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TABLE 1: SUDANESE GOVERNMENT OIL REVENUE AND MILITARY EXPENDITURES, 1999-2002

In billions of Sudanese Dinars (U.S. Dollars)

Oil Revenues Soar

From no oil revenue in 1998, by 2002 government oil revenue jumped to almost 45 percent of its total income. ¹⁰⁰¹

The government oil revenues for 2000, the first full year of GNPOC production, exceeded the government’s projections by almost 122 percent. Oil revenues were projected to be 63.6 billion dinars, but turned out to be 140.9 billion dinars (U.S. $ 546.1 million) for the year. There were two reasons: increased oil production and increased world prices of crude oil. Oil output reached 185,000 barrels per day (b/d) in Sudan in the third quarter of 2000, compared to 126,000 b/d only nine months before. International oil prices were up more than expected:¹⁰⁰² from U.S. $ 19.8 per barrel in 1999, the price increased to U.S. $ 27.9 per barrel in 2000, a winfall hike of 40 percent.¹⁰⁰³

There were other benefits: self-sufficiency in oil and the savings that went with it. In May 2000, the ministry of energy and mining declared that Sudan would stop the costly importation of crude oil for the first time in its history, and would become self-sufficient in crude products because the new refinery in Al Jaili north of Khartoum had started producing fuel from Sudanese crude oil. (The energy minister also said Sudan had begun producing aviation fuel.)¹⁰⁰⁴

The energy minister optimistically estimated Sudan would save no less than U.S. $ 400 to $ 500 million annually in oil import costs.¹⁰⁰⁵ The finance minister more conservatively estimated yearly savings would be in the region of U.S. $ 300 million.¹⁰⁰⁶

The oil business was the main motor behind the growth of the economy, which was attributed to higher oil output, an increase in government spending, and domestic refining of oil.¹⁰⁰⁷ The Economist Intelligence Unit noted, “Sudan’s external accounts showed a remarkable improvement in 2000, as the first full year of oil revenue came on stream. The outlook for the forecast period is also positive.”¹⁰⁰⁸ As to 2001, it predicted, “Sudan’s real GDP [gross domestic product] growth will remain strong, driven largely by developments in the oil sector.”¹⁰⁰⁹

The 2001 oil revenue projection of 153.2 billion dinars (U.S. $ 593.8 million) was not met, however. Actual 2001 oil revenues were only 140.9 billion dinars (U.S. $ 547.4 million), less than projected but still higher than 2000 oil income.¹⁰¹⁰ Judging from IMF staff comments in the report, the government made the mistake of assuming that the 2000 high price of crude oil would continue: instead, it dropped in 2001 to U.S. $ 21.5 from the 2000 price of U.S. $ 27.8 per barrel.¹⁰¹¹

The reasons oil revenue was less than expected in 2001 were not only that international oil prices declined, but also delays in transfers from the state oil company to the government and the closure of the El Obeid refinery for maintenance in December 2001.¹⁰¹² Declining oil prices also meant that Sudan’s share of oil production—compared to that of its foreign investors—fell when oil prices declined. The growth of Sudan’s economy meant that demand for petroleum increased, and the government had to import oil to meet this demand, contrary to its rosy predictions of 2000.¹⁰¹³ Nevertheless, oil revenue did increase in 2001 over 2000.

The government’s calculations supplied to the IMF projected a production increase from 209,000 barrels per day to 230,000 for 2002. In order to protect the government from roller-coaster changes in world oil prices, the IMF suggested and the government agreed to a mechanism whereby government expenditures in 2002 would be based on an assumed price of U.S. $ 20 per barrel. Any oil revenue arising from higher prices would be deposited in the Bank of Sudan to prevent sharp expenditure cuts and to smooth out adjustment when oil prices fell.¹⁰¹⁴

Projections for 2002 did not look good. Oil revenue was expected to decline because the increase in production would be more than offset by decline of oil prices and by various agreements with the foreign companies producing oil. In addition, production of 230,000 b/d would reach the current capacity constraint on the GNPOC pipeline.¹⁰¹⁵ This meant more investment would be necessary before that pipeline could carry more oil to the sea for export.

But the Sudanese government was fortunate in 2002. Instead of declining, the international price of oil increased from U.S. $ 21.5 per barrel in 2001 to U.S. $ 23.2 per barrel in 2002. The price per barrel was expected to increase in 2003 to U.S. $ 24.5. ¹⁰¹⁶

Government oil revenue was higher than ever in 2002: 210.7 Sudanese dinars or U.S. $ 805.1 million.

