White Nile Petroleum and Dinka Bor Extinction
By Deng Ajak Jongkuch*
May 1, 2006 — On April 25 of 2005, the government of Southern Sudan signed a 10 year oil exploration licensing contract with a White Nile Limited owned by a former Middlesex and England cricket star Phil Edmonds. The agreement gave White Nile Limited a right to explore oil in Block Ba which covered an area of 67,000 km of State of Junglei. The area is believed to have about 6 billion of barrels oil in reserved. According to agreement, a government of Southern Sudan owned oil company Nile Petroleum Corporation will own 155 shares and 40% in stakes while White Nile Limited will retain 60% of stakes. According to CPA of wealth sharing modelity, 2% of oil revenues will go to where oil exploration will take place. The government of Junglei is responsible for the 2%, not the Bor County.
Now White Nile Limited and Nile Petroleum Corporation have to start oil drilling in former held territory of French giant oil Total. These territories are located in the county of Bor at Malual AgorBaar, Malual Ayuer, or Totel. Malual AgorBaar is a couple of miles away from Bor Town. Another exploration sites are located in the same county of Bor at Pedak (Mach Deng) and Jelle respectively.
So what is the problem with the deal? The issue here is the health of civilians, livestock, and aquatic animals in the Nile, the wild animals, and the environment. Another issue is why all these exploring sites are located in the same county yet, Block Ba covered from Mongalla as far as Poktab and Akobo. Why these drilling sites are located at Bor residual areas yet, there is an empty land at Sahara desert?
The oil and gas exploration at Bor County in State of Junglei will come with two things – money and death. We knew in places like Niger Delta, Unity State, and Alaska Wildlife refuge when money won against lives. Such places witnessed severe environmental destructions through water, land, and air pollutions. Destruction of local people lives through various disease that come with oil drillings, crops failure, and displacement of the native people around oil fields. Good examples are displacement of Nuer around Bentiu in Southern Sudan and Ogoni tribe at Delta region of Nigeria.
Oil and gas pollutions have irreversible severe health consequences both on human, animals and environment. One of the deadly are riskiest toxins of organic compounds known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon produce during oil explorations. The effect of hydrocarbon is not only does it causes fire and explosion that could burn down the entire forest and surrounding human residuals, but it has a diverse health effects on human and animals.
Hydrocarbon gas comes with health risk called narcotic effects. A 4-5 inhale of hydrocarbon gas cause a person to act irrationally in dangerous situation. It impedes human ability to escape from hazard situation in time of fear. This is what Nuers around oil field in Unity State are suffering from. The pollution from hydrocarbon gas altered brain chemistry of those living around oil field and that is why individuals in Nuer community act as if they do not fear the death or danger.
Not only does hydrocarbon gas alter human brain chemistry, but it high concentrations of compound benzene which is carcinogenic could cause multiple types of cancer. In places with high concentration of carcinogenic benzene in air, water, and soil, human are at risks of brain cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, bone cancer, and lung cancer.
People who lived around oil fields are more likely to suffer from a condition known as a cardiac arrest. High concentrations of hydrocarbon in the air with to regard asphyxiates could led to heart problems called cardiac arrhythmias. People in the county of Bor will face such health risks in near future if oil exploration is not relocated into far desert of Ajagaar.
Science said that human life depends on the amount of oxygen they breathe in and if the amount of oxygen is reduced in the atmosphere, their life is in danger. Asphyxiation can act as asphyxiate by displacing atmospheric oxygen contents in the surrounding environment leaving oxygen dependent human and animal to die of suffocations.
Hydrocarbon affects living creatures in so many ways, especially when liquid aerosols of hydrocarbon are inhale into the lung. If hydrocarbon is inhale directly into the lung, it has ability to produces chemical pneumonitis, pulmonary oedema, hemorrhage, and death. Bor Dinka are going to struggle with these kinds of disorders never known to them and their ancestors.
The pollution of Bor environment has just started this year when White Nile Limited and Nile Petrol Corporation shipped hundreds of trucks and gas tanks to Bor County. These vehicles are currently station at Mach e Deng and Malual Agorbaar waiting to ship the first oil extracts to port Mombassa in Kenya to the world markets. These vehicles and machineries for oil drilling will produce enormous carbon monoxide to Bor atmosphere. So what do carbon dioxide means to Bor people? Carbon dioxide bonded chemically to hemoglobin, the substance in the blood that carries oxygen to the cells, therefore; reduces the amount of oxygen available to the tissues. Carbon dioxide gases also weaken heart contraction, which further reduce oxygen supplies to the body including brain. Blood shortages in the brain affect mental functioning, visual acuity, and alertness of the victim. Few years from now the number of blinds and mental disordered individuals will increase with increase of oil production at Bor County.
Communities at Bor County from Jelle to Kolnyang will be exposing to crude oil on daily basis. The science of petroleum said, exposure to crude oil causes kidney failure, liver failure, altered blood chemistry, reproduction impairment, lung damage, and nervous systems are also damage. Few years down the road, we will start seeing victims of oil exploration at Bor County. We will see children crippling with paralyzed bodies, children with deformed reproductive systems, children with chronic cough from lung dysfunction, and many children will suffer from kidney stone due kidney failure. This is how generations of Bor citizens will look like in the near future. It is not a joke, it is only a matter of time.
When we see the crude oil in it liquid form, we only see money and good things that they buy. What do not know are chemicals that accompanied the so call “oil for money.” One of the many chemicals that come with crude oil for money is polychlorinated biphenyles (PCBs). These chemicals are very dangerous to human, animals, and environment. Health experts believed that PCBs cause mutations, cancers, birth defects, still births, endocrine disruptions, nervous disorders, and liver diseases. Here it is a matter of choice between lives and death. Nile Petroleum Corporation, White Nile Limited, and a State of Junglei already made their choice. They have chosen oil for Money and leave extinction to Bor People.
For the sake of my readers time let me stop by saying that the oil exploration in middle residual areas of Bor County is not something will be endorse for a long time. People of Bor County deserve fresh air, a clean environment, pure clean water, and beautiful land nature gave them. Like equatorians who kicked Bor Dinka out of their lands, Bor Dinka have God given rights to either kick out White Nile Limited or force it to relocate it explorations in the desert of Machabol. Failure to comply with Bor Dinka demands will be consider an injustice since other communities have rights to expel people out of their territories. Dinka Bor cries for relocations of oil explorations should be treated equally as Zandi and Mour cries for relocation of Bor Dinka IDPs from Mundari and Yambio.
It was a bad calculation to assume that oil exploration in Borland will not meet resistance from the Bor Dinka. The people of Bor County argue the GOSS, State government, White Nile Limited, and Nile Petroleum Corporation to revisit their policies towards Dinka Bor and oil drillings. The secret policy to bring Bor Dinka to extinction must stop now. Bor Dinka experienced enough during the last 22 years of civil war and enough is enough. Let the people enjoy peace with their environment. Gassing Bor Dinka in exchange of oil money has to stop now. We say “not in our watch.”
* Deng Ajak Jongkuch is a Health Science undergraduate student at San Jose State University and can be reach by [email protected]