever it is needed, especially the Nuba Mountains, with or without the approval of the Sudanese government.

3.   The U.S. government should increase its assistance to southern Sudan and the opposition National Democratic Alliance.

4.   The U.S. government should launch a major diplomatic initiative aimed at enlisting international pressure, to stop the Sudanese government's bombing of civilian and humanitarian targets; ground attacks on civilian villages, feeding centers, and hospitals; slave raids; and instigation of tribal warfare.

5.   The U.S. government should strengthen economic sanctions against Sudan and should urge other countries to adopt similar policies.  The U.S. should prohibit any foreign company from raising capital or listing its securities in U.S. markets as long as it is engaged in the development of oil and gas fields in Sudan.  The U.S. government should not issue licenses permitting the import of gum arabic from Sudan to the United States.

6.   Companies that are doing business in Sudan should be required to disclose the nature and extent of that business in connection with their access to U.S. capital markets.

7.   The U.S. government should intensify its support for the peace process and for the Declaration of Principles, and make a just and lasting peace a top priority of this administration's global agenda.

8.   The U.S. government should work to increase human rights and media reporting on abuses in Sudan, including supporting, diplomatically and financially, the placement of human rights monitors in southern Sudan and in surrounding countries where refugee populations are present. 

Commissioner Laila Al-Marayati issued separate concurring opinions regarding Recommendations 3 and 5.

The complete text of the Commission's latest report on Sudan can be obtained on its Web site at www.uscirf.gov, or from the communications office at (202) 523-3240, ext. 27.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to give independent recommendations to the executive branch and the Congress.

The Khartoum regime's drive to become a major oil producer is systematically killing Sudan's Southern citizens and destroying their homes. Backed by Western and Asian companies, this is proceeding apace, despite a growing but ineffectual chorus of international condemnation. Khartoum's current dry season offensive is distinguished from others by an intense focus on oil, as the National Islamic Front government fights to extend the investors' grip on installations and concessions, and its own grip on power. (Though the NIF now calls itself the 'National Congress', with Hassan Abdullah el Turabi's 'Popular National Congress' as the 'opposition', Sudanese still call the whole thing, the Jebha' (Front), including 'El Turabi's faction', AC Vol 41 No 4).
The Western oil companies, if not the Asian ones, are working overtime on their images. Talisman, lead company in the consortium now pumping out some 200,000 barrels per day (bpd), is Canada's largest independent energy supplier. It has hired United States' public relations firm Hill and Knowlton (once champion of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International) and has created a social responsibility unit to demonstrate its good intentions. Now it has launched a newsletter, 'HOPE', which proclaims how Sudan pipeline project staff get human rights training, and parades an upcoming ethical audit. A casual reader might infer that Talisman is more interested in building schools and clinics than in extracting oil in a war zone.

