Chinese sign up with Eronat's Cliveden and Canada's Encana to explore oil in Chad

A web page at China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) entitled "International Cooperation" states China National Petroleum Corporation (CNODC) signed a deal with Switzerland Cliveden Corporation. Excerpt:

On December 18, 2003, CNODC signed Stock Purchasing Agreement with Switzerland Cliveden Corporation in respect of the risk exploration at Block H. Canadian EnCana Corporation is the operator of the block. Block H is located in Chad Republic in middle Africa.

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Cliveden's oil deal with Chinese forces Canada's EnCana out of Chad

In his report on Friedhelm Eronat entitled Secret World of the Chelsea Oil Tycoon, published in London's Evening Standard May 26, 2005, Adrian Gatton describes a remarkable "completion" dinner held at Eronat's London home in 2003. Here are some extracts from the report:

That night, 18 December, marked a victory for China in the scramble for Africa. The banquet, with guests including Felter [Eronat's friend and legal counsel since the mid 1990's] and Chinese State officials, was held in the basement, three storeys below a Chelsea street. In the impoverished nation of Chad, Eronat had landed a huge exploration concession - the "Chad Convention" - potentially holding 10 billion barrels of oil.

The party was to toast a deal in which oil-hungry China bought a stake in this. It was a big move for the Chinese. Chad recognises China's enemy Taiwan, and the Chad initiative was part of a political strategy (Eronat facilitated introductions between the Chad and Chinese governments), thought to have been approved by the Chinese prime minister. The deal was important enough for one of the most powerful men in China, Wang Jun, chairman of Citic, the $60 billion State-owned corporation, to fly to London to sign. Together with Chinese oil firm CNPC, they purchased a $45 million, 50 per cent share in Cliveden. The deal was initialled there and then in Eronat's house.

Further extracts from Adrian's report explain what happened between Eronat and Felter, after the dinner celebrating Enorat's deal with the Chinese [note, all of China's oil interests are owned by the Chinese Government]:

Amid the popping corks, Felter privately reminded his boss there could be a problem.

Cliveden's other 50 per cent holding had been sold the year before to Canadian oil and gas company EnCana for $46.5 million, in a deal clinched by Felter. He believed EnCana was legally entitled to be informed about its new partner. According to Felter, Eronat wanted to keep it quiet.

In January 2004, Felter notified EnCana about China's involvement. Eronat was apparently "furious". By mid-February, following a shareholders' meeting in Beijing, Felter was relieved of his duties. Felter, who argues he put Cliveden on track to become a $1.2 billion entity, says he was sacked because he told EnCana about the Chinese.

Cliveden maintains there was no legal requirement to inform EnCana, and the company acted correctly. EnCana would not make any comment to the Standard about the dispute but is now said to be pulling out of Chad.

Felter had been dealt a bitter blow. As Eronat's friend and legal counsel since the mid-Nineties, he says that, in trying to do "the right thing", he had acted "out of misplaced loyalty". It must have been all the more galling since he had loyally shielded his client, he stated, startlingly, "against being indicted in the US for fraud and moneylaundering".

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Cliveden, registered in British Virgin Islands, is not making tax returns

According to Adrian Gatton's report Secret World of the Chelsea Oil Tycoon in London's Evening Standard May 26, 2005 Jean-Gabriel Antoni, Friedhelm Eronat's Geneva based financial manager, told an employment tribunal [brought by Eronat's former legal counsel Dr Peter Felter] that Eronat's British Virgin Islands-registered Cliveden, which in 2003 posted net profits of $63 million, is "not making tax returns anywhere".

Thanks to a reader for emailing a report published on June 17, 2005 by Alsahafa news. A photo from the report, copied here below, shows Eronat's Geneva based financial manager, Jean-Gabriel Antoni, in his grey suit (on the left, almost trying to get out of the picture) signing the Darfur oil deal with Sudan's energy minister Dr Awad Ahmad al-Jaz.



An agreement on oil prospecting and production was signed in Khartoum on October 21, 2003 at the Ministry of Energy and Mining for the Block 2 which extends from the Bahr al-Jabal State [southern Sudan] to the borders of the Central African Republic and Chad. Here is an excerpt from a report by Alasher dated October 22, 2003:

The agreement was signed between the Ministry of Energy and Mining and a group of [oil] companies including the Swiss company, Cliveden, which has a 37 per cent share; High Tech, with 28 per cent; the [national] Sudanese [oil] company, Sudapet, with 17 per cent share; Khartoum State, with 10 per cent; and the Hejlij Company with 8 per cent share.

In a press statement after the signing of the agreement, the minister of energy and mining, Dr Awad Ahmad al-Jaz, said these companies had extensive expertise in the oil industry.

He added that the presence of the Swiss company Cliveden was going to give a strong impetus in this field.

Note, Western oil companies like Talisman did not pull out of Sudan so that other Western companies could step in and exploit Darfur. Companies like Cliveden say violence is not occurring within concession areas, but fail to explain that oil revenues are funding the regime in Khartoum which has been at war ever since it stole power through the gun barrel. Who knows what human rights abuses have been committed to make way for oil exploration, drilling and the laying of pipelines? Trouble is poor people, such as those in Darfur, do not seem to have land and property ownership rights.
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Talisman must face lawsuit

Talisman Energy Inc., Canada's largest independent oil producer, must defend a case accusing it and the Sudanese government of genocide, a judge said as she turned aside a second bid to dismiss the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in New York said there wasn't a legal basis to dismiss the four-year-old suit, which accuses Talisman of helping Sudanese officials bomb churches, kill church leaders, and attack villages to clear the way for oil exploration.

See full report by The Financial Post at Sudan Tribune June 15, 2005.
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See this statement from the U.S. Department of State on Chad:

2005 Investment Climate Statement - Chad - Openness To Foreign Investment:

"Other sources of foreign investment include the United Kingdom, South Korea, Holland, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and Taiwan. A Swiss company, Cliveden, is investing in oil exploration with a Canadian partner, EnCana. A South Korean company, AFKO, has invested in a gold mining venture in southern Chad. A Dutch company, MSI, and a Swedish Company, Millicom International Cellular (MIC), have invested in cellular telephone services. Libyan companies have increased their investments in Chad over the past several years, particularly in hotels and real estate."

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Trinity Energy Resources' Position Advances in Chad

Extract from Business/Energy Editors Houston (Business Wire) Oct. 1, 2002:

In December 1999, Trinity Energy Resources Inc. (Trinity) (OTCBB:TRGC), original operator and 70% working interest owner of the 108 million acre Permit H Concession in the Republic of Chad, entered into a Farmout Agreement with Swiss-based Cliveden Petroleum Co., Ltd (Cliveden). The Farmout Agreement assigned 65% of the original 70% working interest to Cliveden and allowed Trinity a 5% back-in working interest after payout of project expenses. Upon execution of the Farmout Agreement with Trinity, Cliveden carried forward with obligations associated with concession exploration and development. In addition to other concession exploration activities, Cliveden has acquired approximately 1250 line miles of seismic data, consistent with obligations of the concession.
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Transparency can alleviate poverty

Excerpt from an article by George Soros, The Financial Times, March 16 2005:

Countries that are rich in natural resources are often poor because exploiting those resources takes precedence over good government. Competing oil and mining companies, backed by their governments, have often been willing to deal with anyone who could assure them of a concession. This has bred corrupt and repressive governments and armed conflict. In Africa, civil wars have devastated resource-rich countries such as Congo, Angola and Sudan. In the Middle East, democracy has failed to materialise. Lifting this resource curse could make a large contribution to alleviating poverty and misery in the world, and there is an international movement aimed at doing just that. The first step is transparency; the second is accountability.

The movement started a few years ago with the Publish What You Pay campaign, which urged oil and mining companies to disclose payments to governments. In response, the British government launched the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). On Thursday, three years into the process, the UK will convene an important EITI conference in London, to be attended by representatives of governments, business and civil society.

The rest of this article is for FT.com subscribers only [via Business & Human Rights Sudan]
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Before coup, Eronat's Chinesebacked Cliveden eyed Equatorial Guinea

James Norman, in his article at Platts Oilgram News 7/12/2004 entitled "Eronat escapes Kazakhgate" explains that Friedhelm Eronat: "the notorious oilman, cut a deal to avoid prosecution in the Giffen case, even though the US claims his 'assetless shell company' Vaeko was key to Mobil's scheming for a piece of the giant Tengiz field."

Click here for full report.
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Catering to Kazakhstan's Kleptocracy

See report by Justin Raimondo: Nurturing Nursultan Nazarbayev's Central Asian empire of corruption - a 'vital' U.S. ally.
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The Price of Oil: What Was Mobil Up to in Kazahstan and Russia?

Here are three extracts from an in-depth report by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, July 9, 2001 via Pipelines: Caspian Sea basin - HongWiki. [Note, in the third extract, U.S. Attorney General rightly says corruption is morally wrong and is not an accepted cost of doing business.]

-- The fall of 1997, an international businessman named Farhat Tabbah filed suit in London against three American businessmen, the oil minister of Kazakhstan, and a subsidiary of the Mobil Corporation. He charged that they had cheated him out of millions of dollars in commissions on what was to have been a ten-year swap of oil between Kazakhstan and Iran. Mobil and the other defendants denied the allegations and successfully moved to suppress all Tabbah's affidavits and supporting documentation. A few months after Tabbah filed his lawsuit, he flew to the United States and gave his account of the swap plan to federal authorities. He also turned over several file drawers of documents, including internal Mobil faxes and memos, to agents of the United States Customs Service.

-- In Mobil's case, the company's in-house investigators came to believe that the proposed swap between Kazakhstan and Iran was but one element in a complex of seemingly high-risk business deals that were devised by Bryan Williams. The investigation also led to the two other Americans named in Tabbah's suit: James H. Giffen, a New York merchant banker and adviser to Kazakhstan's President Nazarbayev; and Friedhelm Eronat, a businessman who often acted on behalf of Mobil overseas. The business dealings and friendships among the three men date back many years, and they have done billions of dollars' worth of deals worldwide. The three might never have become the focus of grand-jury scrutiny if they hadn't fallen out with Farhat Tabbah.

-- In a speech in The Hague at the end of May, John Ashcroft, the U.S. Attorney General, said. "We must come to a recognition. Personally and culturally, that corruption is not just a violation of the taw, not just an economic disadvantage, and not merely a political problem, but that it is morally wrong." It should be "no longer seen as an accepted cost of doing business," he went on. "It is now widely recognized that the consequences of corruption can be devastating: devastating to economies, devastating to the poor, devastating to the legitimacy and stability of government and devastating to the moral fabric of society."

Ashcroft's concerns apparently are not shared by all in the international oil community. It may never be known why Mobil's leadership exercised so little oversight on the executives who dealt with Russia and Kazakhstan, and whose activities posed such enormous legal and financial risks. Indeed, the actions alleged in connection with the Tabbah case "bet the company," in the words of one person close to the Mobil investigation, "with maximum criminal and civil exposure." This person has concluded that people in the industry believed that the importance of oil in the national and world economy would insulate them from any complaints of wrongdoing. He summed up the oilmen's attitude this way: "What's man afraid of? The cold and the dark. We make it warm and we make it light."
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What did the British Government know about Eronat before he became a 'Briton'?

The Darfur rebellion started around February 2003. It was not widely reported until April-June 2004 when the death toll was reported as 10,000 and news was being circulated that the Sudanese government was bombing, slaughtering and burning civilians' villages to quash the rebellion and drive the people from their homes. The slaughter in Darfur started in earnest around February/March 2004.

Since February 2003, it is estimated 300,000 - 400,000 Darfurians perished and at least 1.5 million have been displaced. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) recently predicted six million people across the Sudan are now in need of food aid. ReliefWeb reports today WFP announced Friday June 17, 2005 that about 3.5 million people, more than half of the entire population of western Sudan's Darfur region would need food aid in the coming hunger season.