Government Ability to Stem Post-2005 GNPOC Production Decline Hinges on Block 5A and Other New Production

The government’s 2001 projections assumed that GNPOC oil output would reach 230,000 b/d by 2002.¹⁰¹⁷ This target was met, and slightly surpassed. GNPOC produced 240,436 b/d in 2002, according to Talisman.¹⁰¹⁸

If Block 5A were to come in to production, that revenue would rise even more. The government was counting on that. In January 2001, the secretary general of the Ministry of Energy and Mining, Eng. Hasan Ali al-Tawn, optimistically claimed that Sudan’s oil production would be doubled to 400,000 barrels per day in 2005. Sudan’s share of the oil revenues, then between 40-50 percent, would rise to 65 percent when production was doubled, he proclaimed.¹⁰¹⁹ This would have to include new production from non-GNPOC concessions such as Block 5A, which was closest to production, and perhaps Blocks 3 and 7 in Eastern Upper Nile, for which any pipeline would have to be built or extended for several hundred kilometers.

But in 2002, Talisman released data revealing what the government as a GNPOC partner already knew: production from the GNPOC concession would peak in 2005 at 250,000 b/d and then would drop off yearly, reaching 40,000 b/d in 2020 and continuing to decrease after that.¹⁰²⁰ GNPOC would never by itself be the source of 400,000 barrels per day but at most would produce 62.5 percent of that goal.

For the government, the predicted peaking of GNPOC production had to be a strong incentive to expand oil exploration and development into other oil blocks—all in the south. Even to keep up with 2002 revenue, to which it had become accustomed, it would be necessary to locate new sources of oil as the old ones dried up. But as of the date of writing this report, neither Block 5A nor any other block has reached the stage of export production

Government Military Spending Almost Doubles in Two Years, Using Up 60 percent of the Oil Revenue

Cash military spending increased 45 percent from 1999 to 2001.¹⁰²¹ In 2000, defense expenditures were 64.6 billion dinars (U.S. $ 250.9 million) and in 2001 they were an unprecedented 90.2 billion dinars (U.S. $ 345 million), 45 percent higher in just one year.¹⁰²²

The military spending in 2001 soaked up 60 percent of the 2001 oil revenue.¹⁰²³ And that represented an increase in military budget of 39.6 percent in the same year, when total government revenue increased only 13.4 percent.¹⁰²⁴

Conversely, increased military spending would not have been possible without the new oil revenue, absent radical cuts in the already strict IMF-negotiated budget. Total government revenue grew from 205.5 billion dinars (U.S. $ 799.9 million) in 1999 to 370.0 billion dinars (U.S. $ 1.415 billion) in 2001, an increase of 80 percent.

The Khartoum government not only laid out 45 percent more cash for military expenses from 1999 to 2001, it also misled financial analysts about its intentions to increase military spending. In November 1999, Abdul Rahim Hamdi,¹⁰²⁵ chair of the government committee for the allocation of oil revenue, told a group of oil industry stock analysts, Talisman’s guests in Sudan, that military spending amounted to only 15 to 18 percent of the budget. He promised there would be no increases in defense spending.¹⁰²⁶ Relying on this statement, one analyst commented, “The key thing is that there will not be an increase in defense spending by the government.” ¹⁰²⁷

The government’s statement was false in two respects: at the time, military spending was more than 27 percent of the budget, not 15 to 18 percent, according to the figures the government later gave the IMF.¹⁰²⁸

Secondly, over the period from 1999 to 2001, military expenditures would increase 45 percent.¹⁰²⁹ The new military spending in 2001 would be 22.4 percent of the increased budget—not 15 or 18 percent as represented.¹⁰³⁰

That military budget was needed to maintain a large army. In June 2001, the military publication Jane’s Intelligence Review estimated that the size of the Sudanese government’s regular army was 100,000 and its PDF about 15,000. In addition there were irregular forces which the government “raises from ‘Arabized’ tribes like the Baggara . . . which dwell along the border between north and south,” and “various southern groups, such as the Toposa, Mundari, Fertit and Nuer.”¹⁰³¹ All needed arms and ammunition.

In 2002, government military expenses declined slightly in absolute dollar terms and as a percentage of oil revenue. The government, having learned its lesson about over-optimistic forecasts of world oil prices, projected a modest oil price for 2002, and apparently modified its military expenses accordingly. Government military expenditures were 81.85 billion Sudanese dinars (down 9.25 percent from 2001). Oil revenue exceeded expectations, however. The result was that the military budget consumed only 38.8 percent of the total oil revenue in 2002. Had oil revenue been as low as predicted, the defense budget would have taken a much larger piece of it: as in 2001, military expenditures would have consumed more than 50 pecent of oil revenue.¹⁰³²

Government Uses Oil Wealth for Arms Imports and Industry

For its money, in 2001 Sudan purchased from Russia twenty-two armored combat vehicles and twelve attack helicopters.¹⁰³³ In 2002, Sudan bought anothereight amored combat vehicles and four attack helicopters from Russia, plus fourteen large-caliber artillery systems from Belarus.¹⁰³⁴ The cost was not revealed, but the sixteen new attack helicopters more than tripled the existing fleet of six.

