Talisman Energy recently reiterated its commitment to stay in Sudan
(UPI, April 3, 2002). Further evidence of this commitment is Talisman’s recent recourse to European debt markets, an effort to avoid dealing with the intense North American controversy attaching to its Sudan investment (National Post, April 6, 2002). What this means is that Talisman is reaffirming its partnership with the National Islamic Front
regime in Khartoum. It is reaffirming its commitment to a regime now
denying humanitarian relief to 1.7 million needy human beings in southern Sudan, a great many of them in oil concession areas. Talisman is willing to accept, in the interests of its “security,” further helicopter gunship attacks like that at Bieh, where thousands of innocent women and children were fired upon as they awaited relief from the UN’s World Food Program. And Talisman is expressing its willingness to countenance Khartoum’s recently announced commitment to open training camps for a terrorist “jihad” against Israel (BBC Monitoring of Khartoum television, April 6, 2002).
Eric Reeves [April 8, 2002]
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-3326
ereeves@smith.edu
Talisman has long declared that it is a force for “good” in Sudan, part
of a process of “constructive engagement,” bringing to bear “Western
concerns” for human rights. All of this absurdly disingenuous corporate
boilerplate—including Talisman’s just issued Corporate Social
Responsibility Report for 2001—is utterly belied by present circumstances in Sudan.
The UN Special Rapporteur for Sudan, Gerhart Baum, declared in June of
last year that “The [human rights] situation now is worse than one year
before” (AP June 27, 2001). Baum noted in particular that, “whole
villages are being razed and villagers forcibly evicted to allow for oil
operations to proceed unimpeded” (AP, April 27, 2001). In the most
recent full report to the UN (January 23, 2002), Baum declares
unambiguously that “oil has seriously exacerbated the conflict while
deteriorating the overall situation of human rights.”
This finding comports precisely with the conclusions of Amnesty
International, the assessment mission of the Canadian Foreign Ministry,
Human Rights Watch, Christian Aid (UK), the Gagnon/Ryle report (October
2001)—and of course the reports of the previous UN Special Rapporteurs
for Sudan, Gaspar Biro and Leonardo Franco.
Further, the UN’s World Food Program reported three days ago that 1.7
million human beings are now being denied emergency humanitarian relief by the Khartoum regime (UN World Food Program press release, April 5, 2002). There is a tremendous concentration of humanitarian flight bans in the oil regions of Western Upper Nile and areas contiguous to the oil concession areas. Thousands of people from these already intensely
distressed populations—many of them displaced by oil development—will perish.
And an April 6, 2002 report from the BBC World Service makes clear that
Khartoum has most certainly not given up its state support for
terrorism:
“Sudanese state television quoted the commander of the paramilitary
Popular Defence Force, Major General Ahmed Abbas, as saying the
[military training] camps had been set up under a directive from
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The commander said the camps were ready to receive any number of volunteers, and he called on all sectors of the Sudanese population to join what he called the holy war [“jihad”]
against Israel.”
This is not, of course, the first time that the regime has used the
word “jihad” to describe its military ambitions. On the contrary, a
“jihad” against the non-Muslim people of southern Sudan has been
repeatedly declared. For example, on October 4, 2002, Agence
France-Presse quoted First Vice President Ali Osman Taha (almost
certainly the most powerful political figure in Khartoum) as saying:
“‘The jihad is our way and we will not abandon it and will keep its
banner high,’ First Vice-President Ali Osman Taha was quoted by SUNA news agency as saying to a brigade of mujahiden fighters who were heading for the war front. ‘We will never sell out our faith and will never betray the oath to our martyrs,’ said Taha, adding that Islam was ‘an absolute justice.'”
But the present “jihad” is directed into the midst of the already
inflamed situation in the Middle East. Agence France-Presse (April 7,
2002) also reports on the terrorist ambitions of the
government-supported PDF:
“Sudan’s government-backed militia, the Popular Defence Forces (PDF),
issued a nationwide appeal Sunday for volunteers to report to training
camps and prepare for ‘holy war’ against Israel. The PDF said it has
opened training camps throughout Sudan to receive and prepare the
‘mujahedin for the Palestinian cause and for freeing the Aqsa mosque
(in Jerusalem) from Zionist filth.'”
This is nothing short of a declaration of support for terrorism as
Khartoum’s contribution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
In its latest Corporate Social Responsibility Report (April 2002),
Talisman declares that “the appropriate moral response is to stay [in
Sudan] and use our corporate resources in a broad and responsible manner to encourage peace, provide economic opportunities and support the communities in the areas in which we operate.”
This surreal blather seems to be about oil extraction in some entirely
fictional country, afflicted with none of the terrible realities that
actually define Sudan. In fact, as numerous recent news reports, UN
reports, and authoritative human rights reports have made indisputably
clear, what Talisman Energy has really done in Sudan is to ally itself
with:
[1] brutal , ongoing scorched-earth warfare serving as “security” for
its oil operations; these include savagely destructive helicopter
gunship attacks on civilians throughout the oil concessions areas, as
well other forms of aerial and ground assault;
[2] a regime in Khartoum that is presently denying all humanitarian
relief aid to 1.7 million people in southern Sudan, a great many of then
in or from Talisman’s oil concession areas; Talisman for its part is
sending hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenues to this same
regime, helping to convince Khartoum that there is no international
price to be paid for failing to negotiate a just peace;
[3] Khartoum’s renewed commitment to terrorism training, which will
take place in camps once used by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda; the camps will now to be put to service in recruiting terrorists to enter into the
exploding Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
This is what Talisman Energy is really committed to.