The man behind Cliveden is former U.S. citizen Friedhelm Eronat, an ex-business partner of convicted Mobil dealmaker J. Bryan Williams and an unindicted co-conspirator in the U.S. Justice Department's pending James Giffen Kazakh bribe case.

As Mr Eronat, recently acquired British citizenship, news reports now refer to him as a "Briton". His company called Cliveden, registered in the British Virgin Islands, is referred to as "British."

Eronat's wife, Melisa Lawton who attended Sherborne School for Girls in England 1985-87 may be British which would have helped him acquire a British passport. One wonders though how he acquired British citizenship so quickly, especially considering he has a U.S. court case hanging over his head.

It is galling to think of Eronat leeching off Britain's credibility and respected reputation abroad. When it comes to Immigration and taxation, it seems like there is one rule for all, but an altogether different and unspoken rule when one is a millionaire or working in government at taxpayers' expense where the rules can be bent to suit. It would be interesting to know what the British Government knew about Eronat's business affairs before they granted him a British passport and citizenship.
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Sudan's oil concession map

See map showing the current concessions of oil exploration and production activities in Sudan, courtesy website of Sudanese Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands. Hover your mouse over the blocks - and note the empty blocks.
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White Nile awards seismic pact in South Sudan

LONDON, June 17, 2005 (Dow Jones) -- White Nile Ltd, the AIM listed oil & gas exploration company 50% owned by the New Government of South Sudan, said Friday that Terra Seis Geophysical Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Terra Seis International, has been awarded the contract to conduct an extensive seismic evaluation programme of White Nile's 65,000 sq km Block Ba oil licence area in South Sudan.

The company said that Calgary based Terra Seis has been commissioned to acquire 2,000 km of high resolution geophysical data focussed on a high definition seismic programme.

The 10 month project, which will start immediately, will primarily focus on the areas within Block Ba thought to be highly prospective i.e. the extensions of the Melut and Muglad Basin areas. It said that these Basins already have oil production to the north of the Block Ba concession area.

Terra Group of Companies Chairman Kevin Plintz said: "We are already organising the transportation of teams and equipment and expect the data acquisition process to be completed by June 2006."
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White Nile Hldrs OK reverse takeover by Sth Sudanese Co

Report by Benoit Faucon via SudanTribune:

LONDON, June 16, 2005 (Dow Jones) -- White Nile Ltd. (WNL.LN) Thursday said its shareholders have cleared the terms of an acquisition of a South Sudanese oil block which includes a reverse takeover of the company by state-owned Nile Petroleum Corp.

In a statement, London-listed oil minnow White Nile said an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders backed the acquisition of an interest in a petroleum concession in Block Ba from Nile Petroleum. Nile is owned by the autonomous government of South Sudan.

It said the acquisition was in exchange for 155,000,000 ordinary shares of 0.1 pence each to Nile Petroleum, the equivalent of 50% of White Nile's capital. The company had disclosed the deal's terms May 19.

White Nile said the shares allotted to Nile Petroleum are subject to a 12-month lock-in agreement from the admission date, which is due Friday.

The contract signed by White Nile, which was co-founded by former England cricket-player Phil Edmonds, is disputed by French oil major Total SA (TOT). Total has been granted the same block by Sudan's central government.
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The Government of Khartoum Province

Extract from The Mineral Industry of Sudan in 2003 by Thomas R. Yager:

"In 2003, the Sudanese Government awarded block 8 in eastern Sudan to Petronas; the company would operate in tandem with Sudapet and High Tech Group of Sudan. In October, the Government awarded block C to a joint venture of Cliveden Petroleum Co. of Great Britain, Sudapet, and the Government of Khartoum Province."

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Further reading:

Sudanese energy minister denies Western firms unwilling to invest in oil sector - BBC Monitoring Africa, Oct 09, 2003 via Sudan Tribune -- Sudanese Energy Minister Awad Ahmad al-Jaz has denied Western companies are unwilling to invest in Sudan due to pressure from Washington. In an interview with the London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Al-Jaz said many Western companies remain engaged in Sudan's oil sector and continued to openly bid for new concessions. The following is the text of the interview published by London-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat on 7 October; all subheadings inserted editorially. Click here for full report.

Sudan hopes to boost oil production to 500,000 b/d in 2005 - Report dated November 30th, 2003 by Muhammad Abu-Hasbu, Al-Hayat [via BBC Monitoring Middle East]: -- Sudanese Energy Minister Awad Ahmad al-Jaz has said the country hopes to raise its oil production to 500,000 barrels per day in 2005. Al-Jaz disclosed this in an interview with Muhammad Abu-Hasbu of Al-Hayat. The following is the text of the interview published on London- based newspaper Al-Hayat on 25 November; all subheadings inserted editorially. Click here for full report via Sudan Tribune.
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Oil discovery adds new twist to Darfur tragedy

Report by Ruth Gidley Reuters June 15, 2005.

Note, error in the report refers to ABCO instead of APCO.

APCO (Advanced Petroleum Company) is a joint venture between Cliveden (37%); High Tech Group (28%); Sudan Petroleum Corporation (17%); State of Khartoum (10%) and Hejlij Co (8%).
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Sudan aims for July deal with Petronas on refinery

Sudan hopes to seal a deal with Malaysia's Petronas next month on building a new 100,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery, allowing it to use rising domestic production, its oil minister said on Tuesday.

Full report by Reuters via Sudan Tribune, June 14, 2005.

[One of Petrona's projects is Sudan Block 1/2/4 risk exploration and development]



Photo: Khartoum Refinery produces 75% of Sudan's energy requirements, and has plans for further growth.
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PetroChina has pre-emptive right over Sudan oil assets

Chinese integrated oil giant PetroChina has pre-emptive right to acquire upstream assets held by its parent, state-owned China National Petroleum Corp, in Sudan, the company's chief financial officer Wang Guoliang said Friday.

In a media briefing Friday announcing the company's agreement with CNPC to buy the latter's overseas oil and gas assets under a newly formed joint venture, Wang said both companies agreed not to include the Sudanese upstream assets in their deal after studying this possibility for some time because of the "sensitive" nature of the matter.

Full report by Platts via Sudan Tribune, June 10, 2005.
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Attacks on Chinese farmers caught on film

On June 16, BBC news reported on a rare video footage shown on UK Channel 4 news the previous night. The film was shot in China by a resident with a digital camera. It was then handed to a reporter from the Washington Post.

I watched the Channel 4 special report. Riots are on the increase in China but are rarely filmed. Trouble stems from an increase in China's creativity and productivity which is causing the country to "overheat". It is facing increased demand for energy and shortages in supply.

The video footage showed a shocking riot in China not far from Beijing. To clear land and make way for a power plant, peasant farmers were set upon and beaten by a marauding gang of thugs hired by local officials to drive the farmers from land they had squatted on.

According to the BBC report from Beijing by Daniel Griffiths, the eviction of local people to make way for new developments is becoming one of China's sharpest social issues. Re the video, he said the pictures showed local farmers fighting a pitched battle with dozens of unknown men wearing camouflage gear and construction helmets. Hunting rifles and clubs were used in the bloody clashes in the northern village of Shenyou. Chinese state media said that the residents had been resisting the takeover of their property by an electricity company which wants to build a power plant there.

According to both reports, violent disputes like this one are common in China, where competition for useable land is fierce.

China crisis

On June 15 I saw a Channel 4 News special report showing dramatic video footage of a riot in a Chinese village at the weekend in which six people are reported to have been killed. Here is a copy of the transcript and some stills from the report entitled "China crisis":

In China, six villagers have been killed and 50 injured in a dispute over land. Channel 4 News's Asia correspondent Ian Williams reports.

The attack came at dawn, hundreds of men armed with shotguns and clubs, rampaging through tents erected by the protesting farmers.

Although rural unrest has been growing in China, this was one of the deadliest incidents seen in years and one of the first to be captured on video.



It left at least six dead and a hundred wounded. The farmers, who were occupying disputed land, tried to defend themselves but were beaten back by volleys from hunting rifles and flare guns.

It happened last weekend, about a hundred miles southwest of Beijing, where farmers had been resisting plans by the local authorities to build a storage facility for a state-owned power plant.



They suspect the assailants were hired by corrupt local officials to drive them off the land, many wore hard hats and military fatigues, lashing out with long pipes fitted with sharp hooks on the end.

The police ignored calls for help from the farmers, one of whom shot this video with a digital camera, handing the tape to a reporter from the Washington Post.

Much of rural China has missed out on the country's economic boom. There is a massive wealth gap between the countryside and the booming coastal regions and the simmering rural discontent is one of the biggest challenges facing the government.

Recent mining accidents have sparked riots and corruption, pollution and land seizures have also provoked anger. The protests are growing in number and intensity. According to Beijing's own figures, there were 58,000 protests involving 3m people in 2003, the last year for which figures are available.



China's insatiable demand for energy may have contributed to the authorities eagerness to evict the farmers last weekend. The country is facing a severe power shortage, and the farmers were obstructing the local plant's expansion plans. The rural unrest is very different from the large anti-Japanese protests and riots seen in major Chinese cities in April.

These were condoned by the government, though after a week of this the authorities did act, fearing the mobs were getting out of control and might soon find other targets for their anger.

Nothing worries Beijing more than instability, and the countryside is providing plenty of that. Remarkably this clash has been reported in at least one Beijing newspaper.



In spite of the attack, the farmers still control the disputed land.
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Microsoft censors its blog tool for China

In a recent post, Reporters Without Borders said it was disgusted to find that Microsoft was censoring the Chinese version of its blog tool, MSN spaces, the system automatically rejecting words including "democracy" and "Dalai Lama".

Reporters Without Borders said it had been able to check, as reported by several news agencies, that when a Chinese blogger attempts to post a message containing terms such as "democracy", "Dalai Lama", "Falungong", "4 June" (the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre), "China + corruption", or "human rights", a warning displays saying, "This message contains a banned expression, please delete this expression." Full story June 14, 2005.

Note, today Rebecca MacKinnon says she has experimented setting up a blog using the MSN Spaces Chinese interface and concludes the filtering of MSN Spaces China appears limited to the blog's title only -- titles of individual posts and within the body of posts do not appear to be filtered.
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See Reporters Without Borders Blog awards 2005 results [with thanks to resistantsoy]
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White Nile Holders OK reverse takeover by South Sudanese Co

June 16, 2005 report by Benoit Faucon (Dow Jones) -- White Nile Ltd. (WNL.LN) Thursday said its shareholders have cleared the terms of an acquisition of a South Sudanese oil block which includes a reverse takeover of the company by state-owned Nile Petroleum Corp.

See full report at SudanTribune.
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British minister for International Development visits Sudan

British Minister for International Development Hilary Benn arrived in Sudan Monday June 13. He met with SPLM officials in Rumbek, southern Sudan to discuss implementation of the peace agreement and visited Darfur to get acquainted with the security and humanitarian situations there.
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UK announces military support to AU force in Sudan's Darfur

LONDON, June 13, 2005 (Sudan Tribune) -- A small, but highly capable, package of military assistance was announced today by the Defence Secretary John Reid to assist the African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

The UK has identified further important capability contributions that it can make to EU and NATO efforts to support the AU. Reid said:

"I am greatly heartened to see NATO and the EU working closely together to provide real, practical assistance to the African Union's mission to end the suffering in Darfur.

"The UK has an important role to play in this, and I am very pleased to be able to offer this assistance."

Fifteen personnel from the Royal Air Force's Mobile Air Movements Team, based at RAF Brize Norton, are likely to deploy to Nairobi, Kenya, as part of NATO's efforts to coordinate and enable the airlift of additional battalions of AU troops.

The team will play a key role in ensuring that the African peacekeepers are safely, effectively and quickly deployed into theatre.

The UK will also deploy two logistics experts, as part of the EU's assistance programme, to help ensure the troops are able to sustain their support infrastructure in the challenging conditions of Sub-Saharan Africa.

These officers are expected to serve with the African Union's forward headquarters in El Fashir, Sudan.

A UK officer, currently serving in European Airlift Centre at Eindhoven, will deploy to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to assist the air movement of the expanded mission of the AU, EU and NATO contributions.

