On 29th August they are having a presentation by a staff person from Talisman Oil Company who requested the meeting with the Bishops during this Plenary. The Talisman request came as result of the letter which the Catholic Bishops wrote to IGAD on 15th September 2000 during their Annual meeting in Pesaro (Italy). 
In that letter, the Catholic Bishops stated that “we foresee that the production of Oil will fuel the war…Since several countries have rushed to show interest in trading of oil with Khartoum, the GOS has lost interest in pursuing a peaceful solution to the war. Moreover some foreign countries are assisting the GOS to drive people from their ancestral land to facilitate the exploitation of the oil wells. We are convinced that the oil revenues will not be used for the welfare of the Sudanese.  The fact that numberless government employees have gone without pay for several months attests to this…”
The Bishops’ Letter to IGAD ended with a number of considerations, including the following:
“We are convinced that the benefits from the oil production are not shared for the development of the South and other marginalized areas.  In fact we fear that this wealth will cause escalation of the conflict.”
Further more, on 17th August 2001, the joint meeting in Nairobi of the Bishops of the Catholic and Episcopal Churches of the Sudan, after analyzing the war situation in the Sudan and the sufferings the conflict imposes on innocent people, issued to the Government of the Sudan and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army
the appeal “for an immediate end of the war. A negotiated settlement rather than military means is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace.”
In this appeal, they also outlined a Programme for Peace which includes: 
“Suspension of oil extraction until peace is achieved.  Its continuation fuels the war, uproots civilian populations, and reinforces the existing imbalance in wealth sharing.”
Regarding this presentation by Talisman at the Bishops’  annual meeting, they want to note that in their search for truth and mutual understanding, they have in the past been addressed by different parties in the present conflict without intending such occasions as their sign of approval of the parties’ activities or ideologies.  In like manner, by having representatives of Talisman address them at this annual meeting, the Catholic Bishops of Sudan do not intend the occasion to be a sign of their approval of Talisman’s  present activities in Sudan.
Sudan Catholic Bishops Regional Conference(SCBRC)
P.O. Box 66057, Nairobi, Kenya Tel:560-603; Fax:575-970
e-mail: scbrc@form-net.com 
 

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 28 (Reuters) - The United States has dropped its 
opposition to lifting largely symbolic U.N. sanctions against Sudan, allowing the 
U.N. Security Council to end the embargoes in a Friday vote, diplomats said. 

The council had delayed a Sept. 17 meeting to end sanctions on the movement of 
diplomatic personnel because of the attacks against the World Trade Center in New 
York and the Pentagon in Washington. 

But the envoys said the United States apparently has softened its view that Sudan was supporting terrorist activities and may abstain in the vote but not use its veto to block a resolution on the embargoes. The U.N. sanctions are separate from broader ones imposed unilaterally by the United States, which are still intact. 

Earlier this week, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher praised talks with Khartoum. "For about a year, we have had a counter-terrorism dialogue with Sudan and had been making concrete progress in that regard," Boucher said on Wednesday. 

"I would characterize our discussions so far with Sudan as good," he added." 

"Since the bombings, we have seen statements from Sudan that are positive and offered sympathy and support," he said, following reports Sudan was rounding up so-called extremists. 

U.N. sanctions against Sudan were imposed in 1996 to force the Khartoum government to hand over suspects in an assassination attempt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. 

They require states to reduce the number of Sudanese diplomatic personnel and to restrict the entry or transit of Sudanese government officials. But the United States is one of the few countries to honor the sanctions. 

Even Egypt, on whose behalf the embargoes were imposed, and Ethiopia, where the attack against Mubarak took place, support ending the sanctions. 

The United States has insisted Sudan show it is no longer providing sanctuary to alleged terrorist groups, and U.S. counter-terrorism experts said last month the government was not supporting the gunmen involved in the attack on Mubarak. 

Separately, the United States has its own sanctions, imposed by former President Bill Clinton, who closed the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum in 1996 and put trade embargoes in place. 

Sudan also remains one of seven countries listed by the State Department as a sponsor of terrorism. 

In August 1998, Clinton ordered air strikes on a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory on grounds, much disputed, that it was preparing to produce ingredients for chemical weapons. 

Washington said then that Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, now suspected in the latest attacks against the United States, had a stake in the plant. 

The White House, particularly U.S. President George W. Bush, had hesitated to lift any sanctions, mainly because of Khartoum's use of slaves throughout the country's brutal 18-year-old civil war. 

On Sept. 6, however, Washington decided to launch a peace initiative to mediate between Sudan's Islamic government and Christian and animist militias fighting for autonomy. 
 

Nairobi, Kenya, August 17, 2001
We the Bishops of the Catholic and Episcopal Churches of the Sudan, gathered in Nairobi for a seminar, Pastoral Leadership and United Action in a Crisis Situation, from August 12 - 17 2001, moved by our Christian Faith and concerned by the immense suffering of all the Peoples of Sudan, because of the current civil war, appeal for an immediate end of the hostilities and the establishment of a just and durable peace in the Sudan.
We address our appeal to the Government of Sudan, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), other warring parties, all Peoples of Sudan of every tribe and religion, the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) and other peacemakers including the IGAD Partners Forum (IPF), the United Nations, the African Union and international partners.
We also address our appeal to his Holiness Pope John Paul II and the Most Reverend and The Right Honourable Dr. George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, and to religious leaders around the world.
State of suffering
We are deeply concerned with the appalling human suffering in both the North and South of the country. Nearly three million people have died because of the war. Over six million have been internally displaced and millions more have fled the country. The economic situation has deteriorated to the extent that over 96 percent of the population is living below the poverty line.
In some areas, populations are being deliberately denied critically needed basic humanitarian assistance. The war has adversely affected particularly the most vulnerable: women, children and the elderly.
In order to sustain the war efforts, the warring parties conscript by force children of school age into military service, thus exposing them to grave harm, depriving them of any chance of education and jeopardising their future. Women and children are harassed and abused and the elderly are robbed of normal traditional care. Ordinary and traditional family life has collapsed and cultural traditions have broken down.
Large sections of the population have become dependent for their survival on humanitarian assistance. This assistance, though desperately needed, is however not an effective long-term solution to the crisis.
Given these and other heinous experiences of human suffering, we appeal for an immediate end of the war. A negotiated settlement, rather than military means is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace.
Peace based on justice
Stopping the war is essential, but not sufficient for the establishment of a just and lasting peace. The root causes of the conflict must also be addressed, so that all Sudanese can enjoy their full rights in dignity.
This could be achieved by addressing the following:
-Affirmation of diversity in the national identity that ensures the equal treatment of all cultural, racial and religious groups in the public media and the educational and legal systems in order to promote peaceful coexistence.
-Power sharing by a participatory system of governance that ensures the full rights and participation of all people. Such a system should protect the states exclusive rights over their territories and provide for the sharing of agreed upon powers at the national level. This balance of powers must be configured to avoid the domination by any one group over another and ensure the full rights of all.
-Wealth sharing through an agreed upon formula between the states and national government to ensure balanced and equitable development.
Programme for peace:
Addressing the above three major concerns requires a concrete programme of action that includes the following:
-Affirmation of principles: We affirm the Declaration of Principles of the IGAD peace process, particularly in regards to the relationship between state and religion, the principle of self-determination, and the comprehensive cease-fire.
-Relationship between state and religion: The unity of the country and peace with justice cannot be achieved under Sharia Law in a country with a diversity of cultures and religions. Instead we call for religious freedom for all religious groups and the separation of religion and state.
-Comprehensive cease-fire:  Upon the achievement of a negotiated settlement, a comprehensive cease-fire should be declared and internationally monitored.
Advocacy for justice and peace. 
We call for:
a) Respect for human rights for all citizens
b) Peace building, reconciliation and forgiveness among the diverse cultural groups of the nation, including North - South, South – South and North -North initiatives
c) The co-operation of neighbouring countries, international organisations, and IGAD Partners Forum countries and all people of goodwill.
d) The constructive engagement of all national state stakeholders, including civil society groups and religious communities in particular.
e) Affirmation of the ongoing people-to-people reconciliation and peace process in the South and urge all parties to the conflict to engage and support seriously this process and any similar processes in the North.  These grassroots efforts should be linked to the higher national political level.
f) Commitment to fostering genuine Christian - Muslim dialogue particularly at the local community level.
g) Affirmation and support of the Sudan Ecumenical Forum and its ongoing initiatives for peace.
h) Suspension of oil extraction until peace is achieved.  Its continuation fuels the war, uproots civilian populations, and reinforces the existing imbalance in wealth sharing.
Conclusion
As believers in the one Creator, and sharing in a single humanity, we believe and hope that God will grant the Peoples of Sudan peace if we are willing to pray sincerely, to reconcile and bear one another's burdens.
Sudan Catholic Information Office (SCIO) - P.O Box 21102 - Nairobi, Kenya
e-mail: SCIO@maf.or.ke
tel: 254-2-577616/ 577949/ 577595 - fax 254-2-577327
 

The Sudan Catholic Bishops are currently holding their annual Plenary in Nairobi from 21st August to 1st September 2001. 
On 29th August they are having a presentation by a staff person from Talisman Oil Company who requested the meeting with the Bishops during this Plenary. The Talisman request came as result of the letter which the Catholic Bishops wrote to IGAD on 15th September 2000 during their Annual meeting in Pesaro (Italy). 
In that letter, the Catholic Bishops stated that “we foresee that the production of Oil will fuel the war…Since several countries have rushed to show interest in trading of oil with Khartoum, the GOS has lost interest in pursuing a peaceful solution to the war. Moreover some foreign countries are assisting the GOS to drive people from their ancestral land to facilitate the exploitation of the oil wells. We are convinced that the oil revenues will not be used for the welfare of the Sudanese.  The fact that numberless government employees have gone without pay for several months attests to this…”

The Bishops’ Letter to IGAD ended with a number of considerations, including the following:
“We are convinced that the benefits from the oil production are not shared for the development of the South and other marginalized areas.  In fact we fear that this wealth will cause escalation of the conflict.”
Further more, on 17th August 2001, the joint meeting in Nairobi of the Bishops of the Catholic and Episcopal Churches of the Sudan, after analyzing the war situation in the Sudan and the sufferings the conflict imposes on innocent people, issued to the Government of the Sudan and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army
the appeal “for an immediate end of the war.  A negotiated settlement rather than military means is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace.”
In this appeal, they also outlined a Programme for Peace which includes: 
“Suspension of oil extraction until peace is achieved.  Its continuation fuels the war, uproots civilian populations, and reinforces the existing imbalance in wealth sharing.”
Regarding this presentation by Talisman at the Bishops’  annual meeting, they want to note that in their search for truth and mutual understanding, they have in the past been addressed by different parties in the present conflict without intending such occasions as their sign of approval of the parties’ activities or ideologies.  In like manner, by having representatives of Talisman address them at this annual meeting, the Catholic Bishops of Sudan do not intend the occasion to be a sign of their approval of Talisman’s  present activities in Sudan.
Sudan Catholic Bishops Regional Conference(SCBRC)
P.O. Box 66057, Nairobi, Kenya Tel:560-603; Fax:575-970
e-mail: scbrc@form-net.com
 

- meeting in Nairobi for the last three months on their own without the benefit of external mediation and pressure;

- convinced that the Unity of our people is of utmost importance for the Liberation Process;

- concerned about the meaningless and regrettable loss of lives caused by internecine and inter-factional fighting as a result of our political differences which, only benefit the enemy;

- alarmed by the genocide, ethnic cleansing, slavery and displacement of our people and their replacement by non-indigenous settlers from the North;

- determined to halt the vandalization and wanton looting of our oil and other natural resources by the illegitimate, fascist  and Islamic Fundamentalist regime in Khartoum;

- cognizant of the fact that the enemy  does not believe in the peaceful resolution of the Sudan conflict and therefore does not honour negotiated agreements, the most recent of which is the dishonoured and now defunct April 21st 1997 Khartoum Peace Agreement;
- fully aware that a United Stand is the only sure way to bring the war to a speedy and just  end;
- having reviewed the past experiences of the Liberation Struggle;

- appreciating  that we were one movement before;

and 

- considering that the committees have been fully mandated by the leaders of the two movements to discuss freely and frankly about reconciliation, peace and unity of our people and reach an agreement thereon;

A. Hereby agree on the following:

1)     Organic unity of  the two Movements under the SPLM/SPLA;

2)     The Objectives of the Liberation Struggle which are;

a)     Administration of the Sudan as a Confederal/Federal United Secular Democratic New Sudan during an Interim Period, as a form of an Interim Unity, and 

b)    The exercise of the Right of Self-Determination by the People of Southern Sudan including Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Southern Blue Nile in an internationally supervised referendum at the end of the Interim Period to choose between:- (i) Continuation and development of the Union in 2 (a), above, or (ii) Independence for Southern component part of that Interim Union.

c)     Federalism/Regionalism shall be the system of governance during the Liberation struggle in Southern Sudan including Abyei, Southern Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan and thereafter.

3)     The unified Movement remains committed to the IGAD Peace Process, and to resolutions and institutions of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Popular National Congress (PNC).

4)     Harmonization of the political, military and administrative structures of the unified Movement.

B.  Further agreed that the following steps be immediately  effected:

1)     Immediate cessation of hostilities: military and negative media campaigns;
2)     Smooth implementation of relief and other humanitarian interventions;

3)     Establishment of a military commission for the reorganization of the unified forces and harmonization of the ranking system; 

4)     Establishment of technical committees for harmonization of the political and administrative structures of the unified Movement;

5)     Formation of enlightenment committees to explain to our people and the international community the just concluded agreement on reconciliation, peace and unity;

6)     Extension of the unity process to include other political forces and military groupings in Southern Sudan, Southern Kordofan, Southern Blue Nile and any other areas;

C.   Finally,  the parties hereby; 

1)     Agree to uphold and work towards the speedy implementation of this Declaration, which will come into force this day. 

2)     Call upon friends and people of good will to support this initiative on peace, reconciliation and unity:

Signed

for  SPLM/SPLA : Dr. Justin Yaac Arop, and Prof. George Bureng Nyombe

for SPDF : Cdr. Taban Deng Gai and Cdr. James Kok 

date : 28/05/2001

May 31, 2001

A fresh burst of conflict violates a ceasefire—and poses new problems for U.S. policy in Africa

Even as it was announcing a May 25 ceasefire in its 18-year-old civil war, the government of Sudan was sending ground troops and helicopter gunships into the Nuba Mountains in a major operation against civilians, according to well-placed humanitarian-aid sources in the region.

TROOPS TORCHED THE HUTS, sent civilians fleeing for their lives and displaced thousands of Muslim and Christian civilians in a region it did not control, a source in one aid group said. The government’s actions came on the eve of renewed negotiations with the Sudanese opposition in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi and just as Secretary of State Colin Powell was traveling into the immediate region with plans for a new, more activist U.S. policy for Sudan. The operation poses a major challenge to U.S. diplomatic efforts in Sudan and reveals a serious weakness in America’s intelligence-monitoring capability.

Powell and aides told NEWSWEEK they were unaware of the offensive and the destruction of the habitat of a large number of civilians. And even after checking all available sources, they still could not confirm details five days later, a senior official accompanying Powell said aboard his plane Wednesday night.

First word about the offensive came from John Garang, head of biggest faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, who told NEWSWEEK in Nairobi last Sunday that 14 villages in the area of Heiban had been torched and more than 5,000 households destroyed with residents having to flee into the mountains, Garang said. U.S. officials accompanying Powell said they had no immediate information and, even after consulting the U.S. missions in the region, were unable to provide any confirmation.

Humanitarian-aid experts, described by top Powell aides as highly reliable, used their own independent sources to confirm the assault Wednesday. They said between 2,000 and 5,000 families were burned out of their modest quarters. With households averaging five or six people, this means between 10,000 and 30,000 people were forced to flee. There were no major attacks on military targets, says an informed source, who calls it “very much a civilian-targeted” operation. The source says there was no way of knowing the number of casualties. “If people are wounded, they generally don’t survive” due to the paucity of medical facilities, the source adds. 

Unlike much of southern Sudan, where a mostly Christian and animist population is under frequent assault by the fundamentalist Islamic regime in Khartoum, Heiban county has both Arabic-speaking Muslims and Christians who do not want to submit to the Khartoum regime and its insistence on applying Islamic religious law. It has become a major target by the government following the discovery of oil in the area.

According to Garang, the Sudanese government dropped bombs over Tonj last Saturday and launched an offensive in three places. He said five brigades of troops—more than 10,000 soldiers—attacked in the Nuba Mountains, and they also attacked the SPLA in the southern Blue Nile and in Bar el Ghazal. (The SPLA has since faxed a statement to Reuters’s Cairo office claiming its fighters killed 400 government troops and won three battles on the southern front lines Tuesday.) “This is a war against the civilian population. Not against the SPLA as such,” Garang told NEWSWEEK.

The more activist U.S. policy on Sudan is the result of strong pressure by a combination of evangelical Christian groups, the Congressional Black Caucus and the human-rights community. A policy review is nearly completed, but Powell has already announced that Andrew Natsios, the director of the Agency for International Development, will be special coordinator for food aid in Sudan. A special envoy— experienced diplomat Chester Crocker is reported to be under consideration by Powell—will be named to coordinate U.S. diplomacy and overall policy in Sudan. 

While in Nairobi, Powell announced that the United States will send 40,000 tons of grain to both the government-controlled north and southern Sudan in an effort to avert a looming famine. The United States also has released some $3 million in assistance to the National Democratic Alliance, an umbrella group in which Garang’s SPLA is a major component.

Despite the heightened U.S. interest, Powell declined to receive Garang while in Nairobi. Instead, he sent Natsios to talk with both Garang and the Sudanese ambassador. Powell’s next step is unclear. But it’s painfully obvious that one of Washington’s biggest challenges will be getting the kind of real-time data that its special envoy will need to proceed.
 

Contents

Executive summary
Introduction

Chapter 1: The war for oil : The 'scorched earth' policy in three oil concessions

Chapter 2: Life on a knife-edge :The war on relief and the banning of aid

Chapter 3: Paying for the war :Oil money for arms

Chapter 4: Foreign oil : How complicit are the foreign oil companies?

Chapter 5: The British connection

Recommendations

Christian Aid in Sudan
Sudan's civil war
Who's who in oil 
Glossary

References
Credits

“Christ was sold for 30 pieces of silver and our people are being sacrificed in exchange for barrels of oil” Sudan Catholic Bishops Conference, September 2000.

Executive summary

In the oilfields of Sudan, civilians are being killed and raped, their villages burnt to the ground. They are caught in a war for oil, part of the wider civil war between northern and southern Sudan that has been waged for decades. Since large-scale production began two years ago, oil has moved the war into a new league. Across the oil-rich regions of Sudan, the government is pursuing a 'scorched earth' policy to clear the land of civilians and to make way for the exploration and exploitation of oil by foreign oil companies.

This Christian Aid report, The scorched earth, shows how the presence of international oil companies is fuelling the war. Companies from Asia and the West, including the UK, have helped build Sudan's oil industry, offering finance, technological expertise and supplies, to create a strong and growing oil industry in the centre of the country. In the name of oil, government forces and government-supported militias are emptying the land of civilians, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of southern Sudanese. Oil industry infrastructure - the same roads and airstrips which serve the companies - is used by the army as part of the war. In retaliation, opposition forces have attacked government-controlled towns and villages, causing further death and displacement.

Exports of Sudan's estimated reserves of two billion barrels of oil are paying for the build-up of a Sudanese home grown arms industry as well as paying for more arms imports. Without oil, the civil war being fought between the government of Sudan and the main opposition force, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) is at a stalemate; with oil, it can only escalate. The Sudanese government itself now admits that oil is funding the wider civil war. 'Sudan will be capable of producing all the weapons it needs thanks to the growing oil industry,' announced General Mohamed Yassin just eleven months after the oil began flowing out of the new pipeline into the supertankers at the Red Sea port. The government now earns roughly US$1 million a day from oil - equivalent to the US$1 million it spends daily fighting the war. The equation is simple, the consequences devastating.

Christian Aid visited southern Sudan last year to gather first-hand information about the impact of the companies' involvement. Eyewitness accounts show that government forces are ruthlessly clearing the way for oil over an ever-larger area. In one area of Eastern Upper Nile where a new consortium began prospecting in March 2001, 48 villages have been burned and 55,000 people displaced in the past 12 months. Along a new road in one European oil company's concession, said one eyewitness, 'there is not a single village left'.

In a war against the SPLA, virtually all southerners - the ordinary people who have always lived in the oil-rich areas of Western Upper Nile - are regarded as potential enemies. For them, the legacy of the oil beneath their feet has not been new schools and roads, but displacement, destruction and death. The SPLA opposition is targeting the oil installations and fighting government forces. It is civilians who are dying from the abuses perpetrated by both sides.

Western Upper Nile now has the highest proportion of people in need anywhere in Sudan. Its children are at the highest nutritional risk. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which includes the protection of civilians during war, is being violated each and every day. Organisations such as Christian Aid and its 24 local partner organisations cannot fulfil their humanitarian mandate. Aid flights are banned by the government, leaving people in even greater need.

Extracting oil in a country at war with itself is, without question, problematic. In Sudan, geography compounds the problem. Although the oil is being exploited by the government, most oil reserves lie in southern Sudan - in areas where the SPLA and other southern groups are fighting against the government in pursuance of demands for a more equitable share of economic and political power. The oil is transported north through a 1,600 km pipeline built with foreign hardware, including British pumping stations and engines. Khartoum has signalled its intentions by selling oil concessions across the entire south as far as the Ugandan border. These are the areas next in line for armed clearance.

Oil companies such as Canada's Talisman Energy, Sweden's Lundin Oil, Malaysia's Petronas and China's state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) are business partners of the government of Sudan. Under contract, oil revenues are shared between the companies and the Sudanese national oil company, Sudapet. Military protection is also part of the partnership. As in many conflict-ridden countries, the oil companies are themselves targets. The SPLA has declared oilfields and oil companies to be legitimate military targets; one of its local commander has attacked oil installations.

The companies require protection so that they may operate unhindered and so their staff are secure. But the relationship between oil and security has moved far beyond simple defence. A strategy of clearing potential enemies - Nuer and Dinka civilians - from the oilfields is seen by the government as a prerequisite to making way for oil.

As companies cast their eyes on the prize - huge reservoirs of untapped oil deep inside SPLA-held territory - the oil war promises to spread. TotalFinaElf's 120,000 km2 concession near the town of Bor cannot be exploited unless the area is controlled by the northern government. There is nothing to suggest that the government will not practice its scorched earth policy here, too.

With this report Christian Aid joins a long list of organisations which have exposed these human rights violations: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN, the New Sudan Council of Churches, and official delegations such as the Harker commission from Canada. Shareholders in the major oil companies are mounting a campaign reminiscent of the South African movement for divestment. A new report by the influential Washington-based Center for Strategic and Investment Studies concludes that: 'Oil is fundamentally changing Sudan's war' and calls for the US to enlist the support of the UK government in an effort to end the war. 

Yet, despite the evidence, the oil companies remain largely silent. Those directly engaged in production claim that they have no knowledge of oil-related human rights violations on their land - that, however deplorable, human rights violations are not linked to their activities or to their need for government-supplied security. The companies argue that their presence, and the production of oil, will help bring peace and prosperity to Sudan. British companies, from Rolls Royce to Weir Pumps of Glasgow, have supplied pumps and engineers for the pipeline. The companies say that they will help bring peace and prosperity to Sudan. But there are signs neither of peace nor of prosperity - only of more war.

In Sudan, oil and war are inextricably linked. For this reason Christian Aid, which has been working for 30 years in Sudan, and its partners, recommend that:

- Oil companies directly involved in oil in Sudan, such as Talisman Energy and Lundin Oil, should immediately suspend operations until there is a just and lasting peace agreement.

- Companies such as TotalFinaElf, which own concessions in Sudan but are not yet operational, and those which have invested in the Sudanese oil industry, should refuse to take any further steps to begin operations or supply equipment until a peace agreement is reached. - BP, Shell and other foreign and institutional investors in Sinopec and PetroChina, two subsidiaries of CNPC, should divest their holdings.

- The Government of Sudan should cease its abuse of civilians and breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law. It should publish reports of the use of oil revenue to demonstrate that it is used to benefit people in all of Sudan, north and south.

- The SPLA should also cease its breaches of international humanitarian and human rights laws.

- The UK government should take steps to put in place strong and enforceable regulation of transnational corporations to ensure that they cannot be directly or indirectly complicit in human rights violations.

Oil should be Sudan's peace dividend - the incentive which makes peace desirable. Without peace, oil cannot be safely extracted. Foreign oil companies can no longer claim that they do not know of the scorched earth policy which has swept the oilfields. Western industry, including UK companies, have a choice: they can either continue to turn a blind eye to the atrocities carried out in their name, or they and their governments can help make peace possible.

Introduction

One of the bloodiest and longest running of Africa's wars is being fuelled by oil. This report shows, through eyewitness accounts, how foreign oil companies have helped to build Sudan's oil industry and demonstrates the cost of oil to ordinary people. It also demonstrates that - far from being a force for peace, as the oil companies argue - oil is threatening to extend the scorched earth strategy from the oil-rich area of Western Upper Nile to vast new oil concessions further south.

Oil - developed, exploited and financed by foreign oil companies - is both the justification and the means for a larger, more brutal war. From the government's own mouth we hear that oil is paying for arms.

How complicit are foreign oil companies? Report after report in a long list of authoritative human rights documents has made it clear to governments and companies alike that oil is integrally linked to the war, and that companies bear a responsibility. A year after an official Canadian delegation led by John Harker condemned foreign corporate complicity and recommended concrete areas for change, Christian Aid has found that:

- In the oilfields and surrounding areas, government forces and government-sponsored militias are carrying out a 'scorched earth' policy bent on emptying the areas of civilians.

- Oil company infrastructure, including airstrips and oil roads, are being used by government forces fighting in southern Sudan.

- Government bans on UN and NGO humanitarian flights go unremarked by the companies, whose own personnal more freely. Increased fighting plus the aid flight bans is leading to acute food shortages and fears of famine.

- Companies have failed to take proper responsibility for displacement and other human rights violations. Codes of conduct have had no visible impact. The benefits of oil are not accruing to the people from whose land it is being taken.

- Sudan, which two years ago was an oil importer, is now an exporter of oil and, with oil money, able to fund an expansion of the war. A new industrial complex in the north has been developed and reported to be used for dual civilian-military use. Defence spending has doubled.

- Companies such as Lundin, Petronas and CNPC are contributing to the extension of the war by permitting government forces to clear new areas for them to exploit. The offensive which will be necessary to take control of TotalFinaElf's concessions will take the scorched earth close to the borders of Uganda and Kenya.

 It is no longer possible for companies to claim ignorance of the effects of their operations. Investigation after investigation, by the UN's Special Rapporteur, Amnesty International, Canada's Harker commission, Human Rights Watch, church agencies and this report by Christian Aid, tell the story of systematic, overwhelming human  rights violations of innocent people. If the companies turn a blind eye now, it is a deliberate one.

Talisman and Lundin have told Christian Aid of their concern for human rights in the area and their desire for peace. Both companies have brought in some humanitarian relief. But in the wider context, deliveries of tents for temporary shelter for displaced villagers, or support for water boreholes or a 60-bed hospital look very feeble indeed. A sticking plaster while disaster spreads.

Should the companies be given the benefit of the doubt? The Canadian government, failing to apply sanctions in the wake of the Harker report, thought so. The companies, notably Talisman, argue that their presence will lead to positive change - 'islands of peace', as Talisman expressed it. But a year on, as Christian Aid has found, there are ever more villages lying in ashes.

Sudan needs oil: its people, north and south, need oil wealth. But under current conditions this is not happening. Oil is bringing few benefits to the people under whose land it lies. The development of oil must take place under a new set of terms.

Foreign oil companies can help in this process. Corporate Britain and major multinationals are talking the language of human rights and corporate social responsibility. If the ethical criteria declared publicly by these companies - BP's signature to the UN Declaration on Human Rights, for instance, and Talisman's signature to the International Code of Ethics for Canadian Business - are to have any  meaning, they must be applied. Companies directly involved in Sudan must end their 'business as usual'. Investors, such as BP, must take a serious look at their portfolio.

Chapter 1 The war for oil 

The government of Sudan is clearing huge tracts of southern Sudan to  make way for oil production. Troops are terrorising civilians,  burning homes and attacking villages from the air in a war for oil.

Wide stretches of southern Sudan are being subjected to a ruthless 'scorched earth' policy to clear the way for oil exploration and to create a cordon sanitaire around the oilfields. As new areas of exploration open up, and oil companies facilitate troop movements by building roads across swampland and bridges across rivers, the war  expands and the scorched earth advances.

While all parties are guilty of flouting Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, what marks the government out from the opposition forces is the extent of its attack on civilians living in and around the oil rich areas. This is having a devastating impact on the life of the South's two main tribes: the Nuer, the main  victims of the current oil war, and the Dinka.

Since construction of the pipeline to the Red Sea began in 1998, hundreds of thousands of villagers have been terrorised into leaving their homes in Upper Nile. Tens of thousands of homes across Western Upper Nile and Eastern Upper Nile have been burnt to the ground. In some areas, the charred remains of the humble mud huts that got in the way of oil are the only evidence there is that there was ever  life in the region.

 Government forces and militias have destroyed harvests, looted livestock and burned houses to ensure that no-one, once displaced, will return home. Since the pipeline opened, the increased use of helicopter gunships and indiscriminate high-altitude bombardment has added a terrifying new dimension to the war. 'The worst thing was the gunships,' Zeinab Nyacieng, a Nuer woman driven hundreds of miles from her home, told Christian Aid late last year. 'I never saw them before last year. But now they are like rain.'

The inter-tribal warfare that has plagued the south for the last decade has been
 fomented by strategic arms deliveries from government garrisons. By the middle of
 last year, hundreds of cases of ammunition had already been delivered to one of the southern factions fighting for control of Western Upper Nile and its vast oil reserves.(1) This is warlordism - as the government and the oil companies call it - but warlordism provoked and encouraged by the government with the express intent of depopulating oil-rich areas.

One of the most tragic episodes in the history of Sudan's war is unfolding with scarcely a word of protest, or even acknowledgement, from any of the foreign companies operating in the region.(2) 

Their silence is tantamount to complicity.The areas around the Heglig and Unity oilfields, the first to be opened up, are already virtual wastelands - government-controlled no-go areas where impunity is the rule. Independent observers are rarely permitted in and, when they are, are tightly controlled. Without international pressure on the government of Sudan and the oil companies working with it, other oil-rich areas will soon suffer the same, irreversible, fate.

Here we report on displacement from three oil areas, based on interviews with people displaced from those areas:

- 1. Block 5a, south-east of Bentiu, operated by Sweden's Lundin Oil,  Austria's OMV and Malaysia's Petronas. Testing operations here began  in January 20013 after a ruthless, year-long government assault to  secure the environs to the concession and the access road leading to  it. Oil was struck again in early March 2001.

- 2. Block 3, east of Bentiu, where production from the Adar Yei  oilfield will be boosted by a new consortium of Malaysian and Chinese  companies.

- 3. Blocks 1 and 2, north of Bentiu, where the Greater Nile Petroleum  Operating Company (GNPOC) is exploiting the Heglig and Unity oil  fields. Displacement here began in the 1970s but continued, after  the formation of the GNPOC, in mid-1999.

'The only signs of life are the lorries travelling to the oilfield'

- 1. Block 5a: Lundin Oil
 In April 1999, Lundin Oil of Sweden drilled an exploratory well at Thar Jath,10 miles from the Nile, and reported finding as many as 300 million barrels of 'excellent' reservoir quality oil. A month later, according to Human Rights Watch, the government moved troops to Thar Jath and adjacent areas, displacing tens of thousands of people.

This was the start of a still-unfolding tragedy in the area that has a single cause: the lack of a national consensus on the country's single most important resource, oil.

In March 2000, amid fighting for control of the Thar Jath site, Lundin said it was suspending drilling because of 'logistical difficulties and safety considerations'. It announced the resumption of drilling in January 2001 'within days of the inauguration of the 75 kilometre all-weather road' from its base camp at Rub Kona.4 Taban  Deng, a former Minister of State for Roads in the Khartoum government, told Christian Aid the road was built by Chinese workers and paid for by Lundin at a cost of up to $400,000 per kilometre.

What Lundin did not say in its press release was that in the intervening 10 months, as the oilfield tripled in size and its airstrip was extended, government troops and militias had burned and depopulated the entire length of this oil road. In visits to Western Upper Nile in August and November 2000, Christian Aid found thousands  of Nuer civilians displaced from villages along this road, hundreds of miles away in Dinka Bahr el-Ghazal. They all told the same tale. Antonovs bombed the villages to scatter the people. Then government troops arrived by truck and helicopter, burning the villages and killing anyone who was unable to flee - in most cases, the old and  the very young.

Chief Peter Ring Pathai said that government troops airlifted to Kuach were shooting at villagers from the air, hanging out of the doors of their helicopters.

'All the villages along the road have been burned,' said John Wicjial Bayak, a local official who had been driven from a village close to the oil road.5 'You cannot see a single hut. The government doesn't want people anywhere near the oil.'

Aid workers who have flown over the oil road confirm these claims. An independent aid worker familiar with the area said that all the villages 6 that once existed along the road to Pulteri have been razed to the ground. 'As one flies along the new oil road, the only sign of life are the lorries travelling at high speed back and forth to the oilfield,' said the aid worker. 'Small military garrisons are clearly visible every five kilometres. The bulk of the population that once lived in villages along the road and within walking  distance of OLS airstrips are now nearly beyond reach. Communities in need cannot be assisted.'

Officials of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) who have visited the area also say military traffic on the road is heavy. OLS is the major national and international relief effort bringing aid to the people of the Sudan, a consortium of the UN and non-governmental organisations.

According to village chiefs, systematic attacks on the villlages along the oil road began in March 2000, the month Lundin suspended drilling. First, Antonovs would bomb the villages to scatter people, then government troops would come into the village by truck and helicopter to burn huts and kill any people who had stayed. One  village was bombed ten times before government troops finally burned out the residents.

The scorching of villages along the Lundin oil road 

- One of the first villages attacked was Chotyiel, in October 1999. On hearing gunships, 80-year-old Liu-Liu ran to the forest with six of his grandchildren. 'We dug a hole for the children and put a blanket on top,' he said. 'Then soldiers came to burn the houses. Helicopters flew overhead. If they saw you, they killed you. We stayed 20 days in the forest eating wild fruit. It was not easy to move as we had blind people there. The Arabs are forcing the road to the village. They're going to Rier [Thar Jath], to the oilfield.'7

- Then in March 2000 government troops supported by Antonovs and  helicopter gunships attacked the village of Dhorbor, on the first  stretch of the oil road. Local officials reported more than 30  villagers killed.

- On 11 May 2000 it was the turn of the village of Guit. Mary Cuoy  heard shots at 4am. 'I had a 3-year-old grandchild sleeping with me,'  she said. 'I took her by the hand and left everything. In the  morning, some people went back and saw soldiers taking the cows.  Every hut was burned.'8

- A few days later, the village of Kuach was attacked by troops who  arrived in lorries. 'When I heard bullets I took one child and ran  naked to the forest,' said Simon Dual, a father of two. 'But it was  far and three people were killed as they ran. When I went back the  next day to see what had happened, I found the house burned and the  body of my child, Stephen, in the fire.' The SPLA tried to fight  back, explained Simon, but the Arabs had very big guns in their  vehicles. 'My home was right beside the road works. Bulldozers  passed within feet of it. They want to take the oil from the south  for the north. They want to chase us off our land because they want  the oil.'(9)

Burned alive

An estimated 11,000 people displaced from Block 5a by the above attacks settled in the SPLA-controlled village of Nhialdiu. The village was already swollen by Nuer who had been driven south from the Heglig area in earlier years. Then on 15 July 2000, government militias attacked Nhialdiu - burning every hut bar one and displacing  every inhabitant. A local chief, John Lou, said that the militias rounded up the elderly, put them in one hut and burned them alive. He said some of the dead were also very young children - five of them his own children.

Thousands more displaced people fled west into the neighbouring province of Bahr el-Ghazal, where a peace agreement signed between Nuer and Dinka in the village of Wunlit offered a safe haven after years of inter-tribal fighting. John Wicjial Bayak was one of them: 'We crossed five rivers,' he related.10 'It took 12 days. We had no  supplies, so the children just ate wild fruit. Five children in our group drowned because they couldn't swim. I swam with one hand and supported my two children in the other. We encountered crocodiles and elephants. So many enemies.'

The children who reached Bahr el-Ghazal safely were in a pitiful state when Christian Aid visited the region in November 2000. Most were naked or semi-naked and covered in scabies, having crossed miles of mosquito-infested swampland. Many had lost a parent or a sibling. All were hungry. Most families that had any cows left had begun  slaughtering them - a sure sign that they had exhausted all other resources.

How much further will it go?

In early March 2001 Lundin announced that it had struck oil at Thar Jath, a source of an estimated 4,260 barrels a day. 'This is a significant and exciting event for Lundin Oil,' said company president Ian Lundin. 'We have confirmed that the trend of prolific  oilfields as seen in Blocks 1,2 and 4 [Heglig and Unity] extend to our Block.' He also announced further exploration, 12 miles south east of Thar Jath, at the Jarayan-1 well and an 'extensive seismic campaign over the block'.(11)

More death and destruction may take place unless the international community takes action to prevent it. The Lundin road is currently being extended beyond the Thar Jath site to the port of Adok on the Nile. Efforts are also reportedly underway to build two spurs radiating out from the road: one to SPLA-controlled Boaw, site of an  old capped well, and another to Leer, a government garrison. If Lundin's advance so far has been accompanied by the destruction of dozens of villages, what guarantee is there that its plans for development will not lead to more razing of homes?

'Graves of children litter the area'

2. Adar oil fields in Block 3

The devastation in Block 5a chronicled above is, at the time of publication, being repeated in a wide swathe of Eastern Upper Nile, from the Adar oilfield east to the Ethiopian border. Local chiefs and opposition commanders say that here too the government is attempting to drive civilians from the area in order to allow oil  exploration to proceed unimpeded. They say the attackers - primarily government militias, some of them newly organised and armed - are avoiding military targets and attacking only civilians.

OLS officials say privately that they believe the government has one aim in the area: 'to depopulate the oilfields so oil surveys can be done in peace.'(12)

Churchmen in the area say that in the year 2000 government militias burned 48 villages and displaced some 55,000 people around Adar. This area, Block 3, is where Malaysian and Chinese state oil companies have recently extended their investment under a new $30 million exploration programme.(13)

In January this year, four villages in the Guelguk area south-east of Adar were attacked and burned by government militias and mujahadeen. Some rode in on camel-back. First reports said dozens of villagers died. It was difficult identifying the bodies because they had been attacked by birds. Survivors said many of the displaced fled for 48 hours, shot at and pursued the entire time. OLS officials said the displaced were sleeping under trees, without blankets, medicine or water.

One of the few organisations operating in Northern Upper Nile is the Johannesburg-based International Relief and Development agency (IRD). IRD's director, Derek Hammond, visited the region several times last year and said he saw graves of children 'littering' the area.14 'People do not build shelters or huts or stay in one area because this immediately presents them as a target,' Hammond said. 'Families  live under trees in the bush, mile after mile, hiding under trees. They eat leaves to survive because their crops and livestock have been destroyed by government raiders. Just eight miles away, trucks travel continually up and down a bush road carrying oil from the rig to the Nile.'

The evidence of the atrocities committed along the Lundin oil road and in Eastern Upper Nile appear to condemn these areas to the fate already suffered by areas north of Bentiu, around the Heglig and Unity oilfields.

'This is not your place any more!'

3. Heglig and Unity oilfields in Blocks 1 and 2: GNPOC, including Talisman

The depopulation of the Heglig and Unity oilfields began when Chevron first discovered oil there in 1980, and has continued under the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC). This is a consortium made up of Talisman Energy (Canada), Petronas (Malaysia), and Sudapet (Sudan's state oil company).