The new oil revenue also facilitated a brand-new domestic arms industry. On April 30, 1999, Agence France-Presse quoted a statement in the official newspaper Akhbar al Youm by Hassan al Turabi, a senior Islamist ideologue and then leader of the ruling National Congress party, that the government would use earnings on oil exports to finance weapons factories. According to Hassan al Turabi: “We are currently building several factories to produce our needs in weapons, and we plan to manufacture tanks and missiles to defend ourselves against conspirators.”¹⁰³⁵

When the information that it would use its new oil wealth to create an arms industry caused a storm, Khartoum immediately denied the assertion. Government ministers as well as Hassan al Turabi himself rushed to claim that the oil revenue would be used for construction and development.¹⁰³⁶ But a year later officialdom confirmed what it had earlier denied, as was so often the case. On July 1, 2000, the Al-Shar Al-Syasi newspaper quoted army spokesman Gen. Mohamed Osman Yassin saying that Sudan “will this year reach self-sufficiency in light, medium and heavy weapons from its local production,” thanks to its “unprecedented economic boom, particularly in the field of oil exploration and exportation . . . .”¹⁰³⁷

President Bashir announced on October 27, 2000, that Sudan produced not only rocket-propelled grenades, machine-guns, and mortars, but was also on its way to manufacturing its own tanks and heavy artillery. In a televised speech addressing a group at the inauguration of an industrial complex south of Khartoum, the president declared that Sudan would go on to production of “warplanes and rockets.”¹⁰³⁸

Sudan Suspected of Acquiring Polish Tanks Intended for Yemen, August 1999

As Sudan’s export of oil began, the movement of new consignments of heavy weaponry into Sudan reportedly followed. Poland acknowledged in August 1999 that a shipment of twenty Russian-made T-55 tanks it sold to Yemen earlier that year was illegally diverted, and unnamed official sources cited in the Polish press indicated that the tanks were delivered to Sudan.¹⁰³⁹ The shipment constituted the first batch of a total of fifty surplus tanks sold by the Polish state arms agency, ostensibly to Yemen, for U.S. $1.2 million.¹⁰⁴⁰

A year earlier Poland had attempted to sell fifty T-55 tanks to Sudan, but the proposed sale was halted under pressure from the U.S.¹⁰⁴¹ Both incidents threatened to trigger U.S. sanctions against Poland for violating the unilateral U.S. embargo imposed on military transfers to Sudan on the grounds that Sudan “supports terrorism.”¹⁰⁴²

According to a Polish newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, which broke the story of the diverted tank shipment in August 1999, Poland had been warned by the U.S. of the danger that the tanks might be diverted to an unauthorized third country, but it went ahead with the sale to Yemen.¹⁰⁴³ In response to the ensuing scandal, the Polish government halted delivery of the remaining thirty tanks and announced that it would take “further steps” to verify arms recipients in the future.¹⁰⁴⁴ It also maintained that the Yemeni government had presented credible end user certificates and that Poland did nothing wrong.¹⁰⁴⁵ In its annual report to the U.N. Register of Conventional Arms, Poland indicated that it had exported twenty battle tanks to “Yemen” in 1999, without noting their ultimate destination. The Sudanese government is known to have used the T-55 tank previously in the south, as the SPLA captured many in its 1997 offensive at Yei.¹⁰⁴⁶

The Sudanese government denied allegations made in January 2000 that it had concluded an arms deal with Bulgaria.¹⁰⁴⁷ In April 2002, the Bulgarian government revoked the arms-trading license of a major Bulgarian arms company that was suspected to have been involved in illegal weapons deals with the government of Sudan. Bulgarian authorities opened an investigation into the alleged transfers.¹⁰⁴⁸ The deals reportedly involved supplies of spare parts and other equipment to Sudan.¹⁰⁴⁹ The company said all the transfers were in connection with an approved contract to help build an arms factory in Sudan, but Bulgarian officials said that contract should have been completed and any new transfers were illegal.¹⁰⁵⁰ Sudan is subject to an E.U. embargo that Bulgaria has pledged to follow.¹⁰⁵¹ The Bulgarian government issued a decree, effective April 13, 2001, banning arms sales to twenty countries, including to Sudan.¹⁰⁵² The decree covers sale and supply of armaments and equipment of any kind, including arms and ammunition, military means of transportation, spare parts and military assistance and training of military personnel ¹⁰⁵³

Government Revenue from Oil, Development Applications?

