European Coalition on Oil in Sudan

In the oilfields of the Sudan, thousands of civilians have been killed and displaced, their villages burned to the ground. This is how the Government of Sudan ensures a safe way for the international oil companies to extract the country's natural wealth. Over 200,000 km2 of concessions have so far been leased by foreign oil companies and more are planned. The many hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who live in these vast areas are in constant danger of being bombed and forced away from their villages and ancestral lands.

Sudan, the largest country in Africa, attained independence at the beginning of 1956 after Britain and Egypt had jointly ruled it for almost six decades. Since attaining independence as a parliamentary republic, Sudan has been ruled by a succession of civilian and military governments. For more than forty years, the country has been in a state of civil war resulting in widespread humanitalian crisis. A peace agreement in 1972 ended the first civil war after independence, Sudan's current civil war dates back to 1983 and is the world's longest running and uninterrupted civil strife.

Since 1983, the civil war in Sudan has led to at least two million dead and four million displaced people. All sides to the conflict are responsible for displacements, but the drive for oil has taken the war into new areas.
Oil offers Sudan a unique opportunity for peace and development. The country is highly indebted; its population needs health care, education and foodsecurity; and most of all, its people needs peace to prosper and oilrevenues could be a strong incentive for that. Instead, the oil is fuelling war.

Oil also brings ecological damage through oil spills, caused by military attacks on the pipelines. Meanwhile, and despite massive forced displacements and the on-going bombing of civil targets, the international isolation of Sudan is ending. The European Union has entered into 'critical dialogue' with the Government of Sudan and the country rejoined the IMF.
It is very positive that some European governments are pleading for peace and trying to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table, but it is harmful that European governments are simultaneously encouraging companies to invest in the oil industry, or, in the case of Austria, are doing that themselves.

All independent reports show that oil extraction exacerbates the war in Sudan.

We do not believe that European investors want to make a profit from oil that is fuelling war and we trust they will act accordingly.

We have the following requests:

To oil companies engaged in exploration, production, and internationalmarketing of Sudanese oil:

to immediately suspend their operations until a just and lasting peace has been agreed in the Sudan and until the victims of forced displacements have safely returned to their places of origin.

To oil companies holding inactive concessions, such as TotalFinaElf:

to abstain from any activities, including seismic work and drilling, until is a just and lasting peace has been agreed in the Sudan;
to monitor the human rights situation in its concession areas, includingthe bombing of civilian targets and forced displacements and to publiclydenounce abuses that do occur;
to inform the Government of Sudan that it will not activate its concession until a just and lasting peace has been agreed and all victims of forced displacements from its concession have safely returned to their places oforigin.

To all companies:
not to supply any equipment or services (including financial, technicaland others) to the Sudanese oil extraction industry until a just and lastingpeace has been agreed;
not to internationally market Nile Blend crude until a just and lasting peace has been agreed.

To shareholders, pension funds and institutional investors:
to consider divesting from companies active in Sudan's oil extracting industry o rtrading Nile Blend crude, including indirect investors such as BP, if they do not comply with the above requests by the time of the companies' annua lgeneral meetings.

To banks:
to search, identify and end all existing transactions and financial operations that are linked with the production and marketing of Nile Blendcrude, and not to make any such deals until a just and lasting peace has been agreed in Sudan;
to decline from financing any company active in the Sudanese oil industryuntil a just and lasting peace has been agreed in Sudan.

To the Government of Austria:
to exercise its influence (35% of the shares) over OMV Aktiengesellschaftto ensure that this company immediately suspend its operations until a just and lasting peace has been agreed in the Sudan.

To the Government of Sweden:
to take effective measures to ensure that Lundin Oil AB immediately suspend its operations until a just and lasting peace has been agreed inSudan.

To the Member States of the European Union:
to ensure that a 'Troika' mission will be sent into the oil rich areas of Sudan with a mandate to assess the impact of oil exploitation on the humanrights situation, the war and prospects for peace and to prepare for the establishment of a permanent European monitoring capacity in the conflictareas of Sudan. The mission would visit government controlled and non-government controlled areas and would involve suitably qualified specialists and technical experts. It would make specific recommendations to European Union Member States about oil company involvement in Sudan and about ways to bring the sides to the conflict to a successful negotiating position while respecting the Declaration of Principles of the IGAD peaceprocess;
to actively discourage investing in the Sudanese oil sector under the current circumstances, including a refusal to provide export credit cover oroverseas Embassy facilitation for companies wishing to do such business until a just and lasting peace has been agreed in Sudan;
to promote a EU temporary investment ban on European company investment inthe Sudanese oil sector and to close its borders to Nile Blend crude until a just and lasting peace has been agreed in Sudan;
to set benchmarks for its dialogue with the government of Sudan, which should include full and unimpeded access to the oil areas for independent researchers, unambiguous human rights performance indicators and fullrespect for international humanitarian law. The benchmarks should have aspecial focus on the oil rich regions and the war zones, effectively address the issue of safe return of all victims of forced displacements, and comprise criteria for oil revenue management;
to regularly and transparently evaluate its dialogue with the Governmentof Sudan;
to put its concerns about the impact of CNPC's activities in Sudan onpeace and human rights high on the agenda of Europe's human rights dialogue with China;
to share its concerns about the impact of Petronas' activities on peace and human rights in Sudan with the Government of Malaysia;
to openly encourage the Canadian Government to end Talisman Energy Inc'scomplicity with war and gross and systematic human rights violations in Sudan.

To the Members of the European Parliament:
to support the above recommendations to the Member States of the European Union;
to actively seek Member States to observe the Parliament's earlier resolutions on Sudan;
to ensure that Member States take effective action against European involvement in the development of Sudan's oil industry under the current circumstances;
to include the Sudan oil case in the upcoming hearings on corporate social responsibilities.

To the Members of Parliament of the EU Member States:
to monitor the companies registered in their jurisdiction for compliance with the above recommendations;
to see to it that Member States take effective action against European involvement in the development of Sudan's oil industry until a just and lasting peace has been agreed in Sudan.