Canadian company Talisman maintains that it found an 'empty landscape' when it joined GNPOC in 1998. It says the area was not depopulated by oil because it was never inhabited. Despite a body of evidence to the contrary, Talisman repeated this assertion in late 2000, insisting that 'oil development had proceeded... without  incident' in the five years before the company began working in Sudan.15 At best, Talisman is guilty of failing to do its homework; at worst, of deliberately turning a blind eye.

In 1999, the UN Special Rapporteur Leonardo Franco accused Khartoum of using its army to create a 60 km security zone around the oilfields. He reported that half the  population in Ruweng county, the county in which Heglig and Unity lie, was displaced in attacks between April and July 1999. He said thousands of villages, and 17 churches were destroyed.16 In the Gumriak area, one of the areas targeted, a visiting team from the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) was told that government officials  had warned local people to move before the attack: 'We don't want anybody here. This is not your place any more! We have business to do here.'

In May 1999, the village of el-Toor was attacked and burned by government forces using troops and aircraft. Taban Deng, governor of Unity State at the time, told Christian Aid the village was within walking distance of a Talisman site. He said an agricultural programme he had set up at el-Toor to encourage southerners to return  to the area was burned by the troops that attacked the area - the very troops assigned to 'protect' the oilfields. He said the troops looted four of his 10 tractors and arrested his state police.

'The government's policy is to drive people inside the towns,' said Deng. 'In the bush either you run away or you are shot, burned and killed. Inside the towns they make life difficult for you.' 

Survivors of the offensive interviewed south of Bentiu said they fled empty-handed. Stripped of their homes and livelihoods, and weakened by sickness and hunger, some walked as far as 200 miles south. Others fled into the swamps bordering the Nile or to other inaccessible areas like forests. Many died on the way. 

'We heard about one group of displaced who ran into a tributary of the Bahr el-Ghazal river straight into the jaws of crocodiles,' a WFP official said.17 'That gives you an idea of the extent of their desperation. These are the stories you get to hear. What about the stories you don't hear?' 

Did GNPOC and its members, including Talisman, know about this displacement? Taban Deng says Talisman officials asked him in February 1999 if their operations had caused displacement. He told Human Rights Watch: 'I told them about the market that existed before the locals were burned out. I told Talisman about the displacement from Heglig... Our people are not safe there.' 

Talisman says Deng made no mention of displacement until a meeting with Talisman executives in Khartoum in December 1999.18 Deng recalls that meeting. But he also recalls other, earlier meetings with Talisman officials in Bentiu at which he raised the issue of displacement and told company officials of his concerns.
 

Government suspicion of southerners

Government suspicion extends not only to local people but to all southerners who might be security threats. In March last year, William Gatjang, a student at a Catholic school in Khartoum, travelled to Heglig to look for work. Within minutes of asking for directions, he says, he was seized in Heglig market by five plain clothed men armed with pistols.

'They took me into an office and registered my name,' Gatjang said.i 'They asked me what tribe I came from and I said: "Nuer." They said: "You'll spy on us and then you'll inform on us! You are SPLA!" I said: "No, I'm a student from Khartoum." They laughed at me and gave me 50 lashes with a leather whip.'

Gatjang says he was imprisoned in a rat-infested room with six other young southerners who told him that four fellow prisoners had died in the prison from injuries sustained in the two weeks before he arrived. His daily ration was a piece of bread and a glass of water. For 12 consecutive days, he claimed, he was beaten and kicked in an attempt to extract a 'confession' from him. 'They tied my hands and ankles,' he said. 'Four people took hold of me and threw me up and down. When I was weak, they interrogated me. I understood that they didn't want a southerner, and especially a Nuer, to work in the oilfields. In Khartoum they abuse us; when we come to our area looking for work they imprison us.'

Chapter 2 Flight bans and the denial of relief

The Sudanese government is now using relief as a weapon of war. To  empty the oil areas it regularly bans aid flights to the oil areas,  denying food and medicine to a people already in desperate need

In a region which is no stranger to hunger, oil is tipping the scales from food shortage to crisis point. Always precarious, life across southern Sudan is lived on a knife-edge. Drought and fighting - which drives families away from their land and crops - are perennial problems. But in Upper Nile, aid flight bans - the latest twist in the government's strategy of emptying the oil-rich areas - are fanning fears of a tragedy of the dimensions of the 1998 famine in Bahr el-Ghazal in which tens of thousands died.

While oil workers are permitted full and free access to Upper Nile, relief workers are not. Oil companies trumpet their own small humanitarian initiatives - but say nothing about the government's bans on much larger, potentially life-saving, deliveries by Operation Lifeline Sudan.

No other part of the world is as dependent on aid as southern Sudan. Lacking basic infrastructure and a functioning economy, aid is vital for the beleaguered people of southern Sudan. From the Lokichokkio complex in northern Kenya, one of the world's biggest aid operations is run by the OLS consortium. To fly into southern Sudan, OLS must receive permission from Khartoum month by month. Banning these flights, as routinely happens, can be a death sentence. If fighting does not empty the area, hunger will.

 As early as July 1999, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned of 'a humanitarian catastrophe' unless the government's flight bans on Western Upper Nile were lifted.(1)

 A year and a half later, most of those bans are still in place and others have been introduced. Pockets of extreme hunger are said to be appearing. Sixty per cent of people will depend on aid this year if they are to have enough to eat. The denial of relief to parts of Western Upper Nile is exacerbating a looming food crisis caused by  the failure of rains and the destruction of crops because of fighting. No one knows the full extent of the tragedy in Western Upper Nile. Outside witnesses cannot reach many of the affected areas because of fighting and the extremely limited access. Many displaced people have fled to mosquito-infested swamps where they cannot be reached, dying in large numbers from malaria and water-borne diseases.(2) Others prefer the bush to populated areas that are likely to be attacked, and are reluctant to emerge even on the rare occasions that relief is delivered for fear of government strikes against relief planes.(3)

Government denies access to relief planes 

Since the war spread to Western Upper Nile in 1998, many factors have conspired to impede relief operations - inter-factional fighting that prompted the withdrawal of most NGOs in 1998/99 and the intensification of aerial bombardment among them. Khartoum's refusal to let OLS deliver relief has completed the tragedy.

For the past two years, the Sudan government has refused to allow agencies operating under OLS's umbrella to fly into wide swathes of Western Upper Nile - a region so far-flung that there is no alternative to air transport. By mid-1999, OLS had virtually no access to Western Upper Nile. In March 2000, Khartoum gave the  go-ahead for need assessments but then denied the access required to alleviate that need.

Khartoum's 'denials' are only occasionally motivated by genuine security considerations. Locations given the green light by OLS's own security office are frequently put out of bounds by the government - most critically, for virtually all of last year, relief centres like Nhialdiu and Mankien where the displaced fled precisely because they were free of fighting. Eight locations in Western Upper Nile have  been consistently denied relief: Duar, Ganyiel, Gumriak, Leer, Mankien, Nhialdhu, Toy and Wicok, plus, less frequently, Kuach.(4)

As a result of the government bans, villagers displaced from the Bentiu-Thar Jath oil road in Lundin's Block 5a shuttled backwards and forwards in a futile and increasingly desperate search for food, medicine and clothing.

LiuLiu, the octogenarian grandfather burned out of his home village of Chotyiel, walked first to Chang, the closest relief centre. But the government had banned aid deliveries to Chang and there was no relief. From Chang he walked to Nhialdiu, only to find it too was on the banned list. And so he returned to Chang, waiting only to borrow  a pair of shorts so he would not have to walk naked. 'In Chang we found only wild fruits,' he said shortly after arriving in Nhialdiu.5 'So we walked ten days to get here. We expected the UN to help us here because there is an airstrip, but we have found  nothing. We brought nothing with us when we fled. No food, no blankets, no mosquito nets. No lines or hooks for fishing. Nothing to enable us to survive.'

A local woman, Martha Nyaring, summed up the bewilderment of the local people. 'We do not understand why the UN has brought nothing,' she said. 'There has been no fighting here all year.'

A cat-and-mouse game

To limit the damage caused by the flight bans, OLS has developed a system of alternative airstrips, playing a cat-and-mouse game with Khartoum in an effort to enforce its mandate without open confrontation.6 But these airstrips are often far from the displaced, who tend to flee along clan lines to traditional relief centres. In its 2000/2001 needs assessment, WFP reported that some people walked for as many as ten hours to reach a relief location. In the rainy season, many people could not reach any relief site.(7)

 'The bulk of the population that once lived in villages along the road and within walking distance of OLS airstrips are now nearly beyond reach,' an OLS official said in January this year, citing both government bans and OLS bans motivated by insecurity and the presence of government forces. 'Communities in need cannot be assisted at this time. We do not have a clear understanding of where these populations are, due to the recent fighting, and what their intentions might be. We do know that all these locations suffered poor harvests due to drought and what little food they had was lost  in the rounds of fighting that began last July.'(8)

In September last year, a senior OLS official told colleagues that the OLS would take Khartoum's denial of access 'to the highest levels of the Security Council' if necessary. But rather than join battle on access, OLS agreed not only to submit a list of locations to which it wanted to fly a month in advance, but also to specify which aircraft would be flying to which location on which exact day - an almost impossible target.

The field director of a British NGO - one of the few NGOs to operate in the area - said the tightening of access had 'massively reduced' his flexibility. It had also endangered staff in the field, he said. (9)

Some OLS officials said Khartoum's conditions were no different from those imposed by any sovereign state. But they also said colleagues in Khartoum had recommended against increasing pressure on the government. 'These conditions are crippling. They mean we have no emergency response capacity,' said a senior Unicef staffer. 'The crisis has been building up in Western Upper Nile since 1998. We should be rolling over locations all the time. Instead OLS basically has no presence in Western Upper Nile.'(10)

Local Sudanese NGOs have been struggling to provide some assistance but the aid delivered has been a far cry from meeting the real needs of people, both within and outside government-controlled areas.

The medical emergency

Healthcare has always been poor in Western Upper Nile. But over the past two years, the government flight ban, continuing insecurity and the failure of OLS to respond have all combined to create a medical emergency. As a result, needless death from illness and disease, on a colossal scale, is a reality across the region.

'There is virtually nothing in the whole of Western Upper Nile,' says an OLS official.11 'At the most basic level, there's a vastly increased risk of disease among the displaced who are living rough and scratching around for food. Unicef is supposed to be supplying medicines, but it isn't - and there's not a location in Western Upper  Nile where we couldn't have dropped medicines.'

Even before the town of Nhialdiu was burned to the ground, the only medicines available were those on sale in the market. Looted from NGO stores in Bentiu by government militias, they were prohibitively expensive and the young men selling them did little business. Instead, in a heart-rending exercise in futility, women and children continued to queue at the old OLS-supplied dispensary - even though  it ran out of drugs in September 1999. 'We are even seeing diseases we didn't know before like hepatitis and brucellosis,' said medical coordinator Abraham Riak of the SRRA. 'But I am a coordinator with nothing to coordinate. Every day people come  to what is called the dispensary, but there is no food and no drugs. I tell the mothers: "Take your child home to die. Better to die at home than in a dispensary with nothing to dispense."'(12)

Displacement from the oil war has also created new waves of illness. The burning of Nhialdiu in July sent more than 10,000 inhabitants fleeing, some as far as Bahr el-Ghazal.

Health worker Joseph Chang, interviewed three months later at a health clinic in partially rebuilt Nhialdiu, reported: 'I have been to all the villages around Nhialdiu and found many children dying, mostly because of diarrhoea.

'When they escaped from Nhialdiu the children drank dirty water. They had no good food and whenever they got diarrhoea they had no resistance. The situation is very, very bad. You cannot imagine how hard it is. People come with so many diseases - and you have nothing to help them with.'13

One of the most common diseases in the region, kala azar, had been brought under control by 1998, but is now spiralling out of control. Kala azar is a bacterial disease of the liver and spleen, to which the malnourished are especially vulnerable. It is fatal in 95 per cent of cases. After renewed fighting and the looting of NGO compounds, key programmes, including a hospital in Leer, were closed. In the absence of medical services, the incidence of the disease today can only be very roughly estimated. But a spot check carried out at Nhialdiu airstrip by MSF-Holland in January 2000 found that 39 out of 50 people tested positive, a dramatic increase on the usual rate of one in three.

'In the name of God, you cannot find a single seed!'

Wherever war strikes in southern Sudan, hunger follows. In Western Upper Nile, the WFP, the main provider of food aid, targeted an average of 250,000 people last year, roughly half the estimated population. This gives the oil areas of Western Upper Nile the highest proportion of needy people anywhere in Sudan. A new WFP report claims that children are at greater nutritional risk here than anywhere else in the south.

All of the hungry will not receive aid. In a good month, using alternative airstrips, the WFP claims to have been able to access 60 per cent of the needy; in a bad month, only 40 per cent. Relief agencies say the real figure is probably even lower than 40 per cent.(14)

In Eastern Upper Nile, the site of the Adar oilfield, the situation is even worse. Here there is virtually no relief.

IRD director Derek Hammond described what he found in areas around Adar: 'Fields of destroyed crops with no evidence of any type of food, a handful of local people scratching around in a swamp for something to eat, children chewing on the roots of a plant, women reaching up into trees to pick leaves which are boiled on a fire and  eaten - not for any nutritional value, but merely to satisfy hunger pains.'

A 41 per cent reduction in WFP's staff in southern Sudan has combined with expectations of a substantial decline in food production in 2000/2001 to create real concern for the coming year. In a report published in October 2000, USAID's Famine Early Warning System said late rains, inadequate inputs following poor harvests in 1999, increased insecurity and displacement, late-season flooding and crop damage had combined to augur a 50 per cent decline on the production levels of 1999/2000.

In one area of Upper Nile - the Koch area close to the Thar Jath oilfield, repeatedly attacked by SPLA forces - an OLS assessment team found a 'severe emergency situation looming' in October last year. They warned that food interventions would be needed right up to October this year.15 But, because of oil, that may prove impossible: a number of airstrips close to the Bentiu-Thar Jath oil road have  already been put off-limits - 'red-lighted' - by OLS's own security office because of  the presence of government troops on the road. OLS fears that aid deliveries will draw civilians to distribution points and make them vulnerable to attack.

The situation in many areas was already critical at the time of the last planting in
 April/May 2000. By the end of the planting season, two of the most important
 traditional relief centres in Western Upper Nile, Nhialdiu and Chang, had received no
 OLS flights and had nothing to plant. SRRA relief coordinator Kut Yang said the
 11,000 displaced people in Nhialdiu had consumed all the host population's seeds. 'In the name of God, you cannot find a single seed,' he said.

There was nothing left to plant, and no food aid to fill the gap.

In the nearby rebuilt village of Roubnyagai, women were feeding their families on water lily roots gathered from the river. 'Five women have been taken by crocodiles,' said Martha Nyaring. 'But what choice do we have? We have no seeds at all. If we don't go to the river our children may die.'

Collecting wild food is becoming increasingly hazardous. All over Western Upper Nile in the wake of the fighting between Nuer rivals Peter Parr and Peter Gadet, civilians report that wild animals have encroached on burned and abandoned villages, making the search for wild foods increasingly unsafe.

Across the region, displacement is placing unbearable pressure on host communities, themselves already barely surviving. Even in the north, the impact is felt. A Christian Aid visitor in July 2000 witnessed the overcrowding and hardship of about 64,000 displaced and their cattle on the inhabitants of Bentiu town.

In the south, WFP officials warn that Nuer displaced people flooding into Bahr el-Ghazal are creating a 'timebomb'. Dinka officials in Akop payam, which is hosting Nuer displaced from all across Western Upper Nile, agree.

'The little cultivation of the first internally displaced persons was spoiled by drought and new displaced people are arriving with few cows,' said SRRA field supervisor Peter Akec.(16) 'They are very weak and most are sick because they were moving through water. They are begging from the Dinka. I don't think the Dinka can continue to share the little they have.'

Dhieu Paul, an SRRA relief official in Pagarau, 320 km miles south of Bentiu, said the displaced were arriving in terrible condition. All were hungry. Many were suffering from malaria and diarrhoea.(17)

'Before oil, our region was peaceful,' said Chief Malony Kolang, a Nuer chief just returned from escorting a group of displaced to safety in Pagerau. 'People were cultivating with their cattle. When the pumping began, the war began. Antonovs and helicopter gunships began attacking the villages - sometimes four times every day. All  the farms have been destroyed. Everything around the oil fields has been destroyed. Oil has brought death.'

Soft targets: the war on humanitarian agencies

In addition to denying access, the government of Sudan has taken its war directly to relief agencies. SPLA forces have killed relief workers and routinely loot relief in attacks on front-line oil villages. But government attacks are more concentrated,  more systematic and more sustained.

Last year, the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) reports, the government launched at least 152 aerial attacks on humanitarian agencies and civilians throughout the south - eight in the first three weeks of 2001 alone. USCR also reported the increased use of helicopter gunships in the oil areas.

'Once they get people out, they have to keep them out,' says an OLS observer.

 In recent months, attacks on relief agencies have spread from Western to Eastern Upper Nile, where Chinese and Arab oil firms have formed a joint consortium to develop existing oil fields in Adar Yei and explore other fields in a 75-square-kilometre area east of the White Nile.

In an attack last May on Mading, north-east of the town of Nasir, government-backed forces placed anti-personnel mines inside the compound of one NGO, outside the primary health centre and at a water point. Syringes and needles in the health centre were piled up and doused with fuel. All NGO compounds were looted. Seeds delivered by CARE the day before the attack were stolen. An OLS security officer who visited Mading after the attack said the government forces were  applying a policy of 'trash and run'.ii

Five months later, in October, a government militia moving south from the Adar area attacked two villages with an NGO presence. In one village, Uleng, they sprayed the compound of the NGO - the International Rescue Committee - with machine gun and rocket fire, shouting: 'We're going to take UN workers!' IRC employees were not in their tents. Had they been, OLS investigators said, they would have died.

'We think we're seeing the beginning of a policy to chase relief workers from the area,' said a Unicef field officer. 'The attack was vicious even by 1998 standards.'

That year marked the start of the government's war on relief in Western Upper Nile. In inter-factional fighting for Leer town in 1998, government-backed forces destroyed an MSF hospital and looted NGO compounds. The Catholic church's grinding machine and an NGO car were burned. A second MSF compound in nearby Duar was also looted and burned. Soon after, all relief agencies were forced to withdraw  from Leer. MSF had been providing therapeutic and supplementary feeding to 751 children.

'The government troops burnt everything on their way including our compound, the huts which made the clinics, the medical supplies we had brought in and the huts in the villages nearby,' one of the NGOs affected said recently. 'This was undoubtedly because of our proximity to the oilfields. Since then, we haven't been able to go  back to that place due to continued insecurity. There are no other agencies providing humanitarian assistance to one of the most vulnerable populations in south Sudan.'

Another NGO, which asked not to be named for fear of inviting government retaliation, has no presence on the ground but flies in every month to meet local health workers. In June, its staff stayed in the area overnight. Antonovs bombed 24 hours after they left and ground troops attacked the following day, burning all the villages on their path. They destroyed the medical supplies the NGO had brought  in and the food WFP had dropped some weeks earlier.

Chapter 3 Paying for the war: oil for arms

Dollar for dollar, oil pays for the war: $1million a day in oil income for $1 million spent on defence

Sudan't military budget has more than doubled since construction began on the Red Sea pipeline, rising from US$162 million in 1998 to a projected US$327 million in 2000.1 For a country as poor as Sudan this is a huge amount. Khartoum spends approximately half the state budget - US$1 million a day - on the war in southern Sudan. Profits from oil exports are estimated at approximately US$400 million a  year, which is enough to pay for the entire war.

After early protestations that their new-found oil wealth would be pumped into development, not arms, Sudanese leaders are now throwing caution to the wind and acknowledging the all-important role played by their re-launched oil industry. Speaking to student army conscripts in Khartoum last July, 11 months after pumping began, armed forces spokesman General Mohamed Osman Yassin announced that Sudan was manufacturing ammunition, mortars, tanks and armoured personnel carriers thanks to an 'unprecedented economic boom - particularly in the field of oil  exploration and exportation, and the remarkable progress in light and heavy industries.' 2 He said Khartoum would reach 'self-sufficiency in light, medium and heavy weapons from its local production by the end of the year 2000.'

A new report by the influential Washington DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says: 'Oil is shifting the balance of military power in favor of Khartoum. It has prompted Khartoum to focus its military efforts, including forced mass displacement of civilians, on oilfields and the pipeline.' Oil - and the revenue which flows from the oilfields - is fundamentally reshaping the war and making the prospects of peace even more remote.

The weapons factories
 Before oil, Sudan manufactured ammunition on a relatively small scale at a factory in Shaggara, south of Khartoum. Sources inside the arms industry say Sudan today has two huge sites. The first of the new sites, known as the Military Manufacturing Complex (MMC), is split into two sections: military and non-military manufacturing.(3) The military section, which reportedly specialises in light weapons, machine guns and ammunition, is a huge complex on the Khartoum-Medani highway. Workers live in accommodation inside the complex and security is tight. The second site, a complex called GIAD, cost US$450 million. It was inaugurated by President Omar el-Bashir in October 1999, 13 months after oil began flowing through the pipeline. Today the government presents GIAD solely as a civilian manufacturing centre: GIAD promotions show gleaming new vehicles rolling off the assembly line and boast of its new vehicle manufacturing capabilities. But at the opening ceremony, Bashir was more explicit. Speaking at the site, some 40 km south of Khartoum, Bashir said the complex was already producing rocket-propelled grenades, machine-guns and mortars - and was still expanding. 'We will produce mortars and tanks,' he said.  'Then we will go on to warplanes and rockets.'(4)

Commander Gadet, the former government ally who defected to the south in October 1999, told Christian Aid he had collected weapons from several of the new plants before he left the government. He had seen military vehicles and tanks, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns being assembled under the supervision of Chinese engineers.5 Gadet showed Christian Aid RPG-9s that carried no  identification marks. He said these weapons - lightweight anti-tank weapons that can be pulled by hand - were among those being made in Khartoum under the supervision of Chinese engineers. 'Most of those assembled inside are unmarked,' he explained. 'The government doesn't want to show where its oil money is going.'(6)

OLS security officers also believe Sudan's new domestic production is playing a significant role in supplying the south with the low-tech weapons that cause most civilian casualties. In recent months, they have seen new AK-47 submachine guns with refurbished yellow stocks, and boxes of ammunition so pristine they believe they must originate in northern Sudan. 'All the other boxes of ammunition I have seen  are dirty old things. But these were brand new. It would therefore seem they are coming in from the north and no place else,' said one security officer.(7)

Supplies from Europe

In 1994 the EU created an embargo on arms to Sudan banning all exports of arms, ammunition and military equipment. The embargo covers not only 'weapons designed to kill and their ammunition, weapon platforms, non-weapon platforms and ancillary equipment' but also 'spare parts, repairs, maintenance and transfer of military  technology'.

Highly-placed sources in Khartoum say a German company played a key role in the supply of non military equipment used in setting up the MMC complex. The company, Thosco, is based in Hamburg. Its website, www.thosco.de, lists a range of products including spare parts and industrial chemicals. Until September it also listed refurbished machinery. Clearly sales of machine tools for military use would be  in breach of the embargo. Sales of industrial tools would not. However, experts say it is not difficult to 'tweak' dual-purpose machine tools to make them suitable for arms production. 'There is nothing illegal about this,' said an official with BWB, Germany's  arms sales and procurement agency. 'But it's unacceptable. It has to be stopped.'

BWB officials approached by Christian Aid said Thosco has in the past supplied machine tools, perfectly legally, to Iran's Defence Industries Organisations. They say they have no knowledge of sales to Sudan, which has close ties to Iran. One source in BWB said that because of German privacy laws, it is difficult to find out what is  happening: 'Thosco is not talking. It has battened down the hatches.'

 In November last year, the Economist Intelligence Unit reported that President Bashir had ordered the GIAD project to be carried out in great secrecy, to prevent international opposition that might lead to calls for a ban on dual-purpose products.(8) 

Arms from China and Poland

Attempts to globalise the EU arms embargo have so far failed. Shipments of weapons regularly arrive in Sudan - mainly from China and Eastern Europe. 

Taban Deng, who as governor and state minister had access to strategic information, said he believed the new revenue was also enabling the government to increase its imports of arms, many of which come from private brokers who fabricate a complex paper trail of East European suppliers and legitimate destinations on Sudan's borders.9 He said 'a lot of tanks, more Antonovs and Russian gunships' had come in from Eastern Europe, while China was supplying artillery - especially 130mm - and vehicles.

China, the largest shareholder in the Greater Nile consortium, is the key player in Sudan's arms effort and has sold arms to successive Sudanese governments since the early 1980s, becoming a major supplier in the 1990s. According to Human Rights Watch, Beijing attaches no conditions to arms sales other than monetary ones and oil concessions - 'guns for oil' deals or, in industry jargon, 'offset packages'. Weapons deliveries by China since 1995 include ammunition, tanks, helicopters and fighter aircraft.(10)

In one of the most significant transactions since Sudan discovered oil, China is said to have sold Khartoum SCUD missiles at the end of 1996 in a deal underwritten by a $200 million Malaysian government loan against future oil extraction. A former embassy official in Kuala Lumpur, who claimed to have witnessed the deal, said it was arranged by Sudan's state minister for external relations, Dr Mustafa Osman Ismail.(11)

The defector in question, Abdel Aziz Ahmed Khattab, told Human Rights Watch that the Malaysian national oil company was used as a cover to ship arms to Sudan: 'Arms deals agreed upon have been shipped by sea, in the name of the Malaysian National Petroleum Company and the Chinese National Petroleum Company, under the guise of petroleum exploration equipment. This is according to an agreement concluded between the government in Khartoum and these companies in Kuala  Lumpur under which they provide weaponry and military equipment in exchange for being given concessions for oil explorations.'(12)

As if to illustrate what oil would mean for the war, 20 T-55 tanks arrived in Sudan on the very day that the first 600,000 barrels of oil were shipped from Port Sudan.(13) The tanks were traced to Poland's state-run Cenzin arms company. However, the company cancelled a second delivery under threat of economic reprisal from  the United States.(14) Cenzin's reconditioned tanks cost only $30,000 each - an indication of how far US$327 million can be stretched in a low-tech war like Sudan's.(15)
German helicopters converted into gunships?

 There is also evidence that Khartoum may have acquired German-made helicopters. Early last year, sources at Hover Dynamics, a Johannesburg-based firm for pilot training and helicopter maintenance, said they had won a contract to train Sudanese pilots on German-built B0 105 helicopters - the same model as South Africa  itself flies.16 The sources said the helicopters, initially conceived as medical evacuation helicopters, were being converted by Khartoum for use as gunships. They said eight had already been delivered and more were en route. 'It's not very difficult to cobble some anti-tank missiles on the side of a helicopter,' commented Paul  Jackson, editor of Jane's All the World's Aircraft.(17)

Commander Gadet told Christian Aid his forces had shot down three gunships - two Russian-made Hinds and one German.18 Gadet displayed the German 'Varta' battery taken from one of the gunships, which he said had German writing inside the cabin.

Taban Deng also said a small number of Puma helicopters have recently been seen transporting senior officers in the oil area, sometimes landing at company airstrips at Heglig and Rub Kona. The Puma is a French-made transport helicopter favoured in the oil industry - widely used, for example, in the North Sea.

Aerial bombardment by Antonovs and helicopter gunships are one of the biggest changes in the war since oil production began, according to people living in the oil areas. 'In the morning they attacked on the ground and then they bombed the whole village,' said Chief Malony Kolang, one of thousands of Nuer displaced by oil. 'They crushed people with tanks. People couldn't hide because gunships landed. So they fled.'

Money for militias

Oil revenues are paying for more than just weapons. Since oil revenue starting coming in, the government has hiked the pay and improved the benefits of the forces fighting for it - regular troops and militias alike.

'In the financial year 2000/2001, salaries of civil servants were raised by 15 per cent because of oil - but army salaries by 80 per cent,' Deng told Christian Aid. 'Because of oil, there are also better services. Officers now have cars. In the oilfields, you have a car from captain up. If you are operational, your family is well treated.'

He added: 'Two or three years ago, young men were reluctant to go the army. But now people are going back to the army because of good services and salaries.

'In 1999, before the army had all this oil money, the army enrolled less than a battalion. Hardly anyone wants to fight for a jihad - holy war - which cannot be measured in terms of household benefit. But everyone is in favour of a war that has cut the price of cooking gas by half.'i Last year, he said, thousands volunteered. Deng also said that before his defection the government had earmarked US$10  million for militias in this year's dry-season offensive. 'A single militia person in operations is being paid 50,000 Sudanese pounds pocket money. He is given food, a rifle and ammunition. The rifle is his; he doesn't have to return it. If his horse or camel is killed, the minimum compensation he will get is 700,000 Sudanese pounds.'

Asked what these sums meant for a militiaman, Deng replied: 'It's little to him. The biggest thing is the booty he's going to have. Any cattle is his. A child fallen captive is his.' 

 ... but no money for development

The increase of funding for the war is not matched by an increase in funding for southern development. In August 2000, Khartoum announced that it had allocated approximately US$3 million for development in the south. This is the equivalent of one per cent of military spending. When Deng resigned, he accused the government of investing its oil wealth in the army rather than in development projects for southern areas affected by oil: 'When I was governor I never received a single penny from the oil so I could build a school,' he said.

Chapter 4 Foreign oil: how complicit?

A year after a Canadian commission reported human rights violations in oil areas, oil companies still claim not to know the extent of the death and destruction on their land. Is this ignorance - or part of a PR offensive?

FOREIGN OIL COMPANIES have built Sudan's oil industry. Agip began exploration in 1959 in the Red Sea. US oil giant Chevron discovered oil in the south in 1979, but pulled out in 1984 after three expatriate workers were kidnapped and executed by the SPLA.

Today, a network of Western and Asian companies provide the critical expertise, finance and technology for Sudan's oil industry. Talisman Energy (Canada), Petronas (Malaysia), CNPC (China), Lundin (Sweden) and OMV (Austria) have built production and refining facilities and financed the building of the 1,600 km pipeline taking oil from the oil fields to the Red Sea. Royal Dutch Shell built a refinery at Port Sudan. Chinese companies built the pipeline using materials that were supplied by the European company, Europipe, owned by Mannesmann (Germany), British Steel (now Corus), and a French company. As Chapter 5 describes, British companies also contribute. Weir Pumps of Glasgow and Allen Power of Bedford were awarded the  contract to produce pumps and drivers in January 1998. Rolls Royce provides diesel engines and expatriate engineers to maintain them.

Claims that foreign investment in oil has not been the key to development must be dismissed as so much false modesty. When Talisman took over the job in October 1998, only 680 km of pipeline had been laid, as Human Rights Watch points out.1 Less than a year later, the 1,600 km pipeline to the Red Sea was completed, a port for oil supertankers was built at the Red Sea, more wells had been drilled, and production in Blocks 1 and 2 was up to 150,000 barrels per day, most of it for export. Fittingly, Talisman CEO James Buckee presided over the opening of the pipeline on 31 May 1999 alongside President Bashir.

These companies are doing business in Sudan in the face of massive human rights violations specifically linked to oil operations. Pleas of ignorance no longer stand up to scrutiny. The reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on Sudan, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Sudanese organisations including the New Sudan Council of Churches, a Christian Aid partner, make the extent of the atrocities  clear. In February 2000, a Canadian delegation led by John Harker reported widespread human rights violations in both Talisman and Lundin concessions. A year on, as Chapter 1 shows, the situation is even worse.

When oil pumping resumed in 1999, SPLA leaders announced that the new pipeline, the oilfields, and oil company workers would all be regarded as legitimate military targets. But the need for protection in a war zone does not justify what is a well-documented, systematic policy of attacking civilians.

Christian Aid believes that foreign oil companies are complicit in  these human rights violations in the following ways:

 1. At company request, the Government of Sudan and its allied militias provide security for the oilfields.

 2. Facilities paid for by oil companies, including roads and airstrips, are used by government forces for military purposes.

 3. Revenues from oil production and exports increase the government's ability to wage war, as Chapter 3 shows.

 4. The uncritical presence of international oil companies fosters impunity and adds credibility to a government which systematically violates human rights.

'We are very relaxed We think this foreign investment can only be evidence of tranquillity and a prosperous atmosphere.' Adbelgai Kabir, deputy director, Sudan's Peace and Humanitarian Affaires Department

'Remaining in Sudan is the moral thing to do.' Jacqueline Sheppard and Reg Manhas, Talisman Energy Inc.

But it is not just the companies which are complicit. Oil exploration in Sudan continues because of the huge potential for revenue. It is also motivated by the policies of national governments, some of them owners of the oil companies operating in Sudan. Current investment by Chinese and Malaysian state oil firms reflect those countries' desire to secure reliable supplies of oil and to give political support to the Sudanese government. The European Union has a policy of 'critical dialogue' with the  Government of Sudan, which is now courting European companies (oil and non-oil) for investment opportunities.

Moreover, as the report by the US think tank CSIS recommends, governments of the companies engaged in Sudan also have responsibilities. These are the governments of Canada, China, Malaysia, Austria, France, Qatar and Sweden, whose companies (state owned and private) are directly involved in Sudan.

Only US companies are not investing in Sudan, as sanctions have been imposed due to the Sudanese government's alleged sponsorship of terrorism and poor human rights record. These sanctions prohibit trade between the US and Sudan, as well as investment by US businesses in Sudan. As the next chapter notes, CNPC had to  restructure its corporate flotation so that major investors such as BP and Shell could buy shares.

 1. The provision of security to the oil companies Talisman and CNPC companies have asked the Government of Sudan to provide security in the Heglig and Unity oilfields. This security has been provided by government troops, local defence forces and  organised armed militias. Lundin initially sought to employ a local Nuer force, but backed down under pressure from Khartoum and is now protected by government troops.

Two divisions of regular troops, the 10th and the 15th, guard the oilfields around Bentiu, supported by mujahedeen - holy warriors - commanded by army officers. It was these regular forces assigned to the protection of oil who burned villages close to Talisman's rig at el-Toor in 1999.2 The militia of Paulino Matip, an illiterate and  exceptionally bloody warlord whom Khartoum has rewarded with the rank of major general in the regular army, operates out of Bentiu, capital of Unity State.

These forces are all accused of committing human rights abuses against civilians. The perceived needs of the oil companies to operate without interruption have taken precedence over the rights of the Sudanese people living in the oil areas not to be killed, injured or displaced from their homelands.

This report has documented the burning of villages around Nhialdiu and the massive displacement, and burning of villages, in Lundin's Block 5a. Most of these attacks were carried out by government forces, using aerial bombardment from Antonovs and helicopter gunships, and troops on the ground. This offensive follows the Harker report's documentation of the displacement that occurred from Talisman's concession area during 1999 - a government campaign that led to a 50 per cent decline in the permanent population of Ruweng county and large numbers of others earlier being placed in 'peace camps' near to government-held towns of Bentiu and Pariang.(3)

Peter Gadet, a commander under Matip before he returned to the south, said that Matip's forces killed scores of civilians, raped and abducted women and burned and destroyed homes south of Bentiu in the months before the pipeline opened. Gadet's own men participated in many of those abuses. He said the main purpose of the atrocities was to gain control of the oilfields.(5)

There is no apparent accountability for the actions of government forces and government-sponsored militias demanded by the oilcompanies. Nor is there a transparent relationship between the companies and the Government of Sudan. Despite written requests from Christian Aid, no oil company has been willing to disclose the terms of its agreements with the forces assigned to it. Talisman cited 'confidentiality reasons' for its refusal. Talisman, Petronas and Lundin have written  to Christian Aid expressing general concerns over allegations of human rights violations.6 However, to Christian Aid's knowledge, no company has acknowledged a single instance of abuse within its area of operations.

The degree of the companies' contractual complicity with the government's war effort cannot be known while their contracts are 'confidential'. In this regard, the example set by international oil companies in other war-torn, oil-rich countries gives cause for  concern. In Colombia, oil companies have entered into arrangements which oblige them to furnish the Colombian military with goods and services including security and communications equipment, information, engineering and health services, helicopter time and land transport. They have also made direct cash payments.(7)

Taban Deng, former governor of Unity State, claims that GNPOC pays funds to the Sudanese military. He told Christian Aid that he believed that 'GNPOC gives the Ministry of Defence a lot of money. The companies know that for them to operate they have to support the army.'8

Oil companies operating in Sudan must state clearly what their obligations are to the Sudan army and whether they pay for the troops whose protection they have sought. They must make public the agreements they have with security forces. Reliance on government forces carries a moral responsibility for any abuses those forces may  carry out. Secrecy can only encourage these abuses to take place with impunity.

There is already concern about new displacement from heavily populated SPLA-controlled areas close to the town of Mankien in Block 4, where Talisman is drilling three new wells.(9) Shortly before Talisman announced the venture in November, helicopter gunships firing rockets filled with metal shards wounded more than 50 people in a two-minute attack on Mankien.(10) Days after the announcement,  government Antonovs subjected the villages in the area to high-altitude indiscriminate bombardment.(11)

 2. The military use of oil company resources: the 'all-weather war' Government forces use the infrastructure of the oil companies in pursuit of their war aims. Peter Gadet said: 'The companies are giving power to the govern-ment to drive us away. They are helping the government with everything. They are making the roads, bringing  the cars, making the airstrips where the bombers and helicopter gunships sleep. They are bringing the guns and the engineers that make the guns.'(12)

In the GNPOC concession, all-weather roads built by the oil companies were used by government armoured personnel carriers in their offensive in Ruweng county in May 1999. Amphibious vehicles owned by the oil companies have been used to build the roads across the rivers, assisting the movement of government troops.

Shared airstrips

More importantly, as air power becomes a greater factor in the war, government helicopter gunships and Antonov bombers have been armed and re-fuelled at the Heglig airstrip and then used against civilians. The Heglig airstrip was a small government dirt airstrip that the GNPOC lengthened and converted to all-weather use. A government garrison is stationed next to the airstrip. The airstrip is now the principal all-weather airstrip in the region. Reports from Heglig say it is currently being tarmacked. Using the airstrip offers enormous advantages to government forces, as Heglig is roughly 450 km further south than El Obeid, a northern base - bringing  troops much closer to their military targets.

A year ago, Harker judged that 'flights clearly linked to the oil war have been a regular feature of life at the Heglig airstrip.' He said: 'Canadian chartered helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft which use the strip have shared the facilities with helicopter gunships and Antonov bombers of the government of Sudan.'

A number of southerners who have worked at Heglig told Christian Aid that gunships used to be accommodated in a small hangar on the edge of the airstrip. The sources said the gunships 'gave cover to oil workers,' but also attacked civilian targets. One of Talisman's own security advisors, a former employee of the British security firm  Rapport, said privately that a gunship unloaded ammunition at Heglig only minutes before the Harker team arrived on its closely monitored inspection visit.(13) Joshua Latjor, a Nuer who worked in Heglig during 1998/99, said 'government planes shared the airstrip with the company. They could even land there at night.'(14)

Talisman has given various accounts of the use of the Heglig airstrip. It initially denied that the government used the airstrip at all. Then it said its contract with the government allowed it to be used for 'defensive' purposes. But in a response to the Harker report, Talisman CEO Dr James Buckee said Khartoum appeared to have  exceeded the terms of the contract: Talisman had complained to Khartoum about the use of the airstrip on the grounds that it appeared to go beyond the demands of defence and logistics.15 Dr Buckee indicated that government use of the airstrip had stopped. Then, at its AGM in May 2000, Talisman was asked whether it could  guarantee that its airstrip in the oilfields of Sudan would not be used to support or assist any military purpose. Dr Buckee said that the company was concerned about the use of the airstrip; that the airstrip had been used in the past for some supporting role for military purposes, but that the company had made it clear to the Government of Sudan that this was not acceptable. He said that Talisman hoped that the airstrip would not be used in the future for military purposes.

The airstrip is still apparently being used. A 24-year-old student,  Anwar Abdullah Abduallah, told Christian Aid how when he was taken for obligatory military services in May 2000, he and 250 other conscripts were flown from Khartoum to Heglig in a government plane. After two weeks at Heglig, they were told they were being sent to deliver food to a government garrison. Instead they were sent to  fight on the front line.