The government continued to say that the oil revenues were used for development projects, but also continued to admit using oil revenue for the war effort. In June 2001, Talisman CEO Jim Buckee, on a visit to Sudan, said that Sudan’s finance minister, Abdel Rahim Jamdi, had told him that 50 percent of the oil proceeds were used for repaying Sudan’s foreign debts and the remainder paid salaries of government employees and development projects.¹⁰⁵⁴

A statement issued by the Sudan attaché in Cairo said, “Ten southern states receive aid under the Emergency Programme for the Southern States, aimed at refurbishing infrastructure and providing basic services.” The statement disclosed that Sudan spent 930 million Sudanese dinars (U.S. $ 3.6 million) in the first six months of 2001 on this program, and anticipated spending 1.9 billion Sudanese dinars (U.S. $ 7.36 million) on this during the second half of 2001, a total of about 2.83 billion dinars (almost U.S. $ 11 million). ¹⁰⁵⁵ Considering that the ten southern mini-states were to divide that money for development among themselves, on average they would receive about U.S. $ 1.1 million each, a rather paltry amount.

If the projected 2.83 billion dinars (U.S. $ 11 million) were actually spent, that would mean that the government spent about 0.7 percent of its total expenditures or 1.9 percent of its oil income in 2001 on development projects for the south..

A comparison of the amounts to be spent on southern development and military expenditures for 2001 reveals that the southern development budget is only 3.1 percent of the military expenditures.

A director of the pro-government think tank in Khartoum, the Centre for Strategic Studies, said Sudan “would not and should not” swear off using oil proceeds to fight the rebels, as the country was constantly under attack by these forces.¹⁰⁵⁶

IMF Audits

The Auditor General completed the first audit of the Sudanese state petroleum company (Sudapet)’s oil revenues and the government’s oil revenues at the end of 2001, covering mid-1999 to the end of 2000 (the first year and four months of oil export).¹⁰⁵⁷

It appears that the IMF staff suggestions for changes to the Sudanese government’s and Sudapet’s accounting for oil revenue were made as a result of the first audit, in order to increase transparency.¹⁰⁵⁸ Human Rights Watch believes that these and future audits of Sudapet and government oil revenues should be made publicly available.

Government Uses Oil Revenue to Buy Friends

In mid-June 2001, the efforts of Sudan to parlay its oil resources into better diplomatic relations in the Horn of Africa paid off. It announced that it had signed an agreement with Ethiopia whereby Ethiopia would import 85 percent of its fuel requirements from Sudan beginning in 2002, consisting in gasoline and kerosene. Sudan would allow Ethiopia to build a fuel depot inside Sudan to ensure a steady supply of fuel to Ethiopia by road, the general manager of state-owned Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise said, adding that Ethiopia would save U.S. $ 7 million yearly by importing from Sudan rather than from outside Africa.¹⁰⁵⁹ A Sudanese diplomat in Addis Ababa confirmed in early August 2001 that goods had already started moving via Port Sudan and that a highway linking the Sudanese port with the Sudanese city of Gedaref, 150 kilometers from the Ethiopian border, was complete and goods were forwarded from there without problem. But it appeared, from the Ethiopian side, that the road from Gedaref to the Ethiopian city of Gonder was impassable for heavy trucks in the rainy season. Ethiopia announced that it was considering the feasibility of building a 2,000-kilometer railway from Gallabat and Metema in Ethiopia through to Port Sudan.¹⁰⁶⁰

These plans have been thwarted, however. An agreement between Sudan and Ethiopia anticipated that in January 2003 Sudan would start exporting 13,000 tons per month of gasoline to Ethiopia—which had until then spent 50 percent of its export earnings on fuel importation from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. The first Sudanese shipment was made on January 31, 2003. But then the oil shipments were halted by Sudan on account of a six-week shutdown of its oil refinery for overhaul in February 2003. Then delays in upgrading the Metema-Gedarif road (which was prematurely inaugurated on January 30, 2003) occurred, the feasibility study was months overdue, and the rainy season intervened. ¹⁰⁶¹

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi expressed concern that saboteurs could target oil delivery trucks, although that did not take place in the short period of exports. In April 2003 the Ethiopia switched suppliers and signed an agreement with a Kuwaiti company, which was discussing construction of an import pipeline between Addis Ababa and Djibouti. ¹⁰⁶² Petronas and Ethiopia in the meantime signed an agreement for Petronas to explore and develop Ethiopian oilfields in the Gambella region, believed to be an extension of the Sudanese Melut Basin.¹⁰⁶³

