Sudan News: Sudan signs $400m oil field development deal

[XXPANTHAXX]

East African Standard
29 March 2005

Sudan signed a $400 million deal to develop its southern Thar
Jath oil fields to an initial capacity of 80,000 barrels per
day (bpd) by the end of March 2006, the oil ministry said in
a statement.

The deal was signed late Sunday with the Sudanese White Nile
Petroleum company -- a consortium of Malaysian state oil firm
Petronas [PETR.UL], which owns 68 percent, India’s state-run
Oil and Natural Gas Corp., which has a 24 percent stake and
Sudan’s state oil company Sudapet with 7 percent.

The remaining one percent is divided between the three
companies, an oil ministry official said.

It said the reserves of the Thar Jath oil fields, in Block 5a
in the southern Unity state, were estimated at a minimum of
250 million barrels. White Nile Petroleum is expected to dig
45 wells in the coming year, it added.

Sudan’s main oil fields are in the south, and disputes over
oil fuelled a civil war there for more than two decades,
claiming 2 million lives mostly from hunger and disease.

A peace deal signed in January ended Africa’s longest civil
war and has revived interest in Sudan’s potential oil
reserves.

The deal states both sides will respect any oil contract
signed before the date of the peace deal -- Jan. 9, 2005 --
and any deals after a new government of unity is formed will
be decided by a joint petroleum commission from the national
energy and mining ministry.

But an official from the former southern rebel group the
Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) has said it has signed
a deal with a London-listed company called White Nile, giving
it part of block B in SPLA-controlled areas.

The news caused consternation as French oil giant Total
signed a deal with Sudan in 1980 for the whole of block B,
and the deal was renewed in December.

Total and the government both say they are confident of the
validity of the deal.

More senior SPLA officials have played down the report of the
deal with British White Nile, which analysts say indicates
divisions within the former rebels, who are due to join the
government in the coming weeks after a two-month delay.

The British White Nile company is different from Sudanese
White Nile Petroleum, the company awarded the $400 million
contract on Sunday.


Sudan media reports rebel attack near AU base

Tuesday March 29th, 2005.

KHARTOUM, March 29 (AFP) -- The Khartoum media accused ethnic
minority rebels in the war-wracked western Sudanese region of
Darfur on Tuesday of abducting and beating up a schoolmistress
near an African Union truce monitors' base.

The raid by around 20 rebels happened in the North Darfur
state town of Kutum, the pro-government Sudanese Media Centre
said.

The scene of the abduction in the town's Kerkawe
neighbourhood was just 300 metres (yards) from the AU base,
the news agency charged.

The rebels let the woman go after the deployment of
government troops from the nearby Um Kura military camp but
only after "seriously beating her", it added.

SMC did not identify the rebel group involved but most rebel
activity in North Darfur is carried out by the mainly Zaghawa
Justice and Equality Movement.

The launch of the rebel uprising two years ago prompted a
scorched earth policy by the government that has given rise
to a host of allegations of serious abuses, including the
routine use of rape as a weapon.


Sudanese govt will prosecute 164 people for rights abuses in
Darfur

Tuesday March 29th, 2005.
By MOHAMED OSMAN, Associated Press Writer

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Mar 29, 2005 (AP) -- One hundred and sixty-
four people, including civil servants, will stand trial in
Sudan for abuses in Darfur, the government has said, as the
U.N. Security Council prepares to vote on prosecuting
criminals from the western Sudan conflict in an international
court.

Sudan has repeatedly said it wouldn't accept international
trials for people accused of atrocities in the Darfur
conflict. Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail reiterated on
state television Tuesday: "We will never hand over any
Sudanese national - whether he is an outlaw, an army officer
or a government official - for trial outside Sudan ."

The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a
draft resolution that would empower the International
Criminal Court to prosecute violators of human rights in
Darfur, where a two-year rebellion and counter-insurgency has
led to the death of an estimated 180,000 people and the
displacement of about 2 million residents.

The resolution, proposed by France, may not pass as the U.S.
opposes the International Criminal Court and prefers that
Darfur suspects stand trial in a court to be set up by the
African Union and the U.N.

"We will do our level best to stop such a resolution from
being adopted," Foreign Minister Osman told a morning talk
show.

The head of a Sudanese investigation committee into abuses in
Darfur, Judge Mohammed Abdul Raheem, said the government will
prosecute 150 alleged perpetrators in North Darfur and 14 in
South Darfur, the official Sudan News Agency reported Monday.