Talisman receives security advice from a British company, Rapport. Christian Aid has learned that some Rapport officials who have been seconded to Talisman have warned Talisman against letting the government use the Heglig airstrip for military purposes. They have reportedly told Talisman that it is difficult for Rapport to fulfil its security brief in these circumstances. They have also told Talisman it is not prudent to give government commanders room on aircraft leased by Talisman. Asked for comment, an official at Rapport's London headquarters said: 'I don't think I should comment. 

In fact, I don't want to say anything at all.'(16( He then hung up the telephone.

Taban Deng told Christian Aid that Talisman frequently gave space on its aircraft to government commanders, among them State Minister for Defence Brig. Ibrahim Shamseddine.

A second airstrip, longer than Heglig's, was built at Rub Kona in 1999, paid for by Lundin, according to Taban Deng. Rub Kona is headquarters of the army's 15th Division and Lundin's base camp. Deng told Christian Aid that government planes use both airstrips, sometimes for Antonov bombers that carry no military markings.

Outside GNPOC's drilling area, government bombers attacking in and around the oilfields fly on aviation gas refined at the El Obeid refinery on the GNPOC pipeline.(17)

Troops use all-weather oil roads

The army also makes use of a huge network of all-weather roads built and financed by the oil companies, both to clear existing oilfields of unwanted populations and to open up previously inaccessible oil-rich areas to development. Roads in the GNPOC concession are banked up as much as six feet to prevent flooding during the rainy  season. Some are lit up night and day, giving government forces a clear advantage in their war against the SPLA.(18)

'Every tree and bush has been destroyed,' said a foreign observer who asked not to be identified. 'The rebels have nowhere to hide. These all-weather roads and airstrips are making this an all-weather war for the government.'

The roads extend to frontline garrison towns: Mayom, Wangkei, Bentiu, Pariang, and Abiemnom. Taban Deng told Christian Aid he was never consulted about the road system, either as governor of Unity State or later as State Minister for Roads and Communications.19 He said company executives told him the roads were to enable the army to 'secure the oil from afar'.

The roads have become an integral part of the military drive. Last year, Anwar Abdullah and his fellow conscripts were driven to the front along oil roads. Deng said the government's plans for its 2001 offensive include the recapture of Gogrial, the frontline of SPLA-controlled Bahr el-Ghazal, by moving troops along GNPOC's  Heglig-Abiemnom road.

Deng said the government also plans to push into Western Upper Nile down the Rub Kona-Thar Jath road financed by Lundin, using spurs of the road yet to be built across areas already burned and depopulated. He said even the Ministry of Energy had expressed surprise at the size of the budget drawn up by the Ministry of Defence to secure the Thar Jath road and oilfield. Lundin also paid for half the cost of  the Rub Kona-Heglig road, Deng said, at a cost of up to US$400,000 per km. It put up some US$10 million to build a semi-permanent bridge across the river Jur south of Rub Kona. The bridge enables government troops garrisoned in Rub Kona to push into oil-rich areas south of Bentiu in Western Upper Nile.

Giving vehicles for the ground war There are also reports that the oil companies are giving the government vehicles that are being used in the ground war. Deng and  Gadet told Christian Aid that GNPOC handed 50 trucks to the government's deputy chief of staff for operations, Mohamed Ahmad Shagaf, in a ceremony in Bentiu at the end of 1998. They said the lorries were painted with camouflage colours and used to transport troops along the Rub Kona-Thar Jath road. Most of the cars used by  the army came from the consortium, they said.

The Companies' response

Faced with evidence of human rights abuses, the response of the oil companies has been muted. Talisman, as the largest western company involved in Sudan, has had to face sustained campaigning from churches, human rights groups and shareholder activists since 1998.

'In five years of operation, staff in the field have not seen any evidence of forced displacement or relocation in our area of operation…' Dr James Buckee, Chief Executive Officer, Talisman Energy

Talisman

Responding to criticism, Talisman says that it has developed human rights monitoring processes to investigate and document activities within GNPOC and has persuaded GNPOC to adopt a code of conduct that 'includes the concept of human rights protection'.20 It has also reported to Christian Aid that Dr Buckee and a senior member of Talisman staff met government officials in Khartoum to 'advocate'  respect for human rights.... the protection of civilians in conflict zones [and] the cessation of the bombing of civilian targets in south Sudan.' However, the human rights situation has not improved since these meetings; on the contrary, it has worsened.

Talisman has also outlined the benefits the company is said to bring to the local community. In a letter circulated to shareholders on 23 November 1999, Dr Buckee said that Talisman had provided a hospital, a vaccination programme, employment, water wells, and hundreds of miles of roads. 'Projects funded by the oil project,' he stated, 'have brought hope and stability to the region.' The value of these projects is evaluated in the box below.

Buckee's words stand in strong contrast to the expressed feelings of the citizens of Unity State. Their appeal to Senator Johnston asked: 'Until when will the world turn a blind eye to the Khartoum regime and allow it to do whatever it pleases with the lives of the southern people? Although you are hearing and seeing the suffering and the  atrocities committed against the southern people, yet you are unable to move to solve the problem which causes so much suffering and has claimed so many lives.... You who love humanity and freedom, we appeal to you to put an end to our misery now without delay.' .In August 2000,Talisman flew in widely publicised supplies of medicines, tents, mosquito nets and veterinary supplies for southerners displaced to Bentiu by fighting. It now has spent US$1 million on community projects, including 53 water wells. Taban Deng said Talisman's development programmes are referred to in Unity State as 'programmes of displacement' because they encourage northerners to  settle in place of displaced southerners.

Writing in the Oil & Gas Journal, two senior Talisman executives gave the official view: 'The company believes that remaining in Sudan is the moral thing to do because its involvement there is improving life for the Sudanese,' they wrote.(21)

Senior company officials have repeatedly stated that reports of human rights violations in Sudan are false, exaggerated or mere hearsay. In his 23 November letter to company shareholders, Dr Buckee recorded his opposition to forced relocation of people to make way for oil development. But, he said, 'in five years of operation, staff in the field have not seen any evidence of forced displacement or relocation in our area of operations.... We have diligently investigated these allegations and found them to have no basis in fact.'

The Harker commission interviewed the Talisman staff person assigned to conduct this investigation. It found that no formal report of the investigation existed. Nor had the investigator visited Pariang or Bentiu, the centres of government activity in 1999 and 2000.

A Talisman executive also initially denied any knowledge of the destruction of el-Toor in the government offensive of 1999. After investigating, he claimed that it was 'merely an inter-tribal problem'. Harker concluded: 'so much [for Talisman] seems to be  explained as "merely an inter-tribal problem", but displacement has gone on and is still going on, and in Ruweng county, it is hard to deny that [it] is because of oil.'(22)

Harker noted that his team had visited the areas where people had been displaced and had made efforts to talk to a range of people. He stated: 'We think we have found [the truth] and, within limits, were Talisman to actively seek the truth of what is going on around it, it too would find the truth as we have.'(23)

Talisman's country director in Khartoum told Christian Aid that population figures were increasing in its concession, but gave no verifiable details and made no mention of the massive displacement that emptied this strategic area in 1999.(24)

What are Talisman's sources of information? 

Although Talisman gives the impression that it enjoys freedom of movement and therefore has independent sources of information, Harker concluded that 'the movements of Talisman staff are restricted by the government.' Oil companies reportedly keep their contacts with the southern officials of Unity State to a minimum at the insistence of Khartoum, according to Taban Deng. He said their point of contact is not the local government but the federal Ministry of Energy and Mining - even in community programmes.

As Harker noted, companies genuinely concerned with truth must seek information from sources other than local security staff who maintain 'the closest collaboration' with the army, and who often come to the companies from the army or intelligence services.

Following intense public pressure from Canadian churches and US institutional investors threatening to sell their shares, Talisman has taken steps to improve its human rights image in two ways: persuading GNPOC to sign the code of conduct, mentioned above; and hiring PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to audit its human rights report. Neither initiative is convincing.

In a letter to Christian Aid, Reg Manhas, Talisman's senior advisor for corporate responsibility, said that Talisman was developing a 'human rights monitoring process whereby activities or events in the GNPOC can be fully investigated, documented and, if necessary, remedied.'25 He said Talisman had persuaded GNPOC to adopt a code of conduct that included 'the concept of human-rights protection'. Manhas did not mention the code's proviso: that GNPOC business must be conducted in line with its 'contractual obligations'.26 Nor did he mention that the rights documents which Talisman and GNPOC have signed are not binding on the Government of Sudan or its proxies. Talisman has since said that it will 'promote' within GNPOC and the  government of Sudan the 'formalisation of the provision of security which complies with the UN code of conduct for law enforcement officials', according to its website. Again, 'promote' is a concept without enforcement.

 PWC's audit is meant to monitor Talisman's compliance with the Canadian Code of Business Ethics, a code that is value-laden but has no monitoring process or tangible indicators of success.27 PWC stresses that it is 'not conducting an in-depth study either of the effects of Talisman's presence in the Sudan or of the impact of oil  production on the country.'’28)

PWC only planned to travel in government-controlled areas and inside Talisman's concession. It has no access to those displaced from the concession area, to neighbouring tribes or to any area not controlled by the government. Within government-controlled areas, it can expect to be closely monitored by government officials both inside and outside GNPOC's security apparatus - as was Harker. One of

 Talisman's own security staff told Christian Aid that even his movements were controlled by the government.29 He said he needed to apply for permission every time he wanted to travel outside Talisman's area of operations.

Some questions over Talisman's assistance 

The hospital 
The Harker report noted that the hospital that Talisman has built in Heglig was empty of patients during their visit. Talisman said that Harker visited one afternoon during Ramadan. Outpatients had gone home, and due to a mistake, in patients had been moved away. Harker noted that the hospital was still empty the next morning. He also pointed out that the nearest local hospital in Bentiu was now barracks for government forces, and that the conflict meant that people in Bentiu would not be able to access GNPOC medical facilities in Heglig. 

Employment 
Talisman noted that there was underemployment of southerners in the oil plants and said it was establishing vocational training colleges in Bentiu and Rub Kona - these towns are both at the epicentre of the displacement, under government control. There is now a training centre in Khartoum. It is doubtful whether many southerners would be able to attend. 

Water wells 
Harker said that wells appeared to be left over from oil drilling and exploration sites and were not situated near villages or grazing sites. 

Roads 
Most of the roads have been built to facilitate the movement of oil company equipment. They go in straight lines to wells rather than linking villages. Deng asked for roads for southerners but was turned down. 

Relief goods 
Talisman has supplied relief goods to the displaced in Bentiu, claiming collaboration with the UN and other relief agencies. However, UN officials and relief agencies have had to disassociate themselves from Talisman's efforts , including flying goods on Talisman relief flights. UNICEF representative Thomas Ekvall noted that the SPLA has threatened oil companies and anybody associated with them: 'We cannot risk the lives of our staff by associating ourselves with any of the oil companies working here.' 

Lundin

Similarly, Lundin has downplayed evidence of conflict in its own Block 5a. Magnus Nordin, Lundin's Investor Relations Manager, told Christian Aid that the company had 'not noticed directly any conflict' but said that the company recognised that it is a  'complicated and unstable situation.'(30)

Lundin's lack of awareness is surprising given that Lundin withdrew from its concession in March 2000, citing logistical difficulties. Lundin reported that it was unable to continue in the area due to the lack of infrastructure and security concerns - after opposition forces attacked its exploratory wells. After striking oil at Thar Jath in March 2001, the company is back in operation in Block 5a but it has not mentioned the measures that the Sudanese government has taken to build its vital oil road, as described in Chapter 1.

 How is it that an oil company that is waiting for a road to be built to enable its return to a potentially profitable concession would not be monitoring the progress of the road, for which it is reportedly paying? Lundin's lack of knowledge about the situation in its own concession is not credible. However, Lundin has indicated that Sudanese government approval may be needed on any public reports about its operations in Sudan. Restrictions such as this one may be allowing the war in Block 5a to continue without publicity.(31)

In a carefully worded letter to Christian Aid, Lundin noted that it contributed to relief efforts for displaced southerners in government-controlled Bentiu last year. It did not mention that the cause of the displacement was fighting for control of its own Block  5a. It said it had increased its monitoring of the situation in Block 5a given 'allegations regarding the conflict in Sudan,' but did not say how it planned to monitor impartially given that it is present only on one side of the conflict.

The PR offensive: development or displacement?

The companies have attempted to seize the moral high ground with a public relations offensive that, in the case of Talisman, focuses on 'community development and participation programmes'.32 It is significant that the PR campaign went into top gear last year, with full-page advertisements in newspapers, just as Khartoum launched an unprecedented aerial onslaught against the south, attacking towns and villages as well as relief planes and compounds.

In the same month - August 2000 - that Amnesty International called on Khartoum to 'immediately stop indiscriminate bombings of civilians in south Sudan,'((33) Talisman began trumpeting details of its relief work for displaced southerners. In an article entitled 'Talisman and relief agencies work together,'(34) the company said the displaced had fled 'as far as 100 kilometres north towards the oilfields to reach  safety' - implying that oil regions were secure. It did not say that the displaced were fleeing fighting in other oil areas Nor did it say that the fighting involved government-supplied forces as well as the SPLA.

In his letter to Christian Aid, Talisman's Reg Manhas implied that Talisman's presence has brought nothing but good: a hospital, clinics and an artificial limb camp, a vaccination programme, employment and water wells. He made no mention of displacement or of the 'hundreds of miles of roads' that his company had highlighted in a 1999 letter to shareholders - roads that enable government forces to attack more deeply, and more quickly, than ever before. 'It is not a question of how many schools are built or how adequate they are,' Deng said. 'What good are these schools to you when you can be shot, burned and killed in the villages? When your daughter can be raped in Rub Kona?'

No corporate support for peace

According to Deng, Talisman had not consulted the wishes of local people or himself as governor as regards the development projects. 'I never saw a single penny from oil so I could make a school,' he said. 'When Talisman built a school at Pariang, it did not consult even the commissioner. But when the community asked Talisman for  support for a meeting to make an internal peace in Unity State, they were rebuffed. Talisman said it had asked the government and the government had said "no".'

The only solution 

Christian Aid believes that there is one thing that the oil companies can do: stop all oil exploration and prod-uction until a just peace is negotiated. Christian Aid is not calling for the oil companies to sell their concessions, or their stake in Sudan, but to acknowledge that current oil production is fuelling the war, causing thousands of  deaths and mass displacement. Until oil is produced under a new set of circumstances, the companies will continue to be complicit.

'Until when will the world turn a blind eye to the Khartoum regime and allow it to do whatever it pleases with the lives of the southern people? Citizens of Unity State to Senator Johnston, US special envoy to Sudan

Chapter 5 The British connection

British companies are helping, directly and indirectly, to build the Sudanese oil industry

Three British firms are involved in Sudan's oil industry: Weir Pumps of Glasgow, Rolls Royce and, indirectly, BP. The first two provide equipment and operational support. BP own shares in two subsidiaries of CNPC, one of the major operators in the oilfields and the areas where the government has most forcefullly pursued its scorched earth
 policy.

Weir Pumps: the heartbeat of a pipeline

Pumps are the heartbeat of a pipeline. Without them oil cannot flow; exports cannot happen; profits cannot be made. In Sudan's 1,600-km pipeline to the super-tanker port at the Red Sea, British company Weir Pumps has played a key role.

Weir's contract to provide the pumping stations for the first pipeline to the Red Sea is worth £20 million. It is currently building stations with which Khartoum hopes to boost its production from 185,000-200,000 barrels per day to 400,000 - doubling at a stroke the revenue available from oil.

Weir issued a press release about its first contract, but made no announcement about the second. It is understood, however, that the second contract is worth 'substantially less' than the original one. A spokesman declined to say why Weir had made no announcement about its second contract with Khartoum. He said the company 'is not prepared to talk about it for commercially confidential reasons'.(1)

In addition, Weir has brought Sudanese engineers working on the pipeline to Scotland to be trained. All the workers are believed to have been from the north of Sudan, and approved by the government.

Although Weir's involvement in Sudan has attracted little public attention, Andrew Rowe, MP for Faversham and Mid Kent,2 has said the GNPOC project in which Weir is involved 'threatens to perpetuate the Sudanese war and undermine the fragile peace process' and called on the British government to 'refuse any export licences to Sudan'. When asked whether Weir accepts any responsibility for the devastation caused by oil, the spokesman replied: 'No comment'.

Rolls Royce: keeping the oil flowing

Rolls Royce plc provides both equipment and operational support to GNPOC. According to the company, it has provided 34 diesel engines which are used by GNPOC to pump oil along the pipeline and for power generation purposes. It also works with a local Sudanese company, DAL Engineering, to provide maintenance and support. 'At any given time we will typically have between 12 and 20 expatriate engineers in the country,' Rolls Royce told Christian Aid.

This technical support is vital to getting and keeping the oil flowing. When Rolls Royce was asked whether the company has a security agreement with government forces and whether it had verified that government forces were not violating human rights, the company declined to speak further 'for reasons of corporate, operational and commercial sensitivity'.3

BP: an unethical portfolio?

BP's connection to Sudan is through its investments in PetroChina and Sinopec, subsidiaries of CNPC, one of the main oil extractors in Sudan today. It has announced investments of US$578 million in PetroChina and US$400 million in Sinopec. BP claims that none of its capital has been, or will be, used to finance operations in Sudan. Christian Aid believes this cannot be guaranteed, as we show here.

When Sinopec was floated on the New York Stock Exchange in October last year, BP, Shell and ExxonMobil bought Sinopec shares worth approximately US$1.83 million, according to Sinopec's own figures. To encourage investors with human rights concerns, Sinopec claimed it had divested itself of its Sudan assets - a three-year, $30 million investment in Block 6, north west of Heglig, through a subsidiary called Zhongyuan Petroleum.4 It said Zhongyuan staff had been transferred to CNPC four months before the flotation and claimed that 'neither the group [Sinopec] nor any of the subsidiaries have any investment in Sudan'.(5)

But as the flotation went ahead in October, the Wall Street Journal discovered a Zhongyuan executive still on site in Sudan. It quoted him as saying that Sinopec's work in Block 6 continued although it wasn't 'public information'. At Zhongyuan's still-operational Sudan office in China, a Zhongyuan executive said the company continued to provide services in Block 6.(6)

 'Sinopec's so-called "cut in links to Sudan" reveals nothing more than the fungibility of tangible assets in the Chinese state-controlled economic system,' said one Sudan commentator. 'In other words, one state-owned entity has simply moved a controversial asset out to another state-owned entity.'

The BP 'firewall'

The issue of fungibility is also at the heart of concern over BP's initial US$578 million investment in PetroChina, which was floated in March 2000, with CNPC retaining 90 per cent of shares. BP bought 10 per cent of the flotation, making it, with 2.2 per cent of PetroChina's shares, the single biggest minority shareholder.

Although PetroChina was floated as a 'domestic only' unit of CNPC with all its assets in China, this was an expedient creation designed to raise capital after it became clear that CNPC could not be floated in its own name because of the US embargo and criticism of its role in Sudan.

PetroChina's underwriters, Goldman Sachs, maintain they have created a 'firewall' between CNPC and PetroChina to prevent investments like BP's being used in any of CNPC's overseas ventures, including Sudan. PetroChina says the money will be spent on developing China's own oil and gas reserves, some of which are in Chinese-occupied Tibet, and that the net proceeds of US$2.47 billion from the flotation were put in a separate account by CNPC.7 But analysts estimate that some US$270-US$300 million of PetroChina's initial public offering (IPO), about ten per cent of the total, went directly to CNPC - and this was new money that could be included in CNPC's new investment in the Eastern Upper Nile.

The only way for the BP firewall to work, said one political risk analyst, 'is for CNPC to get out of Sudan'. (8) Another analyst referred to the firewall as 'a smoke screen', in a study commissioned by Christian Aid (9). BP's 'firewall' argument does not stand up to scrutiny:

- It is impossible to show that the profits of PetroChina that accrue to CNCP will not be used to fund its overseas oil development in Sudan. There is no independent scrutiny and no guarantee that funds will not flow between the companies.

- The only assurance BP has offered that there will be no fungibility is a 'pledge' from CNPC. But given the secretive, unaccountable nature of China's state-owned enterprises, these guarantees are flimsy. The company also says that its auditors, PriceWatehouseCoopers (PWC), will review the ringfencing of funds. But again the issue of secrecy remains.

- Mechanisms are in place in the agreement that funds can flow between PetroChina and its parent corporation, in any event. CNPC has an agreement to provide products and services to PetroChina and to charge PetroChina above cost. This money could be used to finance overseas operations. According to the Financial Times, from January-September 1999, PetroChina paid US$5.5 billion to CNPC for a number of services - more than 50 per cent of its total outlays.(10)

- The assumption of billions of dollars of CNPC debt by PetroChina has freed up CNPC resources. Relieved of debt, CNPC is now able to use the money it has saved for other purposes. These could include financing operations, including those in Sudan.

- The management relationship between CNPC and PetroChina is also direct. According to the company prospectus, 'CNPC's ownership share will enable CNPC to elect [PetroChina's] entire board of directors without the concurrence of any of [the] company's other shareholders'. CNPC will be able to control the policies of the company, determine the timing and amount of dividend payments, and effect corporate transations without the approval of minority shareholders.(11)

In these circumstances, a dollar for PetroChina is essentially a dollar for CNPC - as even Chinese officials appear to acknowledge. At the time of its flotation last year, Sheng Huaren, a minister in China's State and Trade Commission, stressed that PetroChina had no overseas assets but stopped short of giving an assurance that none of the proceeds of PetroChina's listing would go to CNPC and from there be diverted to Sudan.12 There is no means of monitoring this. The control over the flow of information in Chinese state-owned companies like CNPC regarding traded securities is almost total, making information about investment flows almost impossible to come by.

From CNPC's point of view, it benefits from BP's investment because the company absorbed a large portion of CNPC's old debt - PetroChina came into being defined by the US$15 billion debt inherited from CNPC, much of it accrued in Sudan. Freed from this debt, CNPC then had the financial means to expand its Sudan operations: late in 2000, CNPC took a 23 per cent stake in a new consortium in the Adar area in Block 3.

BP has argued that proceeds from PetroChina's listing would never end up in Sudan because CNPC's stake in the the larger grouping of oil companies, GNPOC, is now 'self-funding' - paid back through royalties.13 But CNPC's new involvement in Block 3 necessitates additional capital. In the judgement of one industry analyst who wishes to remain anonymous: 'American capital raised through a deal made possible by BP Amoco is now on its way to Sudan.'

Without independent scrutiny, of course, no one will ever know with absolute certainty whether PetroChina profits are making their way to the oilfields of Sudan. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which has been advising CNPC on its US restructuring, will be monitoring the firewall. But CNPC, as a Chinese corporation, is not entirely subject to independent monitoring. In Christian Aid's view, BP cannot guarantee the efficacy of the firewall and is risking its reputation as a company which is not contributing, even indirectly, to the war in Sudan.

What BP says

BP has written to Christian Aid stating its view that it is not directly active in Sudan while expressing its concern over human suffering in Sudan and its support for 'fiscal transparency and respect for human rights in Sudan'.14 Its CEO, John Browne, winner of numerous accolades for being a champion of social responsibility, has pioneered a corporate commitment to business ethics through its much-publicised commitment to the UN Declaration of Human Rights. In late 2000, the company signed up to a voluntary code for US and UK oil and mining companies in an initiative which could have been tailor-made for Sudan. Led by the US and UK governments, the code seeks to ensure that companies will stop abuses by public or private security forces which protect company operations.

Why, then, is BP clinging to its indirect investment in Sudan? In its portfolio, BP, along with ExxonMobil and Shell, holds a major stake in two subsidiaries of one of the main companies, CNPC, complicit in Sudan's oil war. Surely a commitment to human rights should involve a review of the company's own portfolio investments - and immediate divestment of shares which compromise BP's human rights obligations.

Recommendations
 Christian Aid calls on:

 1. Oil companies currently operating in Sudan: to immediately suspend operations until a just and lasting peace agreement has been agreed.

Christian Aid is not calling for the operational oil companies to sell their concessions, nor to relinquish their investment in the Sudanese oil industry. But they must to send a clear message to the government of Sudan that it is unacceptable to violate human rights and humanitarian law in order to assist the production of oil.

To encourage the process of a lasting peace agreement and to prevent further human rights abuses, Christian Aid calls on the oil companies to guarantee the following actions before they resume operations in Sudan:

- Publicly urge the Government of Sudan and opposition groups to renew efforts in finding a just peace, based on the IGAD Declaration of Principles.

- Ensure that company infrastructure will not be used for military purposes that lead to violations of humanitarian law against civilians.

- Ensure human rights training for all security personnel employed to protect staff and business interests.

- Raise, with the Government of Sudan and SPLA as appropriate, reports of humanitarian and human rights violations and to encourage all sides to observe international humanitarian law and to take active steps to protect the civilian population.

- Disclose the nature and content of the above discussions. 

- Publicly encourage Sudan to invite UN human rights monitors to investigate the human rights situation in the oil regions in Sudan, with no restriction on their mandate and movements.

- Develop and fully implement codes of conduct that refer to the protection of human rights and corporate responsibility with independent verification.

2. Oil companies not yet extracting oil such as TotalFinaElf and those companies supplying equipment to the industry: to refuse to begin operations, supply equipment, or take any further steps (involving financial, technical or human resources) until a just and lasting peace agreement is agreed.

Those companies with actual or potential contracts with the Government of Sudan should also follow the recommendations above.

 3. BP, Shell and other investors in China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) subsidiaries PetroChina and Sinopec: to divest shares in PetroChina and Sinopec unless CNPC immediately suspends operations in Sudan; to report to shareholders on plans for divestment at forthcoming company Annual General Meetings.

 4. Shareholders, pension funds and other institutional investors: to monitor the activities of any oil companies operating in Sudan, or indirect investors such as BP, for evidence of compliance with the above recommendations and to consider divestment if there is no compliance by the time of the companies' Annual General Meetings.
 

 5. The Government of Sudan: to take active and serious steps in finding a just and lasting peace agreement, based on the IGAD Declaration of Principles

 A. To stop all human rights and humanitarian law violations by:
- Actively protecting civilians in the war zones, including during military operations around the oilfields.

- Publicly condemning human rights violations committed against civilians by the government army and government allied militia in the war zones.

- Allowing UN human rights monitors free access to the region, with no restriction on their mandate and movements.

- Immediately allowing unrestricted access for humanitarian agencies to all government controlled areas.

- Stopping the practice of red lighting relief locations and air strips in southern Sudan, starting with the oil areas of Western Upper Nile.

 B. To promote an equitable use of the oil reserves for all the people of Sudan
 by:
- Stopping the further sale of oil concessions in southern Sudan until the signing of a just and lasting peace agreement.

- Initiating discussions with the oil companies and independent experts on verifiable ways in which oil export earnings can be reserved for humanitarian and development purposes and shared equitably by all regions of Sudan.

- To agree with the IMF an auditing arrangement to ensure that oil revenues are not used to fund excessive and abusive military or security forces' operations in any part of Sudan.

- To make such audits publicly available.

 6. The armed opposition: to take active and serious steps in finding a just and lasting peace agreement, based on the IGAD Declaration of Principles

To stop all human rights and humanitarian law violations by: - Actively protecting civilians in the war zones, including during military operations around the oilfields.

- Publicly condemning human rights violations committed against civilians by their forces in the war zones.

 • Allowing UN human rights monitors free access to areas under opposition control,
 with no restriction on their mandate and movements.

 7. The IMF:
- To negotiate and agree with the Government of Sudan an auditing arrangement to ensure that oil revenues are not used to fund excessive and abusive military or security forces operations in any part of Sudan.

- To make such audits publicly available.

 8. The UK government:
- To renew efforts to bring about a comprehensive peace agreement between the Government of Sudan and all opposition parties, based on the IGAD Declaration of Principles.

- To fund, and provide diplomatic support to, any UN Human Rights monitors in Sudan and press for there to be no restrictions on mandate or travel.

- To place full diplomatic pressure on the Government of Sudan and the armed opposition to respect human rights and humanitarian law.

- To take steps to put in place strong and enforceable regulations of trans-national corporations so that they cannot directly or indirectly be complicit in violating human rights.

- To monitor the activities of any national oil companies operating in Sudan for evidence of compliance with the above recommendations.

 9. The European Union:
- To support the recommendations above.

- To investigate potential breaches of the EU arms embargo to Sudan.

- To include oil-related human rights violations as part of the ongoing EU dialogue with the Government of Sudan.

- To disclose the nature and content of the above discussions.

 • To take steps to put in place strong and enforceable regulations of trans-national corporations so that they cannot directly or indirectly be complicit in violating human rights.

 10.The international community and particularly the governments of national companies investing in Sudanese oil industry:

- To renew efforts to bring about a comprehensive peace agreement between the Government of Sudan and all opposition parties, based on the IGAD Declaration of Principles.

- To fully fund, and provide diplomatic support to, any UN Human Rights monitors in Sudan and press for there to be no restrictions on mandate or travel.

- To place full diplomatic pressure on the Government of Sudan and the armed opposition to respect human rights and humanitarian law.

- To monitor the activities of any national oil companies operating in Sudan for evidence of compliance with the above recommendations.

Glossary

CNPC: China National Petroleum Corporation, China's state oil company  which owns 40% of GNPOC.

GNPOC: Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, the consortium made  up of Talisman Energy (Canada), Petronas (Malaysia), and Sudapet  (Sudan's state oil company) which runs the major oil fields in Blocks  1, 2 and 4, including Heglig and Unity, the two biggest producing  oilfields. Also owns the 1,600 km pipeline to the Red Sea and the  supertanker facilities near Port Sudan.

IGAD: Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, the grouping of  governments which provides the principal forum for negotiations  between Khartoum and the SPLA. Governments include: Ethiopia,  Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya and Uganda. IGAD is backed  by the IGAD Partners' Forum, consisting of European states including  the UK.

Mujahadeen: Islamic 'holy warriors' in the service of the government  of Sudan, made up of Baggara tribal militias placed to fight in  Western Upper Nile and Bahr el-Ghazal.

NIF: National Islamic Front, led by General Omar el-Bashir, which  came to power in a coup in 1989. The NIF is now renamed the National  Congress.

 MV: Austrian oil company and investor (28%) in Block 5a, along with  Lundin and Petronas.

OLS: Operation Lifeline Sudan, set up in 1989 and now the world's  largest aid operation. Led by the UN and made up of 40 NGOs and UN  agencies, principally the World Food Programme (WFP) and Unicef. OLS  is divided into two sectors: a northern sector based in Khartoum and  a southern sector, which operates from the northern Kenyan city of  Lokkichokkio.

PetroChina: A 90% subsidiary of CNPC in which BP and other  international investors hold a major stake. BP invested US$578  million when CNPC launched its initial public offering on the stock  exchange in March 2000 and argued that it had erected a 'firewall'  between its investment and Sudan. But concerns over fungibility and  investments in Tibet have made it controversial.

Petronas: Malaysian national oil company with a 30% stake in GNPOC  and 28.5% stake in Block 5a.

Sinopec: A subsidiary of CNPC floated on the New York Stock Exchange  in October 2000. BP, Shell and ExxonMobil together invested $1.83  billion in it.

SPLA: Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement/Army, the main armed  opposition movement in Sudan. The SPLA controls most of the south  with the exception of garrison towns. In this report we refer to it  as the SPLA.

SRRA: Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association, the humanitarian  wing of the SPLA.

WFP: World Food Programme, responsible for most food aid deliveries  to southern Sudan and a leading UN aagency within OLS.

Sudan's civil war

For more than four decades Sudan has been divided in a bitter and bloody civil war between the central government of Khartoum and armed opposition movements. The strongest of these is the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA), based in the southern part of the country. The war is being fought over a complex and changing set of issues which encompass the identities and cultures of diverse African and  Arab peoples; control over natural resources such as land, livestock, water and now oil; and the balance of power between a powerful minority population in the riverain centre and a weak majority spread across the more remote marginal areas of this vast country.

This war has caused untold harm to all the Sudanese people, both directly from the use of arms, but even more from the famine, malnutrition and disease that results from the government strategy of grinding the SPLA down by undermining the population's livelihoods. It has cost millions of lives - over two million dead and four  million people internally displaced - in the last 18 years alone.

It is further complicated, especially in the south of the country where most of the oil is, by the interplay of different armed factions. Initially the result of internal dissension between Dinka and Nuer groups within the SPLA, the rivalry is now exploited by the  government as part of a sophisticated divide and rule policy to strengthen its cause. It arms proxy forces to fight its battles including both Arab and southern militias, and holy warriors or mujahedeen. The warlords who have been encouraged to develop are  often only loosely aligned and effectively operate in isolation. None of the protagonists respects the rights of civilians and all sides have been accused of committing atrocities.

The current government of General Omar el-Bashir seized power in a coup in 1989, but its hold on the country has never been strong. It has engaged in negotiations with the SPLA through the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) peace process. But despite the fact that both sides signed up to a 'Declaration of  Principles' for peace in the mid 1990s, the IGAD process has faltered. Commentators are painting a bleak picture at the start of 2000, with reports of heavy fighting between opposing factional commanders Peter Parr and Peter Gadet. The suffering of the civilian population will be devastating yet again.

Christian Aid's programme in Sudan

Christian Aid's programme in Sudan dates from the early 1970s when an end to the first civil war since independence gave the country hope for a new start. Yet the renewed outbreak of war only 11 years later, in 1983, marked the beginning of a context which has been ever more challenging to relief and development work and ever more frustrating as the constraints have continuously outweighed the efforts of local churches and agencies and their supporters. Today Christian Aid works  with 24 local partners in both the north and south of the country with an annual programme expenditure of over £2 million.

The challenges and constraints affect every aspect of Christian Aid's work: relief, development and advocacy. The displacement and hunger caused by warfare and drought create the constant need for both food and non-food relief amongst millions of displaced families existing on the outskirts of Khartoum, and amongst remote and dispersed communities right across the southern part of the country from Wau to  the Nuba Mountains, to northern Bahr el-Ghazal and Western Upper Nile. Relief efforts are exorbitantly costly because access both north and south is usually only possible by air. In the south aid flights take place at great risk because of fighting, and are also often banned by the government in Khartoum.

Christian Aid has called southern Sudan a 'development disaster'. Constant warfare has left neglected all basic infrastructure and all institutions of governance and welfare. Almost 20 years of conflict has devastated health and education services. Christian Aid's partners are struggling to provide people-focused development through  building civil society and community organisations which can deliver a voice to the people as well as education and other basic services. Support to independent voices in the north is also a key priority in Christian Aid's programme. But development work is hampered by a lack of funding from government and other official institutions whose definitions of humanitarian assistance preclude an adequate longer-term response to situations of chronic conflict.

Advocacy is thus a key priority for Christian Aid and its partners. Partners including the Sudanese Councils of Churches stand up to advocate on issues of human rights abuse in circumstances of personal danger and engage, particularly in the south, in groundbreaking programmes of grassroots people-to-people peace-making. Partners  have also spoken out against investment by foreign oil companies as the war has become ever more destructive.

'The Sudanese churches believe that the oil in southern Sudan is a national resource that should be used for all the peoples of Sudan,' said the Sudanese Councils of Churches in a statement issued in late 2000. 'Instead, oil revenues have been used for the purchase of weapons used for killing and displacing people in the oil areas. As shepherds of the population in the Sudan and eyewitnesses, we call upon the international community to take immediate action... [and for] the withdrawal of the oil companies.'

Who's who in oil

 The investors

BP
Through its $578 million stake in PetroChina, created in an initial public offering on the NY Stock Exchange in March 2000, and more recent $400 million investment in Sinopec along with oil majors Shell and ExxonMobil, BP is a substantial investor in two subsidiaries of China's national oil company, CNPC. It is the largest minority stakeholder in PetroChina, with 2.2% of shares (having purchased 10% of the offering). To prevent allegations that BP was contributing to human rights violations, the company erected a 'firewall' which would, it said, stop its funds from contributing to the parent company which operates in Sudan. CNPC retains 90% ownership of PetroChina. Given the nature of Chinese state-owned corporations, concerns persist about fungibility. Many observers argue that a dollar for PetroChina is essentially a dollar for CNPC - and therefore potentially for its Sudanese operations. Sinopec'sexpansion in Block 6, and CNPC's expansion in the Adar oilfield, will both need additional funds.

The concession holders

GNPOC
The Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company is currently the sole operational consortiums developing Sudan's oilfields. It is made up of Talisman Energy Inc, which holds a 25% stake; CNPC, the Chinese national oil corporation, with 40%; Petronas Carigali Overseas, which holds 30%; and Sudan's national oil corporation, Sudapet, which owns 5%. GNPOC's Blocks 1, 2 and 4, particularly the Heglig and Unity oilfields, are the scenes of greatest conflict and displacement to date. GNPOC also owns the 1,600 km pipeline to its oil supertanker facilities near Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Talisman, Canada's largest independent oil and gas company, is currently drilling in the North Sea's Moray Firth.

Lundin Oil AB
A family-run Swedish oil company based in Geneva, Lundin suspended operations in Block 5a, adjacent to GNPOC, in 1999, because, it said, of 'logistical difficulties'. Sources claim that the construction of the oil road through Lundin's area - essential to develop the concession - has been accompanied by a military drive and the burning of villages. In March 2001 Lundin announced that it had struck oil at Thar Jath in Block 5a, one of the regions's richest deposits, and will be continuing oil exploration further south. Lundin is the lead operator in Block 5a, with 40% of shares. Other stakeholders in this concession are Petronas (28.5%), OMV of Austria (26%) and Sudapet (5%).

TotalFinaElf
 Block 5, a vast expanse of 120,000 km2 running all the way south to Sudan's border, was sold to TotalFinaElf in the 1980s, but it has remained unexploited because of security problems. Called an 'oil goldmine', the concession is alluring - both for the company and for the government, who will see the area around Bor as the next big lucrative prize.

CNPC
The China National Petroleum Company, along with Malaysian and Gulf state companies, is expanding in the Adar Yel oil fields in Block 3. CNPC holds 23% and is the lead in the GNPOC consortium. There are reports of increased attacks on NGOs and civilians in eastern Upper Nile near Adar, which may presage the rumoured building of a pipeline to Ethiopia.

The suppliers

Weir Pumps (Glasgow) and Rolls Royce are suppliers of pumping stations, pumps and engines to the pipeline and pumping stations. Without this vital contribution, there would be no oil moving to the Port Sudan terminal along the 1,600 km pipeline.

References

Executive summary
 1. 'US Policy to End Sudan's War', report of the CSIS task force on US-Sudan policy. F Deng and J Morrison, Center for Strategic International Studies, Washington DC, February 2001.

 Chapter 1
 1. Interviews with OLS security officials in Lokichokkio, May 2000.
 2. Human Rights Watch World Report 2001.
 3. Business Wire, Vancouver B.C., 20 January 2001, on Sudan Thar Jath Well testing operation.
 4. idem.
 5. Interviewed in Mariel Lou, Bahr el-Ghazal, November 2000.
 6. A partial list of the destroyed villages include: Kuach, Wicluak, Thoar, Daw Gawjal, Waw, Dhorbor, Kach, Gier, Gieni, Chottial, Bangna, Kuoynyang, Norchieng Yar, Parjiek, Tiak, Raal, Dhorchieng Chuol, Kuorong, Khoreng, Kuerchieng, Pah and Lejak, according to the an aid worker who has flown over the Lundin road on numerous occasions.
 7. Interviewed in Nhialdiu, May 2000.
 8. Interviewed in Nhialdiu, May 2000.
 9. Interviewed in Nhialdiu, May 2000.
 10. Interviewed in Mariel Lou, Bahr el-Ghazal, in November 2000.
 11. 'Lundin Oil: Lundin Strikes Oil in Sudan', news release, 5 March 2001.
 12. Interviews in Lokichokkio in May 2000.
 13. In March 2000 the Melut Petroleum Company (MPC) signed a $30 million, three-year contract to explore 70,000 square miles in central Sudan including the Adar oilfields east of the White Nile. MPC's parent company, Fosters Resources, defaulted from the agreement a few months later because of controversy over investments in Sudan.
 14. E-mail received on 26 May 2000.
 15. Jacqueline Sheppard and Reg Manhas, Talisman Energy, 'Sudan experience offers corporate responsibility lessons, opportunities',
 Oil & Gas Journal, 13 November 2000.
 16. Cited in John Harker, 'Human Security in Sudan: The Report of a Canadian Assessment Mission', Ottawa, January 2000, p.10.
 17. Interviewed in Nhialdiu, May 2000.
 18. As Talisman reported to Human Rights Watch.

