How consistent will Ottawa be in judging Talisman in Sudan? - Globe & Mail, October 29
The logical contortions of Lloyd and Madeleine
Try to wrap your mind around this.
On Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said she was
mad at Canada and other American allies for letting their companies
invest in countries with dictatorial regimes. Some countries, she said,
without mentioning a large neighbour in the top half of North America,
seem to think that investing in such undemocratic states will actually help
the people living there. In fact, she continued, most of the money often
winds up in the pockets of the dictators.
No, this is not a misprint. Yes, the person who made these remarks is a
high official of the United States -- the same United States that once
propped up dictatorships to make the world safe for Coca-Cola, and the
same United States whose companies still invest billions in China
because (they say) it will help the people living there.
Don't quit now. It gets stranger. Ms. Albright was in Africa when she
said all this. And her lecture was aimed at least partly at Canada. A
Canadian company, Talisman Energy Inc. of Calgary, is pouring
millions into an oil project in Sudan. Ms. Albright doesn't like that.
Washington has been trying to bring pressure on Sudan's radical Islamic
government to end a brutal civil war with Christian rebels in the country's
south. She thinks Talisman is undermining that effort by investing in
Sudan. "I am definitely going to talk to the Canadians about this," she
said.
And so she did. Three days later, Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd
Axworthy threatened Talisman with economic sanctions unless it started
promoting human rights in Sudan. He also appointed a fact-finder to
investigate whether Talisman's oil money might be prolonging the war
there and leading to human-rights abuses.
No, this is not a misprint. Yes, the person who made these remarks is a
high official of Canada -- the same Canada that encourages domestic
companies to invest in Cuba because (you guessed right) it will help the
people there. When the Americans lean on Canada to quit investing in
Cuba, Mr. Axworthy tells them to go jump in a lake. When Ms. Albright
leans on him to lean on Talisman to stop investing in Sudan, he jumps to
attention.
Logical contortions are not unusual in the old debate about whether it's
right to invest in undemocratic countries. When a country like the United
States or Canada really wants to invest somewhere, it says the money
will bring economic progress, and democratic reform will follow. Better
to "engage" the dictators than to back them into a corner. When a
country does not really want to invest, it will say the money will never
bring economic progress, only line the pockets of the dictators. Better to
cut off investment and tighten the thumbscrews.
Simple hypocrisy is not the only reason for these flip-flops. Different
situations sometimes require different solutions. China is not Cuba and
Cuba is not Sudan.
What is the right tack in this case? Mr. Axworthy is right to be
concerned about Talisman. If revenue from its oil project helps Sudan's
leaders buy weapons to continue the war, that is a problem. If the
government is driving peasants off their land to make way for the oil
project, that's a problem, too.
On the other hand, Mr. Axworthy should listen to the arguments put
forward by Jim Buckee, Talisman's chief executive. He says hundreds
of millions of dollars from the oil project will go toward building roads
and hospitals in the country's destitute south. If that is true, then making
Talisman pull out might hurt the Sudanese more than it helps them.
The man whom Mr. Axworthy has appointed to investigate these issues
is Jim Harker, a former official of the Canadian Labour Congress. That
suggests the minister may want an excuse to clamp down on Talisman.
The CLC, after all, does not like Canadian companies investing outside
Canada, much less in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes (at least
right-wing ones).
It would be a shame if Mr. Axworthy had already made up his mind.
Before he does what Ms. Albright wants in Sudan, he should muster as
much real information as possible, and seek truth from facts. |
