Despite Darfur, Indian investments balloon in Sudan
This highlights the importance of oil-rich Sudan.
Sudan is the biggest recipient of India’s foreign investment.
Note: China uses Sudan not only for their oil; Sudan is also the base for Chinese oil operations elsewhere in Africa. And it appears China is willing to trade weapons for oil to Sudan’s radical Islamist government among others.
"China has sought energy cooperation with countries of concern to the United States, including Iran and Sudan, which are inaccessible by U.S. and other western firms. Some analysts have voiced suspicions that China may have offered WMD-related transfers as a component of some of its energy deals," noted the Commission. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/6/17/135930.shtml #msg-3645404
The main investor in the Sudanese oil industry is the China National Petroleum Company, and China is Sudan’s biggest trading partner overall.[2] It has been alleged that there are Chinese soldiers in Sudan protecting Chinese oil interests there, and that these troops have engaged in skirmishes with the rebels.[3] Moreover, while there are numerous foreign oil companies present in Sudan, it is precisely in Southern Darfur that the Chinese National Petroleum Company has its concessions. USAID, the American humanitarian agency, has helpfully provided a map of Sudan showing precisely where the oil concessions are. http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/sudan/map_oil.pdf) #msg-3678761 #msg-3758175
Because Sudan is as a ‘country of concern’ along with Iran the United States can only watch as other countries avail themselves of oil and gas from these two large producers. A predicament the United States will attempt to remedy by various means.
It is only now that Sudan has become a base for Chinese and Indian oil operations that we are ‘concerned’ about the Sudanese.
-Am
Despite Darfur, Indian investments balloon in Sudan:
New Delhi, Aug 16 (IANS) :
Even as the "humanitarian crisis" in Sudan's Darfur region hogs global attention, India is making huge investments in the oil-rich North African country that is set to become a major source for New Delhi's energy requirements.
In all, India is set to invest nearly $2 billion in Sudan, making Khartoum the biggest recipient of New Delhi's foreign investment. The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) concluded a $198 million deal in Khartoum in June to lay a 714-km-long pipeline linking the capital Khartoum with Port Sudan.
The latest investment came less than two years after the public sector ONGC Videsh Ltd., the overseas arm of the public sector oil exploration major, invested $750 million in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company of Sudan.
ONGC has also entered into an agreement for setting up a huge oil refinery in Port Sudan as a joint venture at an estimated investment of $800 million and acquired two new oil blocks - 5A and 5B - adjacent to the one where it is already prospecting for oil for another $105 million.
"Given our friendly relations and long, historic ties, India is our preferred partner," says Sudanese Ambassador to India Abdalmahood Abdalhaleem.
"The leadership of Sudan has said that repeatedly," the envoy told IANS.
During President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's visit to Sudan last year, India had announced a $50 million credit line for the rehabilitation of the country's ailing power, railway and agriculture sectors.
"We believe India is a leader in these fields," the envoy said, adding RITES had already signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Sudan Railways for the rehabilitation of the country's entire rail network.
Sudan, the largest nation in Africa, is literally sitting on a lake of oil. With the country's oil production set to climb to one billion barrels a day by 2006 from the present 5-600,000 barrels, it was all set to become a hot international investment destination.
And it was savouring the signing of a peace agreement between the government and southern rebels after years of civil war when the international focus fell on the developments in Darfur and shattered hopes of peace and progress.
Asked if India side had expressed concern about the developments in Darfur and its impact on Indian investments, the Sudanese envoy said New Delhi had not raised the issue.
Anyway, Darfur is far from the oil-producing central, southern and southeastern regions of the country, he noted.
The UN Security Council, in a resolution on July 30, gave the Sudanese government 30 days to disarm Janjaweed Arab militias blamed for the deaths of thousands in the western Darfur region or face diplomatic and economic penalties.
India has refrained from joining the chorus of international condemnation of Sudan over Darfur developments. The external affairs ministry said the two countries have "traditionally enjoyed close and friendly relations".
"India has been following the developments in Darfur and is encouraged by the steps that the government of Sudan is taking to normalise the situation in the region.
"The humanitarian situation in the region has naturally been a matter of concern.
India will gift 20,000 tonnes of wheat to Sudan "by way of humanitarian assistance for the people of the Darfur region," officials said said.
According to the Sudanese envoy, the alleged rights violations in the region bordering Chad were "a calculated attempt to use us as a scapegoat." He said the ethnic clashes between the local farming community and nomadic tribes, aggravated by years of drought in the region, were being used to present a picture of genocide.
"This is a malignant attempt to disrupt social fabric of the society and divide the nation. It is similar to the WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) they said were there in Iraq but never found," he added.
