AFRICANEWS
SudanOil, war and peaceWarBy Charles Omondi
For people who have for decades had to contend with a battered economy, the beginning of exploitation of huge reserves of oil would be a main cause for celebration. After all isn't oil a highly priced commodity whose demand is ubiquitous! Not so with Sudan, Africa's most expansive state and one that has been at war since it disentangled herself from the colonial yoke in 1956. The commencement of exportation of oil from the impoverished State last August, has introduced a new wave of apprehension that the protagonists may no longer be interested in terminating the protracted conflict through dialogue. Analysts now fear that with the huge revenue going to the government from oil exports, Khartoum has lost many incentives whatsoever for peaceful negotiation. Khartoum's daily earnings from the oil exports are estimated at US$2 million per day. With such a financial clout, purchase of arms will no longer be a worry for Khartoum. Furthermore, the new development is likely to restore the country's shaky investor confidence and enhance Sudan's credit worthiness. A Canadian company, Talisman Energy Inc in August exported 600,000 barrels of oil from Sudan upon the completion of a 1,500 kilometre-long pipeline the multi-national runs in partnership with Chinese, Malaysian and Sudanese state corporations. The pipeline runs from the oilfields in Bentiu in Southern Sudan's Unity State to Port Sudan. It currently has a capacity to handle 100,000 barrels a day but will be able to handle double the capacity when fully operational in two year's time. "Why would a brutal junta, which has violated virtually every human right in the book, make peace with its adversary if it has the resources to be victorious and impose its final solution?" poses the Director of Canadian NGO Freedom Quest International, Mel Middleton "Dictators are not known for magnanimity or are we to assume that there has been some form of collective epiphany and that the Sudanese rulers have all repented and purified themselves in the waters of the Red Sea?" Freedom Quest International is a member of Sudan Inter-Agency Reference Group (SIARG), a forum for Canadian agencies working in Sudan. Other members of SIARG include Canadian Friends Service Committee, Canadian Labour Congress, Emmanuel International, Steelworkers Humanity Fund and Inter-Church Coalition on Africa. Viewed mainly as a legacy of bad colonialism, Sudan's civil war has gone through different phases. The current phase began in 1983 when southern rebels under Col. John Garang took up arms to protest against domination by the mainly Arab and Islamic government of Khartoum. The war has been described variously as black Africans against Arabs; Northerners against Southerners and Muslims against Christians. Yet one of the least recognised factors which is fundamental to the conflict is the issue of control of resources; water, agricultural land, livestock and most recently oil. Most of Sudan's resources lie in the predominantly African and Christian south yet power has always rested in the Arab and Islamic north. Middleton argues: "For years, various juntas in Khartoum have coveted these resources and seen them as essential for their successive visions of Arab and Islamic "development". Yet this "development" has seldom made room for the cultures and lifestyles of the Southern Sudanese people." Sudan's President Omar el-Bashir maintains that the revenue from oil will be used for the good of the Sudanese as opposed to financing the war. The president recently told the National Assembly that the proceeds of oil exports would go towards building the country's infrastructure, "with special consideration for southern states and other war-affected areas", according to an address broadcast on national television. He said government policy would focus on electricity, irrigation, roads, capacity-building, scientific research and social programmes, with special attention to be devoted to the south and other war-affected areas. During its recent 10th anniversary celebrations for Bashir's regime hailed oil production as one of its major achievements. In agreement with President Bashir is the Deputy Head of the Sudanese Embassy in Rome, Mr Altereifi Ahmed Kormino."The oil revenue would bring riches to Sudan and as you know, rich people do not fight," Kormino said at a recent symposium on the Sudanese conflict in Milan.. "Why is there no war in the US, in Canada or Italy?" Kormino posed and explained that contrary to Middleton's fears, the Sudanese government would use the earnings from oil exports to improve infrastructure, fight ignorance and disease, minimise infant mortality and improve life expectancy in Sudan. To the SPLA representative in Nordic Countries, John Duku, there can be no justification whatsoever for Khartoum to exploit the resources in the south before addressing the issue of the rights of the southerners. "The SPLA's position is that any oil corporations in Sudan are legitimate military targets. Let nobody be under any illusion about that," Luku asserts. Perhaps a confirmation of this came sooner than expected when on September 20, an explosion ruptured the pipeline near Atbara, about 275 kilometres northeast of the capital. A rebel spokesman, Lieutenant-General Abdel Rahman Said was later quoted as saying they (rebels) had blown the pipeline to deliver a message to Khartoum. "We wanted to show the government that we are able to do what we want."
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