Kenya appeared interested in importing Sudanese oil because it could be imported duty-free pursuant to the terms of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. When news of likely imports of Sudanese oil became public, Kenyan churches and others protested that Kenya should not engage in such trade with Sudan for moral and human rights reasons. In July 2001, Kenyan authorities banned delivery of Sudan oil shipments to Kenya.¹⁰⁶⁴ Sudan immediately threatened to stop importing Kenyan tea and coffee, valued at approximately U.S. $ 150 million dollars per annum.¹⁰⁶⁵ The threat of a trade war caused Kenya’s government to back down and end its ban.¹⁰⁶⁶As of March 2003, however, talks were still underway between the two governments on Kenya’s import of oil freom Sudan.¹⁰⁶⁷

At the same time that Kenya was debating whether to import Sudanese oil, South Africa's parastatal oil company Soekor was considering exploring for oil in Sudan. The South African Catholic church, which had sent a mission to southern Sudan in 2000 and issued a statement denouncing the bombing and forced displacement to clear people off the land for the purposes of oil development,¹⁰⁶⁸ denounced any South African oil business with Sudan. After the South African Department of Foreign Affairs warned the parastatal about the consequences of oil exploration in Sudan,¹⁰⁶⁹ Soekor denied reports that it intended to explore for Sudanese oil.¹⁰⁷⁰ The door was still open, however, as reflected in an April 2003 meeting in Khartoum between a South African delegation and Sudanese Minister of Energy and Mining Dr. Awad Ahmad al-Jaz that discussed oil and other investment opportunities for South Africa in Sudan—according to the Sudanese government.¹⁰⁷¹

Increased Government Bombing of the South

Bombing in 1999

Aerial bombardment in southern Sudan, conducted exclusively by the government, was not recorded on a regular or systematic basis until 2000, and even then reports often depended on the presence of foreign witnesses or relief or medical operations (Sudanese or foreign). When there is fighting, such agencies pull out their staff from the place of danger. The few agencies working in Western Upper Nile/Unity State prior to 1998 withdrew from that area starting in 1998 for periods of months at a time, and some pulled their operational bases out of that area, limiting assistance to visits of up to two weeks at most, because of insecurity. The information on bombing civilians and their structures is therefore sketchy and incomplete as it reflects primarily locations where relief agencies worked or tried to work. The relief umbrella, the OLS, noted these areas as a regular part of its undertaking to endeavor to protect relief workers from the dangers of the armed conflict.

In some other areas of the south, particularly Equatoria which is closer to Uganda and Kenya, transport is by road, some civil society organizations and churches have a more permanent presence, evacuations are less frequent, and record-keeping is not as difficult. While this geographical area is outside the scope of this report, we include the information on bombings here as an indication of patterns in other war zones, and of government spending on munitions and weapons enabling such bombings to be carried out.

Hospitals, whether they cater to civilians or serve only the military, are strictly off limits for military attack.¹⁰⁷² Civilians and civilian objets and structures such as churches and schools and homes are also not legitimate military targets.¹⁰⁷³ Several human rights groups had discussed this fundamental rules of war concept with various government officials over the years, apparently to no avail.¹⁰⁷⁴

In January 1999, the MSF-Holland civilian hospital with a surgical unit in Kajo-Keijii, Equatoria, was bombed by the government; in all, a total of sixty-six bombs were dropped on the hospital area in 1999, with thirteen hitting the hospital premises. Because of this and other bombings of its medical facilities, in which its staff and patients were eyewitnesses and sometimes victims, MSF undertook a study of bombing in 1999 limited to four counties, Kajo Keijii, Yei, Maridi, and Kapoeta, in Eastern Equatoria. It found that from January 1999-January 2000, in the Kajo Keijii area alone, a total of almost 400 bombs were dropped on the civilian population and civilian structures, killing at least twenty-two persons and injuring fifty-one. There were sixty-four separate bombing incidents recorded, with the number of bombs dropped ranging from one to twenty-four per incident.

The bombings were documented by MSF teams in the four specified counties, and identified separately in an appendix showing date, time, location, number of bombs, and casualties and structures damaged.

MSF concluded that “the bombings are aimed at the civilian population and civilian targets, in particular hospitals and schools” and that there was “a [Sudanese government] policy of terror which provokes new displacements of the population and increases the precariousness of the civilian population.”¹⁰⁷⁵

MSF, which had worked in Eastern Equatoria since 1997, noted a sharp increase in the bombing in 1999 over the bombing in 1998.