Box
 1 Interviewed in Nhialdiu, May 2000.

Chapter 2
 1. World Food Programme, news release, 27 July 1999.
 2. WFP is currently testing hovercraft that will be used to explore the marshy grazing lands. It is not clear when they will be operational.
 3. In a press release on 10 August 2000, Amnesty international said three relief planes - one charted by Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) and two by OLS - were narrowly missed by government air raids in the space of three weeks.
 4. OLS, Location Security State, 4 February 2001.
 5 Interviewed in Nhialdiu, May 2000.
 6. One alternative strip, Toy, was used for only a month before Khartoum identified it and denied it.
 7. Southern Leech State, 2000/2001 Annual Needs Assessment.
 8. E-mail from OLS official, Lokichokkio, January 2001.
 9. NGOs almost across the board require anonymity to protect themselves from reprisal.
 10. Interviewed in Nhialdiu, May 2000.
 11. Interviewed in Lokichokkio, November 2000.
 12.Interviewed in Nhialdiu, May 2000.
 13. Interviewed in Nhialdiu, November 2000.
 14. Interviews with aid workers, Lokichokkio, November 2000.
 15. Interviewed in Nhialdiu in May 2000.
 16. Interviewed in Mariel Lou, Bahr el-Ghazal, November 2000.
 17. Interviewed in Pagarau, Bahr el-Ghazal, May 2000.

Box 'Soft targets'
i US Committee for Refugees, cited in 'Sudan's Military Bombed Civilian Sites 152 Times Last Year', Africa News Service, 23 January 2001.
 ii Commander Gadet's forces killed two health workers for MSF-Holland during an attack on Koch in October 2000. Gadet said he considers relief workers in government-controlled areas part of the enemy, but denied that the two had been targeted.

Chapter 3
 1. IMF (2000) Sudan: Staff Report for the Article IV Consultation and Fourth Review of the First Annual Program under the Media Team Staff-Monitored Program.
 2. Al-Share Al-Siyassi, 1 July 2000.
 3. Lundin Oil, news release, January 2001.
 4. Quoted by the Associated Press, 9 October 2000.
 5. Interviewed in Tam, November 2000.
 6. Ibid.
 7. Interviewed in Lokichokkio, August 2000.
 8. Sudan Country Report, EIU, November 2000, p. 19.
 9. In one typical case, the Sunday Times disclosed in early 1999 that
 6,000 metric tonnes of arms from Slovakia were destined for Sudan. The deal was cut by a British arms broker and the shipment carried a false end-user certificate: the country of Chad.
 10. Human Rights Watch report 1998, cited by Arthur Kransdorff in 'Memorandum on Sudan', a report for Christian Aid.
 11. Human Rights Watch, op. cit.
 12. Human Rights Watch, 'Sudan: Global Trade, Local Impact. Arms Transfers to all Sides in the Civil War in Sudan,' August 1998, vol.10. no. 4(A), cited in footnote 83.
 13. Amnesty International, The Human Price of Oil, May 2000, p 12.
 14. Poland said the tanks had been sold to Yemen and illegally diverted to Sudan.
 15. Robin Hughes, 'Yemen receives Russian and Czech main battle tanks', Jane's Defence Weekly, 26 July 2000.
 16. In October 2000, the same sources later claimed that Hover Dynamics had lost the contract.
 17. Paul Jackson also said that the BO 105s were likely to have been bought on the second-hand market; only a handful had been built in the last few years. He said German, Spanish and reportedly the Iraqi army use the BO 105 for military purposes. Interview, London, December 2000.
 18. Gen Abdul Rahman Saeed of the United Military Command, the anti-government forces fighting in northern Sudan, told Christian Aid his forces had shot down four Russian gunships. He said Khartoum had been able to replace them all. In 1989, as deputy chief of operations in the Sudanese armed forces, Gen Saeed was instructed to draw up a project for the defence of the oilfields - at a time when there were no foreign companies to protect. He judged that three brigades would be needed, each with 100 tanks, heavy artillery and helicopters. He estimated the cost at US$1 billion.
 19. IISS, The Military Balance 2000-2001, Oxford University Press.

Box
 i Telephone conversation with Christian Aid, 18 December 2000.

Chapter 4
 1. Human Rights Watch, unpublished manuscript, June 2000, pp 58-59.
 2. Interviews with former local government and militia allies of the Government of Sudan, November 2000 and February 2001.
 3. Harker report p. 48.
 4. Letter to Harry Johnston, US Special Envoy to Sudan, 4 November 2000.
 5. Interviewed in Tam, Western Upper Nile, November 2000.
 6. Letter to Christian Aid from Mohd Ashar Bin Osman Khairuddin, Legal and Corporate Affairs Division, Petronas, 14 December 2000; letter to Christian Aid from Reg Manhas, Senior Adviser, Corporate Responsibility, Talisman Energy, 6 December 2000; letter to Christian Aid from Ian Lundin, President, Lundin Oil, 30 November 2000.
 7. Human Rights Watch, Colombia: Human Rights Concerns Raised by the
 Security Arrangements of Transnational Oil Companies, April 1998, p.4.
 8. Telephone interview, 18 December 2000.
 9. 'Talisman to drill three new exploration wells in Sudan,' Reuters, 20 November 2000.
 10. E-mail from OLS sources in Lokkichokkio, December 2000.
 11. 'Schoolchildren flee government bombing raids,' UN Integrated
 Regional Network (IRIN), 27 November 2000.
 12. Interview in Tam, November 2000.
 13. Rapport Research and Analysis defines itself as 'a security consultancy specialising in the provision of information-based security services for companies operating in areas of high risk.'
 14. Interviewed in Wunchuei, Bahr el-Ghazal, in November 2000. Latjor now works for a European NGO as a nomadic health worker.
 15. Talisman Energy, news release, 14 February 2000.
 16. Telephone interview with Clive Russell, 15 December 2000.
 17. Amnesty International, op. cit.
 18. OLS security officials interviewed in 2000.
 19. This was the post Deng held when he resigned in December 2000. State ministers are second-ranking officials in federal ministries.
 20. Jacqueline Sheppard and Reg Manhas, Talisman Energy, 'Sudan experience offers corporate responsibility lessons, opportunities', Oil & Gas Journal, 13 November 2000.
 21. ibid.
 22. Harker report, p. 51.
 23. ibid, p. 63.
 24. Meeting with Ralph Copeland, Talisman country director, Khartoum, 1 December 2000.
 25. Letter to Christian Aid from Reg Manhas, Talisman, 6 December 2000.
 26. GNPOC Code of Ethics, published on Talisman's website.
 27. The Code obliges Talisman to support and promote the protection of international human rights in its sphere of influence and not to be complicit in human rights abuses. The code does not set standards or have a monitoring process.
 28. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Verification of Talisman Energy's Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2000: an outline of the nature and scope of the verification work.
 29. Conversation with Christian Aid, 18 January 2001.
 30. Conversation with Christian Aid, 30 October 2000.
 31. 'We will update information as the project progresses, bearing in mind that our reporting can be dependent on Government and joint venture partner approval,' Lundin Oil website, 'Q&A: Why has the Sudan project been delayed?'
 32. Letter to Christian Aid from Reg Manhas, Talisman, 6 December 2000.
 33. Amnesty International, news release, 10 August 2000.
 34. Talisman website, 22 August 2000.

 Chapter 4: boxes
 i Quoted by Reuters, 13 January 2000
 ii Oil & Gas Journal, 13 November 2000
 Box: 'Some questions over Talisman's assistance. Source: Harker report.
 iii Toronto Globe and Mail, 23 October 2000

Chapter 5
 1. Telephone conversation with Weir's public relations director, Emrys Inker, 18 December 2000.
 2. An early day motion to the House of Commons on 11 February 2000.
 3. E-mails from Tim Blyth, director, corporate communications, Rolls Royce plc, 22 December 2000 and 15 January 2001.
 4. Sinopec Yearbook 1999.
 5. Sinopec company chairman Li Yizhong in the Wall Street Journal, 11 October 2000.
 6. The Wall Street Journal, 11 October 2000.
 7. Two separate accounts for all the proceeds from PetroChina's Initial Public Offering (IPO) were established - 90% going to PetroChina and 10% to CNPC.
 8. Dennis Bennett, Washington state analyst in Wall Street Journal, 3 November 1999.
 9. 'Memorandum on Sudan,' Arnold Kransdorff, a report for Christian Aid, 15 June 2000.
 10. Financial Times, 8 March 2000.
 11. PetroChina Company Prospectus, PetroChina Company Limited, amendment no. 9 to Form F-1, Registration Statement under the Securities Act of 1983, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on 29 March 2000.
 12. Wall Street Journal, 8 May 2000.
 13. BP claims that proceeds from the PetroChina IPO will be used for staff retraining, reorganisation and reduced borrowings providing that 'they do not violate US sanctions on Sudan or any other country'. But its only guarantee that this will happen is a 'pledge' from CNPC.
 14. Letter to Christian Aid from John Gore, Group Vice President, Government and Public Affairs, 26 September 2000.

Report credits

The scorched earth - Published March 2001

Christian Aid - PO Box 100 - London - SE1 7RT

Registered UK Charity number: 258003

Christian Aid links directly with people living in poverty through local organisations. It supports programmes with the aim of strengthening the poor towards self-sufficiency. Christian Aid also seeks to address the root causes of poverty by spending around 10 per cent of its income on development education and campaigning at home. Christian Aid is the official relief and development agency of 40 British and Irish churches. It works where the need is greatest in 60 countries worldwide and helps communities irrespective of their religion.

For more information on Christian Aid please contact 0207 523 2315
 

Summary

A team consisting of a Canadian and a British investigator has documented an intensification of armed attacks on civilians in Sudan's contested oil region in Western Upper Nile during the past year.  These attacks have been carried out by government forces and pro-government militias and also by rebel forces.  A significant new development is a higher number of direct attacks on civilians by the armed forces of the Government of Sudan.  In particular, the team found that government forces launched increasing numbers of helicopter gunship attacks on civilian settlements in or near the operational area of the oil consortium that includes Canada's Talisman Energy.  Some of these helicopters operate from facilities built, maintained and used by the oil consortium.  These attacks appear to be part of a renewed Sudan government strategy to displace the indigenous non-Arab rural population from rural areas of the oil region in order to clear and secure territory for oil development.

Background

The largest of the on-stream oil concessions in Sudan is operated by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company Limited (GNPOC), a consortium in which the Canadian company Talisman Energy is a partner with a 25% interest. The GNPOC/Talisman concession includes Blocks 1, 2 and 4.  The greater part of this concession is located in Southern Sudan, in Western Upper Nile (referred to by the Government of Sudan as Unity State and by a rebel movement controlling many of its rural areas as Leech State).

Most of the rural areas in the concession have been outside the control of the government since the start of the current civil war in 1983.  Those areas have been administered successively by two rebel movements, the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the former South Sudan Independence Movement/Army (SSIM/A).  Today, control of the non-government areas of the concession is divided between the SPLM/A and the Sudan Peoples' Democratic Front/Defence Forces (SPDF), a successor movement to the SSIM/A.

The economy of Western Upper Nile is based on livestock herding, agriculture and fishing.  The majority of the indigenous inhabitants are from non-Arab, non-Muslim ethnic groups - the Nuer and the Dinka.  It is an economy based on seasonal movement back and forth between permanent villages and cattle camps.  The few towns in the area function as administrative posts for the Sudan government and as market centres.  During most of the past fifteen years in Western Upper Nile, the armed forces of the government have been confined to garrison towns and to roads leading from those towns to the north.  The government's military strategy during the greater part of this period has been to support proxy forces - Baggara Arab militias from the north and pro-government Nuer groups within the south.  These militias have been encouraged to attack and loot Nuer and Dinka settlements and cattle camps, driving their inhabitants further south or into government garrison towns or to the government-controlled north of the country.

For a short period in the late 1990s, a peace agreement between the Government of Sudan and the SSIM/A allowed for the extension of government authority into some of the rural areas of the concession, enabling expansion of oil development and completion of a pipeline from the oil fields north to Port Sudan.  The collapse of this peace agreement in 1999 and the return of SSIM/A forces to their bases in non-government areas prompted an alteration in the Sudan government's military strategy.  The new strategy in Western Upper Nile is both more violent and more territorially focussed, involving coordinated attacks on civilian settlements in which aerial bombardment and raids by helicopter gunships are followed by ground attacks from government-backed militias and government troops.  These ground forces burn villages and crops, loot livestock and kill and abduct men, women and children.

The Current situation 

Following the finding by the Harker mission in December 1999 that helicopter gunships and Antonov bombers of the Government of Sudan armed and re-fueled at Heglig and from there attacked civilians, Talisman acknowledged that the Heglig airstrip had been used for military purposes.  Heglig is a government town that is the center of Talisman's oil operations in Sudan.  In January 2000, the company stated that it had received undertakings from the Government of Sudan that military use of the Heglig airstrip would be limited to defensive purposes.  However, in its corporate social responsibility report released in April 2001, Talisman conceded that in spite of its "advocacy efforts" regarding the use of oil infrastructure for offensive military purposes, "there were at least four instances of non-defensive usage of the Heglig airstrip in 2000."

 The new investigation concludes that military usage has been considerably higher - and that it continues.  The pattern of use is one of indiscriminate attacks and intentional targeting by gunships of civilians in villages in non-government controlled areas in and around the concession. (The Government of Sudan is the only warring party that has access to combat aircraft, helicopter gunships and bombers.)

The investigation has determined that at least two of the government's helicopter gunships are based at oil facilities in Heglig.  Defecting soldiers from the Government of Sudan army base in Heglig and civilian victims of gunship attacks testified to investigators that gunships have flown regular sorties from Heglig to attack civilian settlements.

The investigators obtained eyewitness accounts from people attacked by gunships in non-government controlled areas of the concession throughout 2000 and 2001.  Eyewitnesses identified flight patterns of the attacking helicopters that indicated they came from and returned to Heglig and other oil fields in the concession.

The incidence of other human rights violations in and around the concession escalated in 2000 and early 2001.  The investigation documented a wide range of abuses connected with forced displacement of people.  Defecting soldiers from the Sudan government's military base at Heglig testified that they had been ordered to participate in ground attacks on non-government controlled villages around Pariang, a government-controlled town in the concession, in order to force the inhabitants out of the area.  The soldiers testified that they had been instructed to kill civilians and any persons not loyal to the Government of Sudan.  This, they stated, was for the purpose of securing the oil fields for development.

There were also incidents of attacks on settlements by armed groups aligned with the SPLA/M and by those aligned with the SPDF (formerly the SSIM/A). There were three recorded attacks in 2000 and 2001 on oil installations or infrastructure by rebel forces in Western Upper Nile.

In 2000 and 2001, Talisman expanded operations on Block 4 of the concession in Kaikang.  This is an area inhabited until the mid-1980s by indigenous agro-pastoralists from the Bul section of the Nuer people. They were driven from their villages soon after the beginning of the war in 1983 by pro-government Baggara Arab militias from Northern Sudan and took refuge in the southern part of their territory (south of the river Bahr-el-Ghazal). In the late 1980s, following local agreements between the Nuer and the Baggara Arabs, some Bul settlements north of the river were re-established.

The investigators received reports that Talisman's expansion activities in Kaikang were preceded in 2000 by forced displacement of the inhabitants of seven villages in the Kaikang area by government-backed militias and by the bombing of villages in non-government controlled areas close to the expansion site.  Since the Government of Sudan declined to issue visas to the investigators, it was not possible to visit the Kaikang area to confirm or disconfirm those reports.

 The investigators found no evidence that significant economic or other benefits from oil development are accruing to indigenous communities in Western Upper Nile and no sign that the Government of Sudan is using oil revenues to assist the civilian population in Talisman's concession, or in Southern Sudan in general.  It appears, rather, that oil revenues received by the government are linked to increases in military expenditure.  For example, the Government of Sudan recently established, with Chinese assistance, three new factories for the manufacture of arms and ammunition near Khartoum.

The investigation found that Southern Sudanese in their early teens have been forcibly conscripted into the armed forces of the Government of Sudan and trained at a military camp near Heglig, and are currently providing security in areas of oil development.

Conclusion

The evidence suggests that indigenous, non-Arab people living in rural areas in the GNPOC/Talisman Energy concession (and the people of Western Upper Nile in general) are regarded by the Sudan government and its armed forces as an obstacle to further oil development.  They are seen not as citizens but as a security risk, potential supporters of rebel movements, to be forcibly moved off the land that they inhabit to facilitate oil development.

Inhabitants of rural areas are compelled by government military action to flee their homes, to move to non-government controlled areas further south or deeper in the swampland (both within and outside the concession), or else into government-controlled towns in the concession (primarily Bentiu and Pariang) and Northern Sudan.  The continuing process of displacement has repeatedly interrupted the agricultural cycle in Western Upper Nile and reduced livestock numbers, bringing the area's inhabitants close to starvation.  Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), the United Nations-led emergency relief operation, has a tri-partite agreement with government and rebel movements to operate in both government and non-government controlled areas of Southern Sudan.   But OLS access to airstrips in rebel-controlled areas has been reduced in the past year by government flight denials and by the danger of aerial bombardment from government aircraft.  In government areas, access by displaced people to available food relief is limited: in April 2001, the United Nations' World Food Program reported that malnutrition rates in government-controlled Bentiu town were among the highest in Southern Sudan.

Conflict between the two rebel movements operating in Western Upper Nile and between those rebel movements and government-backed militias has continued to be an important cause of disruption of the lives of the civilian inhabitants of the area.  But direct military action by government forces, in conjunction with pro-government militias, is now a key factor in the forced displacement of people in Western Upper Nile.

The conclusions of this investigation are the result of a series of visits to locations in non-government controlled areas in the concession and in adjacent areas of Western Upper Nile.  The investigators conducted extensive interviews with local inhabitants and displaced persons in those areas. Over half of Talisman's concession area is outside the control of the Sudan government and the majority of the concession's inhabitants are not under government authority.  The investigators also held discussions with field-based emergency humanitarian workers, Northern Sudanese Arab traders, Nairobi-based diplomats, Sudanese and non-Sudanese academics and researchers and local officials of the two rebel movements administering the non-government-controlled areas (the SPLM/A and the SPDF).

Although the Government of Sudan declined to issue visas for the team, the investigators were able to speak to individuals who had recent experience of events in government-controlled towns, including former government employees, members of the government armed forces and employees of oil companies.

The investigation, funded by Canadian and British non-governmental organizations, was conducted between April 8 and 27 by Georgette Gagnon, an international human rights lawyer and member of the Canadian government-sponsored Harker mission that visited Sudan in December 1999, and John Ryle, an Africa specialist and author of numerous studies on Sudan. 
A full report will be available in June.

Washington, April 23 – 2001 (Reuters) - Catholic bishops in the United States recommended on Monday that President George W. Bush name a special envoy for Sudan and that the United States lead the way in seeking an end to the Sudanese civil war. 

Michael Perry, speaking for a National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) delegation that visited Sudan this month, said the U.S. government should also put pressure on oil companies to ensure their activities in Sudan do not exacerbate the war between the Khartoum government and southern rebels. 

Perry announced the recommendations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington as the Bush administration reviews policy toward Sudan, where 18 years of war have killed and displaced millions of people. 

"We support the call that the president of the United States should name a high-level special envoy to Sudan with a clear mandate and direct access to the president and the secretary of state," he said. 

"We support all the Sudanese bishops and others in calling for the United States to play a central role in leading a new multinational effort ... to push all parties to the conflict to a negotiated peace," he added. 

The negotiated peace should be based on a 1997 declaration of principles which recognizes that the black African people of southern Sudan have a right to self-determination, he said. 

The United States should work with the member states of the east African regional organization IGAD (the Intergovernmental Authority on Development), and of the IGAD partners' forum, added Perry, who is African affairs adviser at NCCB. 

IGAD PEACE PROCESS 

The members of IGAD are Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. The partners' forum is a group of donors, including Norway, Britain and the United States. 

IGAD has been the main forum for peace talks between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which has been fighting for autonomy since 1983. 

Bishop John Ricard, president of Catholic Relief Services and a member of the delegation to Sudan, said President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya was prepared to call an IGAD summit to relaunch the IGAD peace process for Sudan. 

But Mel Foote of Constituency for Africa told the event that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell "had completely dismissed IGAD". Foote met Powell earlier this month to talk about U.S. policy toward Sudan. 

The United States had a special envoy for Sudan under President Bill Clinton but the post lapsed when Bush took office in January. 

Under pressure from members of Congress to put Sudan near the top of his agenda, Powell held a State Department brainstorming session on Sudan in March but has not yet announced any new initiatives. 

Later in March a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers called on Bush to name a special peace envoy. 

Headed by House of Representatives Republican Leader Dick Armey of Texas, they said the United States must make helping to end the war a top priority. 

State Department officials were not immediately available to say what plans the Bush administration had for Sudan. 
 

Senior aides to Garang say Riek first expressed his wish for unity in a letter to Garang and the SPLA on 31 December, over a year after he resigned as Assistant vice-president to President Omer el Beshir and left Khartoum for the South. Riek complained the government had failed to implement the 1997 Khartoum Peace Agreement that set up a Southern States Coordinating Council, headed by him, to govern the South until a referendum on self-determination, to be held in four year’s time.

Garang reportedly wrote back in March. Two committees were immediately formed - one under SPLA veteran Justin Yac (from Bahr el-Ghazal), the other under Taban Deng Gai of Riek’s Sudan people’s Defence Forces-Democratic Front. The SPLA credits Deng, who resigned as Minister of State fort Roads in the Khartoum government late last year, for nudging Riek in the direction of unity. Deng sees southern unity as the only way to disarm Khartoum’s new oil weapon.

The two committees have met four time: thrice to agree a five-point agenda and then once only to reach agreement. SPLA sources say they agreed that:
- The reintegrated forces will be called SPLA.
- Their objective will be a united, democratic and secular New Sudan.
- Committees will decide the structures of the united Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and the reintegration of SPDF forces.
- The SPDF’s relief wing, Relief Association of South Sudan (RASS), will continue under that name beside the SPLA’s Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA).

After Garang ‘responded positively’ to the committees’ decisions, changing only some wording, Deng travelled to Eastern Upper Nile on 11 April to deliver them to Commander Riek. On 12 April, says Garang aide Cdr. Edward Lino, Riek radioed his ‘unconditional acceptance’.

Much remains to be resolved, not least Riek’s own position. This is to be decided in face-to-face talks between Garang and Riek, whose 1991 split from the SPLA plunged the South into catastrophic inter-factional and often ethnic fighting.

Many believed Riek has little choice but to accept Garang’s terms. Since defecting from Khartoum, he has failed to muster the support he had hoped for among his field commanders or the international community. The believed in SPLA circles is that Deng would have joined them even if his boss, Riek had refused.

Observers wonder where this leaves another Bahr el-Ghazal veteran Bona Malwal, who has just published a scathing attack on his former ally (‘the multi-millionaire Garang ... is no liberator’) or Riek’s former ally Lam Akol, powerless to do much for the third big Nilotic group the Shilluk as the NIF’s token Transport Minister. 

Sudanese air force bombers attacked an airstrip in the remote Nuba Mountains Monday, narrowly missing a plane carrying Bishop Macram Max Gassis of El Obeid diocese in central Sudan.

The bishop, a legendary Catholic Churchman and long-time champion of Sudan’s marginalized peoples, was making his Easter pastoral visit to rural parishes here on the frontlines of Sudan’s 18-year-old civil war.

The bishop and his entourage escaped unhurt, but, according to the latest reports, one Nuba militiaman was killed and two civilians seriously injured in the mid-morning attack on the air field by a Russian-made Antonov bomber, Khartoum’s instrument of choice in its escalating bombing campaign against civilian targets in rebel-held, or liberated areas of southern and central Sudan.

The incident took place at about 9 AM as the Church leader and his entourage boarded their Buffalo cargo plane, after having celebrated Holy Week services with Nuba congregations in the area. The group was on its way to northern Bahr al-Ghazal to celebrate Easter with Catholics there. Without warning, six barrel bombs, or, anti-personnel weapons, were dropped with a string of thuds just beyond the end of the dirt landing strip, detonating not more than 500 feet from the plane.

Nuba porters, diocesan personnel, well wishers and soldiers attached to the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) who were guarding the air field scattered for safety. Another relief flight posted to the region, under a Khartoum-ordered relief embargo for a decade, was on final approach, and had to take diversionary action to avoid the besieged field. 

Before the bomber could turn for another sortie, the bishop’s plane took off for Bahr al-Ghazal where it landed safely later that morning.

This was the second aerial attack in as many days in the Nuba Mountains. Bombers had been seen hovering over the area ever since the bishop’s arrival earlier in the week. Sunday, April 15, Easter Sunday, Antonovs struck a site near Lumun, with no casualties reported. Late reports indicate that bombers continued their assault today with a series of random bombings around the Kauda area. 

The Easter Monday bombing at the Kauda airstrip marks the most serious attack yet on the Church leader and veteran human rights spokesman. In 1998, Khartoum-sponsored bombing raids marred Gassis-led Christmas festivities in the Nuba Mountains. This past Christmas, Antonovs pelted Kauda, site of yesterday’s incident, with barrel bombs on Dec. 23, forcing the bishop to delay his plans to visit the region.

Gassis may not have been the only target of Monday’s bombing. Among the local dignitaries seeing the Churchman off were the new SPLA Gov. of Southern Kordofan, Abdel Aziz el-Hillu, whose organizational skills are already having an effect on the region’s morale and the cohesion of its military forces. But there is little doubt that Gassis and his pioneering efforts to establish and maintain civic and religious institutions – everything from medical clinics, schools and churches to water sanitation -- even in the midst of war, are a major thorn in the side of a regime bent on depopulating resource-rich areas like the Nuba Mountains and weakening, if not destroying the influence of non-Islamic institutions in Sudanese life.

The debated on Washington’s Sudan policy touches two of the Republican government’s core constituencies, big oil and the religious right. Their countervailing pressures may delay a radical shift in policy but Sudan has an unexpectedly high profile in the early months of George Bush’s presidency. His Secretary of State, General (Retired)) Colin Powell, told the Housed of Representatives International Relations Committee that there was ‘perhaps no greater tragedy on the face of the earth today’ than the war in Sudan. The following week, an article in the Sudanese daily El Rai el Aam  called Powell ‘the black Jewish general’ and argued that if the USA proposed a Jewish Ambassador (‘You know them by their names’) Khartoum should refuse to accept them. The billing contact on the newspaper’s webside is Fatih Erwa, Sudan’s United Nations Ambassador, who headed the Sudanese side of ‘Operation Moses’ which secretly moves Ethiopian Jews via Sudan to Israel in the early 1980 and whom Washington discreetly turned down as Sudanese Ambassador a decade later.

Church groups, lawmakers and human rights activists all clamour for tougher action against Khartoum’s National Islamic Front government. Lobbyists range from right-wing Christian fundamentalists through mainstream churches, African-Americans and others angered by slavery and other human rights abuses, and exiled  Sudanese activists. The oil majors hold their fire, leaving it to retired diplomats and other foreign policy professionals to suggest a new approach, amid speculation about Sudan’s oil reserved (AC Vol. 42 N° 6). One energy report claims that the country has the biggest reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia and Russia, to which one oil industry source responded : ‘More hype, less data’.

Oil companies object to sanctions anywhere, on principle, and are always interested in new  sources of hydrocarbons. They worry about the existing sanctions on  Libya and Iraq but accept that operating in Sudan at the moment would be a public relations disaster. One US oil industry source said that if Sudan’s reserves were as big ad Khartoum claims, then it would be foolish not to bring in the widest range of companies and technology to exploit it. He claimed that the ‘fringe companies’ - meaning Canada’s Talisman Energy and China petroleum Corporation (via Petrochina) - would be unable to help Sudan maximise its oil development. But he insisted that no major US oil company would get involved without major political change in Khartoum first but ‘... it may be that the US can encourage that change’. Bush has shown no interest in the campaign to tighten the US trade embargo on Sudan and enforce the law that could bar foreign companies engaged in Sudan’s oil industry, such as the China National Petroleum Corporation and Canada’sTalisman, from raising funds in US capital markets.

The US government hopes to buy decision-time by spending the US£10 million approved by Congress last year to build up civil society in the opposition-controlled South. It has also decided to resume bilateral talks with Khartoum on terrorism and slowly to red-staff the US Embassy but not yet to exchange ambassadors. The appointment of a ‘special envoy’ for Sudan is a hot topic. The post was created by Congress under President Bill Clinton. Those mentioned as Harry Johnston’s potential successor include ex-President (Democrat) Jimmy Carter, former United Nations Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, former Senator  Sam Nunn and former Republican Congressman Tom Campbell. 

Arguments over engagement
Those demanding a tougher line on the NIF disapproved of Carter, who condemned Washington’s 1998 bombing of El Shifa factory (AC Vol 39 N° 17) and opposed the naming of Sudan as a ‘terrorist state’. Holbrooke is seen as a loose cannon. Campbell lacks the necessary stature. Nunn, Chairman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, is the activist’s choice - an interesting one since CSIS  recently produced a controversial report which many activists strongly criticised. Before making an appointment Bush’staff need better information and more of their own policy-making officials in place. Walter Kansteiner III nominated as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, can make no decisions until he has been confirmed by the Senate. When the Congressional Africa Subcommittee met to discuss Sudan policy on 28 March, the government, not wishing to show its hand, offered no testimony - although the inter-agency foreign-policy ‘principal’ had quietly reviewed the situation the previous day, indicating the importance currently given to Sudan.

The latest recruit to the Anti-NIF campaign is Dick Armey, the House majority leader, who usually has little to say about foreign policy. On 27 March, he held a joint press conference with two congressmen long interested Sudan, Frank Wolf, a Republican, and the Democratic Donald Payne of the Congressional Black Caucus. They called for tougher measures and the urgent appointment of a special envoy. ‘The United States will not  tolerate this kind of suffering and human affliction’, said Armey, who plans to meet Bush this week on Sudan, with other hardliners.

The Africa Subcommittee’s meeting on 28  March overflowed the room and encouraged the activists, as the eleven congressmen present spoke out strongly against the NIF and the oil companies content to work with it. The star witness, Michael Young of the quasi-governmental US Commission on International Religious Freedom, pointed out that Khartoum’s war against the Nuba and southern populations has grown fiercer over the past year. He called for increased US aid to them and the political opposition, fort tightening economic sanctions by a ban on access to capital markets and for denying soft-drink producers such as Coca-cola licences to import gum arabic from Sudan. He also urged a formal review of whether the Sudan government’s activities amounted to ‘genocide’ under the Genocide Convention. This could have diplomatic and even military implications. Improbably, CSIS had launched its report calling for dialogue at the Holocaust Museum : the Holocaust Committee had not long before taken the unprecedented step of describing Khartoum’s slaughter of civilians as tending toward genocide.

Young and other anti-NIF specialists, including Roger Winter, Director of the US Committee for Refugees and Eric Reeves, a Smith working in Sudan’s war zones, stressed that Washington should not exchange ambassadors with Khartoum lest it be interpreted as granting legitimacy to the regime. However, an exchange of ambassadors was a key clement in a policy paper from CSIS in late February, chaired by former Clinton advisor Stephen, Morrison and Francis Mading Deng, a Sudanese academic and once ex-President Ja’afar Nimeiri’s junior Foreign Minister. They argued that rising oil production in the south has irrevocably shifted the military balanced in the NIF’s favour, so the USA should try to end the war with a ‘One Sudan, Two Systems », formula, preserving a single Sudan with two self-governing regions’.

To achieve this, toes the argument, Washington should engage Khartoum diplomatically - provided certain humanitarian conditions are met - by appointing both an ambassador as a special envoy to coordinate US policy with Britain Norway and Sudan’s neighbours as an ‘international nucleus’ for serious peace talks. Kansteiner was among the 52 members of the task force responsible for this proposal, as was a former US ambassador to Sudan, Timothy Carney, who has often met NIF officials in Khartoum over the past year. The new US government wants to see if it can get anywhere on bilateral issues, starting with terrorism. One argument for establishing embassy staff in Sudan, without an ambassador, is to rebuild intelligence capacity.

Although there is agreement on the importance of appointing a special envoy, the activists slam the CSIS report, arguing that its recommendations amount  to ‘appeasement’. ‘The NIF is a key obstacle to peace in Sudan’ said Winter. ‘It is an extremist government and there is no reason to believe in (its) good faith’. The hard-liners want Washington to lead international pressure on the NIF. They note that Sudan’s human rights situation has deteriorated sharply since European powers launched their own constructive engagement’ policy. Northern Sudanese oppositionists are particularly outraged that the CSIS formula appears to leave the NIF in power in perpetuity. They also observe that the north-south relationship would remain as unequal as ever. Washington is for now not joining in this debate. Constructive engagement and critical dialogue have won Euro-governments welcome business deals, blocking US interests, as they have also in Libya and Iran.  Nevertheless, US commercial interests seem little focused on Sudan : telecommunications firms display more zeal than oil giants.

No through road
 Clinton’s administration offered a ‘roadmap’ to Khartoum during last year’s organisation of African Unity summit in Lomé, Togo. It told Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail (‘Mr. Smile’) that it wanted agreed, sequenced, reciprocal steps on four main issues : terrorism, humanitarian issues, human rights and the civil war. Many details were, from the NIF’s point de view, fanciful - major autonomy in the south, referendums, even genuine elections. Khartoum declined.

Those interested in Sudan include two African-American clergymen with reputations that need rebuilding - Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. One of Khartoum’s supporters among African-American activists -  Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam - has had little to say publicly on the issue. But Jackson and Sharpton are, separately, planning trips to southern Sudan in coming weeks. ‘This has the possibility of becoming a new South Africa’ said one staffer for a black congressman, who noted that sanctions against Pretoria were enacted over ex-President Ronald Reagan’s veto some 15 years ago.

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.

I am Bishop John Ricard, Bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee in the United States and chairman of Catholic Relief Services, the overseas relief and development agency of the U.S. Catholic bishops.  I also am a member of the U.S. Bishop’s Committee on International Policy, which is chaired by His Eminence Bernard Cardinal Law, Archbishop of Boston.  I am joined by Bishop Edward Braxton, Bishop of Lake Charles, Louisiana, also a member of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on International Policy.   A third member of our delegation, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop of Camden, New Jersey, and chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Migration, returned to the United States yesterday.

We are here today to report to you about our recently concluded visit to Sudan.   In January 2000, the Catholic bishops of Sudan invited the U.S. bishops to send a delegation to Sudan to witness first hand the human consequences of their suffering nation’s nearly 18-year civil war.  Cognizant of the suffering of the Sudanese people and desirous of supporting our brother bishops and the Church in Sudan, we have come as representatives of the U.S. bishops and the Catholic Church in the United States to learn and understand more about this interminable and seemingly intractable conflict. 

During our visit, we have met with authorities in both the North and South of Sudan.   We also met with leaders of the Catholic Church, other Christian bodies, the Islamic community and civil society.    In these meetings, we raised issues of peace, religious freedom, human rights, and displaced persons.  We also visited areas hardest hit by the war as well as the Sudanese who have borne the burden of this conflict, both in camps for the internally displaced and refugees.

From our discussions and visits, we have found, first and foremost, that this conflict cannot be characterized in simple terms.  All attempts to reduce the war to any single factor distorts reality and does not serve the cause of peace.  However, despite all the complexities involved, our mission has deepened our conviction that efforts toward peace in Sudan can no longer be neglected by the international community.  The judgment of history will be determined by the courage and determination of the international community to take bold steps now to help bring this cruel war to an end.   In our judgment, he United States must play a central role in this effort.

While a heightened engagement by the international community, especially the United States, must take place, we hold serious concerns about the intentions of the Government in Khartoum.  It is perfectly clear to us that the primary responsibility for the prosecution of this war lies with the Government in Khartoum.  The Government’s systematic denial of religious liberty to Christians and other non-Muslims in both the North and South, use of aerial bombings and other tactics to terrorize and displace populations in contested areas, and documented violations of basic human rights provide evidence of a regime intent upon accumulating political and economic power and creating by force an Islamic state.  Such reprehensible behavior only prolongs the violence and suffering and precludes any serious efforts towards peace.

This does not mean that other parties to the conflict do not engage in behavior which infringes upon basic human rights.

In our view, a just and lasting peace must be based on the following principles:

*  the right of the people of Sudan to determine for themselves how they are to be defined as a people and governed as a society;

*  the right of all Sudanese to have their basic human rights respected, including the right to practice their religion freely;

*  the right of all Sudanese to return to their homes;

*  the right of all Sudanese people to live in peace and security.

In order to create an environment in which a just and lasting peace can be achieved, we believe that the United States and the international community should take following immediate steps:

*  call for and help negotiate an immediate and verifiable cessation of hostilities, monitored by the United Nations or another international body, which includes a halt to the expulsion of civilian populations from their homelands;

*  urge corporations involved in the exploration, extraction, production, and sale of Sudanese oil to recognize the impact of these activities on the escalation of the war; 

*  do more to end human rights abuses by parties to the conflict, particularly the abduction and enslavement of Sudanese citizens, especially women and children, and the forced recruitment of minors into military service;

*  press all parties to the conflict to end the use of food as a weapon and to guarantee unhampered delivery of humanitarian aid to affected populations, as outlined in the Beneficiaries Protocol and the Declaration of Principles.

In making this visit to Sudan, our overriding concern has been to help bring attention to the terrible human suffering caused by this war and the urgent need for a just peace.  When we return to the United States, we will share what we have seen and heard with our fellow Catholic bishops and the Church in the United States, as well as our political leaders and the wider American public.   We will continue to focus attention on the plight of the Sudanese people and work tirelessly toward a just peace in Sudan.

Above all, we invite all people of good will, regardless of their religious identity, to join us in our prayer that God will deliver the people of Sudan from the ravages of this terrible conflict.   Thank you. 
 

Brief description of the situation

The International Secretariat of OMCT has received information from the Sudanese Victims of Torture Group (SVTG), a member of the OMCT network, that 5 men have had their limbs amputated while 19 others are awaiting the same amputation sentence, to be carried out tomorrow on 1 February 2001, under Article 174 of the Criminal Act, 1991. The individuals, all men, are held in Kober prison and according to their lawyers, all chances of appeal or national remedy have been exhausted.

On January 23, the five men from Darfour, Western Sudan and  named as, Ibrahim Gumai, Omer Salim, Salih Omer, Abakar Jalab, Dafa Alla Mowloudi. were checked by a doctor prior to the amputation as is "procedure" in Sudanese prisons. The rights hands and left legs of these men were then amputated on Thursday 25th January and Saturday 27th January.

OMCT and SVTG are deeply concerned that the Government of Sudan has once again resumed the punishment of amputation. This punishment is against the Government of Sudan's international obligations, with regards to Article 5 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 7 of The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 5 that 'No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.'  The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states in Article 7: 'No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.'

The use of amputation as a punishment is also prohibited under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which has also been ratified by Sudan. OMCT recalls the concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee: Sudan (1997) that 'By ratifying the Covenant [on Civil and Political Rights], the State party has undertaken to comply with all its articles; penalties which are inconsistent with articles 7 and 10 must be abolished.'

Action requested

Please write to the authorities in Sudan urging them to:

i.  take all necessary measures to ensure that the sentence of amputation against the above-mentioned 19 persons is not carried out;

ii. immediately stop the inhuman practice of amputation and abolish the use of amputation as a method of punishment, which is enacted within the Sudanese Criminal Act 1991; 

iii. guarantee the respect of human rights and the fundamental  freedoms throughout the country in accordance with  national laws and international human rights standards, and conform to all recommendations made by the Human  Rights Committee.
 

To 

HE Dr Hasan Abdin
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
The Embassy of the Republic of Sudan
London 

As we enter a New Year I extend my greetings to you and best wishes for 2001.  I would join my prayers with yours that this year might bring Sudan nearer to a just and durable peace.