The UK strongly supports the expansion of the African Union mission in Darfur and will continue to work with NATO, the EU and the UN to identify what assistance can be provided to support the AU's objectives. The British Ministry of Defence is also working closely with the Department for International Development.

This announcement follows a UK pledge at the International Donor's Conference in Addis Ababa on 26 May 2005 of £6.6 million for the provision of additional vehicles, equipment and shelters, and to support civilian policing.

The UK has also provided a small number of planners, who have provided technical expertise and advice to the AU on movement and logistic requirements.

Further British support, including equipment, supplies, and advice, will continue on a case-by-case basis.
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Britain supports Darfur force, names special envoy

NAIROBI, 17 June (IRIN) British funding for AU mission in Darfur increased - Britain has raised its contribution to the African Union's peacekeeping force in Darfur to GBP 19 million (US $34.65 million) to enable the pan-African body to expand its mission.
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Mr Hilary Benn said veteran Sudan specialist Alan Goulty had been appointed Britain's special representative for Darfur.

"He will support the AU-led work to achieve a durable political settlement to the Darfur conflict, keeping in regular contact with all the main parties."

Full story by AFP June 14, 2005 via Sudan Tribune.

[Note, in November 2003, Alan Goulty (Ambassador to Sudan 1995-1999) the British Government's Special Representative to Sudan, gave his reflections on Britain's role in the Sudanese Peace Process. The meeting was jointly arranged with Sudanese Mothers for Peace, and chaired by Hilton Dawson MP, the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Sudan.]

Further reading:

British Minister urges Sudan to resolve Darfur crisis - report by Press Association June 14, 2005 -- Mr Benn indicated that the UK could provide additional support for further increases in the size of the AU mission. "I think we may need more," he said. "But the priority now is to get those troops in as quickly as possible."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,1506341,00.html -

Southern Sudan suffering hidden emergency-Britain - report by Reuters June 14. 2005 -- Southern Sudan, ravaged by more than two decades of civil war, is suffering from a hidden emergency and urgently needs aid, British Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn said on Tuesday.

People in east Sudan eke out life on trickle of aid- report by Reuters Jun 17, 2005.



Photo: A malnourished Sudanese child lies on his bed at a Primary Health Care centre for malnourished children in Gereida town, 90km (55.9 miles) south of Nyala town in Sudan's troubled Darfur province June 14, 2005 where doctors have recorded about 500 cases of malnourised children. Acute respiratory tract infections are the most frequent illnesses in western Sudan's troubled region of Darfur, while severe malnutrition is the most reported cause of death among children under the age of five years in the area, the U.N. World Health Organization (WHO) has said. Picture taken June 14, 2005. Reuters/Beatrice Mategwa
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Sudanese intelligence visitor split US officials

A decision by the CIA to fly Sudan's intelligence chief to Washington for secret meetings aimed at cementing cooperation against terrorism triggered such intense opposition within the Bush administration that some officials suggested arresting him here, sources said. See full report via Sudan Tribune by Ken Silverstein, Los Angeles Times, June 17, 2005.


Photo: Maj. Gen. Salah Abdallah Gosh, Sudan's intelligence chief.
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U.S. probes reported Sudan link to terror

U.S. intelligence and security agencies are investigating reports that Sudan's government has renewed its covert support for al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists, The Washington Times has learned.

See full report by Bill Gertz, The Washington Times,  June 17, 2005 via World Peace Herald.
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Annan talks tough with Darfur rebels

On June 15, while a UN and Sudanese team visited Darfur, Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded that Sudan's government disarm the militias terrorising people in the region.

In a report to the Security Council, Mr Annan said security is slightly better but warned that militias were still roaming Darfur.
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Daily news briefs on Darfur

For daily news briefs on Darfur see GIF's daily summary and news reports at the Sudan Tribune.
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G8 the most talked about economic conference ever?

Thanks to Alan Connor at Weblog Watch, BBC Magazine's review of blogs, for linking to a June 6 Sudan Watch post that I cross posted at Passion of the Present: Payback time for US on Iraq.



Also, thanks Stefanie and Pundita - and for this post Ta, Britain.

Tags: Darfur Khartoum Sudan Africa Oil Chad Cliveden Sudan Adrian Gatton Evening Standard Friedhelm Eronat Peter Felter BBC Channel 4 News Briitish Government G8 Mobil Make Poverty History

Sudanese intelligence visitor split US officials (LAT, Ken Silverstein)

Sudanese intelligence visitor split US officials - LAT
By Ken Silverstein, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON, June 17, 2005 — A decision by the CIA to fly Sudan’s intelligence chief to Washington for secret meetings aimed at cementing cooperation against terrorism triggered such intense opposition within the Bush administration that some officials suggested arresting him here, sources said.

The internal debate over the April visit by Maj. Gen. Salah Abdallah Gosh, whose government Washington accuses of committing genocide in the Darfur region, goes to the heart of a broader dispute about the CIA’s alliances with foreign intelligence services.

Critics say that when the U.S. works with controversial countries such as Sudan, it suggests that it isn’t serious about promoting democracy and human rights. Many experts on intelligence matters, however, say that Washington has no choice but to rely on some governments with questionable human rights records to help fight its war against terrorism.

Gosh’s agency has allowed the CIA to question Al Qaeda suspects living in Sudan and detained foreign militants moving through the country on their way to joining Iraqi insurgents, U.S. and Sudanese officials have said. The trip was intended to help strengthen the relationship.

With plans for the visit on the verge of collapse, two people familiar with the situation said, a compromise was struck with opponents of the visit in the State and Justice departments. Gosh was allowed to come, but a scheduled meeting with CIA Director Porter J. Goss was canceled.

The CIA, Justice Department, State Department and Sudanese government declined to comment about the dispute on the record because of the sensitivity of the relationship.

But Ted Dagne, a Sudan specialist with the Congressional Research Service, said State Department officials believed Gosh’s trip would "send a political signal to the [Sudanese] government that Darfur would not prevent Sudan from winning support in Washington."

The disclosure of Gosh’s visit, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, also angered some members of Congress.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus criticized the visit during a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday.

Rep. Donald M. Payne (D-N.J.) told a State Department official who was testifying on Capitol Hill last month that bringing Gosh "to visit Washington at this time is tantamount to inviting the head of the Nazi SS at the height of the Holocaust."

A senior U.S. official, who commented officially but declined to be named, defended the visit. "Mr. Gosh has strategic knowledge and information about a critical region in the war on terror. The information he has is of substantial value to law enforcement, the intelligence community and the U.S. government as a whole, and this relationship will be of both current and future value."

Gosh’s visit, the official added, did not mean that Sudan would receive "a free pass on critical policy issues" such as Darfur.

Partnerships with foreign governments, known as liaison relationships, are "an indispensable part of CIA’s counterterrorism strategy," former agency Director George J. Tenet told the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks last year.

Duane "Dewey" Clarridge, who spent 33 years at the CIA and founded its counterterrorism center, said dealing with controversial regimes is sometimes unavoidable.

"You have no choice but to work with and recruit the bad guys because the Mother Teresas of the world don’t have the information you need," he said.

However, others say the U.S. often ends up protecting extremely repressive regimes, including some in the Mideast.

"The method of governing in the Middle East is to force your enemies to keep their heads down," said Bob Baer, a former CIA officer. Intelligence agencies there "let people know that if they plan anything against the regime, they’re going to die."

The CIA inevitably becomes committed to protecting elites that offer to collaborate on intelligence, he said.

The CIA’s relationship with Sudan is especially controversial because of the government’s previous ties to Islamic radicals. Osama bin Laden lived in Khartoum, the country’s capital, from 1991 to 1996, before he departed for Afghanistan.

In 1993, the Clinton administration put Sudan on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, and the Bush administration has kept it there.

The U.S. continues to harshly criticize Sudan for human rights violations. In September, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell accused Sudan of committing genocide in Darfur. President Bush reiterated that charge this month. Yet cooperation between the CIA and the Mukhabarat, Sudan’s intelligence agency, has steadily grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Sudan’s overall cooperation and information sharing improved markedly and produced significant progress in combating terrorist activity," the State Department said this year in a report on global terrorism.

CIA and Mukhabarat officials have met regularly over the last few years, but Gosh had been seeking an invitation to Washington in recognition of his government’s efforts, sources told The Times. The CIA, hoping to seal the partnership, extended the invitation.

"The agency’s view was that the Sudanese are helping us on terrorism and it was proud to bring him over," said a government source with knowledge of Gosh’s visit. "They didn’t care about the political implications."

But an internal debate erupted after word of the invitation spread to other government agencies. Their concern stemmed in part from a 2004 letter that 11 members of Congress sent to Bush, which accused Gosh of being a chief architect of the violence in Darfur.

The letter said Sudan had engaged in a "scorched-earth policy against innocent civilians in Darfur." It identified 21 Sudanese government, military and militia leaders as responsible and called on the administration to freeze their assets and ban them from coming to the U.S. Gosh was No. 2 on the list.

Sudan’s government has rejected accusations of genocide. It says the clashes in Darfur are part of long-standing conflicts between farmers and nomadic tribes that are fueled by disputes over water, land and other resources. It denies that senior officials such as Gosh have ordered attacks on civilians, which it blames on militias operating largely beyond its control.

Two senior U.S. officials told The Times that they have no direct evidence that Gosh has directed military operations in Darfur.

Several sources, including a State Department official, said the question of the propriety of the visit provoked sharp divisions at that agency.

Similar opposition emerged at the Justice Department, where officials discussed arresting Gosh, according to two sources. One person said Gosh learned of the discussions during his meetings with CIA officials.

Despite the internal dissension, CIA chief Goss remained committed to the trip. However, sources said, he agreed to scratch his meeting with the Sudanese official.

Gosh arrived here aboard a CIA jet and met with other senior agency officials April 20 and 21. The CIA canceled the meeting with Goss on the second day, saying that the director was unavailable because he needed to attend John D. Negroponte’s swearing-in to the position of director of national intelligence, a source said.

Gosh returned to Sudan on April 22, again traveling in a jet provided by the CIA.

Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who wrote to the administration this month protesting Gosh’s visit, said the CIA should not have brought him to Washington and could have arranged to meet him in Sudan or a neighboring country.

"I understand that in the intelligence business you have to deal with unsavory figures, but this sends very bad signals," he said. "Unless he’s providing information that’s going to save the Western world, it’s hard to see how you can justify this."

Payne was equally harsh.

"How can the administration say that genocide is occurring in Darfur and then bring Gosh over here?" he said. "It was a dastardly and unconscionable act."

Payne, of New Jersey, said he asked about Gosh’s visit in the meeting with Rice. He said she defended the visit, saying that "in situations of high stakes, there has to be a balancing and that you sometimes need to do things that you wouldn’t under normal circumstances."

David Shinn, director of East African affairs at the State Department from 1993 to 1996, said the Bush administration’s engagement with the Sudanese government had produced important gains.

In January, Muslim government forces in the north and Christian and animist rebels in the south agreed to end a two-decade civil war in a deal brokered by the U.S. The peace agreement will take effect next month, when a national unity government is to be formed.

"Counterterrorism cooperation and ending the war with the south are pretty big deals," said Shinn, who also worked at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum. "Engagement with Sudan is appropriate, and so is putting pressure on the government in Darfur. The two are not mutually exclusive."

Shinn also said that some U.S. critics of engagement had been largely uncritical of human rights violations by southern rebels during the civil war.

"A lot of people blame the government for all of the problems there," he said. "There are bad guys on the other side, too."

Hat tip: Sudan Tribune Friday 17 June 2005)

Friedhelm Eronat and Cliveden Sudan named as buyer of Darfur oil rights

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Further to the previous post at this site Sudan Watch, here is a June 10, 2005 report from The Guardian by David Leigh and Adrian Gatton. Note, the UK's Channel 4 TV News in its special report last night, interviewed JEM rebel Ahmad Hussein Adam.