Increased Bombing in 2000

The U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) published a study of aerial bombardment targeting civilians in the south and the Nuba Mountains in late 2000. The greater numbers of bombings in 2000 were remarked upon by civilians and relief workers alike. “They’re bombing a lot,” said the country director for an organization whose civilian hospital (outside the oil area) was bombed repeatedly in 2000. “Coincidentally with the opening of the pipeline, all sorts of things are happening.”¹⁰⁷⁶

The USCR calculated that bombing in the south and the Nuba Mountains doubled in 2000 over 1999, ¹⁰⁷⁷ at the same time as the government oil revenue increased.¹⁰⁷⁸ By reviewing records kept by several agencies and the U.N., it estimated that there were 132 aerial bombardment incidents or attacks in 2000. Another source, based in Nairobi, conservatively charted bombing incidents in the south as they were reported in the months of March and June-December 2000. These bombs hit civilian structures, injuring and killing civilians.¹⁰⁷⁹

Most of the recorded bombs in 2000 struck locations outside of Western Upper Nile/Unity State. But Western Upper Nile/Unity State was the most militarily active area in Sudan overall in 2000, according to the U.N.’s Consolidated Appeal for 2001. It stated, “the main conflict area has been in Unity State (Western Upper Nile) around the oil rich areas, with devastating effects on the populations of these areas.”¹⁰⁸⁰ It is likely that government bombing there was much greater than noted by outsiders as much of the military activity was in areas the relief organizations were forced to abandon because of insecurity.

In any event, the oil revenue secured by those military activities in Western Upper Nile/Unity State was used for government military expenses all over Sudan. Numerous examples indicate that government planes continued to target schools, relief activities, churches, and other civilian sites in the south. A few of the cases are described here as indications of how the government of Sudan chose to spend some of its oil revenues in the new century.

On February 8, 2000, government bombing killed fourteen children and a twenty-two year old teacher at the Upper Kauda Holy Cross School in the Nuba Mountains. Most of the victims were first graders attending an English lesson under a tree. Eight more bombs hit two villages close to the school shortly thereafter. An amateur video, shot by a visiting Nuba film student minutes after the bombs hit the children, captured the mayhem: children crying and screaming, some of whom threw dust on their heads while others beat their chests to show grief. Still others sat dazed, missing limbs.¹⁰⁸¹ Many foreign countries condemned the bombing.¹⁰⁸²

An official of the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi saw the amateur film and said, “The bombs landed where they are supposed to land. . . . the bombs landed into a military camp. The SPLA has pulled people into this military camp.”¹⁰⁸³ International aid workers, however, said that government aircraft bombed schools and other civilian targets.¹⁰⁸⁴ Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail admitted that the civilians might have been hit unintentionally, but “the area in which the incident occurred is a military operations area where the rebels gather their forces.”¹⁰⁸⁵ The amateur film illustrated and eyewitnesses insisted, however, that the location was a school and not a military camp or operations area.

In 2000, the government deliberately—and repeatedly—targeted a hospital run by the U.S. NGO Samaritan’s Purse, in Lui, Western Equatoria, eighty-five miles northwest of Juba in SPLM/A territory. This hospital, known for its tuberculosis clinic, had one of the few X-ray machines in the entire country. More than one hundred patients were being treated or housed at the hospital when the first bombs hit on March 1, 2000. Planes reportedly dropped twelve bombs, killing several, injuring more than ten, and scaring many tuberculosis patients away.¹⁰⁸⁶ The government bombed the hospital a second time the same week,¹⁰⁸⁷ and then for the third and fourth times on March 22 and 23.¹⁰⁸⁸ Such repeated hits suggest it was no mistake.

In Nimule, an SPLM/A town on the Nile near the Ugandan border, German church officials witnessed and were nearly injured in the government bombing of a school and church on March 14, 2000:

At 10.00 a.m. a shrapnel bomb exploded less than 200 meters from the [primary] school where more than 1000 students were attending classes. During the following hour 6 attacks were flown and 12 shrapnel bombs dropped. One civilian was killed and eleven were injured, some of them seriously. Several houses were destroyed, the Episcopal church received a direct hit, destroying it completely.¹⁰⁸⁹

It appeared that the windfall oil revenue may have enabled the government of Sudan to afford repairs and operating expenses for its military aircraft. The SPLM/A claimed that the Sudanese government used MIG-23 jet attack aircraft on Mundri in southern Sudan on April 19, 2000, and near relief agency compounds in Tali, southern Sudan, on April 16.¹⁰⁹⁰ The government had some six MIG 23s in stock,¹⁰⁹¹ apparently purchased after being refurbished in China in 1993-1994. It tested them near the time of purchase and delayed their deployment because one crashed.¹⁰⁹² It does not appear that they were deployed again until 2000.¹⁰⁹³

The south and the Nuba Mountains do not have the kind of terrain or military infrastructure in which high-altitude bombing by Antonovs would produce a military advantage. The rebel soldiers are usually on the move. In the south and in the Nuba Mountains, buildings of any size are civilian in nature and presumptively immune from military attack under the rules of war, i.e., schools, churches, relief storage tents, and medical units. The same is true of small markets, bore holes for water, and homes and cattle byers with thatched roofs; they are of no legitimate militarily interest unless they house soldiers or war materiel at the time of the attack.