Corporate contributions to peace and development

Sweden's Swiss-based Lundin Oil, which operates in war-torn Congo-Kinshasa, also touts its social responsibility. 'We believe that contributing, to the economic development of the area improves the chances of peace and the conditions of the local population,' says Ian H. Lundin, son of founder Adolf Lundin. 'Our presence has provided employment opportunities, mobility and access to fresh water. We also plan to, establish medical and educational facilities for the local communities.' But, as a series of independent reports confirms, most of the local people have been driven away or killed, so the beneficiaries are government-approved migrants. Some 'safe' areas are fast being settled by farmers from the North (as happens in Nuba areas).
Dinka and Nuer people around the Heglig and Unity fields north of Bentiu came under heavy attack in the mid 1980s and the 1990s. Unity is Block 1, Heglig is Block 2. A 1,600 kilometre pipeline from Heglig to the Red Sea was completed in September 1999 opening the way for exploration in Nuer Western Upper Nile, which bas been devastated ever since. The latest onslaught is directed against a wide swathe of Eastern Upper Nile, where a new consortium headed by the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) began exploration in Block 3 this month.
The concession covers 72,400 square km., mainly of the Upper Nile region, where government backed militias controlled by Commander Biel Chuol from Longochok have driven off tens of thousands of southerners in recent months. United Nations' officials and southern church leaders fear a catastrophic famine this year as a result. The UN said 600,000 people face starvation; others say double that number are threatened.
The offensive in Eastern Upper Nile reached new heights in January. Government militias coming from Adar, where there is an operational oilfield, attacked Dhowanyawa village near Guelguk. In the .South, militias can consist of the government's People's Defence Forces (PDF); press ganged youths and Islamist zealots; the Southem forces of politicians coopted by Khartoum, often temporarily; and the government paid Murahileen, Arabic speakers from the north-south border areas out for booty and adventure. Local chiefs say that the villages of Tenykak, Mangok and Kolegit were then attacked and their people chased towards Udier by militiamen. The chiefs said the attacks began at night and that government forces, some on camels, avoided the barracks of Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon's Sudan Popular Defence Forces (SPDF), now again at odds with the NIF government, in order to target civilians. Tenykak lost at least 57 people in the attack.
The UN's Operation Lifeline Sudan has put the area off-limits; a relief worker outside the OLS described the attack: 'Parents who had fled the shooting and in the ensuing chaos could not find their children, children running and not finding their parents, people who arrived naked having been stripped and beaten, people who were caught and tied up in a hut which was set on fire.'
Relief officials and chiefs agreed that the aim of the offensive was to drive civilians from the Guelguk area, to allow oil exploration to proceed unimpeded. OLS sources, not allowed to speak out, privately say they believe the offensive also aims move out the relief agencies who might report the atrocities (a tactic used in the Nuba Mountains).
Government militias attacked Mading, north east of Nasir, and buried anti-personnel mines inside the compound of one non governmental organisatio, outside the Primary Health Centre and at a water point. At Uleng, militiamen sprayed the empty compound of a US refugee agency, the International Rescue Committee. with machine gun and rocket fire, shouting: 'We're going to take UN workers!'
Taban Deng Gai was the elected governor of Unity State (ex-province) but fled for his life under threat from the army last year. He told Africa Confidential that the government had budgeted US $ IO million dollars for militias in the current offensive. A Nuer from Upper Nile, Taban Deng became Minister of State for Roads in the national government when he left Unity. He said he had asked for southerners to benefit from the oil through jobs and roads but was refused. Soon after his defection, two of his regional ministers, Louis Keah Madut (Engineering Affairs) and Chuoc Dekier (Social and Cultural Affairs, a Muslim) were killed, reportedly on the orders of a senior minister. Taban claimed that before defecting from Khartoum in January, he had attended a meeting at military headquarters, when it was decided to pay each militiaman 50,000 Sudanese pounds ($20, well over a month's income in rural areas) for every operation in which he participated and £Sud 700,OOO compensation if his horse or camel were killed. He said oil money made such payments possible. The real prize was booty. 'Any cattle is his. Any child fallen captive is his.' This helps explain the current revival of the slave trade.
Campaigners against foreign investment in Sudan's oil industry say that some of the money financing the war in Eastern Upper Nile could come indirectly from British Petroleum, now joined with the USA' s Amoco. BP Amoco, which is the first oil company to sign the UN Declaration of Human Rights (after being, criticised in Colombia), has announced investment of $1 billion in PetroChina, a subsidiary formed by CNPC as a vehicle for raising money on international stock markets. Now CNPC has taken a 23 per cent stake in the concession in Eastern Upper Nile. PetroChina is an important source of funds for its operations. So BPAmoco now is under pressure to sell its shares in PetroChina but it has told the campaigners there is a 'firewall' between PetroChina and CNPC. In fact the heavy control of information about Chinese state companies such as CNPC makes drawing any conclusions problematic.
Southern opposition to the government's oil offensive has been weakened by factional fighting. Just as it has fuelled northern divisions in the National Democratic Alliance, the NIF has split southerners along ethnic lines, especially among the Nuer of Upper Nile Bahr el Ghazal. The SPDF's Peter Parr gets his guns through the government militia of General Paulino Matip; Peter Gadet, a former commander under Matip, fights in the anti government Sudan People's Liberation Army. The fend between them dates back to 1999, when Gadet was blamed by the SPDF for devastating Leer, Rick Machar's home town. Last year, in Block 5a south-east of Bentiu government troops and militias cleared the way for a 100 km road between Lundin Oil's supply base at Rub Kona and its wells at Thar Jath. Parr's forces in the area resisted and forced Lundin to suspend its operations in February 2000, citing 'logistical difficulties' but failing to mention the war. Sources in the SPDF have told us Matip offered Parr ammunition for the fight against his old enemy Gadet. With Parr beaten back, the government won a double victory: opposition to Lundin's oil road melted away and fighting between Nuer factions continued to drive people out of oil rich Western Upper Nile.
Gadet told Africa Confidential he had sought reconciliation with Parr. He said he had sent two commanders with a 50 man escort to talk to Parr, within weeks of his defection from Matip in 1999 but Parr's forces killed them all in the SPDF controlled village of Koch. A European aid agency says its members saw the bodies. Gadet said he ordered a second peace delegation to turn around in mid journey some months later, after being warned of another trap. The blood feud is now beyond control. Senior SPLA sources say that their Chairman, Colonel John Garang de Mabior, contacted Gadet by radio to urge him to cease his attacks on Parr but Gadet cut the radio connection.

