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Statement by the Canadian Ecumenical
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"Stop the oil, start the peace," Canadian church leaders say |
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We, five Canadian senior church leaders who returned from Sudan April 9, call for a moratorium on oil development in war-ravaged southern Sudan, including that of Calgary-based Talisman Energy.
We also wish to state categorically that an accelerated peace process is critically linked to the moratorium. The Canadian government should take high-level diplomatic and practical initiatives to support African nations in bringing about a speedy end to a vicious and brutal civil war.
Conflict has raged in Sudan almost since 1956. The current civil war, which began in 1983, has killed two million people and displaced more than four million. There are many conflicting parties but the major struggle in Africa's largest country is between the government in the north and the people of the south, the Nuba Mountains and other marginalized areas.
The mission spent a week (April 1-7) visiting areas hard hit by the war just south of the oil fields. We met with the most vulnerable people -- civilian women, children and the internally displaced -- as well as church and local authorities.
We listened to accounts of slaughter and burnings from people who had fled for their lives days earlier. Some displaced persons told us "They (the government) want our land without us." Sudanese Church leaders with whom we met described the tactics of the Khartoum government as "genocidal".
The systematic bombings of civilian targets, forced displacement of civilian populations, mass starvation and other acts of terrorism we were told about have been well documented by human rights agencies. Urgent action is required by the international community to end these massive abuses of human rights.
We were particularly moved by meetings with people who in terror had fled their villages while under attack by government troops and militias, and who were forced to leave behind their dead and injured relatives including women, children and the elderly.
We are outraged that a Canadian company is a major producer of oil located in southern Sudan and is paying huge royalties to the unaccountable northern military dictatorship led by General Omar al Bashir. We hold the Bashir government largely responsible for the atrocities committed against southern Sudanese peoples.
It is also clear to us that a major factor in the suffering of millions of innocent people is the rapid exploration, development and production of oil located in the south. Oil development has killed and displaced untold numbers of people, forcing them to flee their homes and land for an uncertain future.
Our mission, composed of the major Christian denominations in Canada, was invited to visit Sudan by the Sudan and New Sudan Councils of Churches, the former based in Khartoum, the latter representing churches in the south which has its administrative offices in Nairobi and a wide network of churches and field operations inside southern Sudan. The Sudanese government did not grant us visas to visit the north for reasons that are not clear.
Our team flew to Lokichoggio in northern Kenya after briefings with the NSCC, Canadian diplomats, and NGOs in Nairobi. In Lokichoggio we visited the largest on-going humanitarian relief program in the world, the UN’s Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), which is trying to alleviate the suffering of millions of war-affected southern Sudanese. We also visited nearby Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya which shelters 71,000 people, mostly southern Sudanese forced to flee their homeland into what amounts to semi-permanent enforced exile.
While oil is not the only factor in the war, the revenues from the oil, especially those which accrue to the Khartoum government, are making the conflict far more dangerous and destructive. Sudanese government leaders have acknowledged that oil revenues are being used to purchase weapons and build munitions factories. We believe the government now thinks it can win the war militarily and seems to want to crush all opposition groups in the north and south.
"We need peace first and oil later," many Sudanese told us. We agree with them which is why we, along with the Sudanese churches, are calling for a moratorium on oil development until peace is achieved.
However, simply stopping oil development is not enough to bring peace. Canada, which has played a constructive role in the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) peace process for Sudan, must provide more political, diplomatic and material support to this African initiative in bringing the war to an end.
We, the Canadian Ecumenical Mission to Sudan, call for the following steps to be taken urgently by Canada and the international community.
- A moratorium on all aspects of oil development in Sudan (including Talisman's operations) should be declared. The moratorium should include exploration, infrastructure-building, drilling, extraction and sale of oil until a just peace has been negotiated, beginning with a verifiable cessation of hostilities.
- Additional support to the IGAD peace process should be extended. This difficult process needs time, resources and the best technical expertise from all relevant countries to succeed.
- Canadian legislation to prevent corporations from exploiting situations of conflict for financial gain should be developed or strengthened as soon as possible.
- Canada and other governments should, more frequently and publicly, condemn human rights violations by all parties in the conflict. Current human rights abuses include the enforced displacement of peoples, abduction, enslavement and terrorism, particularly against women and children, and the denial of religious liberty.
- Pressure should be increased to end the use of starvation as a weapon of war and guarantee the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid to all war-affected peoples in Sudan.
- Canadian churches and NGOs should mount additional education campaigns on Sudan. They should also mobilize additional health and developmental resources to be made available to communities throughout Sudan through the organizations that are already on the ground, especially indigenous organizations such as the Sudan and New Sudan Councils of Churches.
At the beginning of this Holy Week, we call the churches to urgent prayer for the healing of this bleeding wound in the body of humanity. We plead with all our fellow Canadians to engage this painful reality and open many doors to hope and peace for the people of Sudan.
The mission had two main objectives
- To demonstrate solidarity with the suffering church and people of Sudan; and
- To use the experiences of the visit to mobilize support by the Canadian churches and their members, all citizens and the government for more effective Canadian policies on Sudan.
Members of the mission were Ms. A.J. Finlay, Anglican Church of Canada, Toronto; Very Rev. William Phipps, past Moderator, United Church of Canada, Calgary; Ms. Janet Somerville, general secretary, Canadian Council of Churches (CCC), Toronto; Most Rev. Donald Theriault, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Ottawa; and Rev. Art Van Seters, past moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Toronto.
The mission was a joint initiative of the Inter-Church Coalition on Africa and Inter-Church Action for Justice, Development and Relief, now combined into KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives. For further information contact John Mihevc, Team Leader: Global Justice, 416 463 5312 or click here to email.
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