Your Excellency, I write to you with a sense of distress as news has reached me from a most reliable source that the Episcopal Church Cathedral in Lui, Equatoria Province was destroyed by an aerial bombing attack on 29th December 2000.  The destruction of a fine permanent church, prized by the local community, is a cause for concern by all those who love the troubled land of Sudan.  But what distresses me most is that this highlights the continued targeting of undoubted civilian centres by the government of Sudan.  Lui, and the nearby densely populated centre of Kotibe, have been repeatedly bombed during recent years, causing damage and loss of life, and certainly causing terror amongst the civilian population.  Lui is a renowned centre in the history of the Episcopal Church in the Sudan. It has always been a centre of religious life, of education and health care.  It has never been a military centre, except during the period 1995-97 when it was a base for government troops.  Many religious and humanitarian groups working in Southern Sudan can testify to the fact that Lui is a religious and educational centre without any military base.  Consequently, when such a centre is consistently targeted it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the intention is to harm and terrorise the civilian population.  Sadly, the close monitoring in East Africa of all government bombing incidents in Southern Sudan indicates that, despite government denial, bombing of civilian centres continues.

The comment by the Sudanese Foreign Minister Dr Mustafa Ismail on 3rd January that the Sudanese airforce would not be deterred by the SPLA using civilians as a ”human shield”, further disturbs me.  Whilst there are, no doubt, cases where the SPLA uses the civilian population as a shield, my fear is that the Foreign Minister’s words may obscure the fact that peaceful civilian towns and villages are being attacked.

Your Excellency, you know well my deep concern for Sudan and all its people.  You know, too, how deep is my commitment to dialogue and negotiation.  It is in that spirit that I have been willing to talk to leaders from all parts of the Sudanese political and religious spectrum.  However, at this point I must protest in the strongest terms at the continuing, and illegal, attacks on your own citizens living in various towns and villages of the South and of the Nuba Mountains.  The occasion of this letter is the destruction of the Fraser Memorial Cathedral in Lui, but I regret to say that this is but one example of what now appears to be a consistent pattern in the activities of the Sudanese airforce.

I would ask you to forward this letter to President Omer Beshir with my assurance that my sense of outrage is shared by many in the British churches and that the Sudanese government is, in this way, doing great damage to its international reputation.

I would urge the President and his government to clearly state that the armed forces will not target civilian centres of population, but only legitimate military targets, and then to abide transparently by this commitment.

More than this, my heartfelt desire is to see clear signs in the months ahead of a momentum for peace.  The government of Sudan has a special responsibility to take the lead in this.  The strict limitation of military action to military targets would be a significant step in building trust and preparing the way for a cease-fire and substantive talks on the future of the Sudanese state and the Sudanese people.

Believe me, Your Excellency, when I say that I count myself a friend of all the Sudanese people and long to see them able to live together in peace and prosperity.  I will always work to that end.  It is my love for the Sudan which provokes me to speak out so strongly on this occasion.

We, the Comboni Missionaries working in the "liberated areas" of Southern Sudan, gathered for our annual assembly, have painfully analysed and evaluated the present tragic situation of war and violence.

We have come to the unanimous conviction that the situation of war in Sudan at the present stage has become immoral and a tragic farce. It is not any longer a struggle for freedom of the Sudanese people and for the defence of human rights. The war has become a struggle for power, business and greed. Many heartless people are taking advantage of it and enrich themselves at the expense of the poor. Global interests have the Sudanese resources at heart, not the well being of the Sudanese people. Religion is distorted and misused as a means for other interests.

The number of victims is escalating, especially among women and children. Spiritual, human and cultural values are getting lost. Corruption, tribalism and fratricidal hatred are fostered. Degradation, underdevelopment and anarchy increase. Humanity in Sudan is getting lost.

The word "liberation" is abused. What improvement do we see? Oppressors and oppressed are running for their life. Northerners against Southerners, Northerners against Northerners, Southerners against Southerners, Nuer and Dinka are fighting against Arabs. Nuer and Arabs are fighting against Dinka. Dinka against Dinka. Nuer against Nuer, Didinga against Dinka. There are no winners. All are loosing. NGOs and churches prolong the fighting through the relief aid that unknowingly supports also the warring factions.

The country has so much wealth and natural resources that would guarantee a good livelihood for all Sudanese.

We Comboni Missionaries, working in the Liberated Area of Southern Sudan, have decided to "break the silence" and intensify our commitment against the injustice that fuels the war in Sudan. We appeal to you leaders of the warring sides: "In the name of God, lay down the guns! Stop fighting!"

We appeal to all people of goodwill: "Break the silence" and intensify your mediation for peace in Sudan!

We appeal to you, political and economic powers of the world, "Give up your greed and your selfish interests! Help Sudan to regain its lost humanity and identity."

For all the 30 missionaries present

The Justice and Peace committee
co-ordinator Fr. Michele Stragapede
P.O. Box 21102  Nairobi (Kenya)
tel. +254.2.562953 Fax. +254.2.570225 - ssmccj@form-net.com

If any one longs to become an Arab, Sudan's formula leads. Here, all you need is to speak the Arabic Language, practice Islam and demonstrate a craving for Arabic culture. Once you've fulfilled these prerequisites, you're "in" as far as Sudan is concerned.
"Today, Sudan is known as an Arab (Islamic) Country. The majority of its citizens are genetically Africans. But the Africans of the north have decided that they are Arabs", writes Mr. Stephen Wondu, a representative of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) in Washington. "If we accept the notion that racial identity can be determined by communal choice, then we must recognize the cleavage that divides the Sudan into an Arab north and an African south."
The Sudan we are talking about is the largest country in Africa. Canon Clement Janda tells us that it's "a superficial gathering-together of about 520 tribes, brought about by the international border imposed on a land area estimated to be 2,505,813 sq.km". (Clement Janda is a Southern Sudanese Anglican Minister and the current General Secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches based in Nairobi, Kenya).
Sudan is an ethnic and religious mosaic. At least one-third of its population are non-Muslims. These are the Christians and followers of African Traditional Religions, all of whom happen to be purely African. It should also be noted that according to 1999 estimates, Sudan has a total population of 34,475,690 inhabitants.
"Like every country, Sudan has a north and a south. But unlike most countries, Sudan's compass provides extra readings in addition to those of geography. North and South in Sudan also define racial spread, religious polarity, cultural conflict, historical experiences, power struggle, and resource distribution", says Mr. Wondu.

Role of religion in politics

In Sudan, any mentioned of religion provokes racist tendencies. The most demeaned or revered word in Sudan today, depending on who is handling it, is "Sharia" - total submission to the will of Allah. But surely this law ought to apply to Muslims only. Non-Muslims have nothing to do with it!
Simon Monoja is a southern Sudanese Christian, teaching Cultural Anthropology at the University of Juba. He says: "The attempt to hold onto power at whatever cost, through the imposition of Islamic fundamentalism, has brought the "decaying state" to the brink of disintegration. The fallacy of the ruling northern elite has always been to heap the blame of Sudan's problems on colonialism. They believe, naively, that the main aim of British colonial administration was to undermine the influence of Islamic religion and Arab culture and languages. To redress this colonial "era", they have gone to the other extreme. Right after independence, the Khartoum elite replaced all the colonial administrators with northern Arabs and imposed the Islamic religion, the Arabic Language and Arabic culture throughout the country, especially in Southern Sudan and the other parts of African Sudan".
Dr Adam Abdelmoula comes from Northern Sudan. He states: "The ideology of Arabism and Islamism, imposed through sheer force during Aboud's regime in 1958, was to be continued and further entrenched through constitutional power".
Simon Monoja adds: "Every northern government, right up to the present regime, has progressively intensified this policy, to the extent of declaring "jihad" (Islamic holy war) against Sudan's non-Arab and non-Muslim populations. Such policies are going to intensify Sudan's total breakup rather than creating a unified nation. A nation cannot be built by force of arms."

Religious (Islamic) politics

Dr. Abdelmoula says: "Sudan's political parties are categorized into "national", "regional" or "ethnic". Parties created by the northern elite ("north" used here as a racial divide) are readily labelled "national" while those formed by others are described as being "regional" or "ethnic.""
Among the national parties, we should note the Umma (Peoples) Party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), the National Congress Party (NCP) (formerly the National Islamic Front -NIF). Dr Turabi broke away from the NCP to form his Popular National Congress Party (PNCP). (Because of their relationship with the NIF, it should be remembered that both the ruling NCP and Dr. Turabi's breakaway PNCP are offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood).
Regional and ethnic parties include the Beja Conference, the Union of Nuba Mountains, the Dar Fur Development Front, and a plethora of southern Sudanese parties that constitute the Union of Sudan African Parties (USAP).
Dr. Abdelmoula explains: "The Umma, the DUP, and the NIF are Islamist in their orientation and roots. The Umma and the DUP are parties organized around hard-core religious sects, the Ansar and the Khatmiya respectively. They are avowedly Islamic but apart from their political rivalry, there's not much difference between them. Umma's 1986 manifesto, entitled Nahj al-Sahwa, states that: "Islam is the basis of national existence and identity. The supremacy of Islam is absolute and even a parliamentary majority should not be allowed to transgress or undermine it." For the DUP: "The establishment of an Islamic State comes on top of DUP's political agenda. Sharia must remain the basic source of law, while customs and principles not contradicting Sharia, may also be consulted." Regarding the NIF: "It is a modern party that first emerged in the 1940s as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. It proposed to establish an Islamic Constitution. The said Constitution called for the creation of an Islamic Republic along the lines of parliamentary democracy. It also stipulated that both Head of State and Prime Minister must be Muslims."
Therefore, the three Islamist parties, as key players in the country's political and economic administration, have a common agenda - the forceful assimilation of the Africans into the Arab race through Islamization and Arabization. Whether it is the DUP, the NIF or Umma in power, it makes no difference for the oppressed Africans. All three parties subscribe to the same racist political agenda.
It is precisely this agenda that has provoked resistance by the African cultural groups in Sudan. So far, more than two million lives have been lost in the civil war, all in the name of "one nation", "one language", and "one culture".

The present regime

(Author's note: As a background to this section, I have made use of abridged excerpts from Saeed Hawwa's Book: The Muslim Brotherhood, translated by the International Islamic Federation of the Student Organization, 1985). "The Muslim Brotherhood is a conservative movement founded by Hassan Al-Banna in Egypt, in 1928. It is the most significant political movement to have appeared in Egypt in the last century...In 1954, after an attempt on Colonel Jamal Abdel Nasser's life, an all-out campaign was waged against the movement, that ended with its removal from the political scene as an effective political force, and with the execution of many of its leaders. The Brothers who managed to escape, emigrated to the Arab States of the Middle East and to Sudan...The history of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan has still to be written. But the hardships borne by the majority of Sudanese and the present-day discrimination (based not on race but on religion) suffered by non-Muslims, proves the Muslim Brothers' determination to force Sudan into the mould of their ideology...This regime, led behind the scenes for sometime, by Dr. Turabi, has gone into history as one of the most ruthless and barbaric regimes to have existed...During this regime, the jihad was openly declared against non-Muslims and non-Arabs. Southerners have been taken as slaves and sexually abused. Southern politicians and officers have been summarily executed, and the civilian population in the south are still being bombarded daily. Resources are looted in the south, including the rich oil deposits."

Persecution of the Church

The military junta of General Aboud, which seized power in November 1958, suspended the 1956 Constitution, which was inherited from Sudan's colonial rulers. That particular Constitution was significant because it had created a secular state based on citizenship and equality before the law.
Aboud also dissolved parliament, banned all political parties, stifled the Press and declared a state of emergency. Then came the Sudan Defense Act which made every sign of opposition to the regime, illegal. It usurped the powers of the judiciary and adopted a set of policies that fit the Arabist and Islamist ideology of the northern political establishment.
These included the introduction of Arabic (instead of English) as the medium of instruction in southern schools. (The late Vice President, Zubeir M. Salih, was quoted on 17 September 1991 as saying: "Arabic is like an opening to the clearer understanding of true Islamic roots"). The weekly holiday in southern Sudan was altered from Sunday to Friday, the Muslim day of prayer.
General Aboud also introduced the Missionary Societies' Act of 1962. This Act required individuals and organizations planning to do missionary work in the country, to first obtain a licence from the Council of Ministers. The Council was empowered to deny this permission on the spot, or impose any conditions it saw fit. It is significant, however, that while the Act regulates all missionary work, it has never been used to regulate Islamic missionary activities.
The ultimate goal of this Act was to forcibly unify Sudan, by making Arabic the official language of the entire country and Islam its official religion. Although Aboud's regime was overthrown in the October 1964 revolt, this law still remains on Sudan's statute books. Another measure taken to prevent the separation of religion from the State, was the introduction of the Constitutional Bill specifying the source of law as Islam.

Media exclusion

All the means of Mass Media (radio, television, newspapers) are state-owned. They are used exclusively for propaganda purposes. The Media "promotes" the concept of one nation (Arab/Islamic State), one language (Arabic), and one religion (Islam). The African Sudanese consider this media policy as separatist.
Sudan's Media does not reflect the country's diversities. It is used to portray the Sudanese as exclusively Arabs and Muslims. In a joint Pastoral Letter issued on 2 February 1995, Sudan's Catholic Bishops appealed to the authorities: "Even if all the diversities cannot be reflected in the national media, they should at least be respected and not insulted and derided in public. Excluding them completely does not help the construction of a nation united in diversity". The Bishops also urged the civil authorities to revise their media policy in favour of non-Muslims and non-Arabs, and to permit the Church to run her own radio and television programs and to allow publication of Christian religious books, newspapers and magazines. All these pleas fell on deaf ears. Each day features a new form of media persecution.

Conclusion

Siddig Abd El Gadir has written the following: "We know that when immigrant Arabs came to Sudan, no one brought with him an Arab woman. They married African women, and Arab blood kept declining in these cross-breeds for more than ten generations until it became less than 10%, and African blood kept increasing until recently. When they say that there are Arabs in Sudan, it is not true...The only common connection between northern Sudanese and Arabs, is the Arabic language - even Sudan's traditions of Sudan are different from those of the Arabs. So we are all (African) Sudanese. We should eliminate the inferiority complex that exists in some of us".
Surely this is an appeal to be listened to.

Edward Ladu Terso, Sudan, October 2000

A total of 20 bombs were dropped by Antonov planes on Paluer, Padak and Yomciir villages on January 6, according to the statement.

The SPLA said that the six bombs dropped at Padak had destroyed the compound of the UN World Food Programme (WFP).WFP spokeswoman here Lindsey Davies told AFP that three huts used by the agency's staff during food distribution caught fire during the attack, but there no WFP workers in the compound during the raid.

Beshir pledged national reconciliation but on his terms, during a speech at a rally marking his re-election last month as president, which prompted the opposition to complain he had dashed faint hopes of peace.

He promised that during his new term of office, he will see through "the regime's programme covering the establishment of peace, freeing territories, reconciliation, development and improvement of society on the principles of religion and sharia."

Sharia, or Islamic law, was introduced in 1983, some six years before Beshir came to power, throughout the country including the predominantly Christian south, provoking civil war that all peace efforts have failed to quell.

Beshir renewed his commitment to "establishing peace" and achieving reconciliation in Sudan. He called Monday on his opponents for reconciliation based on the principles of the "regime of salvation."

"The door is open to every patriot to join us in this process, (but) there is no agreement unless it is based on the principles of salvation,"…."We call on all for reconciliation so we can build a new Sudan" he said.

In a statement, the National Democratic Alliance opposition (NFA) umbrella movement said Beshir's speech amounted to a "setback for efforts at a comprehensive political solution"… the conviction is that "regime is not serious in its search for a political agreement”…."The is completely closed to any possibility of reaching a peaceful settlement, given that the crisis is based on the regime's very programme," said the NDA.

Is Lui of military significance and hence a legitimate military target? 

Except for the short duration when GOS had stationed its military units in Lui from 1995/96 - 1997, I know and categorically state herein that this place (Lui) has al ways been, and still is, a civil population centre best known for its religious and education life. It also hosts a church hospital of repute. By repeatededly bombing this civilian settlement, what objective is GOS pursuing?  Is it the manifestation of calous disregard for the life of people whom GOS does not regard as 'quite human'? Or is this simply an act of senseless terrorism?

These acts of senseless violence and reign of terror against civilian populations must be treated with the contempt they deserve and their perpetrators condemned in the strongest possible terms.

I again appeal to the international community, especially the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations Security Council to restrain the Government of the Sudan from committing attrocities of genocidal proportions against the people of Southern Sudan and other war affected areas. It would a be shame on humanity in general and OAU, UN Security Council in particular, to watch, hands folded, while genocide is committed before their eyes. With the recent events in Rwanda, Indonesia and central Europe still fresh in mind, the international community cannot afford to stand by and allow a repetition of genocide.

I appeal to the universal Church to pray for the people of the Sudan in their time of need. I believe it is within your power and means to help bring a just and lasting peace to the Sudan.

I appeal to the World Council of Churches and the All Africa Conference of Churches to use their good offices to raise the profile of the Sudan situation and vigorously advocate for a quick, just and peaceful resolution of the longest war on the African continent

Rt. Rev. Bullen A. Dolli
Bishop of the Diocese of Lui
Episcopal Church of the Sudan
Lui, January 2, 2001

06/12/00 07/12/00 07/12/00 08/12/00 

21/12/00
24/12/00
23/12/00
25/12/00
25/12/00
26/12/00
26/12/00
27/12/00
27/12/00
 

28/12/00
28/12/00
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29/12/00
29/12/00
 

30/12/00 
 

Kauda That
Yei
Kauda Taht
Yei
Jambo/Mide
Yei
Lui
Yei
Between Kotobi and Maridi
Yei
Lui, Kotobi
Amadi
Lui
Lanyi

Lui
 

E
SBN
E
UN
 

SK
E
SK
E
E
E
E
E
E 
E
E
E
E
E

E
 

4
4
0
8
0

9
24
3
16
 
 

0

0
8
0
7
0
10
0
0
9
10
6

0 
 

2 dead, 3 injured; NE of Yirol
NE of Yirol

relief truck targeted
 

Antonov circled without bombing
1 woman injured
Antonov circled without bombing

1 bomb failed to explode, 3 fell l0m from NGO compound
 

2 dead, including 1 aid worker; 4 wounded; 3 houses destroyed; machine-gun fire heard; some reports that 
Antonov 12 strafed village

Antonov circled without bombing

Antonov circled without bombing on Christmas day
2 injured on Christmas day
Antonov circled without bombing
bombs fell close to OLS NGO compound
Antonov circled without bombing
cattle killed
 

Antonov circled without bombing
Antonov circled without bombing
2 bombs fell in town, 7 outside
2 dead; cathedral destroyed
2 houses destroyed; convoy hit by
shrapnel; 3 bombs fell inside village, 3 outside
Antonov circled without bombing
 

The agency gave no reasons for the extension of the emergency, which was first declared on Dec. 12, 1999, during Bashir's power struggle with former parliamentary speaker Hassan Abdalla al-Turabi, an Islamic ideologue who was once a key ally.

The emergency was extended in March last year until Dec. 31. The extension came as a surprise to many Sudanese people.

Political analysts say Bashir, whose 1989 military coup swept an Islamist give years, his last term.

Most political parties boycotted the polls.

"He feels that he still needs extraordinary powers if he is to deal with these political parties that boycotted the elections," one analyst said.

Bashir has been holding a dialogue with the Umma party of former prime minister al-Sadeq al-Mahdi to form a coalition government but nothing has come out of the talks so far. The Umma party, the largest political institution in Sudan, was among the parties that boycotted the elections.

A civil war has raged in Sudan since 1983, which broadly pits the black African and animist south against the mainly Muslim and Arabic-speaking north.

It is believed to have cost up to two million lives in fighting and war-related famine and disease.
 

A lone pig roots at the stinking and charred corpses of goats that were trapped in their pen and perished in the flames.  There was barely time for the inhabitants of this rural community to escape with their own lives before soldiers swept in.  Others were less fortunate.

A tragedy unfolds…
The feast of Christ the King (26th November) was due to mark the celebration of one of the church’s most joyful festivals.  It was thus with shock that we awoke from our hazy sleep to the sound of artillery shells being fired some fifteen kilometres away and falling with such power that the ground shook where we lay.  A tragedy had already begun unfolding.

In the darkness before dawn, even as all families were still in deep sleep, two battalions of heavily-armed militias numbering more than 100 men were making the two hour journey on foot from the garrison of Timbera.  Their target:  Umdurdu – a long, straggling collection of farms that dot the low hills and nestle in the valleys between them.

Their calculated plan was certainly to create as much hurt to human life and destruction to property as possible at the economically most sensitive time of harvesting, whilst also taking for them what would simply amount to the “spoils of war”.  Rather than adhering to the rules of war and their military objectives, they chose to take the conflict to the defenceless young, the aged and the women…

A most barbaric and cowardly attack…
At 5 o’clock, according to one eyewitness, the grass and crops ready for harvesting in a circle around a group of 15 farms were set on fire.  This was accompanied by indiscriminate shooting (as evidenced by the spent shells found lying around by the author, some within the farm courtyards).  In the ensuing chaos 29 innocent civilians were taken captive, including at least two whole families with small children, women and elderly. 

The father of a family of five attempted to prevent the capture of him and his family but met with a bullet that shattered his leg.  Somehow, he fell down the side of the hill and was later found by neighbours.  Four days after the incident, he was still awaiting attention from a doctor (the nearest being some five or six hours away on foot).

Destruction and looting of property was complete.  Over 50 buildings in the 15 farms lost their roofs and contents as the grass thatch caught fire, while food reserves were mostly totally spoiled.  Goats, sheep and other livestock were taken, leaving the rest to burn alive in the fire (In all, an estimated 5 square kilometres lie scorched and useless and the future without food reserves looks extremely bleak for an already vulnerable population in a precarious situation).

To ensure that no-one would follow in pursuit, the long range artillery of Timbera put down a barrage of shells that lasted over two hours and further destroyed houses and set fire to fields.  The end of the world must have seemed very near for the people of Umdurdu.

What hope do they have?
Many of those left behind or whose houses were unscathed have moved whatever possessions they are able, including the timbers that did not burn, to a place of temporary safety.  The few who bravely remain show signs of extreme trauma and anxiety.  The very real danger of another attack prevents any return to normality. 

This village of Umdurdu has, like many others in the Nuba Mountains, suffered annual attacks directly sponsored by the National Islamic Front regime (NIF).  Both Christians and Muslims have been victims of this sixteen-year old policy of genocide and “scorched earth” that has killed or displaced as many as 1.2 out of the estimated 1.6 million Nuba people.

At the time of writing this article, there was no news of any of those kidnapped and many do not harbour much hope for their return either.  In 1999, over twenty people were captured and taken away from Umdurdu, even being taken as far as Khartoum.  The wife and infant of one man were ransomed by the church and managed to find their way back to the village, but the majority has never been heard from again.

Many cases have been recorded of kidnapped civilians being used as human shields,  concubines, house boys and girls, militia soldiers to fight their own people etc.  Whichever fate is chosen for these latest victims, none of them is in the least positive for the NIF’s already appalling human rights record. 

What impact this carries for the people of Umdurdu can only be imagined…

My name is Eve
When I had asked one girl who must have been about 6 years old what her name was, she coldly replied, “ Ana-maindi ism” (I have no name).  Her blunt and hostile reply took me by surprise and yet when I looked into her eyes I saw her appeal to me. 

Leaving with regret I thought to myself, “What hope does she have caught up in this seemingly endless and unjust war waged by her own government?”  And yet she gave me a glimmer of hope as I took her hand and she, with a strained and half-apologetic smile, finally said, “Ismi Hawa” (my name is Eve).

The first woman and certainly not the last…

Yesterday, Thursday, November 9, 2000 at about 4.30pm east Africa time, an Antonov dropped a total of ten (10) bombs in Narus, killing two (2) old men, four (4) women, and seven (7) seriously injured. Six (6) cattle were also killed and one (1) is said to be in a critical condition.

According to our sources, Antonov dropped ten (10) deadly explosives in two separate locations of Narus; six(6) fell along the stream opposite Sudan Medical Care's (SMC) compound. This is where the two(2) men, four (4) women met their tragedy. The Seven(7) people who were reported seriously injured also were caught in the same drop. The other four(4) bombs fell behind Narus Hill, which killed six(6)cattle and injuring one of them. Unspecified number of cattle are said t have ran in disarray in the bush.

The injured people have been immediately evacuated to Lopiding Hospital, northern Kenyan border of Lokichoggio by Africa Medical Research Educational Fund (AMREF, assisted by the Catholic Diocese of Torit (DOT) medical Ambulance. Our sources said they were in the stable condition. However, there is no immediate official confirmation from Lopiding Hospital. For many years, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospital in Lokichoggio has been serving the Sudanese war victims wounded during this conflict in one way or the other.

Narus is a dispalced camp inharbited by various communities from the fighting Sudan. It's about 45 kilometers from the Kenyan border town of Lokichoggio and about 50 kilometers from the government controlled garrison of Kapoeta.

In the recent weeks, many analysts put the figure of the bombardment in southern Sudan since the beginning of this year to 113 times. A number of infrastructures have been destroyed and innocent defenceless, unarmed civilian killed. Now that with the bombing of Narus, the figure could have grown higher.

The U.N. High Commission for Refugees said in Geneva the two workers were freed after government troops intervened following a complaint to Khartoum. But the radio equipment had not been returned. 

A spokesman said the workers were seized by plainclothes government officials during a battle for Kassala on Wednesday between government troops and rebels in which a Sudanese official said more than 130 people died. 

Mohamed Yousif, the Commissioner of Kassala province, told state television on Thursday that 52 civilians and soldiers were killed in the fighting. The television said 80 Sudan People's Liberation Army rebels also died. 

Some 433 civilians and soldiers were wounded in the battle for the town close to the Eritrean border, which the rebels said they captured on Wednesday. Yousif said the town was now completely in the hands of the armed forces. 

UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said in Geneva calm appeared to have returned to Kassala, ``so we may be going back there.'' 

``It is not immediately clear why our staff were detained,'' Janowski said. He had no idea why the Sudanese army took UNHCR communications equipment. 

"The government and army are in control," said a Kassala doctor reached by telephone from Khartoum. "This morning I heard only one burst of gunfire and I don't know what caused it."

He said calm had returned to the streets and residents were preparing to go to work, despite a dusk-to-dawn curfew and state of emergency imposed on the city of at least 300,000 people east of the capital on the border with Eritrea.

A spokesman for the rebel National Democratic Alliance (NDA) confirmed that the government was in control of Kassala after what he described as an "organised withdrawal" of rebel forces who had captured the city before dawn on Wednesday.

"We completed our withdrawal from Kassala this morning at around five a.m. Our plan was to destroy the enemy and we did so," Yasir Arman said by telephone from the Eritrean capital, Asmara.

He said the NDA had killed more than 400 government soldiers, "demolished" all government military garrisons and command posts around Kassala, shot down two helicopter gunships and captured 13 tanks and more than 2,000 rifles.

Arman, who would not disclose rebel casualties, said NDA forces had been deployed north of Kassala.

Information Minister Ghazi Salahuddin said on Wednesday that the attackers had been "completely liquidated," and that 13 civilians had been killed and dozens wounded.

Eritrean involvement ?

Salahuddin said he could not accuse neighbouring Eritrea of involvement in the attack but an assessment was under way.

A Kassala resident said two medical staff at the hospital inside the army barracks were among those killed and that the rebels drove away three tanks and took other weapons from the army headquarters before they withdrew.

The governor of Kassala, Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid, said 16 people had been killed and about 140 wounded in the fighting.

"I now reassure all the citizens in Kassala and in Sudan in general that the situation is stable and the armed forces are in full control of all areas," he said on Wednesday.

Relief officials said staff of U.N. and other international relief agencies had withdrawn to neighbouring Gedaref state.

Residents said the NDA appeared to have taken many parts of Kassala during the fighting. A social worker said the army had evacuated a camp for displaced southerners on the outskirts of town, saying the rebels had used it to infiltrate the city.

The NDA links northern Muslim opposition groups with the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) which has fought for 17 years for autonomy for the mainly Christian and animist south.

An estimated two million people -- most of them civilians -- have died in the conflict and the famines it has fuelled.

Sporadic peace talks between the Islamist-led government and SPLA have failed to settle the conflict, complicated by disputes over territory, religion and resources, including oil.

Kassala lies 400 km (250 miles) east of the capital Khartoum on arid plains where temperatures average over 40 degrees Celsius and sandstorms can reduce visibility virtually to zero.

In Khartoum, the Umma party, which quit the NDA this year after reaching a deal with the government, said it had postponed the return of some forces from Eritrea because of the fighting. 

The independent al-Ayam daily said Mahdi, a former prime minister, had officially notified President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of his intention to return to Khartoum on November 23.

Mahdi fled Sudan in December 1996 accusing Bashir of using him as "cannon fodder" in his fight against his opponents.

Late last year, Mahdi's opposition Umma party signed an agreement with the Islamist-led government to resolve their differences peacefully. The Umma party later quit the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) fighting the government.

Al-Ayam said a senior Umma party figure, Ali Hassan Taj al-Din, had handed Mahdi's letter to Bashir on Tuesday, adding that it dealt with efforts to "achieve accord and stability."

It quoted Taj al-Din as saying the message contained proposals for a "comprehensive political settlement through dialogue, far from fighting.. within the context of a Sudanese solution and a national agenda," but gave no details.

Al-Ayam said an Umma party committee headed by former Energy Minister Adam Madibu was making arrangements to receive Mahdi.

A party official said Umma forces led by Mahdi's eldest son, Abdel Rahman al-Mahdi, would arrive in the eastern town of Kassala from Eritrea on Thursday on their way to Khartoum.

However, the NDA on Wednesday reported intense fighting in eastern Sudan after an all-out government offensive. An NDA spokesman said thousands of troops from both sides were engaged in a pitched battle near Kassala, near the border with Eritrea.

"The government is trying to push NDA forces inside Eritrea. Our forces are resisting strongly and since yesterday they have made progress in repulsing the offensive," Yasir Arman said by telephone from the Eritrean capital, Asmara.

"It is the biggest offensive of its kind. The government is using heavy artillery and tanks and the regular army of the defence forces."

He said government troops were trying to drive out NDA forces from positions they occupy around Kassala town.

The NDA links northern Muslim opposition parties with the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the main southern rebel force which has fought successive Khartoum governments since 1983.

Aerial bombings of civilian and humanitarian targets in Sudan are occurring far more frequently than previously realized, according to new data compiled by humanitarian aid workers in Sudan.

Sudanese government military planes have bombed civilian and humanitarian targets in Sudan at least 113 times this year--including twice in the past four days--according to a review of bombing incidents by international humanitarian relief workers and local church organizations in southern Sudan.  The bombing data has been analyzed by the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR).

The aerial bombings have intensified this year.  At least 65 bombardments were reported during 1999; at least 40 bombings occurred during 1998.  Sudanese government planes have bombed civilian targets at least 240 times during the past four years.

The Sudanese government's deliberate aerial bombings kill innocent civilians, disrupt international relief efforts, and push families from their land.  The aerial attacks are serious violations of international humanitarian norms, yet international leaders routinely ignore the bombings and their terrifying effect on the local Sudanese population.

U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a rare statement about the bombings last month, noting that they are "egregious abuses" and that he is "deeply concerned."  Clinton stated that "the government of Sudan has bombed civilian and humanitarian locations more than 60 times during the past year." 

In fact, the new research by agencies in the field and compiled by USCR indicates that nearly twice that many bombings have occurred this year.  Even the new bombing compilation--113 aerial attacks in the first 10 months of this year--remains incomplete and undoubtedly fails to include significant numbers of bombardments that were never reported in remote populated areas of southern Sudan.

The new bombing information for 2000 is based on research by three sources: the UN's Operation Lifeline Sudan, a consortium of more than 30 international aid organizations; international relief groups that operate in areas inaccessible to OLS; and research by John Ashworth, an analyst of aid programs operated by local church groups in southern Sudan.

"In cases where a town is bombed for the first time...the people sometimes do not react quickly enough and casualties can be high....  People are traumatized and often live in a state of fear," the new report by Mr. Ashworth states.  "Many in the government of Sudan believe...that all southerners are the enemy....  Thus all are [seen as] legitimate targets.  A similar argument is used to justify the bombing of clearly-marked hospitals.  The government of Sudan says that these hospitals treat wounded soldiers.  Neither of these arguments has any basis in international human rights law."

The Ashworth report notes that information about the extent of the bombings was previously scarce because "only in the year 2000 has the bombing of civilians become a major advocacy issue."  The study states that "reports...of attacks on civilian targets were never collated and were still viewed as occasional random aberrations" until humanitarian relief groups began pressing for a stronger international response against the bombings.

The Ashworth report complains that attention tends to focus on bombing damage suffered by international aid programs more than on the suffering of local Sudanese bombing victims.  "In the month of July, over 250 bombs were dropped in at least 33 incidents," the report says.  "Only a handful of these targeted [relief agencies].  The rest were aimed at Sudanese civilians.  It would be nice to see the international community speak out as strongly on behalf of them as it does on behalf of a few aid workers."

The Ashworth report states that the Sudanese government has used aerial bombing as a tool of "ethnic cleansing" and to disrupt normal life in the south.  "The psychological and economic effects, as well as the deaths, injuries, and physical damage, are intended to reduce morale, weaken society, and make development more difficult for southerners..." the report says.

The Ashworth report states that many local church groups have called on the international community to counter the Sudanese government's aerial bombings by imposing a military "no-fly zone" in southern Sudan.  The report concludes that enforcing a no-fly zone is tactically doable and "should be pursued."

An estimated 2 million people have died of causes linked to Sudan's civil war during the past 17 years.  Some 4.4 million Sudanese have been forced from their homes---the largest uprooted population in the world.
 

As we went to press, Sudanese were still celebrating Khartoum's failure to get elected to the United Nations Security Council on 10 October. This is the same Council which imposed sanctions on the National Islamic Front government in 1996 for its role in the assassination attempt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the Organisation of African Unity summit in Ethiopia (AC Vol 41 No 13). The NIF (now officially the National Congress but still called NIF) badly wanted the seat, in the hope that it would give it international respectability to go with its new found oil wealth, which has been drawing European and Asian businesses to Khartoum. It contrived to get itself proposed by the OAU as Africa's candidate, won Arab League support and portrayed itself as a victim of United States' imperialism.
In Africa, only Uganda publicly opposed it, although many states said privately they would vote against Khartoum. In February, NIF founder Hassan Abdullah el Turabi had boasted that Khartoum had financed elections which were won by African Muslim presidents while the stupid people of the West were not aware. In the UN contest, Mauritius won in four rounds by 113 to 55. The Security Council will not after all be chaired by Sudan's UN Ambassador, El Fatih Mohamed Ahmed Erwa, a former security major who was in Juba in 1992 at the height of government atrocities against civilians.
The NlF works hard to get onto UN committees and includes the UN Human Rights Commission in its tally. Strategic too is its membership of the Arab League Interior Ministers working group on “unconventional crime”, as the League calls computer crime and online political opposition, terrorist or otherwise.

Manipulating Egypt

Even the NIF can't manipulate everything and Sudanese now speak more openly than since its 1989 coup. Events are moving faster than it can control but this does not mean it is about to collapse. It could, if the Yugoslavs have caught the Sudanese imagination enough, but the NIF is very different from the regimes of General Ibrahim Abboud or Gen. Ja'afar Mobamed Nimeiri, which civilians overthrew in 1964 and 1985. It will fight for the survival of its Islamist vision ? and itself.
The NIF knows change means the end of its Islamism and is sucking individual politicians into deals. However, the popular mood is not one of compromise and it is still feared the NIF may fight to the finish. Abroad,. it will accentuate the charm campaign of which the failed UNSC bid was a part. It will also try harder to appear as peacemaker, emphasising its talks with the Sudan People's Liberation Army under the auspices of the Inter Governmental Authority for Development and with the opposition National Democratic Alliance. Having used Egypt, opponent of southern self determination, as a stick to beat the NDA with, it has manoeuvred the NDA into agreeing to talk about a “comprehensive settlement” and hopes to vacuum up more of the Alliance's disparate pieces.
In Asmara this month, President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir met NDA Chairman Mohamed Osman el Mirghani, hoping both to tempt the Democratic Unionist Party chief on board (as it tempted his old Umma Party rival El Sadig Sideeg el Mahdi) and to demonstrate abroad, in time for the UN vote, that the NIF was keen to talk to the opposition. We hear Omer wanted to get Maulana on his own but the DUP boss insisted on President Issayas Afeworki's presence at their 50 minute meeting. (The Eritrean President's current flirtation with Khartoum included a three day visit just before the UN vote.)
The NIF seemed taken aback when Mohamed Osman brought along a high level NDA delegation, including such adamant political secularists as Brigadier Gen. Abdel Aziz Khalid Osman (Sudan Alliance Forces), Pagan Amon (SPLA) and urbane barrister Mansour Khalid, once Nimeiri's Foreign Minister and now representing the SPLA while staying close to the DUP. He helps to maintain the crucial dialogue between the SPLA boss, Colonel John Garang de Mabior, and the DUP, a link the NIF longs to break.
The NIF knows how to exploit the opposition's fear that Mohamed Osman. seen by many as just another, albeit milder, Islamist, will indeed “do a Sadig”. The DUP has not been vigorous in opposition over the past decade. Yet Sadig's deal with the government is very widely opposed, even in the Umma. We hear that attempts by party Secretarv General Omer Nur el Deim and El Sadig el Mahdi's cousin Mubarek Abdullahi el Fadl el Mahdi to seal full agreement quickly were challenged. with Darfur members threatening to leave the Umma. On 11 October, Omer Nur el Deim was physically attacked by Umma members.
The wily DUP chief can also spring surprises. as in October 1988, when he joined the peace process instigated by the very SPLA and secularist northerners who are now his comrades in the NDA. Under extreme pressure by them and the army, El Sadig was about to join this peace process, a move aborted by the NIF's 1989 coup. This is an extra reason for believing the NIF has no interest in peace but only (as one Sudan analyst put it this week) in “peace forum shopping” the same kind of shopping that led to October's Asmara meeting. Gen. Omer was surrounded by hardcore NIF leaders, including Ghazi Salah el Din el Atabani, Tayeb Ibrahim Mohamed Kheir (Tayeb “Sikha”) and Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein; the NDA detected little interest in dialogue, let alone negotiation.
The Sudanese assume that the meeting was mainly about impressing, UN states. It certainly did not impress the opposition's main (nearly sole) ally, the USA, which seemed surprised by it. The NDA also came under fire in private from oppositionists already sick of its inactivity. It argues that it needs to test NIF intentions; others say the NIF’s intentions have long been clear. Some NDA leaders claim they were pushed into a meeting by pressure from Egypt, which (with Libya) has launched its own peace initiative. designed to foil southern independence and therefore to block the IGAD talks overseen by Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.
Egypt has signed security and other agreements with the NIF and championed Khartoum's position with Arab, African and Western governments. The Sudanese see this as part of Cairo's usual misguided bid to “control” Sudan. It is hard to see how much it could pressure the NDA, short of threatening, specific politicians with their security files. Certainly most NDA leaders cling to a conviction that the alliance must hold together: with all its faults, it remains the voice of the opposition and therefore of the vast majority of Sudanese.
Meanwhile, the NIF has ratcheted up its anti NDA campaign. Leaders repeat that they won't renounce the “Islamic Project” (although they have signed up to the IGAD Declaration of Principles, which stipulates the separation of state and religion). The government' will not earn Allah's wrath to please America and will not let the banner of Islam fall', said President Omer last month. He also told a military gathering last November (before the disagreement with Turabi, see, Box) that “the call for reconciliation [with selected opponents] does net mean a return to before 30 June [the 1989 coup] and those who believe so are deluded”. Exponents of this view include Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Tahal Turabi and Yassin Omer el Imam, who said in February: “It is impossible to separate religion from the state and nobody can take such a decision.' The government 'will never relinquish religion in its policies”.
This dedication defines the NIF: Islamist to the core. Many northerners who once could not contemplate the idea of Southern secession now acknowledge that Sudan cannot remain united if there is an Islamist government in Khartoum. Even some who favoured a form of Islamic constitution now think that unrealistic in such a multicultural society. Umma people who have publicly endorsed Sadig's agreement with the government say privately that they strongly oppose reconciliation with or amnesty for the NIF. Other Northerners now say it may be too late to insist on national unity, but secularism must be pursued, net least because northern Sudan, too, contains people of many faiths and cultures and because no one should monopolise Islam. The NDA's new watchword is that unity should be “voluntary”.
The NIF has touted a referendum on “self?determination” for the south since 1989: it may talk more of this in the hope of stalling for a few more years. It talks of ceasefires and peace. Some European governments, horrified by the world's longest war and with their compaNIFs scrambling for oil related contracts, accept the NIF's claims. In turn, some non government outsiders claim that the opportunities for peace have never been better. This ignores the central issue: the NIF's refusal to contemplate a secular state.