"Rather than contributing to solution of the problem they are becoming part of the problem," he charged.
Since coming to office in 2001, the Bush administration's highest priority in Sudan has been to secure a peace agreement with the southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). The resulting "stability" in Sudan would allow Washington to lift its existing sanctions--imposed in 1997--and thus allow US oil corporations to invest in Sudan.
This is the same problem Washington is up against in Iran. Bush in declaring Iran part of the ‘axis of evil’ has blocked US oil corporations from investing in Iran.
Note: Halliburton, with ties to U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney is operating under the name Oil Oriental Kish Company and is bidding on drilling contracts for phases 9 and 10 of the South Pars gas field in Iran. Of course, American companies are prohibited from involvement in Iranian economic activities. #msg-3145101
The ‘stability’ of Sudan and Iran are important to this administration in that only when these two countries are ‘fixed’ can the United States gain access to their reserves.
Until then we can only watch China, Japan, India and other countries partake of the feast.
-Am
Sabre-Rattling Over Real Aid Dafuris Made Pawns in Western Power Play for Oil? By NORM DIXON August 17, 2004
If anything betrays the true attitude of the US and European governments towards the suffering of millions of displaced people in the Darfur region of western Sudan, it is the little publicised fact that Western governments are allowing more than 2000 hungry and sick Darfuris to die every single day for want of urgently needed food, medicines and shelter.
Even as Washington is brandishing the US-sponsored United Nations Security Council resolution passed on July 30 -- which threatens unspecified diplomatic and economic ``measures'' against Sudan's military dictatorship if it does begin to stem within 30 days the vicious ethnic-cleansing campaign carried out by state-sponsored janjaweed bandits -- the British aid agency Oxfam has revealed that Western governments have not kept their promises to provide aid funds to the more than 1.3 million refugees in Darfur and 200,000 in neighbouring Chad.
In March, the UN issued an appeal for US$350 million to fund aid operations in Darfur. So far, less that half that amount has arrived. Oxfam's Darfur-based spokesperson, Adrian Macintyre, told Germany's Deutsche Presse Agentur on August 11: "Funds were found overnight for humanitarian operations in places like Iraq. When there is a political interest in a place, there is always money available."
The UN's World Food Program has also found that Western governments' crocodile tears for the Darfuris' plight have not translated into adequate assistance to save their lives. Of the $195 million it needs for relief operations in Darfur this year, just $123 million had been provided as of August 12.
Despite the huge numbers of aircraft and vehicles that the West can mobilise to wage deadly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, just a handful of Western aircraft have been made available for relief operations in Sudan.
Omer Osman, secretary-general of Sudan's Red Crescent Society, told Reuters on August 9 that lack of funds was worsening the disaster in Darfur.
Washington's total aid pledges for Darfur of $220 million pale into insignificance compared to the $417 billion annual war budget that US President George Bush signed into law on August 5. According to French foreign minister Michel Barnier, writing in the August 13 British Financial Times, the European Union has contributed more than $270 million in aid, "about twice as much as the US". Meanwhile, the Australian government has pledged a miserable A$8 million, which is also a microscopic proportion of it's $11 billion annual war budget.
The West's preference for sabre-rattling over genuine aid could have even more catastrophic consequences if human rights campaigner Eric Reeves' estimates of the numbers of refugees in western Sudan are correct. In an August 9 article posted on the Sudan Tribune website, Reeves wrote that "evidence continues to accumulate that perhaps as many as 1 million people have not been included in the [UN] figures for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees. The overall level of destruction of African villages is extraordinary--well over 50% by most estimates." North-south deal
The West's hypocritically callous response to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur starkly illustrates that for Washington and the EU, Darfuris are mere pawns in the power play to get Western access to the oil profits flowing out of southern Sudan.
Since coming to office in 2001, the Bush administration's highest priority in Sudan has been to secure a peace agreement with the southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). The resulting "stability" in Sudan would allow Washington to lift its existing sanctions--imposed in 1997--and thus allow US oil corporations to invest in Sudan.
"A final resolution of Sudan's civil war could greatly help the country's economy, lead to the lifting of various sanctions against the country and encourage investment by foreign companies (including oil companies)", predicted the US government's Energy Information Administration on August 12.
Washington and the EU all but ignored the atrocities that have taken place in Darfur since February 2003--until, in June and July, Khartoum's brutal treatment of the Darfuris threatened to derail the north-south peace deal. It was only then that Washington and the EU begin to apply pressure on Khartoum to end the attacks on Darfuri villagers by the government-backed Arab tribal militia or janjaweed.
