Sudanese rebels target Canadian oil firm - Globe and Mail, Nov.30
Official vows to target 'arrogant' Talisman
STEPHANIE NOLEN
The Globe and Mail
Tuesday, November 30
Nairobi -- Sudan's powerful rebel army will target Canadians who work
on Talisman Energy Inc.'s oil project in southern Sudan.
"We consider the assets and people there to be a potential military target.
We don't see them as civilians," said John Andruga Duku, a top official of
the Sudan People's Liberation Army.
Mr. Duku was in Nairobi, Kenya, yesterday preparing for the latest round
of peace talks between the SPLA and the government of Sudan.
"Talisman is very arrogant, they don't take seriously our warnings that we
take no responsibility for Canadian citizens working in the oil fields," he
said. "But we will strike; there is no doubt about it."
Talisman, working with the Sudanese government, based in the north of
the country, is drilling oil wells and operating a pipeline in southern Sudan,
where the rebels are strongest. About 75 employees are working on the
$735-million project.
The Islamist government in Khartoum has been engaged in a 17-year civil
war with the Christian and animist peoples of the south, a struggle in which
an estimated two million people have died.
Mr. Duku refused to put any time frame on the ultimatum. Indeed, the
Sudan People's Liberation Movement and the Sudan People's Liberation
Army, its military wing, have issued warnings to foreign oil workers in the
past.
SPLM spokesman Samson Kwaje suggested yesterday that recent
political changes in southern Sudan make these threats increasingly
realistic.
He said local militias once in the pay of the government have defected to
support the rebels, leaving government troops of questionable loyalty (and
possibly hired mercenaries) defending the oil wells.
"We have the capacity and the capability to strike at the source in the
south or at the terminal in Port Sudan, and this will happen," Mr. Duku
said.
The comments are the latest blow to Talisman, which has been embroiled
in controversy for months over its African oil project. The Calgary-based
company has come under a barrage of criticism from lobby organizations
and under heavy scrutiny by the U.S. and Canadian governments.
The SPLA has long been plagued by factionalism; southern Sudan is home
to more than 300 ethnic groups. It is impoverished and is fighting a
superior military force, so it is hard to tell how realistic Mr. Duku's
warnings may be.
The SPLM says the Talisman project has driven hundreds of thousands
of people from their homes, a charge the company consistently denies.
The Sudanese government is enforcing a 300-kilometre buffer zone
around the oil fields and pipeline, driving out the local population, mostly
Nuer herdsmen, by burning their villages, killing their cattle and bombing
them so they cannot provide cover for SPLA fighters, Dr. Kwaje said.
"What is shocking for us is that Talisman uses every way to justify its
involvement," Mr. Duku said. "They are robbing the people of the area,
who will have no benefit from their own resources. The government of
Sudan is carpet-bombing the area around the oil wells, and the soldiers
are forcibly relocating people.
"The only remedy is for the Canadian people to put pressure on Talisman
to stop," he added. "This is not the time for this investment."
The SPLM is quick to stress that it is not against the exploitation of
Sudan's oil wealth. It wants to freeze drilling until a peace settlement is
negotiated with the government.
Dr. Kwaje said that if north and south Sudan remain one nation, the oil
revenues could be shared. But if the south becomes independent, the
SPLM would reimburse the government for its investment (an estimated 5
per cent of the project; Talisman holds 40 per cent) and either build a
new pipeline to the port of Mombasa in Kenya or pay the Sudanese
government to continue to use the existing port at the end of the pipeline in
northern Sudan.
SPLM leaders, who run their organization from a series of somewhat
decrepit offices in Nairobi, are quick to point out that Total and Chevron
stopped their oil development in Sudan when they lost property and
people.
"We went after the Americans and the French, and now it is the
Canadians," Dr. Kwaje said with a chuckle.
The SPLA will settle for nothing less than a total freeze on the Talisman
project until there is a full peace agreement with the government, he said.
Then, Talisman would be welcome to resume work in south Sudan.
"We are part of a global village," Mr. Duku explained. "We cannot
develop our resources on our own. We are a very poor country."
Until there is peace, the Canadian company has to pull out, the SPLA
said. "The Canadian government has a responsibility to persuade
Canadian citizens not to do business with this government," Mr. Duku
said.
Dr. Kwaje stressed that the SPLA sees a difference between the
Canadian people, known for their humanitarian work in the region, and
Talisman.
"I hope that if anything happens to their employees, the Canadian people
will look at it in this light of the civil war," he said. "What we hope is that
the Canadian people will not stay in the war zone. They know it is a war
zone, so why risk it?" |