Redrawing the map

Lundin Oil has completed its Rub Kona-Thar Jath road, which offers government forces a new route into inaccessible areas of Western Upper Nile. Local chiefs have reported segments of pipe being transported south to Thar Jath, which needs an extension to the Heglig Port Sudan pipeline. Having depopulated the route in a year long offensive (documented by Christian Aid in a new report on the war, The Scorched Earth), Khartoum is now changing the map. Confirming Lundin's discovery of a new field with a proven capacity of 4,620 bpd, Hassan Ali el Tom, Under-secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Mining, said last week that the new field was 'in northern Sudan, on the border with the south.' In fact the field, south of Lundin's original wells at Thar Jalh, lies deep in Southern territory where Nuer ownership was never disputed until oil was discovered.
Christian Aid has called on foreign companies to suspend investment and involvement in oil immediately. It said the companies were complicit in the NIF's war, crucially because they rely on security forces responsible for human rights abuses and have failed to investigate those abuses. It said this failure encourages the government to believe it enjoys impunity. Belatedly, the opposition umbrella, the NDA, echoed these calls on 21 March. In February, the Presbyterian Church of the United States joined others in recommending divestment from Talisman. Ottawa's concern is growing - unlike, it would appear, most European governments, whose companies are doing well out of the oil boom. Euro-governments argue the war is another reason for ‘constructive engagement' with the NIF.
So the oil campaign comes, mainly from Western NGOs but it is growing. Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, currently in the media spotlight in Macedonia as UN Special Representative to the Balkans, is on Lundin's board. Last week, pressed by journalists, he acknowledged that reports of abuses surrounding oil exploitation in Block 5a were 'partially correct'. Then citing an issue 'of principle', the head of the Consular Department of Stockholm's Foreign Ministry (and foreign policy advisor to Bildt when he was Premier), Jonas Hafström, resigned from the board of Rostock Oil, which Swedish media say is Lundin's Russian operation. Lundin sent Christine Batroch, an investigator whom it said had human rights credentials, to Block 5a. As we went to press, it was due to hold an emergency board meeting to review the situation.
Khartoum is determined to press ahead, however. It has sold oil concessions across the south, as far as the Ugandan border, in opposition controlled areas. This will only exacerbate the war and its human cost.

Foreign companies benefiting from the oil bonanza include:

The pipeline: built by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the line consists half of Chinese pipe, half of pipes supplied by the Euro-pipe Consortium (mainly Germany's Mannesmann, British Steel (now Chorus) and a French company). Denim Pipeline Construction Limited and Roll'n Oil Field Industries, both of Calgary, Canada, contracted for some oilfield and pipeline work.

Pumping stations were manufactured by Weir Pumps of Glasgow, which was retrenching until this work came along. Weir's first contract, in January 1998, was estimated to be worth around US $ 50 million. Weir hints that the second contract was far less valuable. The new pumping stations could boost the line's capacity, now about 250,000 barrels per day, or serve a new parallel line if output reached 400,000 bpd.