Full copy of news report from The Guardian.co.uk

Written by David Leigh and Adrian Gatton

Dated Friday 10 June 2005, 00.05 BST

Title 'Briton named as buyer of Darfur oil rights'

A millionaire British businessman, Friedhelm Eronat, was named last night as the purchaser of oil rights in the Darfur region of Sudan, where the regime is accused of war crimes and where millions of tribespeople are alleged to have been forced to flee, amid mass rapes or murders. 

The disclosure was greeted with outrage by human rights campaigners. "From a moral point of view these people are paying a government whose senior members may end up in front of the international criminal court for war crimes," Simon Taylor, director of Global Witness, said yesterday. 

A London representative of the Darfur rebels last night called for oil exploration to stop until there was a peace settlement. "The only beneficiaries are the ruling elite," Ahmad Hussein Adam told Channel 4 news. "This is going to support their military campaign against our people." 

Documents seen by the Guardian suggest that Mr Eronat, who lives in a GBP 20m house in Chelsea, swapped his US passport for a British one shortly before the deal was signed with the Sudan regime in October 2003. US citizens are barred from dealing with Sudan under sanctions dating from 1997. 

The disclosure that Britain is serving as a base for questionable African oil transactions comes in the run-up to the July G8 summit at Gleneagles, at which Tony Blair's central theme will be the need to help Africa. 

The documents show that Mr Eronat may have been acting for China, which has been prominent in the new "scramble for Africa" and its oil deposits. Two Chinese corporations were given an option to buy 50% of Mr Eronat's newly acquired stake in the Darfur field. The option expired last year. It is not known whether China took it up. Mr Eronat's lawyer said yesterday that he "has purchased no oil concessions in Sudan ... and Mr Eronat has no interest" in the oil concession. An initial $3m was paid to the Sudan regime for exploration rights, shared with the state oil company and some other Sudanese interests. 

Mr Eronat, who is reputed to be worth GBP 100m, has made a fortune out of oil deals, mainly through his offshore Cliveden Group. He was accused by Global Witness last year of being the owner of a Swiss company allegedly used as a conduit to pass millions of dollars from Mobil Oil to the president of Kazakhstan. A trial is pending in the US of a banker involved in those transactions. Mr Eronat was not charged with any offence. 

The Islamist regime in the largely Arab north of Sudan has become an international pariah because of long-running attempts to crush rebellions in the south and more recently in Darfur in the west. A peace agreement in the south included agreements to divide up oil revenues, but the deal provoked a second rebellion in the adjoining Darfur region, which began in spring 2003. The military regime's violent response is estimated to have caused more than 1.5 million people to flee. 

The international criminal court says it is considering bringing charges of war crimes and possible genocide against government officials in Sudan. Announcing a formal investigation into the murders, rapes and massacres that have taken place in recent years, a spokesman for the court said evidence was being gathered and a list of suspects would be drawn up. 

A UN commission of inquiry said there had been serious violations of human rights. The UN has forwarded a list of more than 50 suspects to the ICC. Mr Eronat's London lawyer, John Reynolds of McDermott Will & Emery, said yesterday: "Mr Eronat has purchased no oil concessions in Sudan." He said the oil exploration group had various shareholders, of which Cliveden Petroleum Sudan Ltd was only one. "Are you alleging that killing has taken place in [the] concession acreage?" he asked. 

The company documents seen by the Guardian show that at the time of the 2003 sale, Mr Eronat confirmed that he was the sole owner of Cliveden Sudan, registered offshore in the British Virgin Islands with bearer shares and no register of ownership. The documents state that Cliveden Sudan in turn bought the largest single share in the oil exploration concession from the Sudan regime on October 21 2003. 

The disclosure of Mr Eronat as the man behind the Darfur deal followed a dispute between him and the former chairman of one of his companies, the lawyer Peter Felter. Mr Felter said last night: "Eronat is not interested in Darfur or political issues. He's interested in making money."

SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2005/jun/10/sudan.oilandpetrol

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New bid to stop Darfur fighting 

BBC confirms June 10 peace talks between Khartoum regime and two Darfur rebel groups have resumed in Nigeria after a six-month break. Read Full Story.

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NATO to airlift AU troops into Darfur 

NATO defence ministers gave the green light on Thursday to an operation to airlift extra African troops to Darfur, the alliance's first mission on the continent. 

Photo: NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (L) listens to NATO's Supreme Allied Commander for Europe General James Jones on the second day of a NATO defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters, Brussels, June 10, 2005. 

Source: Reuters/Francois Lenoir - Jun 10, 2005. 

Friedhelm Eronat is behind Cliveden Sudan and Darfur oil deal - It's blood for oil in Southern Sudan

Intermission interrupted to share some important news. [June 10 update: The following post, drafted June 9, has been edited to insert additional material. Light blogging continues. If anyone has further info on issues raised here, please let me know and I will add info and link at end of this item and/or in a fresh post at a later date. Thanks. This story may be added to and remain on front page here during six week intermission.] As noted here previously, Sudan confirmed in April that geological studies and surveys proved there are "abundant" quantities of oil in the western region of Darfur. The following excerpt, from a report at Aljazeera April 19, 2005 entitled Sudan discovers abundant oil in war-torn Darfur, covers most of the details provided in April by various newswires [see also AKI report April 20, 2005]

"Sudanese Energy and Mining Minister, Awad Ahmed al-Jazz, said that a newly discovered oil field in Darfur was expected to generate 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day by August this year. At the same time, Mohamed Siddig, a spokesman for the energy ministry also announced that drilling for oil had started in Darfur "on the basis of the geological studies and surveys which proved the presence of oil in abundant quantities in Darfur." Siddig said the ABCO consortium, in which the Swiss company Cliveden has a 37 percent share, owned the rights to the field. He also said work on the first oil well, southwest of El-Fasher in North Darfur State, was underway. Apparently, previous surveys showed that the region has untapped oil, gold, iron, silver as well as natural gas. Currently Sudan exports around 300,000 oil barrels per day. The country's main oil fields are in the south."

This evening (Thurs June 9) on television here in Britain, I watched a Channel 4 News special report on Sudan by Jonathan Miller. The report covers news logged here at Sudan Watch over the past year but the big news is, it revealed the name of the person behind the mysterious Swiss oil company Cliveden. It has given me a lead to google further info [see notes below]. When I last posted on Cliveden, I could not find who was behind the company which appeared to be either Swiss or UK based. Jonathan Miller's investigation is important. He has discovered that the Khartoum government has signed a 25-year contract (which he has a copy of) with a consortium to drill for oil in southern Sudan and reveals the man behind Cliveden and the oil deal is Friedhelm Eronat a former US citizen (who often acted on behalf of Mobil overseas and ex-business partner of convicted Mobil dealmaker J. Bryan Williams) turned British citizen now living in Chelsea, London. How on earth did he get British citizenship so quickly? My understanding from Channel 4's TV news report is that as an American citizen he would have been jailed for 10 years for doing such a deal because of US sanctions. Why do the same rules not apply in Britain? [Note, the point of copying various report excerpts and notes here below is to show how it was known in 2003 there was oil in Darfur - Cliveden's 25-year deal was signed in October 2003. Darfur rebellion began in earnest February 2003. Genocide in Darfur started around Feb/March 2004 causing, over the ensuing year, causing the deaths of some 300,000 - 400,00 Darfurians and millions to flee the region or country. South Darfur is an extremely dangerous and a "no-go area" for UN staff. Scroll down here below to see a map showing how few refugee camps are located in South Darfur, where oil is being explored. Drilling has started.] Here is a transcript of Jonathan Miller's report entitled "Briton involved in Sudan oil drill" - below which is a rare photograph of Friedhelm Eronat, courtesy Channel 4 News. The report, I believe, opened with a mention of Darfur, saying "What a place to be looking for oil": Say Darfur, we think genocide, ethnic cleansing. But to Khartoum and its corporate partners, deep below dustbowl Darfur lie abundant hidden riches. In 2003, as Sudanese government forces and their murderous militias hounded black Africans from their homes, Khartoum signed a deal to drill for oil in Darfur. In April this year, with the burning and killing still going, the oil minister announced they had struck oil. A potential windfall for a pariah regime and its friends. So what on earth does the human misery of war torn Darfur have to do with the exclusive London borough of Chelsea? Well, the man who was behind the Darfur oil deal lives here. Right here, in fact, in this multi-million pound mansion. Until two years ago he was an American citizen. Now though, he's British. His name: Friedhelm Eronat. Peter Felter knows Cliveden's secrets, and Friedhelm Eronat's too. He was his lawyer for eight years and ran the whole empire for four before he was sacked. He is taking the Group to an employment tribunal. Cliveden's rigorously defending the action. Peter Felter was the chairman of Cliveden Sudan at the time of the Darfur oil deal. He said: "He's a complex personality. Very rich, very charming, a very good salesperson. He now is Mr Big Oil, untouchable. He doesn't care about the minor issues of Darfur or genocide." We could not find any film of Friedhelm Eronat. But Channel 4 News has obtained the only known photographs. In 1990 Mr Eronat set up a global oil empire: the Cliveden Group. It operates in Europe, America and Africa. Friedhelm Eronat was at the heart of the deal to get at Darfur's oil. In late 2003, through his company, Cliveden Sudan, he acquired the biggest stake in the consortium drilling for oil. Mr Felter said: "Cliveden Sudan was bringing not only money of course, but it also was bringing quite a level of expertise in looking at the geology in Sudan." Darfur is vast. For many years geologists have suspected it holds abundant reserves of oil. Cliveden Sudan now has the biggest share in a concession granted by Khartoum called Block C. It is almost as big as Scotland arcing across South Darfur and down into southern Sudan. The consortium says an aggressive oil exploration programme is currently underway. Block C is at the southern end of the conflict zone. Many thousands of Darfurians there have been forced to flee to makeshift camps. Channel 4 News has seen the contract granting the concession to explore for oil in Darfur. This gives us an unprecedented insight into the workings of a deal that would normally remain secret. It reveals that the agreement runs for 25 years. And that the consortium which includes Cliveden will - once oil is produced - pay up to $8m in bonuses to the Khartoum government. It also shows how they will share the profits - starting with 70% to the government of Sudan and 13% for Cliveden Sudan. From another document we know that Cliveden Sudan is registered in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven, and has a business address in Switzerland. Normally, it is impossible to determine the true owner of such companies. But our document reveals that in December 2003, Friedhelm Eronat personally owned Cliveden Sudan. Channel 4 News has obtained confidential photographs, taken by African Union monitors last July in Suleia, a village just to the north of Block C. The following month I went to other nearby burned villages. In them, I met people still on the run from Suleia. They said theyd been bombed by government planes. Some had then been shackled and burned alive, many shot dead; others wounded; women, raped. Suleia is 180km from Block C's first well. Cliveden Sudan insisted to us that the 'wells' are 1000km from the conflict zone. So how did Cliveden Sudan get into bed with a regime accused of war crimes, in the very province the ethnic cleansing is happening? Here's how. Channel 4 News can reveal that Friedhelm Eronat's Sudan venture was very much a Chelsea-set affair. The whole deal brokered by his close neighbour, Lebanese businessman, Eli Calil. If his name sounds familiar it's because he is alleged to have helped bankroll last year's failed coup in the West African state of Equatorial Guinea, an allegation he denies. Mr Felter said: "He was purely and simple an introducing instrument. It was quite natural to ask Eli Calil he said he said I think I know a company that might be interested because they are already in Chad and he therefore introduced the Sudanese lot as it were to Eronat." One of Darfur's rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement is adamant that the search for oil will enflame the conflict. They want all exploration to stop, until there is peace. Ahmad Hussein Adam of the JEM said: "So when they say they discover oil in Darfur, who is going to benefit from that? Are they the people of Darfur? Of course not. Absolutely not, the only beneficiaries is the ruling elite and ruling minority of the regime." In the rebels' view, Cliveden Sudan has joined those accused of propping up a pariah regime, whose members include UN war crimes suspects. Yet, under British law, Friedhelm Eronat has done nothing illegal in doing a deal with Khartoum. But then there is the ethical argument. Mr Felter said: "I would say for Eronat he would deem it pretty irrelevant because it is about getting a signature on a document and I don't think it would be in his mind again Eronat is not interested in Darfur or political issues, he's interested in making money." We've discovered another interesting fact about the mysterious Mr Eronat. A US Treasury Department notice lists individuals who have renounced their American citizenship. One name on the list: Friedhelm Eronat. And the date: October 2003, just before the Darfur oil deal was signed. Co-incidence: maybe. But the effect was certainly helpful. Under US sanctions against Sudan, an American doing business with the Sudanese state oil company could face ten years in jail and fines of half a million dollars. Mr Felter said: "In terms of doing business in Sudan of course one advantage of denouncing your US citizenship is that suddenly you can also do deals in Sudan. If there is a direct connection or not I can't say but the timing was good." In fact, we have learnt that it was in August 2003 that Friedhelm Eronat acquired a British passport. We showed our evidence to a Conservative MP John Bercow, with a long interest in Darfur. In his view, Mr Eronat's new passport and the timing of his Sudan deal raise disturbing questions. Mr Bercow said: "What discussions took place between the British and US administrations about his activities in the oil business? What assurances were sought about the prospective scope of his activities? "What benefit did the British government think that an oil deal of this kind between a company and the government of Sudan could do to help the long-suffering people of Darfur? And what does the British government think that this deal will do for the credibility of its foreign policy towards Sudan?" Mr Eronat has told Channel 4 News that he is not a shareholder or officer of Cliveden Sudan and that he does not work for or financially benefit from Cliveden Sudan. Also that Cliveden Sudan is not the operator of the concession, but a shareholder. In a statement to this programme, Cliveden Sudan said "there has been no commercial oil find in Block C." As the International Criminal Court, backed by Britain, investigates the Sudanese regime for war crimes, and efforts to stop the killing gather pace, a British businessman has thrown oil on the flames in Darfur - and has done so legally. 

