Sudan again

FACT BOX

Bildt's other involvement: Sudan. Background

Southern Sudan was and is one of the poorest areas in the world. Black and Christian and tropical, the area has since Sudan's independence been neglected by the Arab Muslum desert north. A civil war has been fought between the Government of Sudan and the SPLM, the southern people's liberation movement, the latter's goal being a unified and secular Sudan that distributes resources fairly: a woman in southern Sudan is more likely to die during childbirth than have completed primary school.
Then oil was discovered. Lundin Oil and Talisman of Canada were granted concessions the size of Wales in 1996. Reports from Amnesty, Christian Aid and Human Rights watch have savagely criticised the way in which the oil companies used the government of Sudan to protect their security and to clease the concession, while they prospect for oil. Thousands were displaced when Lundin built an all weather road from the pipeline to the Red Sea to its drilling site. In attacks reminiscent of those carried out later in Darfur, the government of Sudan cleared villages along the the path of the future road with Antonov bombers, helicopter gunships and Government of Sudan militias on horseback with assault rifles, burning huts and crop fields to prevent the displaced from returning.
"Thousands died, tens of thousands were displaced," says Egbert Wesselink of the European Coalition of Oil in Sudan. "It is a story that hasn't been nearly well enough told - Sudan's was the forgotten war."
Many of the displaced have returned, but none of the displaced received compensation, let alone a share of the oil wealth on their land. The oil companies say they built schools and hospitals, but a Canadian government report on Talisman said the hospitals were only used by troops and the locals had never heard of the school projects. There was also controversy when oil-company built airbases which were used by the Sudanese airforce for its raids.
When a media storm erupted in Sweden, Bildt was called to defend Lundin. He said: "As far as I am aware, there are no displacements in the area where Lundin operates. We could leave, but everyone we have spoken to wants us to stay and if we left someone else would take over. The Chinese for instance."
Bildt's shares in Lundin have helped make him a millionaire, Sweden's richest politician.
Two years later, Lundin pulled out of that particular oilfield, but not because of pressure from Swedish government or public opinion, but because fighting from southern rebels had made drilling impossible. The company still has, in 2007, concessions in another sector, which it hopes to develop. In contrast to Lundin's good relationship[ to the Sudanese regime, America has had sanctions against Sudan since 1997, punishes foreoign companies that operate in Sudan; and in 2004 Colin Powell called the Sudanese regime "genocidal" for its acts in Darfur. In contrast Bildt has conspicuously failed to criticise the Sudanese regime, and his deputy, Cecilia Malmstrom, former MEP, now Europe minister, who was once a foerce critic, is now siilent. It is worh noting that Bildt's other involvement that has helped make him rich, Vostok Nafta, which has invested in Gazprom, set to build the Baltic pipeline, has been called the long geopolitical arm of president Putin.