Equipment and operational support from Britain's Rolls Royce PLC (not to be confused with the car maker, now German). Allen Diesel, part of the same group via Rolls Royce Power, has supplied '34 diesel engines to pump oil along the national pipeline and for power generation purposes'. Rolls Royce also says it supplies 12?20 expatriate engineers at any one time. Its local partner is DAL Engineering.

Firefighting equipment is courtesy of Britain's Angus Fire.

The Port Sudan Marine Terminal (Beshayir) gave work to Argentina's Techint International Construction. 

Concessions: 

Blocks 1 and 2 (Heglig and Unity) are operational. They involve CNPC 40%, Malaysia's Petronas Karigali 30%, Talisman 25%, Sudan National Petroleum Co. (Sudapet) 5%.

Block 3, Adar Yale (operational, expanding): Gulf Petroleum Corporation Sudan: Gulf Oil (Qatar) 46%, CNPC 23%, Thani Corporation (United Arab Emirates) 23%, Sudapet 8%.

Block 5a, south east of Bentiu (testing): International Petroleum Corp./Lundin Oil 40.375%, Petronas 28.5%, Austria's OMV 26.125%, Sudapet 5%.

Block B and the 'Papyrai' block in Bahr el Ghazal (suspended since 1985) held by TotalFinaElf (France, Belgium).

Lundin (Adolf Lundin holds 25 per cent) operates as Lundin Sudan Ltd. OMV's wholly owned subsidiary is OMV (Sudan) Exploration GmbH. Royal Dutch Shell (Britain, Netherlands) has refined and sold fuel since colonial times. It's now under NGO pressure for selling it to the Sudanese armed forces: it says it doesn't 'discriminate between customers'. Army and government spokesmen boast that local oil boosts military purchases and helps their war effort.

Sudanese government military aircraft continue to bomb civilian and humanitarian targets throughout southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains. 
On March 8 and 9 Sudanese government planes bombed Kauda, in the Nuba Mountains.  This is the same locale where a school was bombed last year, killing 14 children and injuring 18 others.  Two days ago, on March 14, the Sudanese government bombed Mankien with as yet unknown casualties. 
The total number of bombings confirmed this year by the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) stands at 20.  This is almost certainly an understatement of the frequency of actual bombing by the Sudanese government as it often takes weeks to confirm bombings in remote locations, particularly where the United Nations Operation Lifeline Sudan is not present.  For example, an additional 10 bombings in Blue Nile Province have been reported since February 1, but have not yet been adequately confirmed by USCR and sources in the field. 
The presence of UN or other humanitarian agency relief personnel is no deterrent to Sudanese government bombing.   On February 22, for example, Padit in Upper Nile Province was bombed while the World Food Program (WFP) was preparing an aerial food drop there.  Such food drops attract civilians, who are the targets of Khartoum's bombing campaign.  In this instance, three bombs reportedly struck the food-drop zone and a fourth fell within 50 meters of a WFP compound. 
"Only one side in Sudan's conflict has planes:  the Khartoum government," said Roger P. Winter, executive director of USCR.  "Khartoum's bombing is meant to kill, maim, displace, and terrorize civilians caught up in the midst of the world's worst humanitarian nightmare." 
Winter added, "We applaud the editorial board of the Washington Post for today calling on the Bush Administration to make “a serious, high-profile attempt to pressure Sudan's oil partners” to bring the Sudanese government to the peace table." 
"The UN says little and does nothing about this.  Most Western governments, including Canada, turn a blind eye.  America and the Bush Administration appear to be their last, best hope." 
The U.S. Committee for Refugees is a private, non profit humanitarian organization that works for the protection and assistance of refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons around the world. 
For more information, visit our web site at www.refugees.org 
 

Oil companies operating in Sudan are complicit in the systematic depopulating of 
large areas of the country and atrocities against civilians, tens of thousands of whom 
have been killed and displaced from the areas around the oil fields, according to a 
report to be published today. 

Christian Aid, in a searing report on the consequences of Sudan's new oil bonanza, 
accuses the oil companies of deep involvement in the government's war machine 
against southern civilians. 