Rare photo of Friedhelm Eronat courtesy Channel 4 News UK. Friedhelm Eronat is the man behind the Darfur oil deal

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Sudan's oil deal with Swiss company Cliveden The following report dated October 22, 2003 [via European Coalition on Oil in Sudan] at Al-Sahafah Sudanese newspaper mentions Swiss company Cliveden in an agreement on oil prospecting and production signed for the Block 2 which extends from the Bahr al-Jabal State [southern Sudan] to the borders of the Central African Republic and Chad: KHARTOUM, Oct. 22, 2003 -- An agreement on oil prospecting and production was signed yesterday at the Ministry of Energy and Mining for the Block 2 which extends from the Bahr al-Jabal State [southern Sudan] to the borders of the Central African Republic and Chad. The agreement was signed between the Ministry of Energy and Mining and a group of [oil] companies including the Swiss company, Cliveden, which has a 37 per cent share; High Tech, with 28 per cent; the [national] Sudanese [oil] company, Sudapet, with 17 per cent share; Khartoum State, with 10 per cent; and the Hejlij Company with 8 per cent share. In a press statement after the signing of the agreement, the minister of energy and mining, Dr Awad Ahmad al-Jaz, said these companies had extensive expertise in the oil industry. He added that the presence of the Swiss company Cliveden was going to give a strong impetus in this field. - - - US backs off genocide charge in Darfur Note this excerpt from a report by Brian Smith entitled US backs off genocide charge in Darfur May 3, 2005: Sudan's minister of energy and mining announced last week the discovery of an oilfield in Darfur with abundant deposits. The announcement did not take oil experts by surprise, as previous reports had indicated that Darfur has untapped oil, gold, iron, silver and natural gas deposits. The country's ABCO Corp., in which Swiss company Cliveden has a 37 percent stake, has already started drilling southwest of El-Fasher in North Darfur state. The southern civil war, which lasted 20 years, was prolonged by the question of how the region's oil wealth would be distributed. Sudanese political analyst Mohamed Issam explained, "If you look back to the original demands made by the [Darfur] rebels at the start of the rebellion, they were asking for 80 percent of Darfur's oil wealth." He added, "Now they know for a fact the oil is there. The perception that the government is benefiting from Darfur's resources will fuel resentment and definitely complicate the [peace] negotiation process. - - - Darfur rebel group JEM say oil drilling in Darfur must stop LONDON, April 19 -- Sudan on Tuesday said its ABCO corporation -- in which Swiss company Cliveden owns 37 percent -- had begun drilling for oil in Darfur, where preliminary studies showed there were "abundant" quantities of oil. "The Sudanese people have never benefited from these (oil) discoveries," said Ahmed Hussein, the London-based spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement. "The oil must wait until a final peace deal is signed." Here is a copy of a report dated April 19, 2005 by Nima Elbagir via Reuters Darfur's two main rebel groups called on the Sudanese government on Tuesday to stop oil exploration in the country's war ravaged western region until a resolution to the two-year-old conflict has been achieved. Sudan on Tuesday said its ABCO corporation -- in which Swiss company Cliveden owns 37 percent -- had begun drilling for oil in Darfur, where preliminary studies showed there were "abundant" quantities of oil. "The Sudanese people have never benefited from these (oil) discoveries," said Ahmed Hussein, the London-based spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement. "The oil must wait until a final peace deal is signed." "We call upon international companies to not invest in Darfur under these conditions and under this regime," Hussein added. Sudan's main oilfields are in the south and disputes over oil prolonged negotiations to end 20 years of civil war. Mohamed Siddig, a spokesman for Sudan's Ministry of Energy and Mining, told Reuters by phone on Monday: "The drilling (in Darfur) was undertaken on the basis of the geological studies and surveys which proved the presence of oil in abundant quantities." A peace deal signed in January revived interest in Sudan's potential oil reserves but analysts say the conflict in Darfur, where tens of thousands have been killed and at least 2 million driven from their homes, has scared off investors. Sudan Liberation Movement spokesman Adam Ali Shogar told Reuters from the Chadian capital N'Djamena that the drilling for oil was a waste of time. "I welcome this discovery for the Sudanese people but if they find oil -- even if they find gold --, without a just distribution of wealth and a resolution to the conflict it is pointless." Sudan began exporting oil in 1998 and exports around 300,000 barrels per day, which is set to rise to 500,000 bpd by August. Work on the first Darfur oil well, southwest of El-Fasher in North Darfur State, is under way. Analysts say the discovery of oil wealth could give the two sides of the conflict more to fight over. "If you look back to the original demands made by the rebels at the start of the rebellion, they were asking for 80 percent of Darfur's oil wealth," Mohamed Issam, a Sudanese political analyst, told Reuters from Khartoum. "Now they know for a fact the oil is there. The perception that the government is benefiting from Darfur's resources will fuel resentment and definitely complicate the (peace) negotiation process," he added. - - - Update June 11: A kind reader here helpfully points out an error in Nima's report above: the company representing the joint venture partners on Block C is called APCO - not ABCO. A website for Advanced Petroleum Company (APCO) http://www.apco-sd.com was accessible but today when I clicked into it, it throws up a blank page. Maybe the site has been deleted? Even if it has been deleted, is there any way to know the ULTIMATE owner of that domain name? Apparently, Standard Who searches don't go very far. If any readers can throw light on this or anything to do with APCO or Cliveden please let me know for future Sudan oil posts. Thanks. Today, I came across a World Energy News article at IHS Energy. The article is extracted from International Oil Letter, Vol 21 issue 21 published 2005-05-25: APCO fails with its Dokhon 1 wildcat in Block C - Sudan Despite some initial encouragement, APCO has abandoned its Dokhon 1 wildcat in Block C, Muglad Basin, after testing fresh water over an unspecified interval. The well was drilled to a total depth of 3,433m seeking a Lower Cretaceous Abu Gabra sandstone primary objective and is estimated to have cost US$ 5.5 million to drill. It is located around 2km south of the Hiba 1 duster drilled by Chevron in 1979 and is the first well to be drilled on the block for 20 years. Block C covers 65,000 sq km mainly in the Muglad Basin, south-west of the oil producing area of Block 1 and 2 where the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company has significant oil production. APCO (Advanced Petroleum Company) is a joint venture between Cliveden (37%); High Tech Group (28%); Sudan Petroleum Corporation (17%); State of Khartoum (10%) and Hejlij Co (8%). 

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Secret World of the Chelsea Oil Tycoon 

On googling for Friedhelm Eronat and Cliveden Sudan, I came across a great post by British blogger Adrian Gatton who is an investigative journalist and independent film-maker based in London, UK. The post provides an excerpt from his report entitled "Secret World of the Chelsea Oil Tycoon" published in London's Evening Standard newspaper May 26, 2005. Sorry, I have not had a chance to contact the Evening Standard archive for full article:

He is at the centre of the new scramble for Africa but few have heard of him. A bitter struggle with his former lawyer, however, has opened the door on the remarkable life of Friedhelm Eronat. Friedhelm Eronat is one of the world's most successful oil dealmakers. He is also one of the most secretive men in Britain. He has an estimated fortune of at least $100m (£55m) built on controversial deals worth billions - in far-flung, difficult places such as Nigeria, Russia and Kazakhstan. But details about him are scant. He eschews publicity.

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Chinese-backed Cliveden? 