One way dialogue

The NIF has expertly wrongfooted its opponents, depicting them as morally wrong (those challenging its peace overtures are “warmongers”) or factually wrong (as when the USA bombed El Shifa pharmaceutical factory in 1998). It welcomes “constructive engagement” and the European Union's idea of “critical dialogue”; this is designed to manipulate its foreign interlocutors (who, when the NIF falls, will nevertheless claim the credit). The NDA lacks the funds and cohesion to play the regime at its own game.
The NIF also insists it is fighting (against foreign interference, not southern desperation) for national unity. On 4 October, after 11 days of IGAD talks in Nairobi, the government team leader, Presidential Advisor Ahmed Ibrahim el Tahir, made it clear secession was not on the cards; he claimed the southern oilfields for the central government 'as in all political regimes in the world'. Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismael (“Mr. Smile”) recently declared the government was “determined to keep Sudan a united state”. This appeals to Arab governments, many of which Khartoum has helped persuade that they are more threatened by secularism, democracy and the dismantling of “an Arab state” than by Islamism or terrorism. This helped earn Arab League support in the Security Council bid and support for Omer against Turabi.
Omer constantly repeats his refusal to “relinquish the jihad”; on his return from Asmara, government aerial bombing North of Kassala killed at least ten civilians. On the ground, the government attacked on three axes on 5 October, said the NDA Unified Military Command, whose Commander is John Garang. Particular targets are the SAF strongholds around Hamesh Koreib, Kotoneb and Gadmayeb. The NIF, which bas long denied that the Northern opposition exists, is trying to exploit the reduction in help for the NDA from Ethiopia and Eritrea, now competing for Sudan's favours as part of their own murderous falling-out.
Omer boasts of the regime's production capacity at the Military Industrial Complex, built partly underground south of Khartoum “Yarmouk plant was built secretly... and is now producing from the bullet to the missile” (sometimes mistranslated as rocket propelled grenade), Al Sharq al Awsat quoted on 1 October. He added that “The arms are being used in the south with great success”, but that the (government could not reveal which countries had helped it achieve this. This is the factory of which Salah el Din Ahmed Mohame Idriss recently bought the “civilian half”, Saria Complex, which also makes equipment for the army (AC Vol 41 No 19).
The government calls its ceasefires not as a step to peace but to wrongfoot the SPLA, to impress the international community or interestingly, in response to US military movements ? for instance after US troops went to the Gulf in 1990 and to Somalia in 1992. The NIF takes greater military than political account of the USA: the 1998 Shifia bombing later proved a watershed in Khartoum's charm offensive. NIF leaders fled Khartoum after that bombing and now people are fleeing, again. Many security officials, trying to change sides, are approaching political parties and offering to “tell all”, we hear. The sense of change is not because the NIF is opening up, as it claims, but because it can't control its internal backlash against the quarrels in its ranks. It is one thing to hype up a quarrel to convince an international audience, another to persuade the rank and file that problems are not all that serious, particularly when Omer and Turabi have each accused the other of betraying the Islamic Project. The splits have taken on their own momentum.
The NIF has always carried the seeds of its own destruction. It will try to hang on, though. still controlling its multiple militias, security forces and army officers. It is impossible to know how many of these are die hard Islamists or how many of those will rise above their differences to make common cause. Islamist friend from abroad, still numerous in Sudan, may fight for a regime whose collapse would sorely damage the Islamist movement worldwide Turabi has said that the Yarmouk Complex was financed by the Islamist International.
******

Duel in Khartoum

The National Islamic Front still gets foreign mileage from the much hyped dispute between President Omer el Beshir and chief ideologue Hassan el Turabi. At home, the quarrel has taken on its own momentum and threatens the Islamist government. A quick survey of some key dates shows: no ideological gap between the two; an attempt to show Omer as traditional military ruler to Turabi's fanatic; the NIF hardcore is with Omer (in effect, their figurehead); a real power struggle (AC passim) was highly stage managed; and, unused to such subtleties, an angry factionalised NIF rank-and-file is causing real problems. Enter Turabi, elderly NIF “Emir”, and President Omer, public face of Turabi's middle-aged rival and deputy, Vice-President Ali Osman. [AC comments in square brackets]. Key events:
- December 1998: Senior NIF hardliners, including security supremo Nafi'e Ali Nafi'e and Bakri Hassan Salih, sign “Memo of Ten” against Turabi; all later side with Omer.
- 12 December 1999: Omer declares state of emergency; dissolves parliament.
- 13 Dec: Turabi condemns “a plain and clear coup d'état”; Egypt supports Omer's “efforts to restore Sudan's stability”.
- Libya's Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi backs “national reconciliation” in Sudan.
- 14 Dec: Omer meets Turabi's envoys but keeps emergency measures. 
- Turabi claims “public liberties and the just distribution of power and wealth” are threatened.
- 15 Dec: Omer says [first time] he had “always been a committed Islamist” and “seized power on orders from the Islamic movement”.
- Arab League Secretary General Esmat Abdel Meguid supports “the legitimate power in Sudan” naming Omer.
- Egyptian journalist Samir Ragab, close to Hosni Mubarak, says Turabi was behind “terrorist plots hatched against Egypt”.
- 18 Dec: Turabi admits [first time] the NIF masterminded the 1989 coup. “He [Omer] went to the Palace and I went to prison so that the Movement would not be exposed”.
- 19 Dec: Turabi warns of street violence but denies calling for it.
- 20 Dec: Omer calls for “a broad national front... we will discuss the form of their participation in power”.
- MPs ask for emergency to be lifted.
- 4 Jan 2000: Turabi says he has refused offer to chair party
- 6 Jan: NIF National Congress denies trying to expel Turabi as leader.
- Egypt endorses Omer against Turabi; so do other Arab states, apparently including Saudi Arabia. 
- 16 Jan: Turabi “fears” Omer “is heading for centralised and dictatorial rule”. 
- 24 Jan: NIF announces compromise. 
- Eritrea and Uganda report normalising relations with Sudan; Egypt and United Arab Emirates back Omer. 
- After mediation, Turabi says dispute is over. 
- New Leadership Council packed with veteran Islamists. 
- 25 Jan: Defence Minister, speaking in Cairo, says Turabi ousted.
- 8 March: Constitutional Court declares Omer's moves legal. 
- Turabi [who founded Court] calls it “lame duck”.
- 5 May: Omer accuses Turabi of inciting the army, security, police and mujahideen against the government.
- 7 May: Turabi accuses Omer of betraying the Islamist movement “at the hand of the agents of the West”.
- Information Minister Ghazi Salah el Din says Turabi free to form his own political party [he later sets up Popular National Congress and asked to join opposition National Democratic Alliance].
- 12 May: Turabi says Omer “has stretched his reach into the whole works of the state...” [something NIF did long before].
- 9 June: Police break up pro Turabi protest by NIF Youth Union. 
- 24 June: Turabi says “The Sudanese people have a way of dealing with military rule that suppresses freedom”.
- 26 June: Turabi stripped of party Secretary General's post. 
- 27 June: Turabi says he's forming breakaway party.
- 8 July: Turabi says, “The government intends to introduce secularism in response to foreign pressure from countries hostile to Islam”.
- 22 September: Government accuses Turabi's supporters of rioting [protests in many towns started by opposition. Turabi's people then joined in].
- 8 October: Student demonstrators fire on police: government accuses Turabi's people [noteworthy that Turabi's militias bear firearms].

The President of Sudan held his first talks on 26 September, with an opposition group formed eight years ago. President al-Bashir says he agreed in his talks in neighbouring Eritrea with the leader of the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA), that dialogue not war is the way to resolve their differences. "The exploratory meeting we had was successful", the President said after his talks with NDA chairman, Mohamed Osman al-Mirghani. The talks took place in Asmara, Eritrea. The Sudanese government and the NDA say they have agreed for the first time to hold direct negotiations aimed at ending the civil war. 

Sudanese parliamentary and presidential elections will be held simultaneously between 11 December and 20 December, the independent al-Sahafi al-Douli  newspaper quoted Sudan's General Elections Commission as announcing on 27  September. The paper said prospective candidates would register for the polls from 13-16 November, after voting registers had been prepared. A list of candidates would be published on 25 November ahead of official campaigning which is to begin on 28 November. Results will be announced on 24 December. 

An opposition party, led by Sudan's chief Islamic ideologue, Hassan al-Turabi, said dozens of its members were arrested after a newspaper editor was hit by a van earlier this week, a newspaper reported on 24 September. The independent al-Sahafa said Mohamed Taha, editor of al-Wifag daily, was struck by a van on 21 September as he was leaving the premises of the National Press Council in Khartoum. He was bruised and received treatment at Khartoum hospital, before being released the next day. "Dozens of members of the Popular Congress were detained in the early hours of 22 September," Yassin Omar al-Imman, secretary-general of the Popular National Congress, was quoted as saying in Sahafa. Imman denied that his party was involved in an attack on Taha. 

The Sudan Council of Churches (SCC), which includes the Catholic community, formally protested against the confiscation of part of the Al Sahafa Christian Cemetery of Khartoum by the government. In a letter addressed to the authorities, written on the 12th of September and released today, the SCC defines the recent confiscation and subsequent destruction of some repositories as “an insult, disrespect and a violation of our rights as Christians in the Sudan”. The motivations given for the confiscation, a permit obtained by the Department of Small Industries and Traders at Sahafa Residential Areas to construct workshops in the Cemetery in return for fencing and services, were not reasonable according to the SCC, which in the letter asked: “Who told you that the Cemetery needs fencing? Who told you that we need the type of services you have in mind? And what made you think of helping the Christians at the time if you do not have a hidden agenda?”. The Council suggested that authorities reach out a hand to Christians by leaving the Cemetery untouched. Recalling the recent episode in which authorities entered the Premises of the Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) in Omdurman, as “a lesson we do not want repeated”. The SCC concluded the letter stating “it is inhuman to continue disturbing us when alive or dead”. 

One man was killed in the air raid yesterday on the village of Narus (45km from the Kenyan capital, Torit diocese, South Sudan), as referred in the last few hours by our MISNA sources. The man was killed when at 9:45 local time a government Antonov plane dropped three bombs on the dispensary of the clinic of the Catholic diocese of Torit, destroying it completely. A nurse was wounded, but the patients are fortunately safe.
After this first incursion, the fighter plane dropped another 12 bombs on various residential areas near the provisional residence of the Bishop of Torit, Monsignor Paride Taban. The bombs destroyed 12 homes and burned down another six. Two women and two children were critically wounded. It seems that one of the children lost a leg. The destruction of the clinic of Narus, one of the most modern of the area, will take a serious toll on the local population. On hearing the news, Monsignor Taban and the other Sudanese Bishops, currently in Pesaro (Italy) for their annual plenary assembly, expressed profound disdain and strongly condemned the bombings and violence against the civil population by the government of Khartoum. Narus has been theatre to numerous air raids over the last few months. Four days ago the Ikotos refugee camp (South Sudan) was bombed: 2 people were critically injured, 26 huts were burned down and 56 damaged. Sudan is divided by an armed confrontation between the Arab-Muslim North and the Christian-Animist South.

Following the Sudan News Agency(SUNA) publishes text of the joint statement:-

"The Minister of External Relations of the Government of the Republic of the Sudan Dr. Mustafa Osman Ismail, and the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs for the Sudan Ambassador Tom Eric Vraalsen, issued the following joint Statement at the conclusion of the Special Envoy's visit to the Sudan from 19-23 August 2000.

During his visit to the Sudan, the Special Envoy met with the First Vice-President H.E Mr. Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, the Ministers of External Relations, Social Planning, and Information and Culture, the State Minister of Social Planning, and the President's Adviser for Peace.

The Special Envoy welcomed the reaffirmation from the Government of the Sudan of the importance it attaches to the aims and objectives of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), and its support through this humanitarian assistance programme to the protection of the people of the Sudan suffering from the ravages of war and instability. The Special Envoy welcomed in particular the unequivocal commitment of the Government to assisting the most vulnerable citizens of the Sudan, whether in Government or rebel-controlled areas, and to working closely with the UN in doing so.

The Special Envoy on behalf of the UN emphasized that organization's strong support for the humanitarian programme including OLS, and the UN commitmentto working with the Government for the benefit of the people of the Sudan. As partners in the planning and implementation of the programme, both the UN and the Government of the Sudan confirmed their adherence to the universal humanitarian principles of transparency, impartiality, neutrality and accountability.

The Government of the Sudan emphasised the importance it attaches to the establishment of a presence in Lokichikio northern Kenya. The Special Envoy stated that the United Nations had no objections to this proposal, and encouraged the Government to raise the matter directly with the Government of Kenya. As OLS is a joint operation, the Government sees a greater role for the UN to lead this issue.

The Special Envoy and the Government took particular note of the increasingly fragile situation in Unity State, where fighting among rebel groups has led to further displacement of people in large numbers, to areas controlled by the Government and elsewhere. It was agreed that a UN assessment mission be facilitated to selected locations in Unity State, to up-date the findings of a similar mission to the region in March 2000.

Both parties noted the need for an agreed formula which would combine the safety of delivery mechanisms including flights, with efficiency, timeliness, and flexibility for response.

The Government proposed that all relief supplies and services should be delivered from within the Sudan. The Special Envoy and the Government noted that cost-effectiveness should remain a primary consideration in the deliveries of such supplies and services into all areas of the Sudan. Optimum use would continue to be made of road, river and rail corridors, asallowed for under the provisions of the agreements and protocols reached under the auspices of the Technical Committee on Humanitarian Assistance (TCHA), at meetings in Rome (November 1998), Oslo (May 1999), and Geneva (December 1999).

The UN agreed on the desirability of continuous joint assessment of the humanitarian relief programme for the Sudan, to ensure the most effective use of scarce resources including funds from the donor community. Other means would be explored, outside the OLS context, to enhance the capacity of the Government to play a more effective role in humanitarian and rehabilitation activities.

The Special Envoy and the Government of the Sudan endorsed the on-going mutual objective of identifying those life-sustaining activities which would assist populations in moving from extreme vulnerability towards rehabilitation and recovery.

The Special Envoy noted with appreciation the reassurance of the Government of the Sudan in respect of the safety and security of UN staff and facilities, and the Government's affirmation of its primary responsibilities in ensuring the safest possible operational environment for humanitarian assistance personnel, including with requisite radio communications facilities."

BOMBING United Nations aircraft that are delivering emergency aid is a weird way to pursue a charm offensive. It led the UN's Operation Lifeline Sudan to suspend relief flights to hundreds of thousands of people affected by Sudan's civil war. Each flight had taken place with the knowledge and permission of the government, but it still sent its air force to attack the UN planes as they unloaded food and medicine at rebel-held airstrips in southern Sudan. Luckily, none was hit, and flights resumed a week later, on August 16th. But what did the government in Khartoum think it was doing?

Sudan has been remarkably successful in breaking out of diplomatic isolation. Not so long ago, it was shunned as a "rogue" state and surrounded by enemies. The UN imposed sanctions after Sudanese agents attempted to assassinate Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, in 1995. Accusing Sudan of supporting terrorism, America imposed further sanctions, and gave military help to its neighbours. Those neighbours then passed weapons to the Sudanese rebels. Most sub-Saharan African governments also supported the rebels, and most Arab governments spurned Sudan for backing Iraq in the Gulf war, let alone for preaching Islamic militancy. One of the world's poorest countries, it got no international aid; the IMF suspended its membership in 1993 for its failure to pay interest on its debts.

In the past two years, luck and diplomatic skill have enabled Sudan to wriggle out of this cage. Two of its most hostile neighbours, Eritrea and Ethiopia, went to war with each other. A third, Uganda, became embroiled in the war in Congo. All three have sought peace agreements with Sudan. The IMF lifted its suspension a few weeks ago. The American government, though still deeply divided about how to handle the country, is reopening its embassy in Khartoum. European countries, keen to take commercial advantage of Sudan's new oil industry, have beefed up their embassies and toned down their criticisms.

And just about everyone was delighted in December when Hassan Turabi, Sudan's leading Islamist and the virtual co-ruler with President Omar Bashir, was pushed out of government (see article). The Egyptian regime, endlessly nervous about Islamist militancy, was particularly enthusiastic, and is now trying to get the UN sanctions lifted, and to secure Sudan a seat on the Security Council later this year.

At home too the government seems to be doing better. Northern politicians who fled into exile in the early 1990s to escape repression from the military-Islamist government are being wooed to return. There is greater freedom for the press and possibly greater respect for human rights--though cynics say that this is only because the opposition has been thoroughly cowed. The economy, guided by strict monetary policy since 1996, is expected, on official figures, to see 7% growth this year. Even more important, says the government, God has blessed Sudan's cause with oil, which is expected to provide 22% of the budget this year.

Some outsiders, including some western diplomats, are caught up in this optimism. They argue that Sudan, without Mr Turabi but with an improved human-rights record and flush with oil money, is a country they can do business with. Up to a point, maybe. As ever, Sudanese politics are ambivalent and contradictory. The government may be smiling at the world, but it is no less Islamist than before. Mr Turabi was thrown out for personal, not ideological reasons. His former supporters still pack the cabinet. And while there may be fewer cases of detention and torture in the north, the government fiercely pursues its war against the south. Sudan may want a seat on the Security Council, but it still drops bombs on UN aircraft.

The contradictions spring from the power strucure that underlies all Sudan's politics. Power rests, as ever, in the hands of a few families in Khartoum. They come from three small ethnic groups in northern Sudan, and are connected to certain religious sects which, in modern times, have become political parties. Politics is a game of musical chairs between and within these families as they jostle for alliances--or betray one another.

Other forces, such as the army, business, trade unions and students, have to be accommodated, but politics is driven by these families. Other Sudanese, wherever they come from, are pawns to be given token representation in the government. The aim of the Khartoum clique is to retain power and keep Sudan together. Its tools are Islam and guns.

Nearly half a century ago, in 1955, the southerners took to arms agains the clique. Apart from a peaceful break between 1972 and 1983, they have continued to fight ever since. The war is usually described as a conflict between the Arabic-speaking, Muslim north and the black African, Christian or animist south. That describes the two sides well enough, but their religious and ethnic differences are not the main cause of the war. Basically, it is the south against Khartoum.

Until 1972 the south fought for independence. Since 1983 it has been fighting, officially at least, for inclusion. The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) was founded that year as a national movement to establish a unified, democratic and secular Sudan. That is still its policy--even though its leader, John Garang, and the vast majority of his followers are in fact southern separatists. They know that the Khartoum clique will never allow Islam to be taken out of politics, or democracy to be brought in.

Occasionally, however, the Khartoum politicians see the need to assuage the outside world. Last year, when Sudan was isolated, and too poor to carry on fighting, Mr Bashir was forced to accept the principle of southern self-determination. It was probably no more than a ploy to buy time and, according to one minister, Mr Bashir himself now thinks it was a mistake. But it has created a bizarre paradox: a national government committed to self-determination for its southern provinces is fighting a long, bitter war to keep the country together against a southern separatist rebellion committed to retaining national unity.

Such contradictions make nonsense of peace talks. On the ground, the war is getting ever nastier. And oil, far from providing an opportunity to make peace, is giving the war a new cause. The present production area is around Bentiu, the northernmost tip of the oilfields. But the main deposits lie farther south, in rebel-held territory. If the government is to exploit them, its army will have to drive the rebels out of their heartland.

At present the opposite is happening. The SPLA is approaching Bentiu, and claims that it will soon attack the town. The 40 or so Canadians working there could make valuable hostages. The SPLA and its allies have also made big gains elsewhere. In the west, they are besieging the garrison towns of Aweil and Wau. In the east, they have captured Hamesh Koreb, Sudan's chief centre of Islamic learning, and they are threatening the oil pipeline to the Red Sea coast.

The government in Khartoum has responded by bombing civilians, driving thousands from their homes. It is busy re-arming, press-ganging young men for the army and pouring out militaristic propaganda on its radio and television stations.

Beneath Sudan's sophisticated diplomacy lies a paranoia born of a belief that the southern rebellion is a plot by the rest of the world to break the country up. Ministers claim that UN relief flights from Kenya carry weapons to the SPLA, or at least provide cover for flights that do. Others point out that most of the aid goes to feed southerners who support the SPLA, and that the UN is thereby helping the rebel cause. They also guess, probably rightly, that the West will not jeopardise its new relations with Sudan for the sake of a few bombs dropped on the UN.

August 18, 2000

Ambassador Daniel Mboya
Special Envoy
IGAD Peace Process for Sudan
Nairobi

Dear Ambassador Mboya:

As you probably know, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has backed IGAD and the DOP since its 1995 "Conference on Fundamental Issues". In addition, for the past three years the NDA has insisted that any peace initiative must be coordinated with IGAD.

In view of this record of support, a meeting between the Comprehensive Political Settlement Committee (CPSC) of the NDA and the Secretariat appeared not only useful but also long over due. Indeed, its most regrettable that such a step proved to be impossible at present.

Please find enclosed a memorandum outlying few basic ideas that we had hoped to share with the Secretariat. Perhaps our meeting which did not materialize this time will be possible in the not too distant future.
Sincerely,

Gen. Abdel Rahman Saeed
Chairman of CPSC and
Deputy Chairman UMC, NDA.
--------------------------

National Democratic Alliance 
Comprehensive political settlement committee (CPSC) 

August 18, 2000

Mr. Silvio Mignano
Charge` d' Affairs a.i
Embassy of Italy - Nairobi

Dear Mr. Mignano,

I am writing to you in your capacity as Co-Chairman of the IPF in Nairobi to express the appreciation and gratitude of the Comprehensive Political Settlement Committee (CPSC) for having accorded us the opportunity to meet with your group.

I hope you found our discussion informative and useful; certainly we did. The Committee and indeed every member organization in the NDA value highly your political, diplomatic and material support to the peace process in Sudan. Unfortunately our meeting with the IGAD Secretariat was sabotaged by the enemies of peace. However, we now know that the international community through you will understand the peace message we brought and the lessons learnt from our attempt to be heard by IGAD. Enclosed is a copy of CPSC memorandum to the IGAD Secretariat.

Once again we thank the IPF for its valuable contribution to Sudan and we look forward to your continued support to the peace process.

Sincerely,

Gen. Abdel Rahman Saeed
Chairman of CPSC and
Deputy Chairman UMC, NDA.
------------------------------
National Democratic Alliance 
Comprehensive political settlement committee (CPSC) 

Memorandum to IGAD Secretariat

The basic political document of the NDA, the Asmara Declaration of 1995, "endorses the IGAD Declaration of Principles (DOP) as a viable basis for a just and lasting settlement". Since then the NDA has expressed its strong desire to join the IGAD peace process.

The Government of Sudan (GOS) acceptance of the DOP in 1997 created a situation where all parties to the conflict have endorsed the same document as the viable bases for a lasting settlement. However, IGAD process remained restricted to SPLM and GOS.

The NDA, by its very composition, has transcended the North-South dichotomy. Yet, GOS continues to treat the civil war as a North - South conflict.

In reality the civil war has engulfed the whole country in that GOS is being fought not only by the SPLM/A but also by the NDA in the North. Moreover, there is a sustained and rising popular resistance in Khartoum and other urban centers. Therefore the inclusion of the NDA in IGAD becomes necessary for the achievement of a comprehensive peace settlement.

The deadlock in IGAD process and its exclusive composition opened the way for other initiatives. In March and June 1997, the NDA resolved that:

a). - Multiple initiatives are not acceptable because they allow GOS to buy time and engage in endless forum shopping.

b). - Any new initiative must be coordinated with IGAD.

In late 1999, the NDA accepted the Joint Egyptian-Libyan Initiative (because of its inclusiveness) on condition that it is coordinated with IGAD. However, GOS has exploited the existence of the two initiatives (IGAD & the Joint E-L) to disguise its lack of seriousness in pursuing peace.

In March 2000 the NDA formed the CPSC to seek coordination and merger of the two initiatives and to put an end to the multi-tracks tactics of GOS and arrive at a single forum. The committee noted the unanimous endorsement of the IGAD - DOP by all parties to the conflict (SPLM in 1994, the NDA in 1995 and GOS in 1997). In other words, there exists at present a general consensus on the content and the agenda of a comprehensive settlement. We have proposals for coordination and merger to present to the Secretariat in due course.

Lasting peace, if at all possible, requires a comprehensive political settlement through negotiations between the NDA & GOS. This is the best means to speed up the peace process and ensure the unity of the country.

Nairobi: 10 August 2000.

Calgary, Alberta -- At first glance, fast-growing Talisman Energy Inc. ought to be celebrating.

It says this year's net income should be nearly four times last year's. All told, it expects to pump more crude oil and natural gas this year than any other company in Canada. It would thus finally snatch the crown that Imperial Oil Ltd., the Canadian subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corp., has held for more than half a century.

But there is a big catch: In many circles, Talisman has turned into a pariah. Influential church and humanitarian groups charge that oil-production earnings in Sudan are exacerbating a brutal civil war there and that Talisman's participation in the country's $1.4 billion Greater Nile Oil Project is part of the problem.

Talisman's share of the project's output accounts for only about 10% of the company's total production. But the uproar shows how an investment thousands of miles from home can create havoc for a company.

Largely because of the Sudan cloud, Talisman's stock languishes at only 10.3 times this year's earnings as projected by First Call/Thomson Financial, compared with Imperial's 12.9 times. Jonathan Wolff, an analyst with Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in New York, says Talisman's stock trades at a 6% discount to net asset value, compared with a 20% premium before its Sudan involvement. Talisman's critics have mounted a well-organized divestment campaign, and some institutions are dumping the stock.

Only two years ago, the Sudanese investment seemed a bargain. Talisman paid only $190 million in stock to acquire Arakis Energy Inc., a struggling Calgary oil concern whose major asset was its 25% stake in Greater Nile. The oil and pipeline project, whose other partners are Chinese, Malaysian and Sudanese state oil companies, started pumping crude last year, and recently achieved record production of 208,000 barrels a day.

But the U.S. bombed a suspected terrorist site in Sudan just days after Talisman announced its deal to buy Arakis. The raid drew international attention to Sudan's internal woes and reinforced its status as a "pariah state" in the eyes of U.S. policy makers and others.

Talisman's critics, including U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, insist that Sudan's Islamic government, based in the country's Arab-dominated northern capital, Khartoum, is using oil revenue, and Greater Nile's service roads and airstrip, to wage war against black Christian and animist rebels in southern Sudan. They say Sudan's government forcibly displaced southern villagers to make way for oil production and that Talisman is profiting from human suffering.

In November, Talisman hired public-relations firm Hill & Knowlton Inc., New York, to help pick up the pieces. But the task hasn't been easy.

In May, Natalina Yoll, a Sudanese refugee living in Calgary, told Talisman's annual meeting that she learned to hide in the bush when soldiers periodically raided her southern Sudanese village for crops, cattle and women. In tears, she said marauding government soldiers had tied up her ailing father and eldest brother, then thrust them into a hut with other men to be burned alive. She pleaded with Talisman: "Please stop supporting the genocide of my people."

James Buckee, the company's outspoken president and chief executive, told the meeting that Talisman aims to help impoverished southern Sudanese villagers by funding community programs and providing employment. The company also ensures that its operations and business practices comply with Canada's International Code of Ethics and tries to persuade Sudan's government and its Asian partners to respect human rights, the executive added. He said he strenuously objected to the Sudanese government's use of Greater Nile's airstrip and that the practice has stopped. To help villagers in its oil-concession area and create goodwill, Talisman has built everything from hospitals to watering ponds for cattle. But critics say it isn't enough.

To be sure, the furor over Sudan hasn't entirely blinded investors to the company's achievements elsewhere. Mr. Buckee points to Talisman's expanding natural-gas-drilling program in western Canada, its recent acquisition of more North Sea oil properties and its plans to expand a big natural-gas project in Indonesia.

Lately, the company has pumped record crude and natural-gas volumes from four continents. Mr. Buckee predicts Talisman's net income will reach a record 690 million Canadian dollars ($465 million) this year from C$177 million in 1999. Talisman's stock is up 40% since April, but because other oil shares have fared even better, Talisman is vulnerable to a takeover, some analysts say.

Pressure on the stock continues. Several U.S. institutions dumped it last year; there was further selling after an advisory panel to the Clinton administration recommended in May that Talisman should be banned from raising money in the U.S. Recently, some Canadian members of Parliament have promoted a proposal that would force Canada's national pension plan to sell its large position in Talisman.

So far, Parliament hasn't acted and the Canadian government has declined to impose trade sanctions on Sudan. But a January government report concluding that Sudan's new oil production is fueling armed conflict adds to Talisman's woes.

With steadily increasing ferocity, an air campaign of genocidal destruction is being mounted in the African nation of Sudan. Sudan's civil war--already the most destructive in a half-century--has taken on an even more savagely brutal quality. The civilian population of southern Sudan, primarily the Dinka and Nuer peoples, is almost daily the target of deliberate aerial bombardment by the illegitimate Khartoum regime in the north. 
Nominally Khartoum is the "government" of Sudan. What Khartoum really governs are the country's military resources--and the choices of civilian targets. Their favorites are undefended villages, schools, hospitals, herds of cattle, refugee centers and emergency feeding stations. One attack on a school in the Nuba region killed 14 young children as they began their English lesson book, "Read With Us." 
This air war is without question the cruelest and most destructive military effort by a recognized government anywhere in the world. In this case, not only is the government recognized, it is set to take a seat on the U.N. Security Council this fall. The same body that should even now be issuing the harshest condemnation of Khartoum's actions will instead be welcoming Sudan's envoy. 
It is important to recognize the terrible ambitions this envoy will represent. For what makes the government's air war on civilians so destructive is not just the number of people killed and maimed by the shrapnel-loaded bombs. The larger effect of these attacks is terror, and a dispersal of the civilian population. The consequence is much less efficient agricultural production in a land continually stalked by famine. 
This is all quite deliberate on Khartoum's part. Civilian destruction and dispersal are the means of ensuring that the opposition military forces in the south are denied food, or the aid of a cohesive society. It is a crude but terribly effective "weapon of mass destruction." 
To make sure of the genocidal efficacy of the bombing campaign, the Khartoum regime has also escalated its assaults on humanitarian efforts. It is attacking, with much greater frequency, the medical and food relief programs of those trying heroically to save the people of the south from disease and starvation. Many of the hospitals and clinics that have been targeted are run by the world's finest humanitarian organizations. 
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is but one example. Its clinic at Chelkou, in one of the most distressed regions of southern Sudan, was deliberately bombed on July 14. Reliable sources confirm that there was no military presence near Chelkou. Moreover, as part of its standard protocol, the ICRC had fully apprised the Khartoum regime of its presence in Chelkou and had secured permission. It was bombed anyway. 
On July 25, some 200 miles to the southeast in the village of Billing, the Khartoum regime again bombed the Red Cross. Pilots on the ground, who had an approved flight plan from Khartoum, heard the bombers coming and desperately spread out a large Red Cross flag on the ground. It did no good. The bombs fell anyway. 
This is the government that will soon be represented on the U.N. Security Council. It is a disgrace that it has not been criticized in the most direct and forceful way for its barbarous cruelty. It is beyond disgrace and moral conception that it will smugly take their place at the table of the world's governing body. 
Rumbek. Malakon. Akwem. Lui. Kauda. Names that for the most part don't show up even on detailed maps of Sudan. But all have become targets for a campaign of aerial terror that has as its clear goal creating dislocation and famine among the African populations of the south. The regime in Khartoum, which looks to the Arabic and Muslim world for political and cultural identity--as well as support--is conducting a war that is animated by viciously destructive racism. Its ultimate goal is to destroy as many people as possible who might constitute an obstacle to its domination of vast oil resources inconveniently located in the south. 
This is genocide. Congress declared as much more than a year ago: House Resolution 75, passed almost unanimously, speaks of the Khartoum regime's "deliberately and systematically committing genocide in southern Sudan." 
But if these words find no echo in resolute action, if they receive no amplification from our allies, they will be mere words. And if all Khartoum hears are words, we may be sure it will continue its savagely ambitious air war on civilians and humanitarian relief. 
The writer is a literary professor who has taken leave to write and do research on Sudan. 

W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 10 — The U.S. intelligence community fears new reports may indicate Iraq is financing construction of a Scud missile assembly plant in Sudan, enlisting North Korea’s help, ABCNEWS has learned. 

Sources say North Korean personnel would build and run the plant, with the assembled Scuds to be held in Sudan for Iraq’s future use — a prospect that worries U.S. officials.

The intelligence community has two separate reports that indicate such a deal is in the works. If they prove true, it raises significant concerns that Saddam Hussein is back in business trying to make Scud missiles, although outside Iraq. 

North Korea’s involvement indicates that nation is continuing to sponsor destabilizing missile proliferation deals around the world, even as it publicly claims it is giving up its own missile development program. U.S. intelligence estimates Iraq still has more than two dozen Scud missiles hidden in its desert since Operation Desert Storm 10 years ago. 
 Rumors of such a deal have been making the rounds among arms dealers and intelligence analysts for months now. But in the last several weeks, the United States has intercepted communications that lend credence to earlier initial reports from an agent for a foreign intelligence service. 
 Now, the CIA is trying to assess whether the deal has actually been finalized, or alternatively, whether one of the key foreign players is for some reason laying a false paper trail to implicate all three countries. 
Three Threats, In the Shadows
U.S. officials insist they have not come to a final decision on whether the information is true. But they also note it could be months before they really know for sure. The intelligence they do have in hand is preliminary — it would be some time before an actual factory could be built and missile construction begins. That’s the type of ironclad evidence U.S. intelligence officials would like to see.
But the matter, true or not, underscores just how little U.S. intelligence really knows about current developments in Iraq, North Korea and Sudan. All three countries are perceived as potential threats, but the inner workings of their governments are virtual mysteries to American intelligence. 
 Reports indicate Iraq may have paid as much as $400 million to build the plant in Sudan. The money would almost certainly come from the $1 billion a year Iraq earns by smuggling oil through the Persian Gulf. Rising world oil prices have recently increased smuggling — and so those revenues have sky rocketed. 
 Impoverished Sudan may get as much as half of the Iraqi money as a fee for letting the plant be built in their country. North Korea’s motivation also is to earn much needed hard currency. Their Scud missile exporting business remains the country’s top revenue-earner. 
Prior Sudanese Collaboration
Lending credibility to the reports of the deal is Sudan’s long history of arms dealings with Iraq. According to U.S. officials, Iraq has used Sudan virtually as an offshore piece of real estate to keep its weapons of mass destruction out of the sight of U.N. weapons inspectors in recent years, and away from potential Allied bombing. 

 Indeed, U.S. officials had claimed that the Sudanese al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant struck by U.S. Tomahawk missiles in 1998 had ties not only to reputed terrorist Osama bin Laden but to Baghdad as well. The plant’s owner has since filed suit against the United States for damages, claiming no such ties existed. 
According to a 1998 report by a Congressional task force on terrorism, Iraq originally transferred some of its Scud missiles to Sudan in 1990 and 1991. In the years since Operation Desert Storm, delegations of Iraqi officials and weapons designers with expertise in nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have frequently traveled to Khartoum. 

Less clear is why Iraq would seek a relationship with North Korea. Historically, Iraq’s Scud program has been backed by Russia. However, in recent years the United States has put considerable pressure on Russia to end its relationship with Baghdad — which, officials speculate, could have forced Saddam Hussein to look to North Korea.

Speaking at a ceremony to see off about 250 university students who volunteered to go and fight the rebels, the sources quoted Beshir as saying his government "will not earn Allah's wrath to please America and will not let the banner of Islam fall down."

The Islamist students apparently volunteered to fight in southern Sudan in response to an appeal by Beshir last month for mobilisation, in view of the escalating conflict.

The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) is reportedly expanding its military activities, especially in Bahr el-Ghazal region, wresting control of a number of towns from the government.

"The Sudan has sacrificed too many lives to abandon its Islamic orientation and to relinquish the jihad just to earn the satisfaction of others," said Beshir, according to sources, as he bade farewell to the 'mujahideen' unit code-named Ansar Allah (Supporters of God).

"Thousands of students have been martyred and now we are sending the most beloved ones amongst us for victory or martyrdom" Khartoum students union secretary general Mussa Ibrahim was quoted as saying at the ceremony.

He said the students were not being driven into the jihad by any political motives but, rather "by their faith in Allah".

HE SITS, dressed in white, his legs tucked up beneath him but his foot fluttering like a hyperactive teenager's. He talks fluently, flitting from subject to subject; sentences tail off in a rhetorical question or a giggle. He loves stories that put down Europe or America, or show up double standards.
A year ago, Hassan Turabi looked like the uncrowned king of Sudan. His Islamist fervour, his sharp lawyer's mind and his ability to call out the street struck fear into other political parties, Sudan's neighbours and the Americans. His party, the National Islamic Front, gave him the clout to be included in the government of his brother-in-law, Sadiq el-Mahdi, in 1988. When that government was overthrown a year later, Mr Turabi worked his way into the military government headed by General Omar Bashir. The army provided the muscle. Mr Turabi's charismatic leadership provided the ideology and politics.
Fierce repression drove other political parties underground or into exile, until Mr Turabi felt sufficiently powerful to ease up, and allow a restricted form of democracy, including a national parliament. His party machine filled the latter with his followers, and he became its speaker. But last year, when the parliament insisted on control of the budget, and the appointment of the powerful provincial governors, President Bashir felt threatened. At the same time Mr Turabi's acolytes were growing frustrated by his dictatorial style. A generation younger (he is 68), they wanted their chance. They also saw that so long as Mr Turabi was the face of the regime, Sudan would be an outcast.
Last December, Mr Bashir struck, closing down parliament and declaring a state of emergency. Mr Turabi denounced him, calling on ministers to resign. Only three did; close followers betrayed him.
But Mr Turabi is left free to speak, even to foreign reporters. Despite his carefree, philosophical chat, he is clearly seething. "A great pity what has happened to Sudan," he sighs. He goes through a list of ministers, many of them former followers: "A time-server, a pathetic figure, a mere clerk, ambitious, weak." Then, intriguingly: "Ah, he is still close to us."
The government has decided to allow him free rein in the hope that if he speaks out, but no one acts, he will become irrelevant. If he is locked up, he will become a martyr. Mr Bashir hopes to woo the northern party leaders from exile, bringing them into a coalition that can defeat Mr Turabi in an election. He would then forge a united north to fight off the southern rebels.
It is a high-risk strategy. Although the government took over Mr Turabi's party, renamed the National Congress, and the companies that finance it, the party organisers have gone with Mr Turabi and joined his new Popular National Congress. There is also a danger that Mr el-Mahdi, the Umma leader, may when he returns join Mr Turabi, rather than Mr Bashir. And Mr Turabi can still stir a crowd, particularly students, the weathervanes of politics.
In the meantime Mr Turabi's talk is peppered with new words and phrases: democracy, tolerance, rights of women, free and fair elections, liberalisation. The man who set up Islamic militias to fight a jihad in the south is now telling young people not to give up their lives for oil. It is not fun being out of power, but Mr Turabi has quickly learnt the language of opposition.

Omar Bashir, Sudan's president, is pursuing a charm offensive. Tell that to the southerners, or indeed to the United Nations

BOMBING United Nations aircraft that are delivering emergency aid is a weird way to pursue a charm offensive. It led the UN's Operation Lifeline Sudan to suspend relief flights to hundreds of thousands of people affected by Sudan's civil war. Each flight had taken place with the knowledge and permission of the government, but it still sent its air force to attack the UN planes as they unloaded food and medicine at rebel-held airstrips in southern Sudan. Luckily, none was hit, and flights resumed a week later, on August 16th. But what did the government in Khartoum think it was doing?