This culminated in the adoption on July 30 of UN Security Council Resolution 1556. This warned that unless Khartoum made progress in reining in the janjaweed within 30 days, the Security Council would "consider further actions, including measures as provided for in Article 41 [of the UN Charter]". Article 41 excludes military action but allows economic and diplomatic sanctions.
Since the passage of the resolution, Sudan's Islamist military regime has manoeuvred to test the limits of how little it can do and still win certification from the UN Security Council that it has made "progress" in settling the Darfur conflict.
On August 9, Sudan's cabinet ratified a "Plan of Action" agreed between Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail and UN special representative Jan Pronk. Sudan agreed to "identify parts of Darfur that can be made safe and secure within 30 days", to "cease immediately" offensive military operations in those areas, "identify" those militia over which it has "influence and instruct them to cease their activities", allow the "voluntary return of IDPs", "make an unequivocal declaration of commitment to start the Darfur peace talks as soon as possible" and "request support from the AU [African Union] and Arab League to assist in resolving the crisis". Khartoum reassured
Pronk promised on August 5 that, if this mild agreement is implemented, he was "very hopeful that the Security Council would come to the conclusion that there was indeed substantial progress and that there would be no need to consider further action". He told the August 12 Khartoum daily Akhbar al Youm that the UN "does not set 30 days as a deadline but as a period which can be renewed and amended until all provisions" of resolution 1556 are implemented.
On August 7, the AU announced that peace talks between Khartoum and the Darfur rebel groups would resume in Nigeria on August 23. On August 8, an emergency meeting of Arab League foreign ministers met in Cairo at the request of Sudan and backed the UN's approach, calling for Khartoum to be given more time to solve the crisis and rejected "any threat of forced military intervention" in Sudan.
In reality, the UN-Sudan agreement leaves the persecuted non-Arabic-speaking farmers of Darfur firmly under the heel of Khartoum's repressive forces. Khartoum has promised to boost the number of Sudanese police in the region to 12,000. However, there are widespread reports that many Sudanese police are also janjaweed thugs. Human Rights Watch claims that janjaweed fighters are being absorbed into the police force.
There also reports of displaced people being forced to return to their ruined villages, where janjaweed bandits continue to murder and rape.
The UN, Washington and Khartoum agree that the Darfuri rebels, the Darfuri people's only defence against the janjaweed's rampages, must disarm and gather in camps controlled by the janjaweed-infested Sudanese security forces.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs accused Khartoum on August 10 of launching "helicopter gunship bombings" and "janjaweed attacks" in south Darfur that same day. The next day, Pronk absolved Khartoum of any blame, telling Reuters: "So far in all my talks I am meeting a government that is seriously trying to keep the promises made."
Meanwhile, Sudan is sending mixed signals over its preparedness to allow a 2000-strong AU peacekeeping force into Darfur. While Khartoum has agreed to allow the deployment of 300 troops from Rwanda and Nigeria, due to begin arriving on August 14, Sudan's interior minister, Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein, told a London Arabic newspaper that "my government will not accept any foreign military presence in Sudan..., be it African or Arab".
On August 9, however, foreign minister Hussein said that Khartoum "did not have any problem with any number of observers or forces to protect them", as long as Sudanese forces remain in charge of "peacekeeping". The AU has not yet formally requested that Sudan agree to a change in the force's mandate.
US officials are backing Pronk's conciliatory approach. An August 5 Associated Press report quoted US ambassador to the UN John Danforth as saying Sudan needed to show by August 31 that it was making "a good faith effort" to abide by resolution 1556. US Secretary of State Colin Powell was quoted in the August 8 New York Times as saying: "We have to calibrate the pressure that we need to apply on the Sudanese government to make sure we get the results we need, and we don't create a more difficult situation for us and for the people of Darfur."
On August 9, Agence France Presse reported that State Department spokesperson Adam Ereli said the UN-Sudan plan of action was a "good start", the announced resumption of peace talks was "an important development" and that "we'd all prefer for sanctions not to be necessary".
According to the August 11 Kenyan East African Standard, US Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has been at the forefront of efforts to have Sudan's repression in Darfur labelled "genocide", said on a visit to Nairobi that "the US government would not send soldiers to the region because it does not consider military intervention as appropriate".
Washington's approach is in line with that recommended by Chester Crocker, former assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Reagan administration. Writing in the June 10 International Herald Tribune. Crocker urged the Bush administration to "address the immediate crisis in Darfur, while aggressively nailing down the broader north-south peace agreement. The Bush administration has achieved much in Sudan... It must not be blown off course either by the manoeuvres of the north-south parties or by those demanding a sudden shift toward an anti-Khartoum campaign over Darfur."
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