The frequent Sudanese government use of aerial bombardment where there are no rebels or other legitimate military objectives on the ground must lead to the conclusion that it uses aerial bombardment to terrify the civilian population and destroy what little infrastructure and community facilities exist in the south and the Nuba Mountains.

Bombing Condemned, April 2000

Sudanese churches, both in government-controlled and rebel-controlled areas, concluded that oil development should be stopped because it was contributing to the war. As the “shepherds of the population in the Sudan,” the Sudanese church officials, north and south, called upon peace loving people and the international community to take immediate actions to force the withdrawal of the oil companies helping the government of Sudan to confidently pursue the war. They also called for a “no-fly zone” for military aircraft. ¹⁰⁹⁴

Officials of other churches joined the chorus of condemnations. A delegation of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, which visited Sudan from March 20-31, 2000, during that month’s government bombing campaign, issued a report stating that:

Indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets continues unabated. The use of high-flying Antonov aircraft enables the government of Sudan to hold the local population in a grip of terror. Popular targets of the bombers are churches, schools and clinics run by the [Catholic] church. . . . ¹⁰⁹⁵

It would seem, the report continued, that in order to enable oil companies from Canada, Malaysia, China, and others to tap the resources unhindered, the government of Sudan was systematically clearing the oil areas of people. “This bodes ill for any efforts at a peaceful resolution of the conflict,” the churchmen added.¹⁰⁹⁶

Many relief organizations, U.N. entities, and governments had, by mid-2000, denounced the government’s intensified targeting of civilian relief sites, churches, hospitals, and homes.¹⁰⁹⁷

In Geneva, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution on April 18, 2000, expressing its “deep concern” at the situation in Sudan and calling on the government “[t]o stop immediately the aerial bombardment of the civilian population and civilian objects, including schools and hospitals, which runs counter to fundamental principles of human rights and humanitarian law.”¹⁰⁹⁸ The same day, the president of Sudan announced on national television a halt to air strikes in southern Sudan, except for “self-defense” or “where forces are engaged in combat, and where there is active operation in order to protect civilians.”¹⁰⁹⁹

But despite this announcement, the bombs continued to fall on civilian targets.¹¹⁰⁰ Curiously, Sudanese President Omar El Bashir called on international agencies—many of which had complained about the bombing—not to “mix with civilians.”¹¹⁰¹ It is impossible to assist civilians without “mixing” with them, especially with regard to their nutritional and medical needs.

In May 2000, the European Union issued a belated statement, welcoming the announcement that the Sudanese president “had ordered the cessation of aerial bombing of targets in South Sudan.” The E.U. said it would “continue to watch closely on the fate of civilian populations in this area.”¹¹⁰²

U.S. Attempts to Obtain an End to Civilian Aerial Bombardment, 2001/2002

Former U.S. Senator John Danforth was appointed U.S. presidential special envoy for peace in Sudan on September 6, 2001. Among the four agreements he initially proposed to the parties, the Sudanese government and the SPLM/A, was a cessation of bombing and artillery attacks on civilians in southern Sudan. Senator Danforth visited Khartoum several times and during his January 2002 visit Ghazi Salah el-Din Atabani, the government’s peace minister, offered what he called “a voluntary, unlitateral cessation of aerial bombing for four weeks as a test.”¹¹⁰³ This offer, however, was contingent on the SPLA laying down its weapons. In response John Garang, the leader of the SPLM/A, stated that “nobody should bomb civilian targets; it’s an insult to human rights. . . . For a member of the United Nations and Organisation of African Unity to present this as a concession … is laughable.”¹¹⁰⁴ In the course of negotiations, however, Senator Danforth suggested an agreement banning all targeting of civilians and civilian objects, not just a ban on aerial bombardment of civilians.