The companies are protected by government forces and allow their airstrips and roads 
to be used by the military, while the revenues from oil are funding expansion of the 
war, the report says. 

The report includes dozens of eyewitness accounts from villages where people have 
been driven out by bombing and ground attacks. 

"Oil has brought death," said one Nuer chief, Malony Kolang. "When the pumping 
began, the war began. Antonovs and helicopter gunships began attacking the villages. 
All the farms have been destroyed, everything around the oil fields has been 
destroyed." 

Christian Aid's report calls on foreign oil companies - from Canada, Sweden, China, 
France and Austria - to suspend their operations in Sudan. It also calls for BP and 
Shell to divest their shares in firms whose parent company is involved. 

The report accuses the oil companies of trying to distance themselves from the 
catastrophe of southern Sudan by claiming they are not responsible for the behaviour 
of companies in which they are shareholders. 

BP said last night it had no intention of disposing of its interests in PetroChina 
"because there is no reason why we should". The Chinese company, in which BP 
bought a $578m stake 12 months ago, is not active in Sudan, although its parent 
group, China National Petroleum Corporation, (CNPC) is. 

Toby Odone, a spokesman for BP, insisted there was no operational connection 
between PetroChina and CNPC. "When PetroChina did its IPO [listing on the US 
stock market] it assured the Securities & Exchange Commission that it had no 
interests in Sudan because of the sanctions issue," he explained. 

A Shell spokesman said it had no exploration or production interests in Sudan either 
directly or through its Chinese partner Sinopec. Dave Stuart said: "Although Sinopec 
did at one stage control interests in Sudan as a result of the restructuring of the 
Chinese state oil industry, that stake was moved back to CNPC during 1999." 

He said Shell would not agree to Christian Aid demands that it withdraw from its 
shareholding in Sinopec because there was no connection between Sinopec and 
CNPC. 

Rolls Royce admits it provided 34 diesel engines to help pump oil along a 1,000-mile 
pipeline from Sudan's oil fields to an export terminal on the Red Sea. 

Martin Brody, a Rolls Royce spokesman, said the company always took advice from 
the British government on where it could do business but also had its own criteria. He 
added: "As a supplier of equipment we always take a responsible view of our actions. 
We gave a lot of information to Christian Aid and will need to look at its report in 
more detail." 

Glasgow-based Weir Group is also being criticised for a £20m contract to provide 
equipment for pumping stations on the same pipeline. Emrys Inker, a spokesman for 
Weir, confirmed its involvement in Sudan but said all the work had been done with 
the approval of the Department of Trade and Industry and the British government. 

Weir had no comment on accusations that it is complicit in human rights abuses, or 
on speculation that it is involved in a second contract to supply pumps. 

The report gives harrowing details of the lives of refugees from the oil areas who 
have walked hundreds of miles to very precarious areas of southern Sudan, already 
wracked by decades of civil war. 

"All the villages along the road have been burned," said John Wicjial Bayak, a local 
official driven from a village close to the main road built for access to the oil fields. 
"You cannot see a single hut. The government doesn't want people anywhere near the 
oil." 

One man described fleeing the bombing with six of his grandchildren to hide in a 
forest. "We dug a hole for the children and put a blanket on top," he said. "We stayed 
20 days in the forest eating wild fruit." 

Systematic attacks on the villages began in March 2000, according to village chiefs. 
One was bombed 10 times before government troops finally burned out the residents. 

Across southern Sudan life is on a knife-edge and the government's strategy of 
banning aid flights to Upper Nile is fanning fears of a new famine tragedy similar to 
that of 1998, in which tens of thousands died. 

The government yesterday challenged a new campaign aimed at urging foreign companies working in the area of oil industry to leave the country, alleging that there is a government policy to terrorize the citizens and force them to vacate their places of residence in the areas of oil investment. 
The ruling National Congress [NC] described the talk by some Western quarters of fabricated wars in the oil areas with the aim of displacing the population as an attempt to affect the investors in the area of oil and prevent them from coming to Sudan. 
The [NC] secretary-general, Dr Ibrahim Ahmad Umar, pointed out that oil was being produced by a consortium of Chinese, Canadian and Malaysian firms, along with the government. He added that fabrication of war in such a situation was impossible. Umar said some quarters supporting the rebel movement had become apprehensive of the expected development due to the successful investment in oil industry. 
The Sudanese organization for human rights strongly criticized the allegations by the British charity Christian Aid that the government was pursuing a systematic policy to empty the oil rich areas of its population. 