Here are some snippets I have gathered from google searches. Sorry some of the links have broken or require special subscriptions. The notes provide a pointer to further information on Friedhelm Eronat. Most interestingly, snippet (1) mentions "Chinese-backed Cliveden". (1) November 2004 report entitled "Before coup, Chinese-backed Cliveden eyed Equatorial Guinea" via Platts Oilgram News - The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. -- New York - Friedhelm Eronat, ex-business partner of convicted Mobil dealmaker J. Bryan Williams and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Justice Department's pending James Giffen Kazakh bribe case in ... (2) Platts Oilgram News - The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. - New York - Friedhelm Eronat, ex-business partner of convicted Mobil dealmaker J.Bryan Williams and an unindicted co=conspirator in the Justice ... construction.ecnext.com/ coms2/plattsbrowse_PN__1681_1760 (3) Africa Energy Intelligence No. 319 - 27/03/2002 report - Chairman of Cliveden Petroleum, Friedhelm Eronat is a London-based trader who was highly active in the Caspian sea countries in the 1990s. (4) The New Yorker Archives The Price of Oil report by Seymour M. Hersh Issue of 2001-07-09 Posted 2003-04-07. Excerpt: In Mobil's case, the company's in-house investigators came to believe that the proposed swap between Kazakhstan and Iran was but one element in a complex of seemingly high-risk business deals that were devised by Bryan Williams. The investigation also led to the two other Americans named in Tabbah's suit: James H. Giffen, a New York merchant banker and adviser to Kazakhstan's President Nazarbayev; and Friedhelm Eronat, a businessman who often acted on behalf of Mobil overseas. The business dealings and friendships among the three men date back many years, and they have done billions of dollars' worth of deals worldwide. The three might never have become the focus of grand-jury scrutiny if they hadn't fallen out with Farhat Tabba. (5) Online Journal Big Oil, The United States and corruption report by Larry Chin: Federal authorities began working on the case in 1999, triggered by a British case in which a Jordanian businessman Farhat Tabbah filed a claim in British court alleging that Giffen had stiffed him out of $40 million of commissions for his help in the oil swaps. According to reporter Seymour Hersh's investigation of the case, Tabbah claims that London oil trader Friedhelm Eronat helped Tabbah arrange the shipments between Mobil and the Kazakhstan government. Eronat denied a major role in the deal. (6) Alexander's Gas & Oil Connections - Is oil intrinsically dirty?: "Gabon's" - The Tengiz oil field on Kazakhstan's Caspian coast is one of the 10 largest oil deposits in the world, and also the centre of a huge scandal involving ExxonMobil. This country is listed at position 88 in the TI index. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in 2001 that Jordanian businessman Farhat Tabbah had filed a lawsuit in London alleging that Mobil trader Friedhelm Eronat and a representative of the Kazakhstan government conspired to cheat him of millions of dollars in commissions for assisting in a profitable 10-year oil swap between Mobil and Kazakhstan. (7) 12.03.04 Time for Transparency - Coming clean on oil, mining and gas revenues -- Information contained in legal assistance documents passed to Global Witness reveal that CC-1 is, in fact, Vaeko boss Friedhelm Eronat (8) AC Vol 45 No 21 ... Friedhelm Eronat, an oil trader also active in Sudan and in Central. Asia, has used his connections with them to secure three big concessions, ... www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ bpl/afco/2004/00000045/00000021/art00001 - - - It's blood for oil in Southern Sudan Veteran journalist Julie Flint has written extensively on Sudan and researched and co-authored a Human Rights Watch report on Darfur titled "Darfur Destroyed." She wrote this commentary for The Daily Star Lebanon, published Friday, June 10, 2005: When UN Secretary General Kofi Annan went to Darfur recently, he went to the front line - to Labado, where more than a hundred people died in one of those aerial bombardments the Sudan government says isn't happening. When he went to Southern Sudan, he went to the back line - to Rumbek, administrative center of the new Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS), where the children of a relief generation greeted him with banners saying: "Kofi, no food, hunger imminent." Had Annan gone to the front line - to a village like Payuer, on the east bank of the White Nile - he would have received a very different message. "The war's not over." Five months after Africa's longest-running civil war ended - officially, at least - Rumbek and Payuer are worlds apart. Everyone visits Rumbek; almost no one visits Payuer. Peace will not break down in Rumbek, but it could in Payuer. Rumbek is a seethe of UN officials, relief workers and rebel commanders turned ministers-in-waiting. It has a secondary school (built by the British in 1948), roads, solid brick buildings, satellite dishes and restaurants with napkins. It has children who hold up banners that appear to have been dictated by adults. The biggest security problem the town has experienced since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed on January 9 was a fatal hit-and-run accident involving a UN driver. The driver fled into the local police station. Relatives of the victim attacked the police station, took the driver away and lynched him. There are no cars in Payuer, no police and no paper to write slogans on. No one like Annan has ever visited Payuer, and until recently the place received no relief from the UN. Two years ago, Southerners displaced from government attacks on villages around the Adar oilfields were living in stone-age conditions there - eating leaves and re-boiled fish heads; sleeping without blankets or mosquito nets; dying of malaria, kala-azar, diarrhea, respiratory infections and wounds sustained during indiscriminate aerial bombardments. Things are a little better now: there's a small market offering shoes, clothes and oil brought from government towns for the few, the very few, who can afford them. There are a couple of aid workers investigating malnutrition (and finding less than they expected). There are cattle too, although most of them belong to Fellata - Sudanese Muslims of West African origin who have crossed to their prewar dry-season grazing grounds in rebel-controlled territory for the first time since 1983. There is universal relief that aerial bombardment has stopped, but also widespread skepticism about the durability of peace. People here aren't asking for food: not one person, among scores interviewed in the course of a week, even mentioned it. Their message to the international community is this: "You forced this peace through. Now take the government militias away - or see peace fail." Throughout the war, the Khartoum government used ethnic militias to divide and rule, denying any hand in the resulting mayhem. "Tribal trouble," it said, as it says now in Darfur. The CPA was negotiated, and signed, only by the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). The militias had no involvement in it. And in Northern Upper Nile, around Payuer, they are not fading away. Far from it: they are recruiting - at government urging, defectors say - training and attacking. Not quite as before, it's true. But attacking nonetheless. Since the CPA was signed, government-supported Southern militias have attacked two SPLA positions around the oilfields near Payuer and displaced Southern civilians from a number of villages. The government has responded by promoting the militia leaders, confirming local people in the belief that the attacks were government-inspired. Militiamen who have chosen to join their kin in SPLA-controlled territory have paid a heavy price: their villages have been attacked and looted, and their families displaced. The people of Payuer see a short-term and a long-term goal in the continued activation of the militias. Both involve oil, an industry currently worth more than a billion dollars a year to the Khartoum government. In the short term, they say, the government means to keep oil flowing, in ever greater quantities, by forcibly removing any people who still live in its way; in the long term, Khartoum will use the militias to fight against the separation of the South (and its oil) if Southerners vote for separation in a referendum in six years' time. The war in Southern Sudan was fought for 21 years and took more than a million lives without ever reaching the UN Security Council. Darfur was raised at the Security Council in May 2004, barely a year after the rebellion there began. The oil war that has raged in Southern Sudan from 1998 onward never captured international imagination, and indignation, in the way that Darfur has. But it was every bit as terrible. Villages were burned, civilians slaughtered, women and children raped and mutilated. Most of the oil discovered in Sudan is located in the South, and to exploit it the government first had to capture the land under which it lay. Hundreds of thousands of Southerners were displaced and remain displaced. Negotiations over oil were among the most difficult in the discussions that led to the CPA. Under the agreement, existing contracts remain valid, but can be reviewed in the event of environmental or ecological problems. New contracts will be negotiated and approved by the National Petroleum Commission, a joint government-Sudan People's Liberation Movement (which controls the SPLA) body which will be the industry's regulatory body. The GoSS will get 50 percent of net revenue from oil produced in the South. But here's the rub: the CPA does not give a categorical definition of the South. It defines the border as the border which was in place at independence in 1956. But even this border was controversial, and there is already disagreement over where the giant Heglig oilfield belongs, with some SPLA officials accusing the government of altering its administrative boundaries to shift it from South to North. If the government sets Southerner against Southerner to try to hold onto oilfields like Adar, or if it seeks to play the boundary card, the SPLA will have only itself to blame. In the weeks before peace, the SPLA signed a number of seemingly illegal deals unilaterally granting oil concessions in the South. Khartoum has challenged the agreements as violations of the CPA - and leading industry analysts agree. As a particularly trenchant critic of SPLA "greed" says: "We have a government which doesn't yet exist - the "Civil Authority of New Sudan" - handing out oil licenses, the rights to which it doesn't own, to so-called oil firms which no one has ever heard of and which appear to have none of the technical, financial, management or operational requirements to take on the Sudd," the Nile swamplands which are at the center of the disputed leases. "If this is the way the South is going to approach the postwar environment, rather than accepting 50 percent of oil revenues and a role in the negotiation of any new oil licenses, then the whole peace agreement will fail. We'll be back to another decade or two of war and the petroleum will stay in the ground for another century."

G8 Summit - Two fingers to America

Intermission interruption. Light blogging continues. Just wanted to record this little gem: today, Lord Clive Soley published the following post on the July G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, UK:

"I am actually getting quite hopeful about the possibility of some progress on both Africa and global warming. Whatever else you think Tony Blair and Gordon Brown do seem to have set an agenda which is getting a real political response. It's too early to be sure so keep your fingers crossed!"

In the comments at Clive's, I posted this re Monjo's response to Hooman Majd's post at the Huffington blog:

Hello Clive, glad you are getting hopeful. Me too. Their agenda is getting really wide media coverage and creating a lot of debate in the blogosphere. Sir Bob Geldof and Bono et al are doing a great job generating G8 publicity and awareness among young people. Love the chaos of inviting hundreds of French to turn up by boat.

Here is an excerpt from one of the best posts by a blogger I've ever read:

***Tony Blair needs to develop a spine. We should definitely pull out from Iraq if the US won't comply with our wishes elsewhere. *** Let's remind America that we do not need the United States***

The post at The Monjo Blog, entitled "Two fingers to America" is authored by Geoffrey Roberts, a 25 year old blogger from Clacton, now living in Colchester. Wish I had written it:

http://blog.monjo.com/post/2005/06/08/two_fingers_to_america

Tags: Darfur Sudan Africa Commission Tony Blair Gordon Brown G8 Gleneagles Bob Geldof Make Poverty History Live 8 Iraq George W Bush Kyoto Gulf oil AIDS Christian Science Monitor New York Times Uganda Corruption Africa sustainable+development environment European+Union Clive Soley Monjo Blog Huffington Post

Intermission

Rest break. Back asap. For up to the minute world news relating to the Sudan, click into the Sudan Tribune, Google News on Sudan, and POTP.

Be sure to read reflections on the politics of aid in Africa You let her into the house? by Lara Pawson, following Ethan's post Scavenger hunts, ugly Americans, and other options June 6, 2005.
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G8 and African Poverty

See Geoffrey Roberts' post at The Monjo Blog on G8 and African Poverty - excerpt:

"Yes free-trade would be nice, but first we need free people, living in free democracies, with defined property rights, accountable police and judiciaries, and efficient, low, taxation. Debt cancellation or relief, plus foreign aid and economic investment should be done on basic conditions for governance."

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Genocide under our noses: What to do about Darfur?

Note this copy of an insightful comment, left by Nate (a 27 year old high school teacher in San Francisco, California) at a post by Michael Stickings entitled Genocide under our noses: What to do about Darfur? featuring a piece by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times:

"I empathize with your moral outrage, but we can't change human nature. We are at root selfish creatures, and attempts to "rewire" humans to be more communitarian and altruistic have been responsible for the worst crimes against humanity. (See Stalin and Mao)

There is a legitimate case to made that we (Americans) should do something now in Darfur. We should set a standard that we, as the police force of the world, will not tolerate genocide. But we should only do this out of self-interest: a stable Sudan is better for us than a chaotic, violent Sudan. Setting a precedent that we won't allow such an atrocity to happen would also be beneficial for us.

However, in my view, any appeal to international justice, while well-intentioned, is to be disregarded. Only by acting out of enlightened self-interest do we further the cause of a more just, humane world.

There will be no perfect solutions in Darfur. It is still a Hobbesian world, in which a grim cost-benefit analysis is the best model to solve complex conflict.

I would caution anyone, myself included, who wishes to do something about Darfur to rely on the so-called "moral" dimension. Do we also have a moral obligation to save the rainforest from destruction? End the rampant trade of sex slaves in Eastern Europe? End the awful oppression in numerous dictator states? End the horrific poverty in shantytowns across India, Brazil, etc?

No. We do what we can, when we can, and we do our best when acting our of mutual self-interest with our cause. Some causes deserve more attention, and they must be chosen based on our ability to act effectively. We act most effectively when our own self-interest is at stake.

So let us formulate a case of intervention in Darfur that allows for Hobbes to co-exist with our own sense of morality. I think this approach will bear more fruit."

Blair and Bush to announce new famine initiative - SLA/JEM infighting kills 11 - Germany mulls over Khartoum's blockade policies

A report in today's Scotsman says US President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair will announce a joint initiative today costing the 674 million dollars (GBP 370 million) to help an estimated 14 million people threatened by famine in Africa, the White House said.

The announcement appeared intended to take the sting out of Bush's opposition to Blair's more expensive plan for doubling aid to Africa. The amount of Britain's contribution to the joint initiative was not disclosed, but it was said to be less than Washington's.

Bush and Blair are to meet at the White House this afternoon. The joint initiative will focus on the food needs of people vulnerable to famine in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It also will address humanitarian needs in other countries in Africa, a senior White House official said.


CNN Photo: An Ethiopian boy drinks water from an old bottle.

Bush has rejected Blair's efforts to persuade the world's wealthiest nations to back his plan to double aid to Africa. The prime minister, the host of this year's summit of the major eight industrialised democracies, hopes to use the meeting in early July in Gleneagles, Scotland, to raise an extra 50 billion dollars (GBP 27.5 billion) a year by selling bonds on the world's capital markets.

"It doesn't fit our budgetary process," Bush said last week. The Bush administration says the mechanism would conflict with US budget laws by binding future governments to providing money.

Bush and Blair are to hold a news conference this afternoon, where they are expected to announce their joint initiative. They will call on other countries to increase their commitment to address humanitarian emergencies in Africa, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not been formally made.

Blair's US visit is part of a blitz of trips to lobby foreign leaders ahead of the Scotland summit. In coming weeks, Blair is to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Blair's wish list is likely to be a tough sell in the US. Bush opposes the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and his administration questions views that man-made pollutants are causing temperatures to rise. The White House has also rejected many of Blair's proposals on African debt relief.

