Blood, Ink,
And Oil:
The Case of Darfur
By David Morse
22 July, 2005
CommonDreams.org
The ink is scarcely
dry on oil deals signed between the Islamist dictatorship that rules
Sudan from the northern capital, Khartoum, and an eager bevy of oil
companies from China, India, Japan, and Britain - even as the genocide
continues full tilt in the western region known as Darfur. Every new
contract signed in Khartoum makes it clearer that this genocide is fueled
by the world's unquenchable thirst for petroleum.
Oil rigs are now
drilling on land seized from black African farmers - who have been killed,
raped, and driven off their land by their own government through its
proxy militias, known as Janjaweed, in a campaign of ethnic cleansing
now in its third year.
The Islamist regime
of Lt. General Umar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir bears primary responsibility
for the slaughter. Khartoum's claims that it can't control the Janjaweed
are refuted by United Nations observers and by human rights organizations,
as are Bashir's denials that rape of women and children is used systematically
to intimidate and demoralize black farmers and prevent them from returning
to their ruined villages. Khartoum's continuing slaughter of its own
people should make it a pariah among nations.
Obviously the oil
companies are deeply complicit. Attacks by Janjaweed, often with aerial
support from Sudan government forces, have cleared the way for pipelines
and drilling. Oil company roads and bridges are used by government troops
to carry the genocide into more remote communities in Darfur. And it
is an unhappy fact of recent history that violence, disorder, and corruption
generally accompany the exploitation of oil in undeveloped nations.
Oil revenues do not translate into schools and hospitals for the people;
they translate into arms and Swiss bank accounts for the elite. Sudan,
the largest country in Africa, and one of the poorest, is a case in
point.
Sudan's governing
elite have whipped up ancient ethnic rivalries in their pursuit of oil
revenues, half of which is spent on arms. Oil has thus contributed indirectly
and directly to the death of roughly 370,000 Darfurians and the displacement
of some 3.5 million more, who are now dependent on outside aid for food
and water.
American oil companies
are not visibly part of the scramble, because in 1997 the Clinton administration
added Sudan to the list of states sponsoring terrorism, which included
Iran and Libya. Under these trade sanctions, Americans who do business
with Sudan face up to ten years imprisonment and fines of $500,000.
But why, especially
in the absence of "strategic interests" in Sudan, does President
Bush not take the moral high road? Why does he seem so reluctant to
take even the smallest step to end the genocide?
Congress, to its
credit, is way ahead of the President - reflecting most Americans' essential
decency in believing that the genocide should be brought to a halt.
The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, now being deliberated in Congress,
purports to do that. It calls for beefing up the African Union peacekeeping
forces, which are now stretched dangerously thin in Darfur, providing
the AU with logistical support, and broadening its mandate to include
protection of civilians. The bill also provides for prosecuting before
the International Criminal Court individuals - such as Major General
Salah Abdallah Gosh, head of Sudan's intelligence agency = who are suspected
of helping orchestrate the present genocide.
Why has the Bush
administration lobbied to weaken the Darfur Peace and Accountability
Act?
Why has the administration
sought instead to cozy up to this bloodiest of regimes? Last spring,
the CIA sent one of its own jets to Khartoum to fly none other than
intelligence chief Gosh to meet with intelligence officials in Washington
D.C. The official reason offered by the Bush administration? Sudan was
proving a "valuable ally" in the war against terrorism.
The real reason
may lie with the oil money that has backed George W. Bush from early
in his first campaign for president.
U.S. oil companies,
sidelined since 1997, are clearly eager for a piece of the action in
Sudan. One of the recent oil deals signed with Khartoum is worth noting.
On June 10, a "British" oil tycoon named Friedhelm Eronat
acquired for $8 million the largest stake in a drilling contract signed
two years ago on behalf of Cliveden Sudan, a company owned by Eronat
at that time and had registered in the Virgin Islands to avoid paying
taxes. Until then, Friedhelm Eronat had been an American citizen. He
swapped his American citizenship for British just before signing the
contract, thereby avoiding a jail sentence or fine.
But was Eronat -
a high-risk wheeler-dealer who owns extensive drilling rights in neighboring
Chad, where he played the Chinese against Canadian oil interests - acting
on his own behalf in the recent deal, or was he fronting for other interests?
Eronat has fronted for Exxon Mobil and other companies in the past.
He narrowly escaped indictment on corruption and fraud charges in connection
with a deal allegedly involving shell companies, bribery, and the swapping
of Iranian oil for oil from Kazakhstan in order to circumvent the American
law against trading with Iran.
U.S. oil companies,
to judge by Eronat, can scarcely wait to drill in Sudan. "The war
against terrorism" is, once again, a red herring to cover the administration's
true interest: oil.
The only thing standing
in the president's way is the ugly fact of genocide and the ability
of the American people to make it politically unacceptable for our president
to avert his eyes from what is happening in Darfur.
David Morse is an
independent journalist based in Storrs, CT. He can be reached at his
web-site: www.david-morse.com