Sudan's oil revenue escalates war - Eng.

["Nadia & Giovanni" <nadia.joe@tiscalinet.it>]

AFRICANEWS - News and Views on Africa from Africa
Issue 58 - January 2001
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Sudan
Sudan's oil revenue escalates war


While Sudan continues to reap benefits from Talisman Oil Exploration
and other ventures exploiting the country's rich oil sources, the
civil war rages on. It is clear that the oil revenues are being used
to finance the war rather than providing a better life for all.

Human rights
By Peter Pesa


Sudan began its first oil exportation last year amidst huge
celebrations in Port Sudan. The production rate is running at 200,000
barrels per day and accounting for 16 to 17 per cent of the country's
gross domestic product (GDP).

The oil revenue is proving to be a boon to Sudan's economy. Sabir
Hassan, manager of the Central Bank of Sudan, told Reuters recently
that the country's rate of inflation sank to 3.3 percent at the end of
2000, compared to an average of just under 15 per cent in 1999. "We
would not try to push it below five percent this year, as we do not
want to overkill the economy," he had said. "Five percent will remain
the medium-term goal."

The oil revenue is also fuelling Sudan's war machine. Unconfirmed
sources have disclosed that Poland sold fifty tanks to Sudan in
October 2000. Perhaps because of this new money, Sudanese president
Omar El-Bashir has turned up the heat on his war rhetoric.

El-Bashir surprised the nation when he recently told Khartoum Monitor,
Sudan's only English daily, that southern political leaders should
persuade the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) to
surrender to the government.

"It is your duty to convince those who had taken up arms to come back
to the towns and join the government to develop the country," reported
the December 3, 2000 issue of Khartoum Monitor. "If they do not listen
to your call, we shall recruit more fighters and face them
militarily."

  "This means that oil has provided enough of the much-needed foreign
cash for the government to finance its war," said Gabriel Matur, who
described himself as a "concerned citizen." He said that many people
who have been displaced by the war have come to live in the north as
"hostages."

El-Bashir went on to praise southern Sudanese who opted to come to the
national capital Khartoum, describing them as "peace lovers and
patriotic citizens," in a bid to create yet another rift among
southern Sudanese. He was referring to those southerners that Matur
described.

Dr. Mustafa Osman Ismail, Sudan's Foreign Relations Minister, had
issued a statement on January 3 of this year saying, "the Sudanese Air
Force is avoiding targeting civilians but will not allow rebels to
hide behind human shields."

"The use of air power will continue against the rebels wherever they
are and we will take care to avoid civilians," Ismail had told the
Egyptian News Weekly, Al-Mussawar.

"On Friday, December 29, 2000, a Sudan government Antonov plane bombed
Fraser Cathedral at Lui, destroying the building," said a statement
released on January 10 by the Right Rev. Bullen A. Dolli, the
Episcopalian Bishop of Lui Diocese. "Three days earlier, December 26,
a GOS plane had also bombed Lui, causing destruction to life and
property."

Lui is a small town in the western part of Equatoria in south Sudan.
It is populated by civilians.

"The Government of Sudan considers every African Sudanese,
particularly those from the south, as rebels," said Dr. Toby Maduot, a
veteran southern politician of the opposition Democratic Forces Front
(DFF), a non-registered party.

"Everybody in rebel-held areas is also a rebel according to the Sudan
government's definition," said Madout. "The statement of Dr. Ismail is
just another blackmailing for the world community. The government is
bent on perpetrating its war of genocide."

During a speech at a January 8 rally marking his re-election as
president, El-Bashir also vowed to liberate rebel-held areas in south
Sudan and to impose Islamic law nation-wide.

The Islamic Sharia is one of the bones of contention between SPLA/M
and the Sudanese government. In the last Inter-Governmental Authority
for Drought and Desertification (IGADD)- sponsored peace talks held in
Nairobi, the government refused to allow for the separation of
religion from state, hence the negotiations failed.

"El-Bashir's statements have dashed all hopes for a meaningful
dialogue," said Maduot. He said the government is bent on crushing the
SPLA/M by using oil money to finance the war instead of addressing
development problems for poverty-stricken areas.

In a faxed statement to AFP in Cairo, the National Democratic Alliance
(NDA), an opposition umbrella movement, said Bashir's speech amounted
to "a setback for efforts at a comprehensive political solution."  It
"bolsters the conviction that the regime is not serious in its search
for a political agreement," the statement said.

Taban Deng Gai, an officer in Riak Macar's Southern Sudan Independence
Movement (SSIM) - now renamed Sudan People's Democratic Front (SPDF) -
resigned from his constitutional post of State Minister in the federal
Ministry of Roads and Communication last year.

In his resignation letter dated December 9, 2000, Gai said: "The
government of El-Bashir has chosen a military option, exploiting the
revenue from the oil to fund its military machine, rather than a
peaceful resolution of the conflict." He also said the government has
been "exploiting the IGAD Peace Initiative to buy time for its
military option."

An official of the Khartoum-based Talisman Oil Exploration Company
said that "the company has established a human rights monitoring
unit." Unfortunately, Talisman's  human rights monitors are restricted
to the oil exploration areas. They do not control the Sudan
government's use of oil money.

Asked why the Canadian company should work with a government whose
human rights record is very poor, the official, who declined to be
named, said: "Talisman is not the only company operating in Sudan.
What is the guarantee that oil production will cease only when we
pulled off?"


_______________________
Perciò, ecco, la attirerò a me,
la condurrò nel deserto
e parlerò al suo cuore.
Le renderò le sue vigne
e trasformerò la valle di Acòr
in porta di speranza.
Là canterà
come nei giorni della sua giovinezza,
come quando uscì dal paese d'Egitto.
 - Osea 2,16.17 -