Yesterday, Blair's official spokesman said Blair wasn't looking for any breakthroughs in Washington.

"This visit is part of the preparation for Gleneagles, not Gleneagles itself," the spokesman said. "So we are not expecting ... to see the final US position tomorrow. That will come at Gleneagles."
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Press briefing on Tony Blair's visit to Washington and the EU Constitution

10 Downing Street's Morning Press Briefing from 6 June 2005 on PM's visit to Washington and the EU Constitution.
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Arms bill hits US$1 trillion

June 7, 2005 report at BBC, DefenseNews and China's Standard. Excerpt:

Global military spending blasted past the US$1 trillion mark in 2004, with the U.S. alone accounting for nearly half of the total because of its "war on terror," the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found.

Military spending reached US$1.035 trillion last year - or US$162 for every inhabitant of Earth - compared to US$956 billion in 2003, the institute revealed Tuesday in its annual report.
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ICC launches Darfur war crimes investigation

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has launched a formal investigation into suspected crimes against humanity in Darfur.

"The investigation will be impartial and independent, focusing on the individuals who bear the greatest criminal responsibility for crimes committed in Darfur," the ICC said in a statement.

It did not name any suspects. Telegraph June 6, 2005.

AFP reports that Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo will brief the United Nations in New York later this month about his plans to investigate Darfur.
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Rebel infighting in South Darfur kills 11, injures 17-AU

The last round of Darfur peace talks collapsed in December after the Darfur rebel group SLA leadership boycotted talks because of a government offensive on the ground in Darfur. Rebel divisions have plagued previous rounds of talks, AU officials say.

Last month, after the rebels met with Libyan leader Col Gaddafi, Darfur peace talks were supposed to resume May 30 or June 1. Rebels postponed the talks to June 10. You have to wonder at the reason for the delay. As stated here recently, anything could happen in the run up to June 10. And it has. African Union said today in a statement that on June 3 SLA attacks on the JEM-occupied town of Gereida in South Darfur killed 11 people, injured 17. Some houses were burnt down.

JEM occupied Gereida town, south of Nyala, despite calls for them to evacuate and allow AU forces to takeover.

"The JEM and SLA are hereby called upon to cease hostilities and pull out their forces completely from Gereida," AU spokesman Mezni said.

"The government of the Sudan is urged to continue its current laudable restraint and the rebel forces are called upon to show similar restraint at this moment when all efforts are being made to reconvene the Abuja political talks on June 10, as scheduled," he added.
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Note, graphic below showing location of refugee camps. Not many appear to be situated in South Darfur where oil was recently discovered. South Darfur is a dangerous area which many people seem to be fighting over. A horrific day-long premeditated militia attack took place there in a town called Khor Abeche in March of this year.



Reuters graphic shows a detailed map of Sudan's Darfur region and location of refugee camps.
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Obasanjo hopes talks finally resolve Darfur crisis

Nigerian President, Chairman of the African Union, Olusegun Obasanjo, hopes the next round of peace talks will make a final resolution to the crisis in the west Sudanese region of Darfur, his spokeswoman said Monday.

"The Darfur talks will resume on June 10 in Abuja (Nigeria's capital). AU Chairman Obasanjo is hoping the talks will finally meet the settlement of the Darfur crisis," Obasanjo's spokeswoman Remi Oyo told Xinhua by telephone from Abuja.

Oyo said both the Sudanese government and two main rebels in Darfur had agreed to come for the Abuja talks.

Najeeb el-Kheir Abdu-el-Wahab, minister of state in the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, said Sunday in Khartoum that the government has formulated a 18-man delegation to participate in this round of talks.

The delegation, headed by ruling National Congress's political secretary, will arrive in Abuja Wednesday, el-Kheir told reporters.

This round, which is expected to last for three weeks, will mainly focus on the issue of the political solution based on the declaration of principles which had been discussed during the lastround, he said.

And the talks would be held in a complete secrecy with little leakage to the media so as to ensure it be final and successful, said el-Kheir.

The representatives of the European Union, the African Union, the Arab League, the United States, France and Sweden are also expected to participate in the talks.
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Darfur rebels might not arrive on time for peace talks

Note Darfur rebels regret deadly internecine clashes.

Also, Tues June 8 report excerpt via SudanTribune:

SLA President Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur also said he would go to Abuja, but said the AU had not given them enough time to prepare their team, which was coming from the field in Darfur and all round the world.

"They told us on June 2 and we have told them in the past we need two weeks to prepare our team," he told Reuters. "The AU just want to make it look like we are the ones delaying the talks."

SLA SAYS IT NEEDS MORE TIME

Nur said the SLA had requested a delay until June 15 to collect their team. "We are a guerrilla movement, we are not a government -- we rely on the AU for transportation," he added.

The SLA leadership boycotted the last round of talks in December in protest against a government offensive launched in their part of South Darfur.

They said they would not return to talks until government forces had withdrawn from all the areas they had occupied during this operation. The AU confirmed almost two months ago that the Sudanese armed forces had carried out the withdrawal.

The smaller rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said they would be in Abuja on time, but declined to say whether their leader Khalil Ibrahim would be present.
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Sudan to resume talks with exiled group

Agencies, Arab News

KHARTOUM, 6 June 2005 -- Stalled peace negotiations between the Sudanese government and exiled opposition groups are to resume in Cairo next weekend and continue until a final deal is reached, officials said yesterday. Talks between the government and the opposition National Democratic Alliance will start next Saturday, Sudanese state radio quoted Ibrahim Ahmed Omar, secretary-general of the ruling National Congress party as saying.

Omar also predicted that with many outstanding issues already resolved, an agreement could be signed a few days after the discussions commence, saying "the final agreement will be signed by the two sides on June 16." The NDA, a coalition of northern, southern, eastern and western opposition groups, including the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, confirmed talks with the government would resume on June 11. "The discussions will start on Saturday," NDA vice president Abdul Rahman Saeed told AFP.

But he did not share the government's optimism that a deal could be signed five days later, saying "it was possible, but not certain." Saeed explained that the talks will kick off with meetings aimed at reaching a deal on how to implement an initial agreement the two sides signed in January, particularly on political and military issues. "We have already agreed," he said, adding that the discussions will focus on "implementing what we have agreed upon."

Meanwhile, Sudanese President Omar Bashir said he hoped rebels would join talks in the Nigerian capital next week aimed at reaching a peace deal for Darfur. "The government is committed to take part in the Abuja talks with a high-level delegation that possesses a full mandate and we hope observers and rebels will participate with high-level delegations too for reaching a peaceful political settlement that leads to peace and stability in Darfur," Bashir said.

He said he hoped the round of talks starting on June 10 "will be a final one that paves the way for convening a comprehensive conference for the people of Darfur for boosting peace, stability, development and services in the region," according to Omdurman Radio.
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4-5 Jul 2005 - Libya hosts African Union leaders, seeking African solutions in Darfur

TRIPOLI. 4-5 July 2005. Report excerpt: This second summit in 2005 of the 53-nation African Union could be sobering as it will be the one where the leaders measure their efforts to ease or end one of the continent’s most serious and difficult recent catastrophes -- the conflict and humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
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Germany mulls over Khartoum's blockade policies

By Der Spiegel

HAMBURG, Germany, June 6, 2005 (Sudan Tribune) -- The Bundeswehr, German Federal Armed Forces, mission to Sudan, which was approved by parliament on April 13, might be stopped far earlier than originally planned.

Defence Minister Peter Struck is considering calling off the deployment of up to 75 soldiers, who should serve as military observers in a 10,000-troop UN force, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported.

The reason for this is the Sudanese government's blockade policy.

With devious measures, it is trying to hamper the deployment of UN soldiers: thus, the first four Bundeswehr staff officers, who recently travelled to the capital Khartoum, were only granted visas for four weeks - although the UN mission is to last more than six years. A deployment agreement with the United Nations, so that visas are no longer required, is also being blocked.

Moreover, apparently, other countries do not keep their promises they gave to the United Nations either: instead of the planned 10,000 soldiers, the world organization has so far only 1,500 troops available.

The Blue Helmets are to secure a peace agreement that was signed between Khartoum and the rebels in the south after 21 years of civil war.

After a meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York, Struck wants to decide at the end of June whether to stop the Sudan operation.

Germany already has 7,500 soldiers serving on missions overseas, with the largest contingents in Afghanistan and the Balkans.
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Note, perhaps Khartoum are afraid of this:

June 6 Deutsche Welle report Preparing Germany's Military for War report. And this:

EU may send peacekeeping force to Darfur

Copy of Financial Times report by Guy Dinmore and Hubert Wetzel in Washington, and Daniel Dombey in Vilnius, April 21 2005:

UK, French and German forces could be sent to stop the violence in Sudan's region of Darfur as part of a European Union peacekeeping mission -- that is one of several ideas to be discussed by EU foreign ministers next week, officials said on Thursday.

The proposed EU peacekeeping force, which would be the second sent to Africa, would support an African Union observer mission made up largely of Nigerian and Rwandan troops who are already in the region, although in too small numbers to have any real impact.

Payback time for US on Iraq

Tony Blair must tell George Bush to repay British support over the war on terror by backing moves to end African poverty, campaigners have demanded.

The Prime Minister flies to Washington today for White House talks with the president of the United States tomorrow.


Picture: Mark Wilson/Getty Images: Blair to visit Bush for talks at White House tomorrow

"Tony Blair has got to go there [the White House] and make George Bush sit up and notice public opinion here" - Sir Bob Geldof, Live 8 organiser

Story in full at The Scotsman Mon June 6, 2005

[Listen up buddy: contribute 0.7% GDP p.a. like the rest of us - AND ON TIME - or else we won't think much of America anymore]
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BLAIR'S CAMPAIGN FOR AFRICA

Prime Minister Blair will press President Bush for more funds at a meeting tomorrow.

Blair's plea, and Mr Bush's resistance to it, highlight key gaps in their approaches. Blair's is fueled by a strong sense of moral obligation for rich nations to help poor ones - and a public more willing to spend government money on far-away problems. Bush aims to help generously on AIDS, but otherwise target aid where it won't be swallowed by corrupt or inept officials. It's one reason Washington gives foreign countries just 16 cents per $100 of gross domestic product, one of the rich world's lowest rates.

Read more by Abraham McLaughlin, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor.
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COUNTDOWN TO JULY G8 MEETING IN GLENEAGLES, SCOTLAND, UK

From the Financial Times June 6 2005:

Tony Blair flies to Washington today in a bid to prepare the ground for a successful Group of Eight summit at Gleneagles. He has a tough task ahead. With only a month to go and public pressure mounting, the summit is poised between triumph and disaster.

Mr Blair and Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, have raised expectations with talk of a summit that will go down in history for tackling climate change and poverty in Africa. The promise of a Live 8 concert to put pressure on the G8 promises to raise public excitement still higher.

Read FT.com Editorial comment.
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BUSH OPPOSED TO INCREASING AID TO AFRICA

In his blog from Kampala, Uganda, Peter Quaranto links to an article from June 5 New York Times headlined: "Bush Maintains Opposition to Doubling Aid for Africa." Peter says he hopes to blog a response to President Bush later this week and adds:

"But for now I will just say that I see this is both an abdication of global moral responsibility and perpetuation of the deep injustice of contemporary U.S. policy towards the African sub-continent. This is not to say that aid is the answer to all the crises facing many African nations - far from it actually - but aid can go a long way in helping meet the basic needs of masses of human beings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/politics/02prexy.html
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BRITAIN URGES GULF STATES TO HELP AFRICAN AID PLAN

Excerpt from Gulf Times report Mon 6 June, 2005:

LONDON: British Finance Minister Gordon Brown yesterday urged rich, oil-producing countries in the Gulf, which have profited from a recent spike in oil prices, to join a global push to lift Africa out of poverty.

Speaking ahead of a crucial week of negotiations for Prime Minister Tony Blair who is due to meet US President George W Bush in Washington tomorrow as part of a bid to drum up support for a plan to help Africa at a Group of Eight (G8) summit in Scotland next month, Brown pressed the need for urgent action.