"All those persons, including some persons working with the
government, will stand fair trial," Abdul Raheem told the
agency. His committee was set up by presidential decree after
foreign governments and the United Nations accused Sudan of
failing to stop atrocities in Darfur.

Sudan argues it is capable of bringing to justice those
responsible for rights abuses in Darfur. But the world does
not accept this, partly because a U.N. panel that
investigated the conflict found the government itself was
implicated in mass killings in Darfur.

In a report issued in February, the U.N. commission
recommended that 51 Sudanese - including high-ranking
government officials - stand trial in the International
Criminal Court.

It was only in October last year, 20 months after the
conflict began, that Sudanese courts first convicted a leader
of the Janjaweed, the pro-government militia accused of
conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign in Darfur. Mohammed
Barbary Ahab el-Nabi, an Awalad Zeid tribal leader, was
sentenced to three years in jail and fined the equivalent of
$39,000 for arson and stealing cattle.

The conflict began in February 2003 when rebels took up arms
against what they saw as years of state neglect and
discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The
government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency
campaign in which the Janjaweed, an Arab militia, committed
wide-scale abuses against the African population.


News Article by IRIN posted on March 29, 2005 at 16:11:24:
EST (-5 GMT)

Interview With UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland

March 29, 2005
New York

Following his recent tour of Sudan, Jan Egeland, the UN
emergency relief coordinator, told IRIN that funding
shortfalls had left humanitarian workers battling neglect,
famine and epidemics empty-handed.

More African Union (AU) forces were required if they were to
have any impact on the prevailing insecurity, he said on 23
March.

Despite this, Egeland saw the international humanitarian
presence in Sudan as a golden opportunity to make progress
towards peace, and called upon old and new donors to rise to
the challenge and prevent Sudan sliding into chaos again.

Below are excerpts from the interview:

IRIN: Following your recent trip to Sudan, you expressed
shock at the critical shortfall in funding, which threatens
to undermine the southern Sudan peace agreement and the
attempts to stabilise Darfur. Can you explain why there is a
lack of funding now? Is this due to institutional delays, or
donor caution? Or concern that there is not the absorption
capacity on the ground yet?

Egeland: There is no predictability in our funding. We can
actually perform miracles if we have money, and if we have
access and security. These are the three things that we need:
funding, access and security. Then we can perform miracles
that we could never do before as the humanitarian community.

And the world has a golden instrument now - that is half a
dozen UN organisations working in harmony with the
International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies and hundreds of professional NGOs.

The world was yearning for a peace agreement in Sudan for 20
years, and the planning for the implementation of this peace
agreement has happened over a number of years. It is
unbelievable that the peace agreement is signed, the refugees
return home after half a generation in camps in miserable
conditions - and nothing happens from the international
community.

Donors sit on the fence and wonder if they should do
anything. I think this shows that we do not have
predictability in the funding. As for the humanitarian
organisations, as good as we can be when we have funding, we
have been weak in organising stand-by capacities both in
funding, material and personnel; whereas we should be able to
push a button and seize the historic opportunity.

IRIN: What's your view of Hilary Benn's proposal to establish
a new humanitarian fund to ensure funds are available early
on in crises?

Egeland: Yes, the United Kingdom has come up with a number of
visionary proposals. There is also a French proposal from
President Chirac [for] a humanitarian stand-by capacity,
which is also very welcome. The UK proposal has actually been
echoed by the [UN] secretary-general in his report to the
General Assembly.

I hope that we will have a predictable stand-by humanitarian-
funding mechanism, so that we don't have to go around hat-in-
hand for months before we can start to move. That delayed our
operations in Darfur last year, and it has delayed our
preparations in south Sudan this year. This is the second
year in a row where we are too late in Sudan, which is due to
slow funding and slow stand-by capacity.

IRIN: Are these French and UK proposals being discussed at an
operational level?

Egeland: Very much so. And it's also being studied in the
context of the humanitarian response review which I have
initiated, where we have first-class experts formulating very
concrete proposals of how we can have predictable
humanitarian-funding and predictable humanitarian-response
capacity. We have to move on both of these this year.

IRIN: Coming back to Sudan, what are your expectations from
the international donor trip that ended last week?