I am battling to focus or concentrate while images of life in Sudan constantly replay in my mind dehydrated and homeless children arriving in poor physical condition having fled fighting, sick and disease ridden people without access to medicine, women running through the bush for safety, women and children hiding in fear without food or water, displaced and homeless people who have lost all their possessions in raids and attacks, the smouldering ashes of what was some ones home, the wounded men, women and children, many with gunshot wounds, a woman sitting on her own in front of her destroyed home not waiting for some news of her family, a young boy lying in the dirt in front of his burnt home having lost his family. Just days ago we were evacuating war wounded people, people that had been shot in the head, mouth, face, even a 12 year old girl who had been shot in the back, loading them onto our plane to get them to a hospital in Kenya for treatment, the Red Cross would not fly to this village because it was declared a no go area by the UN. The village was attacked, burnt down and destroyed along with another village that we were trying to reach during the past two weeks while we were in Sudan. Innocent people have become victims in a bloody and savage war being fueled by a government and its Western allies in its desperate efforts to control and profit from an oil rich region "which was home for these innocent people". 

The victims should have been enjoying the benefits and profits from oil, instead of facing death, bloodshed, suffering and displacement! The stories that came out as these homeless folk fled for their lives, were horrific. Parents fleeing the shooting and in the ensuing chaos could not find their children, children running and not finding their parents, an old woman who was not quick enough and was hit by a bullet and died, "there was nothing we could do for her" related one distraught villager, one evangelist, James, who was shot through the leg, those that arrived naked having been stripped and beaten and then those that were caught and tied up in a hut which was then set on fire. Walking through the deserted and burnt out village was a traumatic experience, one young boy, James 12 years old, was lying in the dirt outside the remains of his burnt home, he had been on the run for 3 days without food and was in bad shape, he did not know what had happened to his parents or what he was going to do next

Sitting in front of another destroyed home was Kamissa, a 25 year old mother who did not know where her husband or children were. Another young boy, Bol, 14 years, could not speak he was so traumatized, his feet cut, suffering from dehydration, he had been running for 3 days, his body was shaking badly and no parents to take care of him. Smouldering remains of what was a Church with the earthen pews protruding is now a pile of ashes. We managed to help save one young baby but 3 others died. 

These are just a few stories of human suffering from just one area in Sudan,  there are thousands of others that have not been told across the length and breadth of Sudan....the continued aerial bombing, the raping, kidnapping of women and children, the murders, the massacres, the orphans. For how much longer will the West stand by as an observer allowing innocent women and children to perish! On behalf of the innocent women and children in Sudan.

``The time has come for the United States, in league with others, to make a strong push to end Sudan's war,'' said the report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to be released Monday. 

Also compiled with participation from a number of non-governmental groups, the report suggests asking Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom or others to help press Sudan's warring sides into ``serious and sustained talks.'' 

It urged the Bush administration to fully staff the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum to help execute a ``hard-nosed strategy,'' including ``diplomacy, heightened engagement ..., punitive measures.'' 

Although it didn't recommend specific measures, it suggested mounting an international campaign against companies operating Sudanese oil fields. 

``In the past two years Sudan's rising oil production has shifted the balance of military power in the government's favor,'' the report said. 

``The surrounding region is in flux in its relations to the Sudan conflict, and it has become clear that competing regional peace initiatives hold no promise.'' 

It acknowledged the suggested U.S.-led multinational initiative would not be easy, saying: ``The Sudanese themselves, along with their neighbors, have grown indifferent, cynical or actively resistant'' to outside peace efforts. 

Since 1983, the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army, the main rebel group, has been fighting for autonomy for the largely Christian and animist south from the predominantly Muslim north. Nearly 2 million people have died in the civil war and famines. 

