Osama bin Laden’s ongoing commercial and financial connections to Sudan should continue to gain greater profile as the US develops a broad campaign against international terrorism. There have been numerous recent investigative and synthesizing reports, reflecting research into court records, interviews with regional and terrorism experts, and a canvassing of publicly available documents. Some of the most revealing information is contained in the court records documenting the case against bin Laden and others for the 1998 terrorist bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Of particular note are bin Laden’s construction companies in Sudan, their role in developing the key road from Khartoum to Port Sudan, and the related commercial enterprises that continue to fund the al-Qaeda terrorists.
Eric Reeves [September 19, 2001]
Smith College ereeves@smith.edu
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-3326
ereeves@smith.edu
The road from Khartoum to Port Sudan is of particular significance since it served as the route and construction platform for the last 800 kilometers of the oil pipeline that passes from southern Sudan through Khartoum to Port Sudan. The effect of the new road was to make pipeline construction much faster, much simpler, and much cheaper. It will do the same for the new pipeline now under construction. Oil companies operating in the south have been the direct beneficiaries of these construction projects in which bin Laden and his al-Qaeda (“the foundation”) organization are the key players. As the Associated Press reports today, “Al-Qaida’s Hijra Construction Co. built the Thaadi—or ‘revolutionary’—Road from Khartoum to Port Sudan for the Sudanese government, which paid by giving al-Qaida ownership of the Khartoum Tannery, according to court records” (AP, Sept 19, 2001).
In further commentary on the trial proceedings against bin Laden and other defendants for the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania—terrorist attacks in which 224 innocent people were killed and thousands injured—the Associated Press notes:
“One of bin Laden’s businesses was the Hijra Construction Company in Sudan, which built roads and bridges and bought explosives to clear the way, according to testimony at the U.S. Embassy bombing trials. Bin Laden’s Taba Investments fund, also of Sudan, was used to change Sudanese currency into dollars and British pounds.” (AP, Sept 18, 2001)
It is essential to recognize that bin Laden’s financial presence in Sudan continues in many forms, primarily agriculture (including gum arabic), banking, and construction. For example, today’s Associated press story further notes that “Bin Laden and al-Qaida also ran the Blessed Fruits farming business, growing peanuts, fruit, sesame, white corn, sunflowers and wheat, according to [court] testimony” (AP, Sept 19). But bin Laden’s most important legacy is certainly the vast reconstruction of the road from Khartoum to Port Sudan. This formerly narrow, winding, and lengthy road was shortened by a third (from 1200 to 800 kilometers), leveled, expanded, and made into the natural construction route and platform for the oil pipeline that would soon be built by Talisman Energy, China National Petroleum Corp., and Petronas of Malaysia.
Though the foreign labor was primarily Chinese, the pipeline construction project was funded by all three companies of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company. All are thus the beneficiaries of bin Laden’s construction efforts—and all have, in turn, indirectly funded his terrorist operations via the oil revenues flowing to Khartoum.
Certainly Sudan’s reputation as a terrorist-sponsoring nation was well known to all these companies. It is thus especially striking that the Government of Canada would have allowed Talisman Energy to engage in a commercial project in Sudan, given the conditions that obtained when Talisman entered the country in 1998. Not only was the country wracked by massively destructive, ongoing civil war, but Talisman’s entrance came just one year after the US imposed comprehensive sanctions on Sudan, primarily for its role in sponsoring international terrorism. Their entrance also came very shortly after the terrorist bombings of the two US embassies in August 1998. The recently concluded trial for these acts of terrorism has clearly indicated the responsibility of bin Laden and his terrorist network al-Qaeda. Talisman Energy and the Government of Canada must certainly have had considerable knowledge of bin Laden’s, and thus Sudan’s, role in the embassy bombings when Talisman officially entered Sudan in October 1998.
(For transcripts of the trial, revealing much about bin Laden’s financial and commercial connections to Sudan, see URLs listed below; see also the analysis of the transcripts by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies: http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/binladen.htm.)
