INSIDE SUDAN PART 4: SUDANESE OIL

VBS: I’m surprised that there seems to be oil at the root of all the conflict in Sudan. We’ve always been told in the media that it’s an issue of racial genocide.
Shane Smith: I never understood the conflict until I went there. Why are they killing all these people, cutting their arms off and throwing them in the wells? Well, that’s a terror tactic. But it also makes the villages and towns that they do it in unlivable afterwards. So I didn’t understand what the motivation was. Why ruin the land that you’re raiding?

Right. It didn’t seem to be about one group claiming rights to territory.
Yeah. If you wanted to use the land for your cattle, you wouldn’t be able to once you’d poisoned the wells. So it isn’t to use the land, it isn’t to take their women… What is it for? They are all the same religion. Darfur is known as the most religiously conservative place in Sudan, and they are all Muslim. So it’s not Arab on black as it’s being purported in the media. It didn’t make any sense to me.

How did oil come into it?
Sudan was one of the poorest nations in Africa. They had a huge famine in the early 1980s, just like Ethiopia. So once they found oil in the south around the same time, they freaked out and sent all these paramilitary groups, much like the janjaweed, down there and kicked all the people off the land, then started taking the oil out of the ground. These groups were not officially affiliated with the government but they were secretly government sanctioned. So the government could safely say, “It’s got nothing to do with us!”

When exactly did all this start?
In 1983. That civil war went on for nearly twenty years, killed approximately two million people, and displaced four million. They finally enacted a peace agreement (CPA) to unite north and south Sudan. The UN is in Sudan especially to monitor that agreement. But then—bang!—same thing happened again, elsewhere in the country. The janjaweed started killing people in Darfur and the government was saying, “It’s not us doing it,” but—again—doing very little to stop them.

And it was because they had found oil in Darfur at that point?
Right. They kick everyone off the land where the oil is, wherever in the country it’s found.

So what we’re talking about are government-orchestrated ethnic cleansings that are actually fronts for oil mining operations.
Yes. And that’s the interesting thing. In fact, we could point our finger at America for the early days of it, because Chevron sank the first well in Southern Sudan. But now, America is in massive disfavor there after we dropped Tomahawk missiles on a baby food factory outside Khartoum.

Oh man, I remember when that was in the news.
We said that we thought it was bin-Laden’s chemical weapons plant. It ended up being a baby food factory!

Jesus.
Not so good for America-Sudan relations. When we went down south in Sudan and saw the wells, we found out that it’s all Chinese companies there now.

The plot thickens…
China doesn’t have any of America’s problems of bad press in the Middle East or Africa, or people back home saying they shouldn’t buy conflict diamonds or whatever. China is in very good favor in those parts of the world. And when we were in Sudan, China had just given 2 billion dollars in aid to African countries. So Africans are like, “We love China.” In turn, China comes in and says, “We’ll take your oil and your gold. We don’t give a shit about your conflicts or who hates who here.”
America has totally lost Africa.

Is the labor all Chinese too?
Chinese and Malaysian. The camps are all enclosed. All the money that Sudan gets from these wells goes to the north to Khartoum. The south of Sudan is supposed to get two percent, but they have no auditing there so it’s like, “Two percent of how much… Who knows?” You’re down there, and you’re in the poorest areas in the world, and they are right next to oil wells that are pumping out oil for China. Everyone likes to say that America is addicted to oil, but I’d say it’s the entire world that’s addicted.

INTERVIEW BY VBS STAFF

Comments

[Carl]

that is insaaaaanee, we have hydrogen fuel cells, we have water engines that were built in the 80's and locked away, and for what? so some rich bastard can have millions of people killed? stupid planet... lets move

[Richard P. Schmitt]

One theory is that Khartoum signed the peace treaty with the SPLA to end the war in the South so that Khartoum could then move much of its resources and army to fight in Darfur. Part of the peace agreement is for elections in the South about succession. It is likely, that the Khartoum government expects to quiet Darfur by then and move its army back to the South.

I was in East Nile, South Sudan in 1995- there were no roads, a few small bridges with 1930 dates in the cement. The area looks like stone age people live there. However, the past and present killing is real. The Khartoum government does not protect most residents of Sudan. The government only takes for its own ruling class and tribes.

Tribal society has good points, but the reality is the belief that the tribe is to exist and prosper at the expense of all other tribes and people. If the tribe's lands or resources are threatened, the solution is to run all other people off or kill them. Thousands of years ago, that was survival of the fittest. Fortunately, in many places, the benefits of commerce and national governments to foster trade has been recognized. That has not prevented war - but created an atmosphere to foster condemnation of Genocide.

Needed is a universal police force to protect all humans. The first question is who controls the police? Moreover, as seen in Iraq and Somalia, can a non-indigenous police force enforce laws and keep the peace.

[Michael]

What a crock, The war in the South started soon after Indepedence long before discovering any oil, plus you should also know that Arab tribes in Darfur did the same thing but on a smaller scale in the 1980s.

[RandallJones]

Shane Smith,

Why did you remove my comments? This shows that you really are phonies and don't really care what happens to the people of SUddan.

I'm glad the malaria pills prevented you from having boners.

[dg]

I've been to Sudan myself and noticed the Chinese work stations. I think this stuff, however, is a bit sensationalized and a bit of an exaggeration. I traveled all over Sudan (outside Khartoum) in Bahir Dar, Wadi Halfa, Dongola, etc with 50 other white people on the Tour D'Afrique and never had even the slighest of a safety issue. It was the opposite actually. In Khartoum we even got offered moonshine and weed. Nonetheless, the conflict is misrepresented in the media. It is about land, not about oil but the reason the corrupt UN isn't doing anything about it has to do with China's dealings in Sudan and the Sudanese muslims government's allies in other muslim counties.

[RandallJones]

dg,

How do you explain the fact that the UN and the other Muslim countries have not been able to do anything about the genocide being committed in Iraq?

I find it such a joke that the "Save Darfur" movement is asking the UNited States to intervene in Sudan. Hasn't the United States done enough damage in Africa? AN excellent website about this is http://allthingspass.com/index.html

[RandallJones]

dg,

How do you explain the fact that the UN and the other Muslim countries have not been able to do anything about the genocide being committed in Iraq?

I find it such a joke that the "Save Darfur" movement is asking the UNited States to intervene in Sudan. Hasn't the United States done enough damage in Africa? AN excellent website about this is http://allthingspass.com/index.html

[CHRIS]

THIS MADE ME SMILE

[CHRIS]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/19/wdarfur119.xml

[CHRIS]

THIS MADE ME SMILE