By the end of that Danforth trip, the government of Sudan had agreed to all four points proposed by Senator Danforth as indications of the parties’ serious intentions to make peace—except for the point on cessation of attacks on civilians. Danforth expressed regret, saying, “[Ending] the direct, intentional and egregious [flagrant] attacks on civilians is the key to our proposals…I am sorry to say we have made no real progress on these issues.”¹¹⁰⁵

The U.S. continued to insist on an end to attacks on civilians as one of the conditions precedent to taking up a formal and active role in any Sudanese peace negotiations. The Sudanese foreign minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, led a government diplomatic delegation in a visit to Washington, D.C., in early February 2002, and U.S. officials there pushed him to accept a ban on civilian attacks and, in addition, international monitoring of violations of that ban. Ismail, in line with Khartoum policy, continued to resist this proposal.¹¹⁰⁶

On February 9, Nimne in Western Upper Nile/Unity State was bombed, leaving five dead, including a nurse working for MSF, James Koang Mar. Staff visited Nimne on February 14 and saw that there were three bomb craters in the church compound, where James Koang Mar was at the time of the bombing. The church was forty meters from the MSF compound. MSF had maintained a permanent presence in Nimne, a center for displaced persons, since September 2001. These attacks did not generate much attention.¹¹⁰⁷

Also on February 9, 2002, a Sudanese government Antonov dropped six bombs on Akuem, Bahr El Ghazal, at about 5:00 pm. The WFP team had just completed a food drop at 2:00 pm for 18,000 people and had returned by plane to their nearby base. Three bombs landed in the WFP food drop zone and the other three bombs landed nearby. A twelve-year-old girl standing under a tree was killed, as was another child, and there were some ten to twelve casualties, including patients inside an MSF-France clinic.¹¹⁰⁸ This time, the attack attracted broader attention, including a forceful denunciation by the U.S.: “The United States is outraged by the [Sudanese government’s] aerial strike against a civilian target . . . . They have broken Khartoum’s pledge to the U.S. Special Envoy for Peace in Sudan . . . to end bombings of civilian targets for a period of four weeks.”¹¹⁰⁹ The Sudanese government, for the first time ever, said that it regretted the incident and promised to investigate.¹¹¹⁰

Then, on February 20, two government helicopters attacked the village of Bieh, north of Ler in the Lundin Block 5A concessionin Western Upper Nile/Unity State, during a WFP food distribution. The two helicopters hovered over the WFP compound and fired five rockets into the surrounding area where the food distribution was in progress, at about 1:20 pm. The attack resulted in at least twenty-four civilian deaths in the presence of two U.N. personnel; seventeen died immediately and the rest died shortly thereafter of their injuries. Dozens were injured. Those killed and injured were waiting for food rations.¹¹¹¹

The WFP condemnation, by its executive director Catherine Bertini, of the attack on Bieh was scathing: “Such attacks, deliberately targeting civilians about to receive humanitarian aid, are absolutely and utterly unacceptable. . . . This attack—the second of this kind in less than two weeks—is an intolerable affront to human life and humanitarian work.” ¹¹¹²

On February 21, the U.S. State Department denounced the attack. It demanded “an explanation of how one part of the government can negotiate with the United States an agreement to end attacks against civilians while another part of the government is deliberately targeting civilians.”¹¹¹³ The U.S. suspended all negotiations with Sudan on the Danforth initiative until the explanation was forthcoming.¹¹¹⁴ Khartoum attempted to evade responsibility for the bombing, blaming the incident on a local commander who allegedly acted without sanction from Khartoum.¹¹¹⁵ Many others, including WFP, the U.N. at a high level, many European countries, the E.U., international NGOs, and even Talisman (privately),¹¹¹⁶ denounced the attack.

The Sudanese government protested the U.S. suspension of peace talks and denied that it deliberately targeted civilians.¹¹¹⁷ The government announced that its ministry of defense had set up a high level commission of inquiry to investigate the Bieh “incident” and would present its report and recommendations to the competent authorities as soon as possible. It also said that a number of measures had been taken to ensure strict coordination among the concerned authorities in the area, referring to the fact that it had pre-approved the WFP delivery of food at Bieh for February 20, the day of the bombing.¹¹¹⁸

The results of the Sudanese government investigation of what occurred at Bieh were not made public, but on February 28 the government’s peace minister, Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani, said, in a statement issued by the Sudanese embassy in London, that a government helicopter “mistakenly opened fire on a (UN) World Food Programme aid delivery.” The minister also said,“We deeply regret this appalling event.”¹¹¹⁹ WFP spokesperson Laura Melo said that she found it “‘highly unlikely’” the troops aboard the helicopter thought they were attacking a military target.¹¹²⁰

Following the international outrage at the attack, the Sudanese government signed the “no attacks on civilians or civilian objects” agreement proposed by Danforth, on March 10, 2002. The SPLM/A signed on March 25.¹¹²¹

Oil remained central to the parties’ concern about this “no-targeting civilians” agreement. The Sudanese government sought language stating that oil installations were “civilian objects” and the SPLM/A sought the reverse language. The agreement was silent on this point, leaving it to the monitors to be deployed in the south to decide on a case-by-case basis. Those monitors, however, were slow to come on the scene.¹¹²²