The Associated Press is joined by a number of other very recent newspaper accounts of bin Laden’s relationship to Khartoum. For example, the Washington Post has also taken note of the court records for the 1998 embassy bombings, pointing out that “whatever the source, financing of important operations appears to have been plentiful. During the recently completed trials into the East Africa bombings in 1998, evidence emerged that al-Qaeda was paying Egyptians between $1,200 and $1,500 a month to run various support operations in Sudan, a large sum by Egyptian standards” (Washington Post, September 16, 2001).
If the United States is serious about confronting Osama bin Laden’s terrorism on all international fronts, then Sudan must be on the very short list of those who should be regarded as having continued to provide rich economic and financial opportunities for bin Laden, as well as ongoing support for his al-Qaeda organization. The US State Department’s most recent annual report on terrorism [“Overview of State-sponsored Terrorism,” April 2001] declares unambiguously that: “[In 2000] Sudan continued to be used as a safe haven by members of various groups, including associates of Usama Bin Ladin’s al-Qaida organization.”
How directly is bin Laden’s wealth directed at Americans? How concerned should we be about his ongoing financial ties to Sudan and the State Department’s recent report on Khartoum’s continuing support for bin Laden’s al-Qaeda? Who are the future targets of bin Laden’s terrorist madness? Bin Laden himself has chosen to answer this last question:
“Bin Laden makes little distinction between American civilians and
soldiers. ‘You say I am fighting against the American civilians,’ he told one
interviewer. ‘My enemy is every American man who is fighting against me,
even by paying taxes.'” (Los Angeles Times, Sept 15, 2001)
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In a striking coincidence, an American legislative response to Khartoum’s massive campaign of domestic terror, directed against its own people in southern Sudan, is poised to bring significant economic pressure to bear on this brutal regime. Such pressure would be immensely useful not only in forcing Khartoum to negotiate a just peace with the people of the south—who have endured over 2 million casualties and the displacement of over 4 million people—but also in forcing the regime to sever all connections with bid Laden and his terrorist organizations.
The Sudan Peace Act as passed by the House of Representatives (422 to 2, on June 13, 2001) contains a sanctions provision that would target oil companies operating in Sudan. Two of these—Talisman Energy and China National Petroleum Corp/PetroChina—are both beneficiaries of bin Laden’s construction efforts as well as supporters of the Khartoum regime (to which they are directing massive oil revenues); they also trade on the New York Stock Exchange. The House measure would appropriately deny these oil companies the right to trade on American stock exchanges. In understanding the full rationale for such capital market sanctions, it should also be borne in mind that the targeted oil companies are the direct beneficiaries of Khartoum’s domestic reign of terror—a brutal and authoritatively documented campaign of scorched-earth warfare in the oil regions of southern Sudan that serves as “security” for the oil companies.
Dismayingly, the Senate may yet eviscerate the House sanctions measure. It depends in large measure on the decisions now being made by Senators Joseph Biden (D-Delaware), Paul Sarbanes (D-Maryland), and most critically, Bill Frist (R-Tennessee). But public pressure on the Congress to include US capital market sanctions against oil companies operating in Sudan continues to grow dramatically. The AFL-CIO decided last week to lend the support of its 13 million members to the campaign to keep the House bill intact. So, too, have scores of important African American political and church constituencies, as have human rights groups, Christian and Jewish religious groups, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and a number of other important constituencies.
Americans are clearly prepared to wage a concerted and truly national effort to confront the terrible scourge of international terrorism. But for those who see clearly how directly Sudan has figured, and continues to figure, in the scheme of things that makes possible the atrocities of Osama bin Laden, it will be difficult to understand how the carefully targeted sanctions of the Sudan Peace Act can fail to enjoy the support of the Senate and the White House.
For there can be no mistaking the meaning if House sanctions fail to survive: the White House will have successfully persuaded the Senate, or at least key senators, to abandon a powerful economic measure directed against a significant ally of bin Laden. And this will be because of well-funded pressure from Wall Street and a few business interests, who evidently take a painfully short-sighted view of what is truly in our national economic self-interest. If America is not prepared to take this robust economic step against a regime that is engaged in the genocidal destruction of its own people, if America fails to act meaningfully in responding to Khartoum’s ongoing support for al-Qaeda and the regime’s many financial connections to Osama bin Laden, then it will be hard to persuade the world that we are truly serious about attacking terrorism in a comprehensive fashion.