Egeland: I expect them to come back with money for the work
plan that was presented to the international community in
October last year. When I was in south Sudan in mid-March, we
had received five percent of what we had asked for 2005. Now,
thanks to new donors coming forward, we have five sizeable
donors for Sudan - the US, the UK, the European Commission,
the Netherlands and Norway. These are the only countries that
have given more than US $10 million. More has happened in the
last two weeks than in the first two months of the year. Now
we have 14 percent [of] commitments [required for] the south.

But the main problem is, in these times of discussions of
Good Humanitarian Donorship [an international initiative
launched in 2003], we need[ed] to have commitments in
January. In critical circumstances, as in Sudan and the
Congo, we cannot have commitments made in April with the
funding coming in June. It's too late, for the simple reason
that there has been a rainy season every year from May to
October for the last 1,000 years in Africa. It should be no
surprise to anybody that we need funds early to avoid having
inefficient assistance through the middle of the year.

I think now we will begin to see the reality of Good
Humanitarian Donorship, because we do agree on the
principles. We have done the talking and we now need to see
the results in action. We also need new donors.

There [are] on the list [for Sudan] only two donors that have
given more that $1 million from outside of the northwestern
corner of the world. These are Saudi Arabia and Japan. This
does not reflect the fact that we have a bigger and richer
world [than this], and growing economies - with many oil-
producing countries - and many Arab and Asian countries. They
have to step up to the plate.

IRIN: Assuming that agencies did get the funds to operate
properly in Sudan, what are your concerns about deteriorating
security? Do you think that the international community is
doing enough to improve security?

Egeland: No we are not. I look with alarm at the security
situation in west Sudan. The world has really only responded
to the horrors of Sudan by sending in humanitarians. There
are now ten thousand humanitarian employees in Darfur, nine
thousand of which are Sudanese, with one thousand
internationals.

Luckily, no lives were lost when a clearly marked aid convoy
of USAID and IRS came under fire yesterday [22 March].
Colleagues from a French organisation, Solidarité, whom I
myself visited just two weeks ago and who do phenomenal work
in South Darfur, were jailed for three days.

So I am not sleeping well at night, wondering how long we can
carry on in this situation. And those responsible are not
just the security forces; it's also the Janjawid, and the
rebels. They are all to blame for this. The rebels have
abducted eight vehicles, which they have kept to this day.

The African Union force is doing a great job, but they are
one-fifth of what they should have been. The deployment has
been too slow and the plans I've seen [for further
deployments] are also far too slow. And one argument that I
really don't hope anybody will be producing is that it is too
costly to deploy African Union observers, because that will
lead to a worse situation than the one we have today.

IRIN: What's the current status of the African Union plans,
and how are they planning to scale-up their presence?

They have at the moment 2,300 troops. They have committed to
deploy 3,600, which is a third of what they should have. They
are discussing additional deployments. But in our view, this
should have happened yesterday. World leaders agreed one year
ago that one of the greatest international priorities was to
get a sizeable AU force in place. And yet, one year later,
they can't match the number of humanitarians present, which
has reached 1,000 new staff [arriving] per month. The world
must be able to deploy at least as fast on the security side.

IRIN: Last week you said this was a "make or break year" for
Sudan, and that the funding shortfall and insecurity had to
be addressed as a priority. Once these two factors are in
place, what other elements need to happen for the peace
agreement to succeed?

Egeland: You also have to have a muscular political process.
The political groups need to be pressurised into making sure
that they stick to their agreements. It is not only the
governments, it is the ethnic leaders and the rebels who have
to be brought to account. Attacks against unarmed civilians
and our own colleagues cannot continue. It should only take
weeks to get a 10,000-strong AU force, and the humanitarians
have shown that it is possible to deploy to and operate in
Darfur.

With respect to funding, we have now received $55 million for
the south, which is 14 percent of what we needed. For Darfur
we have received $290 million. However, the overwhelming part
of this is food from the United States, as 95 percent of the
US contribution is food. We need cash. If you take away the
food, which we have generously received, we have hardly any
money this year for non-food [aid] and water sanitation. All
the other sectors are critically under-funded.

If the world is sending the humanitarian community to battle
against neglect, famine, and epidemics, we have to have
ammunition. We are now sent to battle empty-handed with bulk
food, that's it. We have to have the rest. And all countries
can give us more. The Europeans, the North Americans, the
Japanese, not to mention the oil-rich countries in the Gulf
countries that are not coming forward as they should.

IRIN: Do you see this as an investment for the future?

Egeland: Pay up now or regret it forever. That's how we see
it. Sudan may slide into chaos again unless we get resources.