Swedish oil company denies it fueled fighting in Sudan

STOCKHOLM, Nov 25 (AFP) — A Swedish oil company accused by Human Rights Watch of fueling fighting in wartorn Sudan, Lundin Petroleum AB, rejected the allegations on Tuesday and insisted its operations there had helped promote human rights.

“It’s always been our position that oil, if properly used, can be an incentive to sustainable peace,” Christine Batruch, Lundin’s vice president of corporate responsibility, told AFP.

“The welfare of the people is in our interest. We care about the people in our area. Oil has contributed to the economic development of the area.”

The 754-page report by the New York-based rights watchdog, titled “Sudan, Oil and Human Rights”, accused foreign oil companies, including Lundin, of being accomplices to the Sudanese government’s displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians in an attempt to gain control of oilfields.

The report, released Tuesday, reproached Lundin for, among other things, building a bridge and a road later used by the army and militias to attack civilians.

Batruch, however, claimed that the road mentioned in the report lies 10 to 20 kilometers (six to 12 miles) to the west of the road Lundin built.

“We had selected the path we took specifically because it did not go alongside villages,” she said. “We built a more expensive route to avoid that.”

The bridge meanwhile had been of great use to the civilian population, as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the area, she said.

Lundin has on several occasions shut down its operations in an attempt to pressure the warring factions to stop fighting, Batruch said.

The company sold most of its oil interests in Sudan to a Malaysian state-owned company in June, but still holds an inactive, minority share in the area.

“We’re a little bit surprised at the timing of the report,” Batruch said. “At the moment, the peace process is going forward, and the report doesn’t come up with anything new.”

The civil war in Sudan, which erupted in 1983, has mainly pitted the Islamic north against the Christian and animist south, where the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) has been the dominant rebel group.

The war has killed at least 1.5 million people and displaced more than four million.

The report states that 60 percent of the 580 million dollars (493 million euros) in oil revenues in 2001 was spent on Sudan’s military.