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List of daily transcripts of the USA v. Usama bin Laden et al trial in the Southern District of New York. Digital files from the Court Reporters Office; (212) 805-0300.
Day 1 5 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-01.htm (213KB)
Day 2 6 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-02.htm (245KB)
Day 3 7 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-03.htm (89KB)
Day 4 13 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-04.htm (149KB)
Day 5 14 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-05.htm (190KB)
Zipped file of Days 01-05 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-01-05.zip (249KB)
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Day 6 15 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-06.htm (225KB)
Day 7 20 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-07.htm (282KB)
Day 8 21 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-08.htm (201KB)
Day 9 22 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-09.htm (124KB)
Day 10 26 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-10.htm (214KB)
Zipped file of Days 06-10 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-06-10.zip (281KB)
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Day 11 27 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-11.htm (171KB)
Day 12 28 February 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-12.htm (235KB)
Day 13 1 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-13.htm (122KB)
Day 14 7 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-14.htm (222KB)
Day 15 8 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-15.htm (239KB)
Zipped file of Days 11-15 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-11-15.zip (278KB)
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Day 16 12 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-16.htm (249KB)
Day 17 13 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-17.htm (224KB)
Day 18 14 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-18.htm (150KB)
Day 19 19 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-19.htm (253KB)
Day 20 20 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-20.htm (179KB)
Zipped file of Days 16-20 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-16-20.zip (290KB)
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Day 21 22 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-21.htm (178KB)
Day 22 26 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-22.htm (200KB)
Day 23 27 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-23.htm (146KB)
Day 24 29 March 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-24.htm (86KB)
Day 25 2 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-25.htm (161KB)
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Day 26 3 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-26.htm (129KB)
Day 27 4 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-27.htm (128KB)
Day 28 12 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-28.htm (102KB)
Day 29 16 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-29.htm (251KB)
Day 30 17 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-30.htm (95KB)
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Day 31 18 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-31.htm (152KB)
Day 32 23 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-32.htm (368KB)
Day 33 24 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-33.htm (211KB)
Day 34 25 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-34.htm (180KB)
Day 35 26 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-35.htm (210KB)
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Day 36 30 April 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-36.htm (235KB)
Day 37 1 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-37.htm (280KB)
Day 38 2 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-38.htm (262KB)
Day 39 3 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-39.htm (216KB)
Day 40 7 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-40.htm (199KB)
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Day 41 8 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-41.htm (280KB)
Day 42 9 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-42.htm (289KB)
Day 43 10 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-43.htm (115KB)
Day 44 11 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-44.htm (38KB)
Day 45 14 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-45.htm (7KB)
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Day 46 15 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-46.htm (31KB)
Day 47 16 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-47.htm (19KB)
Day 48 17 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-48.htm (41KB)
Day 49 18 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-49.htm (48KB)
Day 50 21 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-50.htm (44KB)
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Day 51 22 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-51.htm (41KB)
Day 52 23 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-52.htm (16KB)
Day 53 24 May 2001 Not sent by Court Reporter
Day 54 25 May 2001 Not sent by Court Reporter
Day 55 29 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-55.htm (125KB)
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Day 56 30 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-56.htm (233KB)
Day 57 31 May 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-57.htm (220KB)
Day 58 4 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-58.htm (248KB)
Day 59 5 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-59.htm (222KB)
Day 60 6 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-60.htm (31KB)
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Day 61 7 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-61.htm (11KB)
Day 62 11 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-62.htm (29KB)
Day 63 12 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-63.htm (52KB)
Day 64 18 June 2001 Court Reporter says entire record sealed
Day 65 19 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-65.htm (206KB)
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Day 66 20 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-66.htm (287KB)
Day 67 21 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-67.htm (201KB)
Day 68 25 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-68.htm (99KB)
Day 69 26 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-69.htm (219KB)
Day 70 27 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-70.htm (131KB)
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Day 71 28 June 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-71.htm (135KB)
Day 72 2 July 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-72.htm (350KB)
Day 73 3 July 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-73.htm (85KB)
Day 74 5 July 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-74.htm (10KB)
Day 75 9 July 2001 Not sent by Court Reporter
Day 76 10 July 2001 http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-76.htm (18KB)