Sudan has been remarkably successful in breaking out of diplomatic isolation. Not so long ago, it was shunned as a "rogue" state and surrounded by enemies. The UN imposed sanctions after Sudanese agents attempted to assassinate Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, in 1995. Accusing Sudan of supporting terrorism, America imposed further sanctions, and gave military help to its neighbours. Those neighbours then passed weapons to the Sudanese rebels. Most sub-Saharan African governments also supported the rebels, and most Arab governments spurned Sudan for backing Iraq in the Gulf war, let alone for preaching Islamic militancy. One of the world's poorest countries, it got no international aid; the IMF suspended its membership in 1993 for its failure to pay interest on its debts.

In the past two years, luck and diplomatic skill have enabled Sudan to wriggle out of this cage. Two of its most hostile neighbours, Eritrea and Ethiopia, went to war with each other. A third, Uganda, became embroiled in the war in Congo. All three have sought peace agreements with Sudan. The IMF lifted its suspension a few weeks ago. The American government, though still deeply divided about how to handle the country, is reopening its embassy in Khartoum. European countries, keen to take commercial advantage of Sudan's new oil industry, have beefed up their embassies and toned down their criticisms.

And just about everyone was delighted in December when Hassan Turabi, Sudan's leading Islamist and the virtual co-ruler with President Omar Bashir, was pushed out of government (see article). The Egyptian regime, endlessly nervous about Islamist militancy, was particularly enthusiastic, and is now trying to get the UN sanctions lifted, and to secure Sudan a seat on the Security Council later this year.

At home too the government seems to be doing better. Northern politicians who fled into exile in the early 1990s to escape repression from the military-Islamist government are being wooed to return. There is greater freedom for the press and possibly greater respect for human rights--though cynics say that this is only because the opposition has been thoroughly cowed. The economy, guided by strict monetary policy since 1996, is expected, on official figures, to see 7% growth this year. Even more important, says the government, God has blessed Sudan's cause with oil, which is expected to provide 22% of the budget this year.

Some outsiders, including some western diplomats, are caught up in this optimism. They argue that Sudan, without Mr Turabi but with an improved human-rights record and flush with oil money, is a country they can do business with. Up to a point, maybe. As ever, Sudanese politics are ambivalent and contradictory. The government may be smiling at the world, but it is no less Islamist than before. Mr Turabi was thrown out for personal, not ideological reasons. His former supporters still pack the cabinet. And while there may be fewer cases of detention and torture in the north, the government fiercely pursues its war against the south. Sudan may want a seat on the Security Council, but it still drops bombs on UN aircraft.

The contradictions spring from the power strucure that underlies all Sudan's politics. Power rests, as ever, in the hands of a few families in Khartoum. They come from three small ethnic groups in northern Sudan, and are connected to certain religious sects which, in modern times, have become political parties. Politics is a game of musical chairs between and within these families as they jostle for alliances--or betray one another.

Other forces, such as the army, business, trade unions and students, have to be accommodated, but politics is driven by these families. Other Sudanese, wherever they come from, are pawns to be given token representation in the government. The aim of the Khartoum clique is to retain power and keep Sudan together. Its tools are Islam and guns.

Nearly half a century ago, in 1955, the southerners took to arms agains the clique. Apart from a peaceful break between 1972 and 1983, they have continued to fight ever since. The war is usually described as a conflict between the Arabic-speaking, Muslim north and the black African, Christian or animist south. That describes the two sides well enough, but their religious and ethnic differences are not the main cause of the war. Basically, it is the south against Khartoum.

Until 1972 the south fought for independence. Since 1983 it has been fighting, officially at least, for inclusion. The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) was founded that year as a national movement to establish a unified, democratic and secular Sudan. That is still its policy--even though its leader, John Garang, and the vast majority of his followers are in fact southern separatists. They know that the Khartoum clique will never allow Islam to be taken out of politics, or democracy to be brought in.

Occasionally, however, the Khartoum politicians see the need to assuage the outside world. Last year, when Sudan was isolated, and too poor to carry on fighting, Mr Bashir was forced to accept the principle of southern self-determination. It was probably no more than a ploy to buy time and, according to one minister, Mr Bashir himself now thinks it was a mistake. But it has created a bizarre paradox: a national government committed to self-determination for its southern provinces is fighting a long, bitter war to keep the country together against a southern separatist rebellion committed to retaining national unity.

Such contradictions make nonsense of peace talks. On the ground, the war is getting ever nastier. And oil, far from providing an opportunity to make peace, is giving the war a new cause. The present production area is around Bentiu, the northernmost tip of the oilfields. But the main deposits lie farther south, in rebel-held territory. If the government is to exploit them, its army will have to drive the rebels out of their heartland.

At present the opposite is happening. The SPLA is approaching Bentiu, and claims that it will soon attack the town. The 40 or so Canadians working there could make valuable hostages. The SPLA and its allies have also made big gains elsewhere. In the west, they are besieging the garrison towns of Aweil and Wau. In the east, they have captured Hamesh Koreb, Sudan's chief centre of Islamic learning, and they are threatening the oil pipeline to the Red Sea coast.

The government in Khartoum has responded by bombing civilians, driving thousands from their homes. It is busy re-arming, press-ganging young men for the army and pouring out militaristic propaganda on its radio and television stations.

Beneath Sudan's sophisticated diplomacy lies a paranoia born of a belief that the southern rebellion is a plot by the rest of the world to break the country up. Ministers claim that UN relief flights from Kenya carry weapons to the SPLA, or at least provide cover for flights that do. Others point out that most of the aid goes to feed southerners who support the SPLA, and that the UN is thereby helping the rebel cause. They also guess, probably rightly, that the West will not jeopardise its new relations with Sudan for the sake of a few bombs dropped on the UN.

Calgary, Alberta -- At first glance, fast-growing Talisman Energy Inc. ought to be celebrating.

It says this year's net income should be nearly four times last year's. All told, it expects to pump more crude oil and natural gas this year than any other company in Canada. It would thus finally snatch the crown that Imperial Oil Ltd., the Canadian subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corp., has held for more than half a century.

But there is a big catch: In many circles, Talisman has turned into a pariah. Influential church and humanitarian groups charge that oil-production earnings in Sudan are exacerbating a brutal civil war there and that Talisman's participation in the country's $1.4 billion Greater Nile Oil Project is part of the problem.

Talisman's share of the project's output accounts for only about 10% of the company's total production. But the uproar shows how an investment thousands of miles from home can create havoc for a company.

Largely because of the Sudan cloud, Talisman's stock languishes at only 10.3 times this year's earnings as projected by First Call/Thomson Financial, compared with Imperial's 12.9 times. Jonathan Wolff, an analyst with Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in New York, says Talisman's stock trades at a 6% discount to net asset value, compared with a 20% premium before its Sudan involvement. Talisman's critics have mounted a well-organized divestment campaign, and some institutions are dumping the stock.

Only two years ago, the Sudanese investment seemed a bargain. Talisman paid only $190 million in stock to acquire Arakis Energy Inc., a struggling Calgary oil concern whose major asset was its 25% stake in Greater Nile. The oil and pipeline project, whose other partners are Chinese, Malaysian and Sudanese state oil companies, started pumping crude last year, and recently achieved record production of 208,000 barrels a day.

But the U.S. bombed a suspected terrorist site in Sudan just days after Talisman announced its deal to buy Arakis. The raid drew international attention to Sudan's internal woes and reinforced its status as a "pariah state" in the eyes of U.S. policy makers and others.

Talisman's critics, including U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, insist that Sudan's Islamic government, based in the country's Arab-dominated northern capital, Khartoum, is using oil revenue, and Greater Nile's service roads and airstrip, to wage war against black Christian and animist rebels in southern Sudan. They say Sudan's government forcibly displaced southern villagers to make way for oil production and that Talisman is profiting from human suffering.

In November, Talisman hired public-relations firm Hill & Knowlton Inc., New York, to help pick up the pieces. But the task hasn't been easy.

In May, Natalina Yoll, a Sudanese refugee living in Calgary, told Talisman's annual meeting that she learned to hide in the bush when soldiers periodically raided her southern Sudanese village for crops, cattle and women. In tears, she said marauding government soldiers had tied up her ailing father and eldest brother, then thrust them into a hut with other men to be burned alive. She pleaded with Talisman: "Please stop supporting the genocide of my people."

James Buckee, the company's outspoken president and chief executive, told the meeting that Talisman aims to help impoverished southern Sudanese villagers by funding community programs and providing employment. The company also ensures that its operations and business practices comply with Canada's International Code of Ethics and tries to persuade Sudan's government and its Asian partners to respect human rights, the executive added. He said he strenuously objected to the Sudanese government's use of Greater Nile's airstrip and that the practice has stopped. To help villagers in its oil-concession area and create goodwill, Talisman has built everything from hospitals to watering ponds for cattle. But critics say it isn't enough.

To be sure, the furor over Sudan hasn't entirely blinded investors to the company's achievements elsewhere. Mr. Buckee points to Talisman's expanding natural-gas-drilling program in western Canada, its recent acquisition of more North Sea oil properties and its plans to expand a big natural-gas project in Indonesia.

Lately, the company has pumped record crude and natural-gas volumes from four continents. Mr. Buckee predicts Talisman's net income will reach a record 690 million Canadian dollars ($465 million) this year from C$177 million in 1999. Talisman's stock is up 40% since April, but because other oil shares have fared even better, Talisman is vulnerable to a takeover, some analysts say.

Pressure on the stock continues. Several U.S. institutions dumped it last year; there was further selling after an advisory panel to the Clinton administration recommended in May that Talisman should be banned from raising money in the U.S. Recently, some Canadian members of Parliament have promoted a proposal that would force Canada's national pension plan to sell its large position in Talisman.

So far, Parliament hasn't acted and the Canadian government has declined to impose trade sanctions on Sudan. But a January government report concluding that Sudan's new oil production is fueling armed conflict adds to Talisman's woes.

UN humanitarian relief flights to southern Sudan resumed yesterday after an eight-day suspension, but serious concerns remain about whether the UN's Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) can survive much longer in the face of the Sudanese government's persistent strategy of deliberate aerial bombings, aid blockages, bureaucratic restrictions, and broken promises. 
OLS is a special aid program to Sudan involving three dozen UN and private international aid agencies.  Although aid deliveries have resumed, U.S. and UN policy makers should not rest easy.  The viability of OLS remains in serious jeopardy. 
Yesterday's welcomed resumption of aid flights does not change the fact that the Sudanese government still denies OLS access to many locations in dire need, particularly in Western Upper Nile Province where new population displacement is heaviest.  Sudanese authorities continue to suggest that some international aid agencies are virtual enemies of the state and that an essential OLS base camp in northwest Kenya should be closed.  Sudanese officials have signaled a desire to impose new and presumably tighter clearance procedures on each OLS relief flight. 
The eight-day suspension of OLS aid flights, forced by nearly 40 aerial bombings of civilian and humanitarian targets by Sudanese government planes during a five-week period-including patently deliberate bombings of international relief planes while on the ground-was merely the latest tactic in the Sudanese government's arsenal to disrupt international efforts to deliver food to needy populations in southern Sudan.  The government's outright ban on all relief flights to a stricken province in 1998 triggered a famine that killed tens of thousands. 
It is noteworthy that the Sudanese government's attacks and harassment of OLS efforts this year have occurred in the middle of southern Sudan's annual "hunger gap" period, when local farmers' food stocks are lowest prior to harvests.  Throughout the 11-year history of OLS, Sudanese authorities have barred international aid to key locations at critical moments. 
The UN resumed aid flights yesterday based on assurances from the Sudanese government that bombings of relief operations will cease. 
"The resumption of aid flights is welcomed, but let's not kid ourselves," said Roger Winter, executive director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR).  "What good are the Sudanese government's promises when OLS flights previously approved by authorities in Khartoum were bombed; when flights previously cleared by Khartoum have been blocked; and when Khartoum's explicit promise on April 19 to end all bombings of humanitarian targets only led to intensified bombings of those same targets in July and early August?" 
It is only a matter of time before Sudanese officials take another round of steps to disrupt or irreparably cripple OLS.  UN and U.S. officials should be prepared to declare the entirety of southern Sudan a "special humanitarian zone" with automatic rights of access for all life-saving humanitarian efforts. 
"As long as the government of Sudan maintains ultimate control over OLS relief operations," Winter warned, "Sudanese people who could have been saved will be allowed to die, and OLS will always be one day away from complete collapse." 
An estimated 2 million people have died in Sudan's civil war since 1983.  More than 4 million Sudanese are internally displaced, and some 300,000 are refugees in neighboring countries.  Sudan is currently producing more uprooted people than any other country on earth.  One of every nine uprooted people worldwide is Sudanese. 

Analysis 
On June 28, OXFAM, an international relief organization, confirmed that it would resume operations in rebel-held areas of southern Sudan. In early March, several aid agencies, including OXFAM, had suspended operations after refusing to sign an agreement giving the rebels control and oversight over all relief operations. Only the United Nations and some private agencies continued to supply food. 
Now, several more agencies have conceded to the rebel demands and will sign the agreement; international relief agencies are effectively acting as if the rebels are the legal local government. Aside from the symbolism, the flow of aid will practically benefit the rebels; they will oversee it and charge organizations a fee for operating in the south. On the face of the matter, these developments would seem to fuel the war. 
As a result, it seems odd that President Omar Bashir has chosen to remain silent about the rebels’ new policy. Bashir’s silence, however, may be in line with the government’s newly conciliatory policy towards the rebels. On the battlefield, fighting continues but neither side is now attacking the revenues of the enemy; the government is letting aid resume, and the rebels in the south have only staged two attacks on a major oil pipeline since March 1999. 
The southern-based rebel group, the SPLA/M, insisted on controlling aid agencies in order to gain some oversight over their efforts and the flow of aid. Approximately 30 non-governmental organizations have been providing relief in the south. By essentially acting as a local government, the rebels will gain strength. First, the rebels charge a fee for operating in their area. Second, they get to use the NGO's transport and equipment, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 
In fact, the SPLA/M has already created a quasi-governmental body to work with the relief agencies, the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA). Working in tandem with relief agencies will bolster the rebels’ support among the local populace.
The new legal distinction is important. The rebels have always used stolen relief aid to feed soldiers and fuel the war. 
At this juncture in the war, the government finds itself in a position of relative weakness. In addition to the SPLA/M in the south, government troops are fighting the Umma party in the north and several minor insurgent groups. In Khartoum, the president himself is facing a continuing, if albeit minor, challenge from his former mentor and advisor, Hassan Turabi. 
The fundamentalist Islamic leader recently formed his own political party after being dismissed from the leadership of Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party. Although Bashir has managed to effectively undercut Turabi’s power base, the Islamic leader continues to challenge his former protégé. In a country where more than 70 percent of Sudan’s 34 million population adhere to Islam, Turabi continues to be a political force. 
The government is also worried about protecting its most important industry: oil. A 930-mile pipeline, inaugurated in May 1999 carries oil from Sudan’s southern oil fields to the Red Sea Port Sudan. While the government’s military provides security for the pumping stations and the pipeline, the pipeline remains a vulnerable target.
The continued development of the country’s oil industry relies, at least in part, upon the rebels’ cooperation. Facing a history of conflict and animosity, the president may well see the benefits of cutting deals instead of trying to fight. 

Gary Kenny 
c/o Omer M. Shurkian, Chairman Nuba Mountains Solidarity Abroad

Sudan: Nuba face destruction 

Johannesburg, South Africa. May 8 2000

Julie Flint makes a terrifying 250km trek through Sudan's front line where troops are raping and killing an ancient tribe and destroying their crops. Here, hunger is now a weapon of war and scorched earth tactics an engine of annihilation.

In a few weeks, barring miracles, the children will begin to die - if not from hunger, then from disease. The skin on their upper arms is already falling into folds as hunger kicks in and the pounds begin to melt away.

Most families are living in the open, without clothes, blankets or clean water. The mud hut that calls itself a hospital contains nothing but flies. The young man in charge, a farmer turned health worker, says 200 children and 50 old people are already in urgent need of medical care. 
He is treating them with tree leaves and bark, but he needs anti-malarial and antibiotics.

He shrugs. "I am doing my best. But I know it's nothing."

Less than a year after international pressure forced Sudan's Islamist government to allow United Nations relief into the Nuba mountains for the first time in more than a decade, Khartoum is attempting to put the Nuba beyond the reach of relief by cutting off all access to the mountains and starving civilians out of areas controlled by the rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

In the past two months, moving in whenever UN teams move out, government forces have captured two of the three rough airstrips that make relief operations possible and have ounted a surprise assault on some of the Nuba's most productive land around the village of Tabanya.

The UN's silence has been almost as shocking to the Nuba as the attack on Tabanya that displaced 15 000 people and propelled them towards Kadoro - a mountain village of 150 families that has shared its own meagre supplies for more than a month and now has nothing more to offer. 

"The UN's own first mission to the mountains was heavily shelled - but it has never said a word of criticism of the government," said Walid Hamed, assistant to rebel commander Yusuf Kuwa.

"When it comes to the government, the UN is on its knees. All we are asking is equal treatment so people can decide freely whether they stay in SPLA areas or go to the government. But the government has the upper hand and the UN system is keeping silent."

The Nuba are now in their thirteenth year of struggle for a democratic, secular state in which the country's African south would be the equal of its Arab north. Since the fundamentalist generals of the National Islamic Front came to power in 1989, an attempt to defeat the Nuba rebellion has grown into a scorched-earth holy war of annihilation against a people whose tradition of political and religious tolerance threatens the Front's whole project of a conformist Islamic extremism.

Today, hundreds of thousands of Nuba starved out of the mountains are imprisoned in 'peace villages' where men are armed and compelled to fight against fellow Nuba; where children are separated from their parents and conscripted into Islamic militias; where women are raped to dilute Nuba ethnicity.

Nuba who refuse to leave SPLA-controlled areas are being driven off the fertile plains and into the mountains where survival is a daily struggle. Even the UN acknowledges that women venturing down to the government-controlled plains to fetch water and mangoes are subjected to rape "often of the most horrendous kind".

As evidence of human rights abuses piles up, the government promises relief but fights with the oldest, and cruellest, weapon in its arsenal hunger.

Rahila Kuku, a mother of five, was put to work gathering in the sorghum that was thick in the fields surrounding Tabanyaat the time of the attack on the village on 17 March. She says hundreds of prisoners, working at gunpoint, stripped the sorghum fields bare and loaded every grain on to trucks bound for government garrisons in other parts of the mountains.

Rahila escaped to Kadoro after being raped repeatedly over a month, but at the hospital has found only words of comfort - not the painkillers she wants. She says her body still hurts from the beatings she received and her breasts are sore. She suspects she is pregnant. If she is, she says, she will not harm the child. "It's not his fault."

Phoebe Tutu fled to Kadoro with nine children and a jerrycan when the first government troops attacked Tabanya at 4am. Forced off Kadoro mountain by hunger a little more than a week ago, she joined a group of 30 women foraging for food on the edge of government-controlled areas a four-hour walk away. The women were ambushed and four died. Phoebe was shot and wounded. Reduced to one small plate of sorghum a day, all her children are suffering from diarrhoea.

The government's capture of Toro airstrip near Tabanya has put the displaced almost beyond the reach of help. The nearest airstrip is now 75miles away - a three-day trek up granite mountains and down valleys where water holes are drying up and government troops lay ambushes for defenceless civilians.

On Easter Sunday, as the UN continued to turn a blind eye to the disaster unfolding around Tabanya five weeks after its fall, the first planeload of 4,3 tons of relief organised by the British charity Christian Aid touched down at an airstrip in the east of the mountains. It was the start of a 10-day round trip that required five camels, 250 porters and an armed guard of almost 100 men to be brought to a successful conclusion.

"At one stroke, the attack on Tabanya has cut people off from their harvest and also from easy access from outside," said Christian Aid's Paul Savage. "It now takes a huge logistical effort across insecure and dangerous areas to bring the smallest amount of help to the displaced. This is a planned and purposeful undermining of the Nuba's resilience and capacity to cope and exist."

The toughest and most dangerous, part of the journey was the first leg - a 10-hour, all-night walk across a valley disputed by the government and the SPLA. Scouts preceded us and flanked us and in the middle of the night ordered a sudden change of route. Without warning, we left the rough track we had been following and took to the bush - looping northwards between thorn bushes and sweet-smelling acacia trees until we encountered a second, parallel track shortly before dawn.

Back in the safety of the mountains by the time the sun rose, we learnt that one of our radio messages had been intercepted and an ambush prepared for us by soldiers who the previous week had captured, and raped, two Nuba women.

The same soldiers climbed that same mountain the following week, under cover of darkness, and killed a Nuba farmer as he slept - the twenty-fourth civilian killed in random hit-and-run raids in the past month, according to Daoud Siddiq, head of a Nuba human rights team working in SPLA-controlled areas.

The second leg of our journey skirted the foothills of the Achiron mountains where government soldiers had kidnapped and then killed the headmaster of a local school a few weeks earlier. Shortly before reaching Dabker, the largest market in the region, our path was obliterated by a chain of bomb craters. The local SPLA commander, Ibrahim Mulfa, said government bombers went into action on 15 April exactly two hours after a UN team flew out of the mountains at the end of a campaign of polio vaccinations.

"No one was hurt," he said, "but a pig went down into one of the craters and died. We believe the government is using chemical weapons."

SPLA officials have been obsessed with the idea of chemical weapons ever since President Clinton ordered the bombing of the al-Shifa factory in Khartoum in 1998, claiming it was part of a government chemical weapons programme. Nuba civilians know better. It is they who are being attacked, not the SPLA.

Zakariah Suleiman, an elderly farmer, was among those captured in the Tabanya offensive. For three days he was forced to work for the government forces.

"They burned all the far sorghum and collected all the near sorghum," he said. "They sent us out every day in large groups protected by soldiers. This is their weapon against us: hunger. They have taken everything from Tabanya - sorghum, beans, cowpeas and maize. Nothing is left."

Like Rahila Kuku, Suleiman succeeded in escaping from Tabanya and fled to Kadoro - fully aware that he was running from hunger to hunger.

"I'm happy to be here whether I find food or not," he said. "I have left everything behind, but I don't care if I'm naked or clothed. Here I can go wherever I want to without asking for permission. It's not like over there, in Tabanya, where you are kept under guard and have to ask for permission even to urinate. I may die of hunger here, but I'll die free not penned in like an animal."

khalid I Kodi <kodi@bc.edu>Boston College
c/o Omer M. Shurkian, Nuba Mountains Solidarity abroad, London

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Where does the word Nuba come from?

The term Nuba is linked with an ancient Egyptian word, nub, meaning ‘gold’.  It is possible that the ancient Egyptians, being aware that there were gold mines in this country, applied the name ‘nub’ to the whole of the region South of Aswan.  The Copts, the descendants of ancient Egyptians, gave the name ‘Anouba’ (Anobades) to the people dwelling South of Aswan.  Then the Arabs called them ‘an-Nuba’.1

During their chequered history in Northern Sudan, these Nubian people built a civilization and renowned kingdoms - namely, Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia - along the Nile, and as far as the present day Khartoum.  The gnawing raids by Arabs from Egypt since 652 AD and the collapse of the Kingdom of Alwa (Alodia) within signaled the loss of Nubian independence, which they had been enjoying for centuries.  Because of these foreign and internal factors, the Nubian people abandoned their original habitat and migrated southward and westward, covering both Northern and Southern Kordofan.  The pressure of arabisation and islamisation was too much for those who settled in Northern Kordofan - namely, the desert hills - to resist, and they are now almost assimilated into Northern Arabo-Islamic culture.
 

The land and the people:

The Nuba people of Southern Kordofan, as we have just narrated, are one of the indigenous African groups of the country.  The Nuba Mountains occupy an area roughly the size of Scotland.  The land is a lush, fertile and oasis in central Sudan.  The rainfall there is plentiful, and the good soil ensures sufficient food throughout the year.  The inaccessibility of the mountains had kept the Nuba people protected from being entirely hunted down by the slave raiders of the North.  The Nuba society is co-operative and egalitarian.  Moreover, the Nuba Mountains have never been immune from external forces that have intruded into the Sudan and northeast Africa.  The region’s turbulent past is convincing enough evidence.  Historically, the Nuba Mountains offered refuge to those displaced by episodic upheavals along the River Nile; this accounts, in parts, for the diverse ethnic composition of its inhabitants.2

The Nuba are sub-divided into over fifty different ethnic groups, or rather tribes and tribal sections.  However, it is reported that Jos Plateau in Nigeria and the Nuba Mountains in the Sudan are perhaps the most concentrated areas of linguistic diversity.  In both, villages only a few miles away from each other may speak a totally different language, and the speakers of each language may sometimes number only a few hundred.  The Nuba population is estimated to be over two million people.  One of the causes which contributed badly to the decimation of the Nuba population was slavery.  In slave-trade days, some 200,000 Nuba had been removed in bondage to Egypt by 1839.  Other thousands had been seized by Arabs of the surrounding plains and sold to native Arab merchants.  Even to this day, Arab slavers are still at work in Southern Sudan and Mauritania, buying and selling black Africans.  The corrosive effects of slavery, with its sheer brutality and its reduction of humans to a cash value, have built lasting flaws into African-Arab relations; and this remains the undisclosed factor in the current civil war in the Sudan.  The inequalities perpetrated against the Nuba people today, by racist slurs and systems of discrimination, flow from the psyche of master-cum-slave mentality of Arab Sudanese.

Economic and cultural activities:

The Nuba do not show strict tendency towards economics in the sense of budgeting, banking and so forth.  They are agriculturists for self-sufficiency and breed animals - though they are not nomadic.  Their great ceremony of the Full Granary encourages industry in agriculture, but maintains a true democratic equality of wealth by arranging for its dissipation (distribution).  The land in the Nuba Mountains is communally owned by a tribe, though plots of some arable land may belong to a family.

Culture traits occur in varying degrees of similarity or diversity.  The Nuba are an exogamous society - that is,  marriage within the clan is being forbidden.  It is one of cultural phenomena the Nuba are so desperately struggling to preserve against the tide of islamisation and arabisation the central governments are poised to implement.  Nuba cultural activities and events cam take a kind of sport due to their physical performance.   There is sibir (festival, or memorial celebrations); some people argue that it is an excuse for the Nuba to consume marisa (locally brewed beer a staple diet in the Nuba Mountains).  There are other sports like wrestling - though a Nuba-wide sport, Korongo and Nyimang are the best wrestlers; bracelet-fighting - mainly in Kau and Fungor; stick-fighting - in Moro Masakin areas; and hockey.  Dancing and music - including, lyre-playing, flutes, blowing horns, drums beating, gourd trumpets - play a significant part in the Nuba daily life and entertainment.  This way of life is now in danger of being submerged by the Arab North.  In a new approach to Nuba cultural renaissance, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) administration has banned stick-fighting  because it is fatal; campaigning against female circumcision, scarification and tribal customs that discriminate against women.  Study of a Nuba language by every child is introduced.3  Added to Nuba linguistic diversity are newer differences in religion.  Some have been attracted to Islam, others to Christianity, but many to neither religion in particular who are content at the moment to follow traditional ways.

Political development and local authority:

In the past, the Nuba existed as an acephalous community.  Apart from the Kingdom of Tegali, the Nuba lived in tribal sections with no renowned leader.  But when it comes to war, there is always someone somewhere who would come out of the mist and lead them through thick and thin.  Like any indigenous people in the Sudan, the Nuba suffered from the depredations of wars, slavery and oppression during the Turco-Egyptian rule (1821 - 1885) and the Mahdist Rule (1885 - 1898).  Realising the Nuba’s military prowess, the Mahdi travelled to the Nuba Mountains to implore the Tegali King’s assistance.  The riverain Sudanese were sitting on the fence and doubting the Mahdi’s victory over the Turco-Egyptian army; and, at a certain stage, opposed by influential, spiritual clerics.  In addition to the people of Western Sudan, the Mahdi then solicited the support of the Beja in Eastern Sudan and the fugitive slave traders in Southern Sudan.  He mustered his troops from both the oppressed and people with vested interests in the change.  In the twist of events, the very Tegali King, one Adam Um Dabalo, was to die in shackles under the yoke of the Mahdi.

For almost five decades, the Anglo-Egyptian administration (1898 - 1956) tried to subdue the Nuba.  Unlike the Northern Sudanese who fought pitched battles against the Anglo-Egyptian forces before capitulation and joining the new regime, the Nuba resistance continued until 1945.  Although such courageous strife can give a boost to self-pride, the process may have played a role in delaying the extension of education, transport lines and social services to the Nuba Mountains - if other factors, such as racial motives, are eliminated.  Until quite recently, the ghost of slavery discouraged the Nuba to send their kid to school lest they fell prey to the marauding Arab nomads.  Instead, they were taught martial arts and self-endurance.  It is the Nuba tradition of manliness that has led so many of them to serve in the army and the police; and, better still, to contribute so notably to the military traditions of the Sudan.

The Nuba Mountains region was ruled by the Condominium Government as a separate province between 1913 - 1929, with Talodi as a provincial capital.  The province was divided into three administrative areas: Western Jebels (mountains), Eastern Jebels and Southern Jebels.  This process was later modified, and the Native Administration was introduced in the Nuba Mountains in the 1930s.  The region was divided into Tegali District (1935), including Awlad Himeid and Kawahla (of Kalogi), Eliri District (1937) and Talodi Omodia (1945).  Koalib-Heiban and Otoro-Tira became a unified district in 1938.  Heiban was transferred to the Otoro-Tira administration in 1942, and they joined Southern Nuba Confederation in 1947.  Nyimang Confederation was created in 1939, including Mandal, Karko, Wali, Katla, Julud and Temein.  Ajang Confederation (Hill Nubians) was formed in 1940, including Dilling, Ghulfan and Kadaru.  Ajang Confederation and the Koalib administration were amalgamated in 1955.  Finally, Southern Nuba Confederation  was introduced in 1947, including Miri and Kadugli.4  Although it had been argued that the federation represented an essential step in the political evolution of weak, small native groups towards self-government, the process did not provide the Nuba with proper education, social services and community development.

Not long after Sudan’s independence in 1956, the Southerners were excluded from the spoils of colonial rule on the grounds that they were not educated.  When they later became educated, the Northerners brought in the Islamic Sharia’a (code) to bar Christians and non-Muslims alike from holding key positions in the Government.  We now wonder if the Southerners and the Nuba were to convert into Muslims en masse, the Arab ruling elite would bring in another ploy, probably they would ask the Africans to become Arabs: an impossible proviso even in the age of cloning.  Although ethnically different from Arabic-speaking parts of Northern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains region has not been involved in the so-called ‘Southern Problem’ (1955 - 1972).  So after the signing of Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972 which ended military operations in the South, the Nuba, having seen the Southerners reaping the fruits of their armed struggle, realised that the only method to achieve political, economic and social goals in the Sudan was through the muzzle of gun.  The two sectarian parties - namely, the Democratic Unionist Party and the Umma Party, which have dominated the Sudanese politics since independence - are solely responsible for the decadence and failure of Sudan’s governments to secure stability, economic development and progress.  Even military dictorships are the making of these parties, and in this accusation, the leftists of all hues were culpable as well.  The Nuba representatives in the Constituent Assembly in the 1950s and 1960s demanded basic requirements for their people back home.  They were asking the authorities to dig wells, build bridges, construct schools and dispensaries and vaccinate their animals against epidemic diseases.  Although their demands were legitimate, civic rights demanded in a peaceful way and the successive governments were supposed to provide them without ado, the demands fell on deaf ears.

Ever since the 1960s, the fertile plains of the Nuba Mountains have been taken over by vast, and hugely profitable, Mechanised Farming Schemes, the property of the businessmen who dominate the Sudanese state.  These schemes are ruinous to the environment, to the nomads who graze their herds on the plains and to the Nuba who have lost their most fertile farms.  Those who refused to give up their land have been harassed, imprisoned and murdered.

As we have just seen earlier, the Nuba intellectuals reached a conclusion that they were squandering time on peaceful talks with the authorities in Khartoum.5  The appearance of the SPLM/A in Southern Kordofan in 1985 was welcomed  by the Nuba.  It was no surprise, bearing in mind the suffering of a people weighed down by poverty and worn out by injustice.  This turn of events meant two things:  the movement of Nuba struggle from Khartoum (centre) to the homeland (countryside), and the transformation of struggle from a peaceful tussle to an armed one.  The SPLM/A was building on the two basic factors which had charcaterised Southern grievances: the sharing of political power, and the distribution of national wealth or, to be precise, the uneven development between the centre and the countryside.  In addition to these agenda, newly contentious issues arose.  They included the scrapping of the infamous Islamic laws from the book, or what would be known at later stages as the separation of religion from state.  For the Nuba, these demands compatible with their age-long aspirations, and were convinced than ever before that the SPLM/A was addressing the Sudan’s problem and not the so-called ‘Southern Problem’.

Although the supporters of Sharia’a insist that it does not affect non-Muslims, in reality, the Christians and the worshippers of African religions in the Sudan have been victimised, oppressed and marginalised.  Rarely do the Islamic authority allocate lands to Christians to build churches.  Existing churches are routinely destroyed by Muslim fanatics without the state coming to the rescue.  For example, in 1999, a Moslem sect attacked a church in a northern suburb of Khartoum.  These churches, which are built by war-displaced Christians from Southern and Western Sudan in shanty towns, are used as schools and sometimes as health centres.  A number of churches had been set on fire by Moslem fanatics, and others destroyed by Government town planners.  The Government has been arguing that it does not prevent the construction of the churches, but in order for a church to be built in a particular area, the people of the area must give their consent.6    Such a condition is not applied to building a mosque.  An example of religious persecution is the case of Mekki Kuku.  Mr Kuku, a primary teacher from the Nuba Mountains, converted from Islam into Christianity.  He was arrested in June 1998 by security officer and taken to Khartoum’s Islamic Faith Centre - an Islamic indoctrination centre - where he was placed in solitary confinement and tortured.  He was promised financial and social rewards to induce him to renounce his Christian faith.  His life was saved by the intervention of Abel Alier, a former Vice-President during Nimeiri’s regime.  Following Alier’s intervention, he was transferred to Omdurman prison pending trial on charges of having violated Sudan’s apostasy law.7

In fact, the penal code in Northern Sudan has always had elements of Sharia’a well before 1983.  But it was limited to personal laws like divorce and inheritance, and all criminal laws were covered by the secular code.  What the proponents of Sharia’a had done since September 1983 was to expand its scope to include criminal laws, because, they argued, Islam was a way of life.  With the introduction of Sharia’a, the question of the country’s national identity presented itself in a sharp way.  This is because Islam and Arab culture are always intertwined to the extent that they tend to override other religions and cultures; and, more importantly, a Moslem may find himself forced into denouncing his own customs, traditions and his motherland.  Instead, he would - indeed - pay allegiance to the sacred sands of Arabia: the cradle of Islam.  The disputable question of Sudan’s identity sprang after independence and, despite the country’s African majority according to the 1956 census8, the political leaders of the day declared that the Sudan, regardless of Arab opposition, would be a member of the League of Arab States.  This can be expounded by two factors: inferiority and periphery complex.  Inferiority because the Arab Sudanese are not fully accepted as ‘pure Arabs’ as a result of their intermarriages with Africans, and periphery complex emanates from the fact that being a marginalised group in the Arab world urges them to attest their existence by all necessary means.  This is why the Arab Sudanese erroneously think that they are more Arab than the Arabs themselves and more Islamic than the rest of Muslims in the Arab world.

Having outlined all the grievances, it can now be construed that the Nuba took to arms because they were denied power sharing and identity recognition, suffered from the seizure of their farms without compensation, subjected to religious persecution and socially marginalised in terms of health services, education, transport and communications.  But the armed struggle, that would certainly bring them the recognition so often sought and never obtained through peaceful means, has continued despite a heavy price in terms of human loss, property disappearance and environmental deterioration.  Under the pretext of counter-isurgency, a bloody chapter of human rights abuse was open in the Nuba Mountains.

The human rights violations and warfare:

The escalation of human rights violations in the Nuba Mountains, as a result of Sudan’s civil war, can be traced to the Transitional Government of Gen Swar al-Dahab (April 1985 - April 1986) and the civilian Government of Sadiq al-Mahdi (April 1986 - June 1989).  Under the pretext of counter-insurgency, the two governments supplied the Arab-based local militia with fire arms to murder the Nuba civilians and confiscate their properties. Reports released by the human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, are full of gruesome cases of organised killing, systematic rape as an instrument of war and torture to death by the Government’s soldiers and their agents.  Prison cells in Kadugli, the provincial capital of Southern Kordofan, and Dilling were the scene of prolonged detention without trial.  There were cases of kidnapping and disappearance of Nuba intellectuals and tribal chiefs suspected of supporting the rebel SPLM/A.

The advent of National Islamic Front (NIF) regime in June 1989 was a turning point in the life of the Nuba people.  The NIF regime legalised the Arab militia, euphemistically called the Popular Defence Forces (PDF).  Lt-Gen Omer al-Bashir’s regime has surpassed that of Sadiq al-Mahdi in the militarisation of the Sudanese against their kith and kin, and the Nuba bear the brunt of such belligerent policies.  No sooner had the Bashir Government assumed power than it laid a blockade against relief supplies to the Nuba Mountains in areas administered by the SPLM/A for over ten years.  In contrast, the UN has long - though intermittent - overseen the supply of aid to SPLM/A-administered areas in the South under the auspices of Operation Lifeline Sudan.  The blockade has proved one of the most effective weapons in regime’s war against the Nuba.  It has had severe repercussions on all sectors of economy, and in the provision of social services.  With the seclusion of world media, the decimation of Nuba people continued unabatedly.  Members of the Nuba communities were subjected to a campaign of terror to force them to abandon their homes.  The fact that the Nuba territory lies in buffer zone makes them vulnerable to the Government assaults.

In April 1992, jihad (holy war) was declared against the Nuba; such a fatwa (religious edict) described the Nuba as infidels and, therefore, their lives should not be spared nor their wives, children or properties.  There were occasional raids on villages, burning people alive, destruction of crops, looting of livestock, abductions, massacres and maiming of civilians, including the widespread use of landmines.  Murder, usually following abduction and rape, was the second most common cause of female mortality.  Forcible and massive displacement of the Nuba civilians was carried out by the Bashir regime in the early 1990 under the nose of international condemnation; the evacuees were put in the so-called ‘peace camps’ in Northern Kordofan.  Children were separated from their parents, given Arab names and islamised against their will.  Young men were given a semblance of military training and sent to operational areas as cannon fodder; women and young girls were taken by Government soldiers - who had unfettered sexual access to them - as concubines, and small girls were forced to undergo female mutilation: a practice which is not common in the Nuba Mountains.  The appalling conditions, multiple rape, beating and arabisation were commonplace in these ‘peace camps’, to say the least.9  The Government campaign against the Nuba people gave credence to what was dubbed ‘ethnic cleansing’; such a campaign was deliberately targeting the elderly, women and children.

In 1995, a cease-fire was negotiated by former US President, Jimmy Carter, to eradicate the guinea worm and other diseases in Southern Sudan.  Unfortunately, the project was not extended to the Nuba Mountains nor did the cease-fire include the Nuba region.  In 1999, a UN assessment mission visited the Nuba Mountains to assess the needs of people there.  On their arrival, the team were fired on by Government artillery, and went ahead only after an appeal to Khartoum halted the bombardment.  The worst enemy of people in the war zone is the Russian-made Antonov An-24 transporter: a cargo plane that flies at high altitude, and rolling bombs out of its back on its targets.  There were reports on the use of chemical weapons by the Government troops during the battle of Tullishi, Southern Kordofan, from February - May 1992,  and on several occasions in Southern Sudan.  In each case, civilians were killed as a result of raids by Government aircrafts using poisonous gas.
On Tuesday, February 8, 2000, the Sudan Government Air Force launched an aerial bombing of a school in the Nuba Mountains region, killing at least 14 children and a teacher and wounding 20 more people.  Most of the victims were first grade students sitting through an English lesson under a tree.  The picture of the headmaster trying to hold together the intestines of a boy whose stomach was ripped open by shrapnel shows ‘that such egregious abuses against innocent Sudanese citizens have become commonplace.’  Alas, the boy died minutes later.  After its attack on Upper Kauda Holy Cross School, the Government plane dropped eight more bombs on two villages close to the school.  The records available reveal that some 34 children and two teachers have lost their lives in similar operations between October 1997 and today.