"I would like to see the oil-producing states, the countries that have done well out of the rise in oil prices, being willing to make a contribution also to the new development agenda, and particularly to debt relief and to international aid," he told GMTV.

"I've been in touch with the countries concerned asking them to make their contribution too," he said.
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EU CRISIS MAY FORCE BLAIR TO STAY ON AS PM

British Prime Minister Tony Blair could stay in power for three more years to help steer the European Union out of the crisis over the EU draft constitution, ally Peter Mandelson said yesterday. Full Story sapa-AFP via Dispatch online 6 June 2005.
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BLAIR IN SECRET PLAN TO HOLD SECOND G8 SUMMIT ON AFRICA

Downing Street is drawing up secret plans to hold a second G8 meeting if the Gleneagles summit fails to deliver for Africa.

Sources close to No10 said Tony Blair is prepared to call an emergency "crisis meeting for Africa", probably in the autumn.

He would use the public goodwill towards tackling poverty following next month's Live8 concerts to bounce reluctant world leaders into returning to Britain for a second summit.

Usually leaders of the leading industrial nations meet once a year. Full Story by Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent Mirror EXCLUSIVE: WE'LL MEET AGAIN 6 June 2005

Cross-posted at Passion of the Present. Tags: Darfur Sudan Africa Commission Tony Blair Gordon Brown G8 Gleneagles Bob Geldof Make Poverty History Live 8 Iraq George W Bush Kyoto Gulf oil AIDS Christian Science Monitor New York Times Uganda Corruption Africa sustainable+development environment European+Union

Uganda, Congo and Khartoum facing war crimes probe

BBC report today confirms the International Criminal Court at The Hague is to launch an inquiry into alleged war crimes in Darfur:

The New York-based Human Rights Watch group said the Sudanese authorities in Khartoum have not taken any meaningful steps to bring to account those responsible for the alleged crimes, the BBC's Geraldine Coughlan at The Hague reports.

The ICC plans other trials later this year against alleged perpetrators of war crimes in two other African nations, Uganda and Congo, a BBC correspondent says.

[Note, the report says two million people have fled Darfur - population is estimated at around 6 - 6.5 million]

Arab League chief tours Darfur - Sudan urges Arabs to support Darfur mission - SPLMs Garang leaves Egypt for Washington

Excerpt from an AFP report at Aljazeera Sunday June 5, 2005:

Mussa, who toured Darfur on Friday and Saturday (two days after Zoellick) and met AU officials there, indicated that the league "fully supports the African Union in its endeavours in Darfur".

He said AU officials briefed him on the situation in the region and informed him that a semblance of calm was returning to certain areas of Darfur, particularly those where there was a visible AU presence.

The Arab League chief returned to Khartoum after touring the Abu Shouk camp for displaced persons near El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.

"I cannot see any justification for [international] concentration on differences between the Arab and African tribes in Darfur," he commented.

"We reject plans for driving a wedge between these two groups of tribes who are now mingling and intermarrying with each other," Mussa added.
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Sudan urges Arabs to support Darfur mission

Some news reports today are saying Sudan called on Arab countries yesterday to support efforts by the African Union to stabilise the situation in Darfur.

Excerpt from Peninsula On-line: "We express our gratitude to the Arab League for its positive contribution to efforts being exerted for addressing the Darfur crisis," said Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail. "And we are looking forward to a direct Arab support to the African Union and to the AU forces in Darfur," he added at a joint news conference with visiting Arab League secretary general Amr Muss.
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Note, report today says "Sudan says US stance changed".

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Garang to Washington for talks on peace implementation

John Garang, chief of SPLM, left Egypt Saturday for the US wrapping up an official visit.

Spokesman for SPLM said Garang will meet during his visit to the US with officials at the US Department of State and Congressmen for talks on a number of issues related to the implementation of Sudan peace agreement and the reconstruction of areas destroyed by war.

During his visit to Egypt, Garang held talks with President Husni Mubarak on Egypt's leading role to solicit regional and international support for reconstruction efforts in southern Sudan. - via MENA/ST June 4, 2005.

Darfur and G8: Mbeki suggests Western taxpayers donate another GBP 50 million to AU "institutions"

Cape Town June 3 IOL report:

Supporting peace and stability initiatives on the African continent was one of the practical outcomes desired at the forthcoming G8 summit in Scotland, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.

"What the operations in Darfur in Sudan have done is to show that the capacity of the peacemaking, peacekeeping institutions of the African Union are not as strong as they should be," Mbeki told delegates attending the World Economic Forum meeting on Friday.

He said the peacekeeping institutions providing soldiers and police have proved to be weak, partly because of their newness.

"So, why then don't we all of us agree, that let us dedicate these sort of resources to the strengthening of the institutions of the African Union that are dedicated to the matter of peace and security on the continent."

Mbeki said this would lessen the sorts of logistical problems currently being experienced in Darfur.

Mbeki said he did not think there would be much debate about this, but Africans needed to say this was one of the outcomes they wanted from the G8 meeting at Gleneagles in July.

"The issue of peace and security and stability on the continent is critical to its development and therefore why don't we generate GBP 50-million ... in order to finance these institutions of the African Union so that they are capable of discharging their duties with regard to peace."

Mbeki cautioned against getting entangled in debate about the best mechanisms, such as the proposed international financing facility. - Sapa

{This is what African leaders are good at, sniffing out and wangling more money from the West to spend on more talk, meetings, fancy cars and travel to administer war, arms, ammunition and fighting. No mention of actual security forces. Seems the only paid jobs in African countries like Sudan are to do with fighting or politics.

Note Mr Mbeki makes no mention of the leadership and governance in Sudan, northern Uganda and DR Congo. Many a post here at Sudan Watch has pointed out the African Union has said over the past year re Darfur that funding shortages is not the cause of the holdup: it is the Khartoum regime holding up the "accommodation" of African Union troops. African politics dictates the speed at which African Union troops are found and deployed to Darfur.

I'd rather trust the UN, EU and NATO to discern whether African Union "institutions" need more hard cash or not.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was perfectly satisfied with the $300 million recently pledged in cash and kind for the AU mission in Darfur.

America's Mr Zoellick is a good accountant keeping a keen eye on what is needed. $4.5 million has been pledged for southern Sudan of which $2 billion is from the US.

Maybe the least hard cash that is given directly to Africa, where leaders and their entourages get their hands on it and into their pockets, the better. African leaders have brought this upon themselves by proving over many decades they are completely untrustworthy.]

Japanese aid group inks oil deal with Sudan - China opposes UN Security Council enlargement with Japan

This sounds interesting. A Japanese company called SIG, established in April by a Japanese NGO, Reliance, which has provided humanitarian support in Sudan since the 1990s said it plans develop oil fields in eastern Sudan and use the profit from oil development to finance humanitarian support in Africa.

Excerpt from an AP report June 5, 2005:

A company established by a Japanese nongovernment organization providing humanitarian support in Sudan has obtained concession rights for oil and natural gas in the African nation, a Japanese newspaper reported Sunday.

Systems International Group, a Tokyo-based medical equipment company, and the Sudan government will formally sign the agreement next Sunday, the Mainichi newspaper reported.

The company, known as SIG, will develop oil fields in eastern Sudan bordering Eritrea and Ethiopia, the region believed to have large oil reserves, the Mainichi said.

The contract is believed to be about $100 million for approximately 25 years, the newspaper said. The company will invest about $8 million by August to set up a joint venture with Sudan.

After a geological survey of about one year, the joint company plans to have a contract with a Japanese trading company to develop oil in Sudan. SIG has already set aside Y500 million, the Mainichi said, quoting company officials as saying.

SIG was established in April by a Japanese NGO, Reliance, which has provided humanitarian support in Sudan since the 1990s.

The company said it plans to use the profit from oil development to finance humanitarian support in Africa.

Nearly 3 people million are displaced inside in the western Darfur region, where they've been driven from their homes by war.

China, which has aggressively sought oil and gas supplies abroad, has already signed contracts with Sudan.
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UN reform: China opposes UN Security Council enlargement with Japan

Note above item, followed by this report by AFP June 3 via China Daily:

China would block any move to give Japan, India, Brazil and Germany permanent seats in an enlarged UN Security Council, China's UN ambassador Wang Guangya said.

"This is a dangerous move and certainly China will oppose it," Wang told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.

"It will split the house and destroy the unity and also derail the whole process of discussion on big UN reforms," Wang said.

China has opposed Japan being granted permanent status on the Security Council, demanding it first correct its attitude to its wartime history. Tensions between the two countries have risen in recent months.

Brazil, Germany, India and Japan have formed a group, called G4, to lobby for permanent seats on the Security Council.

It has circulated a draft resolution, which could be voted on at the UN General Assembly in September, proposing a 25-member Security Council, 10 more than now, with six new permanent members.

Wang said China leaned toward a rival plan, proposed by Italy, Mexico and Pakistan, to enlarge the Security Council to 25 members, but without additional veto-weilding permanent members.

"We see many good points in their formula because this will expand the Security Council and this will give certain members who they believe are important a longer term," he said.

In the Italy-Mexico-Pakistan plan, some non-permanent members could be re-elected at the end of their two-year stints on the Security Council, unlike the current practice.

The G4 nations plan to put their motion to the General Assembly if they are certain they will get the support of two thirds of the 191 UN members so that it will be passed.

The text does not say which countries should become permanent members but proposes two for Asia, two for Africa, one for Western Europe and one for Latin America.

Africa, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe would each get one of the new non-permanent seats.

India, Japan, Germany and Brazil say that all of the new permanent members should have the same right to veto a resolution as the current five permanent members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. But the United States has opposed extending the veto.

China could not technically block a motion put to the General Assembly but could kill it off later. The change to the Security Council would also require changes to the UN charter. This would have to be passed by the parliaments of two thirds of the UN members, including the five permanent members.

Altering the charter is the fourth stage in the G4 plan. Wang said, "I hope it will not come to the fourth stage."

Japan has made winning a permanent seat on the Security Council a top goal of its foreign policy. But China says Japan has not atoned enough for the past to deserve a seat.

China has strongly attacked Japan recently over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual pilgrimage to a shrine that honors Japanese war dead, including 14 war criminals.

China has called Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni shrine the biggest obstacle in bilateral relations. Amidst angry exchanges between the two countries over the shrine, Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi last week canceled a meeting with Koizumi in Tokyo. The shrine honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead.

Koizumi has defended his visits, saying the pilgrimage is a Japanese way to honor the dead. On Thursday, he again demanded that other countries not "interfere" and signalled he was ready to go again.
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Russia to train pilots for UN mission in Sudan

The Russian Defense Ministry has decided to send a helicopter squad to Sudan to train pilots and aviation engineers for the UN mission in the African country, a ministry source said Saturday.

Russia will send four Mi-24 helicopters and 100 to 110 pilots and other aviation personnel to Sudan by October, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the defense ministry source.

The ministry source said a similar helicopter squad is completing its work in Sierra Leone and will leave the country in September. (Xinhua) June 4, 2005 via SudanTribune.

Red Cross airlifts food aid to Darfur refugees

The Red Cross said today it had begun airlifting food supplies to refugees in Darfur, saying a rising number of attacks on aid convoys made it too risky to move the food by road.

A chartered Russian plane had left Khartoum early today carrying the first shipment of a planned 4,000 tons of food aid.

The Red Cross plans to operate 12 flights a week for the next two months to Nyala and El-Fasher, Darfur's main centres.

From there, the supplies of sorghum, lentils and cooking oil will be trucked into rural Darfur where whole communities are in need of humanitarian assistance, the Red Cross said.

In a statement, the Red Cross said the airlift had been prompted by dwindling food supplies and the growing number of people dependent on food aid.

"This situation is underscored by increasing insecurity on the roads from Khartoum to Darfur where attacks on aid convoys are on the increase," the group said. Full Story at Ireland On-Line June 4, 2005.