March 2, 2000
WHEN WILL THE OUTRAGES CEASE?
When will Canadian complicity, in the form of Talisman Energy’s participation in the Greater Nile project, come to an end?
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A Government of Sudan Antonov bomber, no doubt flying on aviation fuel refined from Talisman-generated crude oil passing by the El Obeid refinery, yesterday bombed the Samaritan’s Purse hospital in Lui. It was at this important hospital that US Senator Bill Frist worked as an emergency surgeon a year ago this past Christmas season. It has, over the past three years, treated more than 100,000 patients in one of the very most distressed regions in the world. It is the only hospital within a 100-mile radius.
Three passes were made by the Antonov, as it dropped 12 high-explosive, shrapnel-loaded bombs in the hospital area. Dozens have been killed and wounded.
From the Samaritan’s Purse “News Release” [Lui, Sudan, March 2, 2000]:
“Armed aircraft from Sudan’s Islamic government dropped 12 bombs on the Samaritan’s Purse hospital in Liu, the only hospital within a 100-mile radius. Eleven of the 12 bombs exploded at or near the hospital killing a number of people (bodies are still being found), critically wounding dozens , and damaging the hospital’s children’s and tuberculosis wards. More than 100 patients were being treated or housed at the hospital at the time of the bombing, where four American doctors are stationed. The bombing prompted many patients to flee, interrupting critical tuberculosis treatments needed to save their lives.”
The Government of Sudan doesn’t care whether it kills children, US Senators, the wounded and sick, or simply those trying to make a life in the desperate circumstances of southern Sudan. Their goal is terror, the dispersal of civil society, and ending the means of self-sufficiency. Their ultimate goal is genocidal destruction of the peoples of southern Sudan.
That a Canadian corporation has made itself a key economic partner, indeed ally, of the Government of Sudan is an ongoing disgrace to the nation of Canada and its political leadership. For it is this abysmally weak leadership which refuses to accept its own responsibility, refuses to halt Talisman’s role in the ongoing destruction of innocent Sudanese civilian life.
Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-3326
ereeves@sophia.smith.edu