The Canadian report on the human impact of petroleum exploitation in Southern Sudan aroused from the implication of its national company Talisman is overwhelming. Attacks on Nuer and Dinka civilian population took place in February 92, from November 92 to April 93, in December 93, in October 96, from December 97 to beginning of 98, in May 99, though there were neither SPLA nor battles in the area. The method varies little: bombing raids (sometimes from Talisman airstrip), burning down of villages and even of small towns like Leer, murders, kidnappings, sometimes towards slavery, sometimes towards sinister Peace Camps. The rare survivors flee and James Buckee, Talisman CEO can announce :”Nobody lives there”. The same survey noted that Sudanese employees on petrol installations can only be recruited with the consent of Sudanese security. Qualified personnel come from the North, unskilled workers are Baggara, indigenous to the North, established there during the last ten years, since those natives to the area have disappeared. Witnesses say that some Nuer have been executed simply because they were looking for a job.
Khartoum had successively entrusted safety at the sites to two warlords former SPLA who had joined the regime; Riak Mashar, then Paolino Matieb. This manoeuvre was an outright success for the regime; the two men and their militias fought each other in long deadly combats during which many civilians suffered tremendously. It gave the government an unhoped-for result. How many Southerners were slain without any risk to the State’s army or militias. Since then Riak Mashar has quit the government alliance. 
Khartoum kills and expels local people near petrol fields even more systematically than elsewhere. The first aim is to avoid sabotage on the sites. Another reason: the constitution decides that a certain part of the natural wealth coming from a federated State belongs to it. Who knows? Perhaps in the long run international opinion will not be satisfied with praising the constitution and may want to see if it is applied. Such financial sharing would be possible if the State in question is only inhabited by Northern people. Therefore the local people must be killed or forced to leave then replaced. Lastly, Beshir might not forever postpone a referendum of auto-determination; the South is divided into federated States as is the whole of Sudan, and the results will be valid State by State. In no case should the petroleum States join up with an independent South. So to-day, not Unity. If it is inhabited only by Northerners, no problem, it will never happen. Therefore the local people must be killed or forced to leave then replaced.
But Unity is not the only State concerned. Alluring petrol perspectives extend to Warap, Jonglei, North Bahr-el-Ghazal and the Upper Nile. Soon Khartoum government will have to do away with the whole population of these sites so that the only inhabitants will be those transferred from the North. Other genocides will be necessary. The same logic applies to those « untrustworthy » people living near the pipeline. Doubtless this is the reason for the Nuba genocide even though a third of them were Muslim. The UK newspaper  the Independent  states that in 1999, the government’s armed forces, both land and air, mopped up a passage along the pipeline constructed partly by the German firm Manneheim with British Weir and Allen pumps.
Besides the Chinese, the Malays, and the Canadian Talisman, two European groups exploit the petrol fields of Block A (see map VS  87-88). The Swedish firm Lundin Oil, one of the largest shareholders of Arakis before it was bought up by Talisman, had been working in Sudan since 1994. This company is directed by a family living in Switzerland. On August  17th, Suna reported the visit of Director General Adolf Lundin, and his meeting with Beshir. Since then Lundin says they have discovered extensive reserves of crude oil. This month they will finish building a road to be used by tankers leading from their own operations zones to the pipeline. Il has already been used by the Sudanese army to destroy nearby villages. The Austrian OMV began work in South Sudan in June 97 and is thought to plan and invest 900 millions dollars. It has announced spectacular reserves at the oil well of Thar Yath: the population of the region has been attacked in October 98. A second Canadian firm, Fosters, having learnt that its government was taking no action in spite of the report, acquired a concession in March 2000 to the East of Talisman, in Upper Nile State. At the same time Khartoum took the offensive in this area. 
Is the government waiting and committing a new genocide before letting Fosters work there?
French honour is safe. Total and Total Fina who have had concessions in Southern Sudan for twenty years do not work them. However, following the resumption last November of the dialogue with Khartoum, the European Union asked the Sudan distinct improvements in five criteria, among them: positive evolution of the peace process, human rights and democratic overtures. Our politicians listen to the regime official speeches composed for international use. Do petro-dollars blind them when European companies are, voluntarily or not accomplices? Will the European Union and the world at large sit back and wait till the petrol areas are void of their first inhabitants before examining the facts?
Or may be never care about them.