Controversial Canadian oil company should stay in Sudan, says Alliance MP
OTTAWA, March 23 (Canadian Press) -- Talisman Energy Inc. should continue doing
business in Sudan because it's the only foreign oil company that is contributing to
health and social welfare in the war-torn country, says Alliance MP Keith Martin.
Martin, Opposition critic for Africa and Latin America, recently returned from a five-
day visit to Sudan, where critics say oil revenues generated by the Canadian-owned
firm have been helping perpetuate an 18-year-old civil war.
The British Columbia MP, a medical doctor, met the country's leading environmental
and human-rights activists, as well as opposition leaders.
"The people who are paying the price of this conflict with their lives, to a person, said
Talisman should stay," Martin said in an interview Friday.
"Of the companies there, Talisman is the only one engaging in some oversight on
environmental issues; they're the only group that is really making an investment in
health, education and primary social development."
It is doing so as a result of public pressure from Canadians, said Martin, who toured a
Talisman-funded hospital in Heglig with facilities and equipment he said rivals
anything that can be found in rural Africa.
He said Talisman has also helped initiate basic education projects and drilled water
wells.
"What is there is more than what they had before," he said.
Talisman recorded unprecedented net earnings of $906 million last year, more than
five times those of the previous year.
Human rights groups and church organizations have fiercely criticized Talisman for
its work developing the Greater Nile Oil Project along with the Khartoum government
and state-owned oil companies of Malaysia and China.
"The little bit of good that Talisman does by one hospital or a few roads is totally
outweighed by the damaging impact of their involvement in Sudan," said Kathy
Vandergrift, a spokesperson for World Vision Canada and co-chair of the Sudan
Inter-Agency Reference Group, a coalition of 22 Canadian organizations.
"I'm just surprised that on the strength of five days, spent mostly being hosted by
Khartoum and Talisman, he would venture a counter opinion to every reputable
human rights organization."
The Montreal-based International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic
Development has said evidence is overwhelming that Talisman operations are
"contributing to the desperate human-rights situation" in Sudan.
A federal government investigation of Talisman's oil operations released last year said
the company should stay in Sudan but should be forced to live up to its human-rights
obligations.
"The Sudanese recognize that if Talisman leaves, the Chinese are going to buy up that
concession and they'll be left with nothing," said Martin, adding he saw Chinese
weapons borne by child soldiers of the Sudanese army.
"The debate that's been taking place right now in this country is so political, so devoid
of what's actually going on. If the people who are paying the price with their lives are
saying Talisman should stay, I'm not going to say anything else."
Martin said the Canadian public must hold Talisman to its promise of "transparent and
accountable public disclosure of investment."
And Ottawa should be pressuring other countries to do likewise, he said.
"The Chinese and Malaysians should be shamed into playing a more active role . . . in
primary and social development."
Martin said he saw several well-fed 14-year-old boys in new army fatigues
brandishing Chinese assault rifles while those around them lay starving to death. He
said it's obvious the Chinese are trading arms for oil rights.
Humanitarian agencies have only about 12 per cent of the food needed to feed a
million refugees massed in disease-ridden camps south of the Bahr El Ghazal River in
Sudan. Martin predicted a massive famine within two weeks.
"Basically, the (agencies) are drawing up the press releases to let the world know how
many people are going to die." |