The report said the Clinton administration policy of isolation and containment had ``made little headway in ending Sudan's war.'' 

The Clinton administration started to give some aid to independent charities -- making it more directly available to rebels -- instead of giving it to a United Nations program that is often constrained by negotiated agreements with Khartoum. The government dictates when and where the U.N. program may deliver aid. Sudan also has been under sanctions since 1997; the U.S. government believes it is a sponsor of international terrorism.

(AP, Washington, 23-02-2001)
 

This comes amid accusations that leaders of the congress had conspired to form secret squads and a military group to carry out political assassinations, including plans to carry out assassinations by using lethal poison, some of which begin to act after three months and others after six months. 

The headquarters of [Hasan] al-Turabi's party [PNC] was put under close surveillance yesterday and so was the party's newspaper Ra'y al-Sha'b, which did not publish yesterday... 

(Al-Sharq al-Awsat, London, in Arabic 23 Feb 2001) 
 

Over 2,000 refugees from Kirwa, Mongalatore and Kansuk camps for the internally displaced persons in southern Sudan have crossed over to Uganda due to food needs resulting from suspension in food distribution, said Malik. 

"The UNHCR has received the latest information that the Norwegian People's Aid, which is the organization handling food distribution in the three camps in southern Sudan, has started the process of distributing food from February 18, 2001," she said. 

Malik said the UNHCR hopes the refugees will return to the camps since the food distribution has already started. 

Meanwhile, she said, the UNHCR will continue to monitor the situation closely. 

A total of 2,041 Sudanese refugees, after entering northwestern Uganda, have been transported to the Imvepi Refugee Settlement and the Rhino Refugee Settlement in the northern Ugandan district of Arua, according to Malik. 

The UNHCR responded immediately by going to the arrival area and providing the people with dry rations such as biscuits and milk, she said, adding that registration has been undertaken and assistance extended to the refugees after they settled down in the camps. 
The group of new arrivals consists of mainly women, young girls and children, she said. 

(XINHUA, 23-02-2001)
 

IHA/728 
GENEVA, 23 February (OCHA) -- The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Kenzo Oshima, today expressed deep concern about the very poor response so far of the international donor community to a critical humanitarian situation developing in the Sudan, as a result of continuing conflict and the onset of severe drought. 
Mr. Oshima noted that, in addition to the pressing survival needs of several million persons from displaced and vulnerable communities affected by war and conflict, widespread drought was now threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of others with possible further displacement. This included pastoralists and farmers in central, western, and southern Sudan. 
The Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for the Sudan, launched almost three months ago and recently revised to take account of the drought in central and western Sudan, had called for an amount of $244 million in food and other assistance to meet the emergency needs of these war- and drought-affected communities. More than 600,000 of a total targeted population for the appeal of more than 3 million are assessed as being at immediate risk. This will require urgent funding of at least $60 million. 
Mr. Oshima noted that the response so far from the donor community amounted to little more than 1 per cent of this amount, and carry-over funds and supplies from the previous year were fast running out. The World Food Programme (WFP) will have no food supplies to assist populations in need after March, with the critical hunger period beginning in April/May. The United Nations Children's Fund will be unable to continue for much longer with present levels of emergency intervention in water/sanitation and health sectors. A vital seeds distribution programme planned by the Food and Agriculture Organization is also threatened. 
The Government of the Sudan was itself taking a lead in responding with available resources to a worsening humanitarian situation in respect of drought. But the potential scale of the emergency was such that the assistance of the international community was imperative if a human disaster were to be averted. 
For further information, please contact: Phyllis Lee, Tel. (212)963-4832 in New York, or Donato Kiniger-Passigli, Tel. 9172653 in Geneva.
 

``The oil-rich area of Sudan has seen a great deal of population displacement and in fact is currently one of the most insecure areas in Sudan,'' Nicholas Siwingwa, deputy country director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said in a statement. 

Siwingwa was clarifying WFP's position following a Reuters report from Khartoum earlier this month which quoted a WFP spokesperson as saying the agency was not aware of forced displacements in the oil concession area around Bentiu. 

WFP, which provides f