Based on these testimonies, the Sudan Government is, therefore, guilty of waging a war of aggression and committing crimes against humanity in the Nuba Mountains as elsewhere in the war zone.  Crimes against humanity, as defined by the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, consist of many of the following acts - ‘committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group’.  The Nuba’s demand is to acquire the means to enable them to exercise their right of individual and collective defence recognized in Article 51 of the Charter of the UN.  The international community is obliged by its moral standards and legal ground to exert pressure on the Sudan Government to cease all aerial bombardment and to refrain from further attacks on civilian targets.  Full and immediate access for humanitarian organizations seeking to provide relief to war-raged civilians in the Nuba Mountains is also essential.

Trends and prospects:

The political history of the Nuba Mountains can then be explained by the geographical concept of history that has played a pivotal role in shaping the life and fate of the Nuba people within the Sudan.  The history that is characterised, at some stage, by slavery and exploitation followed by marginalisation and war of annihilation.  Over years, the victimisation of the Nuba people has become the glorification of others, and this has fuelled the ongoing Nuba struggle to attain self-confidence and freedom without which humanity is incomplete.  The panoply of events has shown that the grievances of the Nuba are inextricable from that of all marginalised regions of the Sudan, but theirs have become worse by the destruction of human lives and the loss of properties since 1985, including the erosion of economic resources of both individuals and the community.

According to National Democratic Alliance (NDA) conference in Asmara, Eritrea, on June 15 - 23, 1995, the conference ‘resolves that with respect to the Nuba Mountains and Ingessena Hills, a political solution to redress the injustice suffered by the people of these areas shall be sought by the Transitional Government and that a referendum to ascertain their views on their political and administrative future shall be organised and carried out during the Transitional Period.’10  Given the scale of physical, psychological, social and economic damage inflicted on the Nuba, the wording of ‘a political solution’ is vague; and, more importantly, with the nature of corrupt and racist officials in Khartoum, the resolution is another chapter to deny the Nuba of their inalienable rights.

For any future settlement, the Nuba will have three options from which they can choose: either to join Southern Sudan in any form of government, remain as part of Northern Sudan or opt for forming an independent state.  The decision either way is entirely a Nuba business after weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each option.  As for the first choice, the common struggle of the Nuba and the Southerners against a common enemy has created an amicable working ground for both entities and, if such a congenial atmosphere can exist in the time of war, then it can continue in the time of peace.  Furthermore, their shared history of slavery, oppression, cultural merits, religious belief and identity are all but a binding denominator.

The second Nuba choice is, however, a re-enactment of the past and the status quo in even more abhorrent manner than ever before.  In the span of time since Sudan’s independence in 1956, the Nuba have learnt by trial and error that their interests can no longer be entrusted to the Northern elite, because what drove the Nuba to take up arms against the central Government can happen again.  There are already brewing issues that can act as a raw material for another internecine war between the Nuba and the Khartoum Government in future; for instance, oil exploration and exploitation in Southern Kordofan and the demarcation of states in which parts of the Nuba territory were ‘cut and pasted’ to Western Kordofan.  Should the Nuba choose to remain as part of Northern Sudan, they have to do so with new conditions of equal partnership.  However, the guarantee for the sustainability of their achievements can be assured only by keeping their military forces separate and intact, that is, no more tricks such as merger, redeployment or disbandment.  The lessons of Addis Ababa Accord of 1972 that ended the North-South schism and the unilateral abrogation of the federal status of Eritrea by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1962 ought to be learned.  Another vital precursor is the economic independence.  In this aspect, Southern Kordofan should be equipped with a treasury through which the people can administer their own financial resources.  Unlike the limited financial control already granted to Southern Kordofan, the full measure of this fiscal self-administration provides training in self-government, purchasing school materials, delivering health-care, paying for police and various institutions of administration.

As for the last resort of electing to be a separate state, the Nuba have already undergone a severe experience of survival without access to public fund, social welfare nor services.  The Nuba are today perhaps more conscious, that is, more conscious of themselves as a regional entity, desirous of having their proper share of education, employment and economic progress and, more consciously, aware of their need to have a voice in the nation’s affairs.  Once they are convinced of this, they may be ready to take the next step and go beyond their regional concerns to think much more of the welfare of the country as a whole.  The new-found co-existence between the international NGOs and the local ones are a good starter, and the Nuba’s acceptance of international human rights monitors has enhanced their image abroad.

Endnotes:

1 For more information, see al-Jamal, S, Tareikh Sudan Wadi al-Neil, Cairo, 1969; Vantini, G, Christianity in Sudan, Bologna, 1981; and Stevenson, R C, The Nuba People of Kordofan Province, Khartoum, 1984.
2 Howes, A, Life before the war, The Guardian, March 3, 2000; also see Davidson, A P, In the Shadow of History: The Passage of Lineage Society, London, 1996.
3 Flint, J, Fighting for their lives, The Independent Magazine, April 10, 1999.
4 Stevenson, R C, The Nuba People of Kordofan Province, Khartoum, 1984.
5 For more information on post-independence Nuba struggle in Northern Sudan, see Ghabboush, P A, Africa Today, No 3, 1973.
6 Vigilance Soudan, 2nd and 3rd quarters 1999.
7 Vigilance Soudan, 2nd quarter 1998.  In Islamic Sharia’a apostasy is a crime punishable by death.  Dr Hassan ‘Abd Allah al-Turabi’s public lectures and his personal views that run against all the orthodox schools of Islamic law on the status of women, the court testimony of non-Muslims and the law of apostasy are in contrast with the practice of Islamic Sharia’a in the Sudan.  Dr Turabi, the ideologue  of Bashir’s regime which took power in June 1989, was President Nimeiri’s adviser when Ustaz Mahmoud Mohamed Taha was executed on charges of apostasy in 1984.  Turabi did not raise a finger to oppose such an execution.
8 According to Dr Hassan Makki, writing in the daily al-Khartoum, February 19, 2000, in the national capital, Greater Khartoum, the majority of population are Africans.  in the 1955 census, the Arab population in the capital were 390,000, the Westerners (people from Western Sudan and Africa) were 22,000 and the Southerners were 13,000, while a few thousands were classified as others.  Now, the Arabs are around 1.5 million, the Westerners 2 million and the Southerners more than one million.
9 The full account of what took place in the Nuba Mountains was given by the African Rights report, Facing Genocide: the Nuba of Sudan, 1995, the US-based Africa Watch, the US Committee for Refugees and several reports by Amnesty International.
10 From the resolutions of the NDA conference in Asmara on June 15 - 23, 1995.

* Omer M. Shurkian, Chairman of the “Nuba Mountains Solidarity abroad
 

The long-standing civil war in Sudan is often represented as a conflict between the Arab and Muslim North and the African and Christian South. While there is some truth in this dichotomy, it fails to account for the social and cultural complexity of either the North or the South. 

The NIF government is an Islamist regime and part of its explicit and stated policy is the full islamization of Sudan. The NIF uses the term "jihad" to describe its war against the Southern Sudanese rebels who are referred to as "infidels." 

Yet in Western Sudan, where all the people are Muslims, it has become apparent that the discourse of Islamization is a code word for something else. Behind the banner of Islamization in Northern Sudan is a deeply racist policy of Arabization and it is a part of the logic of this policy that the non-Arab ethnic groups of Western Sudan have come under attack. 

Despite their deep roots in Islam, and their traditional loyalty to the Umma Party, the NIF regime considers non-Arabs to be potential fifth-columnists in the civil war because of their "African" identity and cultural heritage. 

Consequently, the NIF regime has sought to destroy the traditional bases of authority in these communities and change the ethnic composition of Western Sudan to pre-empt this imagined danger. 

The wide-spread and systematic abuses of human rights carried out by the current National Islamic Front (NIF) government in Sudan are well-documented. Most of what is reported by international human rights organizations concerns the extensive abuses, including genocide and slavery, that have occurred in the war-torn areas of southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains. These horrors deserve the attention that they have received but there are other parts of Sudan where the NIF government has pursued similar policies with equally brutal results, although these cases have not been reported on except in the most cursory manner. Here, attention is focused on the brutalities meted out on the Massaleit people of Western Sudan, a campaign in which thousands have been killed and tens of thousands forced to flee into neigh boring Chad. 

The Massaleit are a people who live in the extreme west of Darfur along the border with Chad. They are all Muslims and many of them speak Arabic, although they also speak their local language and continue to practice their own cultural traditions. Like other non-Arab ethnic groups in the region such as the Fur and the Zaghawa, the Massaleit have in recent years come under systematic attack by NIF sponsored and armed Arab paramilitary militias operating in the area. These militias have repeatedly massacred non-Arab civilians, burned whole villages to the ground, and caused a massive flight of whole non-Arab communities from their ancestral lands. In short, the NIF government in Sudan has actively pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing against the non-Arabs of Western Sudan. 

The long-standing civil war in Sudan is often represented as a conflict between the Arab and Muslim North and the African and Christian South. While there is some truth in this dichotomy, it fails to account for the social and cultural complexity of either the North or the South. The NIF government is an Islamist regime and part of its explicit and stated policy is the full islamization of Sudan. The NIF uses the term "jihad" to describe its war against the Southern Sudanese rebels who are referred to as "infidels." Yet in Western Sudan, where all the people are Muslims, it has become apparent that the discourse of Islamization is a code word for something else. Behind the banner of Islamization in Northern Sudan is a deeply racist policy of Arabization and it is a part of the logic of this policy that the non-Arab ethnic groups of Western Sudan have come under attack. Despite their deep roots in Islam, and their traditional loyalty to the Umma Party, the NIF regime considers non-Arabs to be potential fifth-columnists in the civil war because of their "African" identity and cultural heritage. Consequently, the NIF regime has sought to destroy the traditional bases of authority in these communities and change the ethnic composition of Western Sudan to pre-empt this imagined danger. 

The NIF government argues that the violence in Western Sudan in the 1990s is the result of tribal conflicts which have always existed in the area. It is true that Western Sudan is a multiethnic region where numerous ethnic groups live side by side. It is also true that ethnic tensions and conflicts have periodically occurred because of competition over resources, especially between the semi-nomadic pastoralist peoples and sedentary farmers. However, traditionally, conflicts of this sort were effectively mediated by traditional means. If the current violence in Western Sudan is but the continuation of long-standing tribal conflict in the region as the NIF argues, one would expect to find that this sort of violence has long characterized the region. But this is not the case. 

Since as far back as the colonial period, Western Sudan has been relatively peaceful. The real reason that violence has torn apart the lives of so many people in Western Sudan in the 1990s is that it is NIF policy. By arming and financing local Arab paramilitary groups, the NIF has quite intentionally created ethnic (and in fact racial) conflicts across Western Sudan. Furthermore, the NIF has disarmed non-Arab groups making them virtually defenseless against the well-armed government militias. The NIF has instigated nothing short of a racial war against the non-Arab inhabitants of Western Sudan. 

The specific troubles of the Massaleit began five years ago when the NIF government created thirty new positions (which carried the title of emir) in the traditional administrative structure of the Dar Massaleit area, and filled the majority of these offices with people from Arab ethnic groups (in particular from the Umm Jallul Arabs). This action by the government was rightly seen by many Massaleit as an attempt to undermine the power of their community and their traditional leadership role in the area, by raising members of minority indigenous Arab groups above them. The Massaleit reacted angrily to this government action, and tensions mounted between the Massaleit and local Arabs. Communal hostilities broke out and acts of violence became common. The government reacted to this situation by replacing the governor of Western Darfur Muhammad Ahmad Fadul with General Hassan Hamadein, thereby putting the area under defacto military rule. The new governor began a massive campaign of arrests, imprisonment, and torture targeted at prominent members of the Massaleit community, including those with education, umdas, shaykhs, and Massaleit members of the state council. 

In the context of state repression of the Massaleit community, the government-supported Arab militias began to attack Massaleit villages in the area beginning in August 1995. In one of the earliest incidents, a group of Massaleit villages known as Majmari to the east of Geneina, the regional capital, were attacked by Arab militias. These villages were burned to the ground and seventy five people were killed, one hundred and seventy people were injured, and six hundred and fifty heads of cattle were stolen. In a similar incident, Arab militias attacked the village of Shoshta southwest of Geneina on the evening of July 5, 1996 and at least forty five people were killed, most of whom were women and children. Similar attacks occurred in other villages including Gadier, Kasay, Burta, Mirmta, Kadmoli, and the villages of the Birirabt Mountains. Most of these attacks were undertaken late at night when the village inhabitants were sleeping. 

Upon reaching a village, the attackers typically began by lighting fire to all the houses in the village. Those villagers who managed to escape the flames were then shot by the Arab militias as they fled their homes. Furthermore, the timing of the majority of the attacks coincided with the agricultural harvest. In this way, by burning the fields just before they were ready to be harvested, or while the crop lay on the ground after first being cut, the Arab militias destroyed the year's crop and exposed the Massaleit farmers to starvation. 

In short, the Arab militias quite systematically aimed to destroy the Massaleit people, expose them to famine, and force them to flee their ancestral lands. This was much more than a tribal or ethnic conflict. These atrocities were well planned and directed by the Sudanese military governor of the area. In one of the worst attacks, on the villages of Mount Junun, a number of militia members were killed by the Massaleit. >From the identity cards found on some of the dead bodies, it was confirmed that these attacks were orchestrated by the NIF government itself. Included among the dead was a Syrian named Mahmoud Muhammad Shaghar, a Libyan named Fathy Abdel Salaam, an Algerian named Blunmi Hamaad, and a number of persons from Chad and other areas of Sudan. Thus, the attacks were not only organized by the NIF government, but members of the Muslim Brothers themselves took part in the violence itself. In light of this, the NIF government's claims that these events are merely tribal conflict is sheer nonsense. 

On March 26, 1997 the violence escalated when an Arab militia attacked the Bayda area in South western Dar Massaleit using horses and Toyota Land-cruisers with mounted machine-guns. In the days that followed, most of the villages of the area were destroyed including Ajibani, Andiring, Miriamta, Timbili, Haraza, Umm Kharaba, Buyuut Thalatha, Ashaba, Sabirna, Kasay, Shoshta, Kalkuti, and Kasia. In these attacks more than four hundred and forty people were killed, of which one hundred and fifty were women and fifty were children. A large number of people were displaced and their whereabouts is still unknown, although it appears likely that many were enslaved by the militia members. On April 4, 1997 the commander of the militia who was riding in the Toyota Land-cruiser was killed and it was discovered that he was a colonel in the Sudanese Armed Forces. 

Later in April 1997, the same tactics and equipment were used to attack the villages of the Asrini area east of Geneina. In the course of five days, approximately one hundred Massaleit villages were burned to the ground, more than five hundred people were killed, approximately three thousand Massaleit were displaced, and four hundred heads of livestock were stolen. 

In 1998, at least four major atrocities were carried out by the government-directed Arab militias. These occurred at Gadier, Hashaba, Jabal, and Liberi. Approximately four hundred and thirty Massaleit were killed, one hundred and twenty villages were burned, and three hundred and ninety heads of livestock were looted. Throughout this period, the Arab militias were provided with weapons, equipment, transportation, military training, and military logistics by the government. At the same time, the Massaleit were disarmed, placed under curfew, restricted in their movements, subjected to mass arrests, torture, and extra-judicial killings by the government. Furthermore, Massaleit youths were forcibly conscripted into the Sudanese Armed Forces and sent to Southern Sudan to fight in the "jihad" against the Southern rebels, while Arab youths were allowed to stay in Western Sudan to carry out further atrocities against the Massaleit elderly, women, and children who remained in the area. 

The situation has only continued to escalate and it has become clear that the intention of the NIF government is the full ethnic cleansing of the Massaleit from their ancestral homeland in Western Sudan. On January 17, 1999, on the first day of the post-Ramadan festival "Eid al-Fitr," an incident occurred that sparked a full scale attack on the Massaleit throughout the whole area. On that day, an elderly Massaleit farmer named Al-Hajj Ismail Ishaq Omar, from the village of Tabariek five kilometers from Geneina, found animals belonging to Arab herders grazing in his fields. When he attempted to chase the animals away, he was shot and killed by the owners of the animals. Three Massaleit villagers quickly arrived on the scene and they were also shot. Two were killed (the shaykh of the village Abaker and his son Ishaq Abaker) and the other was injured (a school teacher named Ustaz Osman Sandal). When more Massaleit farmers arrived on the scene, a large confrontation ensued and one of the Arab herders was killed. When some of the tribal heads from the Arab and Massaleit communities came to try to restore calm, they also came under fire from the angry farmers and an Arab chief named Al-Hadi Muhammad Reifa was killed. 

When news of this incident reached the government, they turned it into an opportunity to destroy the Massaleit. The Sudanese Minister of Interior, Abdel Rahim Muhammad Hussein, announced to the media in Khartoum that the Massaleit had assassinated all the Arab leaders in Dar Massaleit. He also declared that the Massaleit were outlaws, opponents of the regime, and constituted a fifth column in Western Sudan in league with the anti-government rebels. 

With the official encouragement of the NIF government in Khartoum, and through the agency of the NIF officials in the state of Western Darfur, the way was clear for the Arab militias to begin a full and final assault on the Massaleit. A meeting was convened by the Arabs of Western Sudan, Arabs  from other parts of Sudan and even Arabs from neighboring countries. War was declared on the Massaleit and the government provided the local militias with more weapons, Toyota Land-cruisers, communication equipment, money, etc. The government also sealed off the Dar Massaleit area and prevented Massaleit people from fleeing. In the attacks which ensued at the end of January 1999,military helicopters from the Sudanese military were used to support the actions of the militias. More than two thousand Massaleit were killed in these actions and thousands more were wounded. Tens of thousands of Massaleit fled to Chad where there are as many as a hundred thousand Massaleit refugees at the current time. For the Massaleit who remain in Sudan, the campaign against them continues. In mid-March 1999, more than a hundred Massaleit were killed in a typical Arab militia attack. 

The conditions for the refugees in Chad is desperate. Because they have received no assistance and protection from international refugee organizations, they face high mortality and the possibility of starvation. Perhaps most daunting for the Massaleit refugees in Chad is the active cooperation which the Sudanese regime receives from Chad in forcibly returning refugees whom the NIF regime considers criminals. In this broad category, any Massaleit leaders or potential leaders can be taken back to Sudan to be imprisoned, tortured, and oftentimes executed. Less than a month after the beginning of the campaign against the Massaleit in January of this year, the governments of Chad and Sudan concluded an agreement committing the two sides to cooperate in security problems. In a document signed in the Chadian capital of N’Djemina between February 10-13, 1999 by the Sudanese foreign minister Dr. Mustafa Osman Ismail and the Chadian foreign minister Muhammad Salih Nazief, who happens to be a member of the same Arab ethnic group that carried out the attacks on the Massaleit in Sudan, the two sides agreed to police refugees, prevent the Chadian or Sudanese opposition forces from operating in either country, and to strengthen existing extradition agreements so that refugees who are considered criminals in their home country can be extradited. Thus, it is clear that the Massaleit refugees in Chad can expect no protection from the brutality of the Sudanese regime, even in exile. 

The Sudanese regime has been remarkably successful in suppressing information about the atrocities committed against the Massaleit in Western Sudan. For this reason, it is all the more important that the news of this systematic and racist campaign reach the ears of the world. This genocide must be stopped. But it will not end unless international pressure is brought to bear on the NIF government of Sudan 

Sudan
Streams of oil and blood

Massive human rights violations by Sudanese security forces, various government allied militias and armed opposition groups, are clearly linked to foreign companies' oil operations.

Human Rights
By John Deng
 

The quest to control the newly discovered oil resources in the oil-rich territories in the south of Sudan is the core to the armed conflict which relentlessly continues to devastate the lives of countless civilians in the country. This is according to a 22- page report released on  May 3, by  the London based human rights group, Amnesty International.

According to the report entitled Oil in Sudan Deteriorating Human Rights, Amnesty says that tens of thousands of people have been terrorised into leaving their homes in Western Upper Nile since early 1999. For instance around the town of Bentiu, government troops reportedly cleared the area using helicopter gunships, some allegedly piloted by Iraqi soldiers, and aerial cluster bombardment by high-altitude Antonov planes. This area hosts some of the oil installations. 

At the same time during the construction of the oil pipeline, Chinese workers were apparently involved in the displacement of civilians without compensation. Sudanese civilians who escaped attacks reported that the Chinese workers were armed and appeared willing to use their guns. There are also allegations that mercenaries from Afghanistan, the Mujahedin fighters, and Malaysia have been reportedly used to protect the staff and property of companies involved in building the oil pipeline. Helicopters flown by foreign pilots have been used to ferry armed opposition troops to areas in which fighting was taking place. These troops are alleged to have subsequently carried out atrocities against civilians.

To add insult upon injury, government troops on the ground reportedly drove people out of their homes by committing gross human rights violations with male villagers being killed in mass executions and women and children nailed to trees with iron spikes. Reports from other villages claim that soldiers slit the throats of children and killed male civilians who had been interrogated by hammering nails into their foreheads. The report also condemns rebel forces who have been accused of attacking and raiding civilian in attempts to gain control over oil-rich areas. A former commander stated that these forces had summarily executed scores of civilians, raped and abducted women and burned and destroyed homesteads.

The report is assertive that oil remains to be the gasoline fueling a war that has claimed almost two million people since 1983. Infact one of the rebel forces first armed activities were targeted at the workers of the oil company Chevron, which planned to construct an oil pipeline running form the fields of the South to the refineries located in the northern harbour of Port Sudan.

By publishing the report, the international human rights body wants to make it clear the link between the massive human rights violations in the country by government forces and various government allied militias, and the active oil operations by foreign companies. "The civilian population living in oil fields and surrounding areas has been deliberately targeted for massive human rights abuses – forced displacement, aerial bombardments, strafing villages from helicopter gunships, unlawful killings, torture including rape and abduction," said Maina Kiai, Amnesty International's Director for Africa.

AI accuses foreign companies for turning a blind eye to the human rights violations committed by government security forces and their allied troops in the name of protecting the security of oil-producing areas. "Respect for human rights should be the central issue for any company which is involved in a war-torn environment such as southern Sudan the silence of powerful oil companies in the face of injustice and human rights violations is not neutral," said the report.

Among the multinational companies drilling oil in Sudan are The Great Nile Petroleum and oil Corporation (GNPOC) whose main shareholders are China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Petronas, a Malaysian state-owned company, Canada's Talisman Energy. Another major company is International Petroleum Corporation (IPC) wholly owned Stockholm-based Ludin Oil AB. Others oil companies involved in Sudan are Agip (Italy), Elf-Aquitane(France), Gulf Petroleum Company (Qatar), National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) and TotalFina (France). In addition Royal Dutch Shell (The Netherlands) owns a refinery in Port Sudan.

It is estimated that oil revenue from these companies will generate an income of US$1million per day for the Sudanese government - the same amount which the is currently believed to be spending on its armed conflict each day and is also the amount that Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), the United Nations (UN) relief umbrella organisation, spends on relief for the people of Sudan each day.

The report further cites a clear connection between the oil wealth and the government's ability to purchase arms.  On the day of the export shipment of the first 600,000 barrels of oil, an import shipment of 20 Polish T-55 tanks arrived in Port Sudan.  This shipment by Polish government, says Amnesty, was in violation of a long-standing UN embargo on arms transfers to the Sudanese government. Further arms transfers to Sudan from China and Bulgaria have also been reported.

The report also came after an eye witness, Derrek Hammond, head of Faith in Action, a Christian relief ministry,  revealed to the world the tragedy unfolding in the country. This was after a one week tour of the oil-rich Bentiu area as well as another oil region of Melut in the Northern Upper Nile. Derrek says that in Northern Upper Nile, thousands of people have been displaced and are hiding under trees in thick bush for protection from continual raids from government troops. Further, people have no food and are eating leaves, berries and water lillies. He said: "I saw this and have actual video footage. The children and elderly are in very poor condition, many are critically ill without any access to medical care. Many are dying."

Derrek who has been travelled into Sudan for over 20 times since 1997 and 8 times this year to both the oil regions and the Nuba further recounts the uncertainty of the local people who do not build shelters or huts fearing that these will become immediate targets for raiding government troops or pro-government militias. "Families live individually, seeking shelter and protection under trees. I experienced this first hand, as we waited for the sun to go down and the cover of darkness before moving deep into the bush to find a secure place to sleep under a tree," he said.  He reported that in Upper Nile, 105 people have been murdered in recent weeks with another 26 young men who were suspected of being pro-rebel being given the "river journey"  mutilation of limbs and then tied in a sack and thrown into the Nile river.

Like the Amnesty report, Derrek witnessed a clear link between oil and the abuse of human rights in Sudan.  It is clear that "a humanitarian crisis and nightmare is unfolding in this region of the Upper Nile while oil contracts are being signed in the West," asserts Derrek who walked great distances and saw many deserted and destroyed villages with evidence of any food and many young and old people in serious condition, suffering from sickness and malnutrition.

The international human rights body call on the government of Sudan, the Sudan People's Liberation Army and other opposition groups, the international community  to publicly condemn human rights violations committed against civilians in the region of the oilfields in Western Upper Nile and elsewhere in the war zones.

Below is a report by British freelance journalist Julie Flint who, for several years, has repeatedly risked her life by going to and spending weeks at a time in the Nuba Mountains, often walking from hundreds of km to reach specific destinations. In this report, she surveys the destruction wrought by the Sudanese government's most recent assault on the Nuba (which I reported to you and media) in March and April), and walked an incredible 250 km to do it, much of the trek through extremely dangerous territory (land mines, ever present danger of ambush and aerial bombardment) near the front lines and in searing, 40 degrees celcius-plus temperatures. Flint is in her 50s. 
Regards,

Gary Kenny 
c/o Omer M. Shurkian, Chairman Nuba Mountains Solidarity Abroad
********
 
 

Johannesburg, South Africa. May 8 2000

Julie Flint makes a terrifying 250km trek through Sudan's front line where troops are raping and killing an ancient tribe and destroying their crops. Here, hunger is now a weapon of war and scorched earth tactics an engine of annihilation.

In a few weeks, barring miracles, the children will begin to die - if not from hunger, then from disease. The skin on their upper arms is already falling into folds as hunger kicks in and the pounds begin to melt away.

Most families are living in the open, without clothes, blankets or clean water. The mud hut that calls itself a hospital contains nothing but flies. The young man in charge, a farmer turned health worker, says 200 children and 50 old people are already in urgent need of medical care. 
He is treating them with tree leaves and bark, but he needs anti-malarial and antibiotics.

He shrugs. "I am doing my best. But I know it's nothing."

Less than a year after international pressure forced Sudan's Islamist government to allow United Nations relief into the Nuba mountains for the first time in more than a decade, Khartoum is attempting to put the Nuba beyond the reach of relief by cutting off all access to the mountains and starving civilians out of areas controlled by the rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

In the past two months, moving in whenever UN teams move out, government forces have captured two of the three rough airstrips that make relief operations possible and have ounted a surprise assault on some of the Nuba's most productive land around the village of Tabanya.

The UN's silence has been almost as shocking to the Nuba as the attack on Tabanya that displaced 15 000 people and propelled them towards Kadoro - a mountain village of 150 families that has shared its own meagre supplies for more than a month and now has nothing more to offer. 

"The UN's own first mission to the mountains was heavily shelled - but it has never said a word of criticism of the government," said Walid Hamed, assistant to rebel commander Yusuf Kuwa.

"When it comes to the government, the UN is on its knees. All we are asking is equal treatment so people can decide freely whether they stay in SPLA areas or go to the government. But the government has the upper hand and the UN system is keeping silent."

The Nuba are now in their thirteenth year of struggle for a democratic, secular state in which the country's African south would be the equal of its Arab north. Since the fundamentalist generals of the National Islamic Front came to power in 1989, an attempt to defeat the Nuba rebellion has grown into a scorched-earth holy war of annihilation against a people whose tradition of political and religious tolerance threatens the Front's whole project of a conformist Islamic extremism.

Today, hundreds of thousands of Nuba starved out of the mountains are imprisoned in 'peace villages' where men are armed and compelled to fight against fellow Nuba; where children are separated from their parents and conscripted into Islamic militias; where women are raped to dilute Nuba ethnicity.

Nuba who refuse to leave SPLA-controlled areas are being driven off the fertile plains and into the mountains where survival is a daily struggle. Even the UN acknowledges that women venturing down to the government-controlled plains to fetch water and mangoes are subjected to rape "often of the most horrendous kind".

As evidence of human rights abuses piles up, the government promises relief but fights with the oldest, and cruellest, weapon in its arsenal hunger.

Rahila Kuku, a mother of five, was put to work gathering in the sorghum that was thick in the fields surrounding Tabanyaat the time of the attack on the village on 17 March. She says hundreds of prisoners, working at gunpoint, stripped the sorghum fields bare and loaded every grain on to trucks bound for government garrisons in other parts of the mountains.

Rahila escaped to Kadoro after being raped repeatedly over a month, but at the hospital has found only words of comfort - not the painkillers she wants. She says her body still hurts from the beatings she received and her breasts are sore. She suspects she is pregnant. If she is, she says, she will not harm the child. "It's not his fault."

Phoebe Tutu fled to Kadoro with nine children and a jerrycan when the first government troops attacked Tabanya at 4am. Forced off Kadoro mountain by hunger a little more than a week ago, she joined a group of 30 women foraging for food on the edge of government-controlled areas a four-hour walk away. The women were ambushed and four died. Phoebe was shot and wounded. Reduced to one small plate of sorghum a day, all her children are suffering from diarrhoea.

The government's capture of Toro airstrip near Tabanya has put the displaced almost beyond the reach of help. The nearest airstrip is now 75miles away - a three-day trek up granite mountains and down valleys where water holes are drying up and government troops lay ambushes for defenceless civilians.

On Easter Sunday, as the UN continued to turn a blind eye to the disaster unfolding around Tabanya five weeks after its fall, the first planeload of 4,3 tons of relief organised by the British charity Christian Aid touched down at an airstrip in the east of the mountains. It was the start of a 10-day round trip that required five camels, 250 porters and an armed guard of almost 100 men to be brought to a successful conclusion.

"At one stroke, the attack on Tabanya has cut people off from their harvest and also from easy access from outside," said Christian Aid's Paul Savage. "It now takes a huge logistical effort across insecure and dangerous areas to bring the smallest amount of help to the displaced. This is a planned and purposeful undermining of the Nuba's resilience and capacity to cope and exist."

The toughest and most dangerous, part of the journey was the first leg - a 10-hour, all-night walk across a valley disputed by the government and the SPLA. Scouts preceded us and flanked us and in the middle of the night ordered a sudden change of route. Without warning, we left the rough track we had been following and took to the bush - looping northwards between thorn bushes and sweet-smelling acacia trees until we encountered a second, parallel track shortly before dawn.

Back in the safety of the mountains by the time the sun rose, we learnt that one of our radio messages had been intercepted and an ambush prepared for us by soldiers who the previous week had captured, and raped, two Nuba women.

The same soldiers climbed that same mountain the following week, under cover of darkness, and killed a Nuba farmer as he slept - the twenty-fourth civilian killed in random hit-and-run raids in the past month, according to Daoud Siddiq, head of a Nuba human rights team working in SPLA-controlled areas.

The second leg of our journey skirted the foothills of the Achiron mountains where government soldiers had kidnapped and then killed the headmaster of a local school a few weeks earlier. Shortly before reaching Dabker, the largest market in the region, our path was obliterated by a chain of bomb craters. The local SPLA commander, Ibrahim Mulfa, said government bombers went into action on 15 April exactly two hours after a UN team flew out of the mountains at the end of a campaign of polio vaccinations.

"No one was hurt," he said, "but a pig went down into one of the craters and died. We believe the government is using chemical weapons."

SPLA officials have been obsessed with the idea of chemical weapons ever since President Clinton ordered the bombing of the al-Shifa factory in Khartoum in 1998, claiming it was part of a government chemical weapons programme. Nuba civilians know better. It is they who are being attacked, not the SPLA.

Zakariah Suleiman, an elderly farmer, was among those captured in the Tabanya offensive. For three days he was forced to work for the government forces.

"They burned all the far sorghum and collected all the near sorghum," he said. "They sent us out every day in large groups protected by soldiers. This is their weapon against us: hunger. They have taken everything from Tabanya - sorghum, beans, cowpeas and maize. Nothing is left."

Like Rahila Kuku, Suleiman succeeded in escaping from Tabanya and fled to Kadoro - fully aware that he was running from hunger to hunger.

"I'm happy to be here whether I find food or not," he said. "I have left everything behind, but I don't care if I'm naked or clothed. Here I can go wherever I want to without asking for permission. It's not like over there, in Tabanya, where you are kept under guard and have to ask for permission even to urinate. I may die of hunger here, but I'll die free not penned in like an animal."

khalid I Kodi <kodi@bc.edu>Boston College
c/o Omer M. Shurkian, Nuba Mountains Solidarity abroad, London

******
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Where does the word Nuba come from?

The term Nuba is linked with an ancient Egyptian word, nub, meaning ‘gold’.  It is possible that the ancient Egyptians, being aware that there were gold mines in this country, applied the name ‘nub’ to the whole of the region South of Aswan.  The Copts, the descendants of ancient Egyptians, gave the name ‘Anouba’ (Anobades) to the people dwelling South of Aswan.  Then the Arabs called them ‘an-Nuba’.1

During their chequered history in Northern Sudan, these Nubian people built a civilization and renowned kingdoms - namely, Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia - along the Nile, and as far as the present day Khartoum.  The gnawing raids by Arabs from Egypt since 652 AD and the collapse of the Kingdom of Alwa (Alodia) within signaled the loss of Nubian independence, which they had been enjoying for centuries.  Because of these foreign and internal factors, the Nubian people abandoned their original habitat and migrated southward and westward, covering both Northern and Southern Kordofan.  The pressure of arabisation and islamisation was too much for those who settled in Northern Kordofan - namely, the desert hills - to resist, and they are now almost assimilated into Northern Arabo-Islamic culture.
 

The land and the people:

The Nuba people of Southern Kordofan, as we have just narrated, are one of the indigenous African groups of the country.  The Nuba Mountains occupy an area roughly the size of Scotland.  The land is a lush, fertile and oasis in central Sudan.  The rainfall there is plentiful, and the good soil ensures sufficient food throughout the year.  The inaccessibility of the mountains had kept the Nuba people protected from being entirely hunted down by the slave raiders of the North.  The Nuba society is co-operative and egalitarian.  Moreover, the Nuba Mountains have never been immune from external forces that have intruded into the Sudan and northeast Africa.  The region’s turbulent past is convincing enough evidence.  Historically, the Nuba Mountains offered refuge to those displaced by episodic upheavals along the River Nile; this accounts, in parts, for the diverse ethnic composition of its inhabitants.2

The Nuba are sub-divided into over fifty different ethnic groups, or rather tribes and tribal sections.  However, it is reported that Jos Plateau in Nigeria and the Nuba Mountains in the Sudan are perhaps the most concentrated areas of linguistic diversity.  In both, villages only a few miles away from each other may speak a totally different language, and the speakers of each language may sometimes number only a few hundred.  The Nuba population is estimated to be over two million people.  One of the causes which contributed badly to the decimation of the Nuba population was slavery.  In slave-trade days, some 200,000 Nuba had been removed in bondage to Egypt by 1839.  Other thousands had been seized by Arabs of the surrounding plains and sold to native Arab merchants.  Even to this day, Arab slavers are still at work in Southern Sudan and Mauritania, buying and selling black Africans.  The corrosive effects of slavery, with its sheer brutality and its reduction of humans to a cash value, have built lasting flaws into African-Arab relations; and this remains the undisclosed factor in the current civil war in the Sudan.  The inequalities perpetrated against the Nuba people today, by racist slurs and systems of discrimination, flow from the psyche of master-cum-slave mentality of Arab Sudanese.

Economic and cultural activities:

The Nuba do not show strict tendency towards economics in the sense of budgeting, banking and so forth.  They are agriculturists for self-sufficiency and breed animals - though they are not nomadic.  Their great ceremony of the Full Granary encourages industry in agriculture, but maintains a true democratic equality of wealth by arranging for its dissipation (distribution).  The land in the Nuba Mountains is communally owned by a tribe, though plots of some arable land may belong to a family.

Culture traits occur in varying degrees of similarity or diversity.  The Nuba are an exogamous society - that is,  marriage within the clan is being forbidden.  It is one of cultural phenomena the Nuba are so desperately struggling to preserve against the tide of islamisation and arabisation the central governments are poised to implement.  Nuba cultural activities and events cam take a kind of sport due to their physical performance.   There is sibir (festival, or memorial celebrations); some people argue that it is an excuse for the Nuba to consume marisa (locally brewed beer a staple diet in the Nuba Mountains).  There are other sports like wrestling - though a Nuba-wide sport, Korongo and Nyimang are the best wrestlers; bracelet-fighting - mainly in Kau and Fungor; stick-fighting - in Moro Masakin areas; and hockey.  Dancing and music - including, lyre-playing, flutes, blowing horns, drums beating, gourd trumpets - play a significant part in the Nuba daily life and entertainment.  This way of life is now in danger of being submerged by the Arab North.  In a new approach to Nuba cultural renaissance, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) administration has banned stick-fighting  because it is fatal; campaigning against female circumcision, scarification and tribal customs that discriminate against women.  Study of a Nuba language by every child is introduced.3  Added to Nuba linguistic diversity are newer differences in religion.  Some have been attracted to Islam, others to Christianity, but many to neither religion in particular who are content at the moment to follow traditional ways.

Political development and local authority:

In the past, the Nuba existed as an acephalous community.  Apart from the Kingdom of Tegali, the Nuba lived in tribal sections with no renowned leader.  But when it comes to war, there is always someone somewhere who would come out of the mist and lead them through thick and thin.  Like any indigenous people in the Sudan, the Nuba suffered from the depredations of wars, slavery and oppression during the Turco-Egyptian rule (1821 - 1885) and the Mahdist Rule (1885 - 1898).  Realising the Nuba’s military prowess, the Mahdi travelled to the Nuba Mountains to implore the Tegali King’s assistance.  The riverain Sudanese were sitting on the fence and doubting the Mahdi’s victory over the Turco-Egyptian army; and, at a certain stage, opposed by influential, spiritual clerics.  In addition to the people of Western Sudan, the Mahdi then solicited the support of the Beja in Eastern Sudan and the fugitive slave traders in Southern Sudan.  He mustered his troops from both the oppressed and people with vested interests in the change.  In the twist of events, the very Tegali King, one Adam Um Dabalo, was to die in shackles under the yoke of the Mahdi.

For almost five decades, the Anglo-Egyptian administration (1898 - 1956) tried to subdue the Nuba.  Unlike the Northern Sudanese who fought pitched battles against the Anglo-Egyptian forces before capitulation and joining the new regime, the Nuba resistance continued until 1945.  Although such courageous strife can give a boost to self-pride, the process may have played a role in delaying the extension of education, transport lines and social services to the Nuba Mountains - if other factors, such as racial motives, are eliminated.  Until quite recently, the ghost of slavery discouraged the Nuba to send their kid to school lest they fell prey to the marauding Arab nomads.  Instead, they were taught martial arts and self-endurance.  It is the Nuba tradition of manliness that has led so many of them to serve in the army and the police; and, better still, to contribute so notably to the military traditions of the Sudan.

The Nuba Mountains region was ruled by the Condominium Government as a separate province between 1913 - 1929, with Talodi as a provincial capital.  The province was divided into three administrative areas: Western Jebels (mountains), Eastern Jebels and Southern Jebels.  This process was later modified, and the Native Administration was introduced in the Nuba Mountains in the 1930s.  The region was divided into Tegali District (1935), including Awlad Himeid and Kawahla (of Kalogi), Eliri District (1937) and Talodi Omodia (1945).  Koalib-Heiban and Otoro-Tira became a unified district in 1938.  Heiban was transferred to the Otoro-Tira administration in 1942, and they joined Southern Nuba Confederation in 1947.  Nyimang Confederation was created in 1939, including Mandal, Karko, Wali, Katla, Julud and Temein.  Ajang Confederation (Hill Nubians) was formed in 1940, including Dilling, Ghulfan and Kadaru.  Ajang Confederation and the Koalib administration were amalgamated in 1955.  Finally, Southern Nuba Confederation  was introduced in 1947, including Miri and Kadugli.4  Although it had been argued that the federation represented an essential step in the political evolution of wea