Darfur | ukwatch.net

Heckler at the Back

Ellie Keen — Sat, 10 May 2008 23:06:07 +0000

NO KOCH JOKES PLEASE AS PROTESTERS TARGET GUN FIRM HECKLER & KOCH...

Campaigners in Nottingham have the world’s second largest seller of small-arms, Heckler and Koch, firmly in their sights.

One would have thought that a city infamous for its gun crime would be a poor location for a warehouse full of guns. Not according to H&K, who do great business equipping war-mongers on any side.

Proud owners of H&K weaponry include the brutal militias of Darfur – the Janjaweed. Funnily enough, despite the outcry against the massacres in Darfur, they obviously weren’t quite bad enough to stop selling weapons to the perpetrators. Even a recent arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against a senior Sudanese politician accused of selling H&K weapons to the Janjaweed hasn’t seemed to stem the flow of H&K guns to a militia accused by everyone including the US of committing genocide. (H&K guns also fill the arsenals of the US Dept of Homeland Security, US Navy Seals & the FBI amongst others).

H&K have a ‘strategic partnership’ with the world’s largest mercenary company Blackwater (see SchNEWS 572). H&K supply the guns to the Iraqi and Afghan puppet governments, and Blackwater provide the training (perhaps they also supply child-sized targets for their students).

There was a plan for H&K to produce special edition ‘Blackwater’ weapons – complete with the Blackwater logo on them. However, after Blackwater made the headlines for killing 17 innocent Iraqis (not the first time that Blackwater have killed innocent Iraqis, but the first time that it made the news in a major way), the plan was shelved.

Nearly 100 people showed up this Tuesday (6th) to march against H&K at their Nottingham facility, accompanied by large numbers of police who, in the words of one protester were ‘their usual sinister selves’. The FIT Team (See www.fitwatch.blogspot.com) made their (always unwelcome presence) and did what they do best – blatantly intimidate people all day with video cameras; following some people home.

Interestingly, local media also came under pressure; Trent FM, who had shown some enthusiasm about reporting the demo, received a word in their ear from both H&K’s press office as well as the police, warning hacks that it would be ‘irresponsible’ to publish the fact that H&K has a warehouse full of weapons in Nottingham, as it may prompt criminals to try and steal them.

In response the campaigners pointed out to the radio station that H&K’s address was published at Company House, as well as in several business directories. About the radio station being leaned on, the campaigners said that “If the security policy of H&K and Notts police relies on no-one finding out the company’s location, then clearly it is they who are irresponsible, not our campaign and not the media. A large warehouse stocked with high-power assault rifles and submachine guns with inadequate security to prevent a robbery is clearly a significant danger to the public, and publicisng such a danger is very much in the public interest.”

The H&K warehouse, located at Easter Park, Lenton Lane, Nottingham, is next to the ‘Trent Vineyard’, an evangelist church that held the funeral of Danielle Beccan, a 14 year old girl who was killed in a drive-by shooting. At her funeral service the then mayor of Nottingham said, “Guns have no place at all in our community – not in Nottingham, not in my city nor any other city in Britain.”

One campaigner told us “The arms trade relies on secrecy. Most people abhor the idea of factories and warehouse making and selling weapons around the world, and arms companies know this. By lifting the lid on the business, anti-arms protesters can make a put the pressure on the government/corporate killing machine to stop killing for profit.”

* http://nottsantimilitarism.wordpress.com

RBS - Financing Atrocity

eddie — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:25:10 +0000

The Royal Bank of Scotland’s uncritical support for oil is contributing to major human rights abuses, underwriting repressive regimes and fuelling conflict.

Following Steven Spielberg’s withdrawal from the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, pressure has increased on other celebrities (and athletes) to follow suit. But whilst China is the popular whipping boy for the human rights disaster in Darfur, behind the scenes Britain’s second largest bank is helping prop up the Sudanese regime.

Royal Bank of Scotland doesn’t only sponsor rugby. PLATFORM research has uncovered a recent RBS loan to an oil corporation working with and supporting the Sudanese regime. This follows a trend of RBS funding fossil fuel extraction in some of the world’s most repressive and war-torn countries, including Burma, the DRC and Equatorial Guinea. In October 2007, RBS underwrote loans of $1 billion for Lundin Petroleum, together with BNP Paribas and HBOS. The Sudan Divestment Task Force (SDTF) classifies Lundin in its Top 5 “Highest Offenders”, for its direct support for the Sudanese government during the continued ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

Working with the military

Lundin is exploring for oil in Block 5B in south Sudan, together with Sudapet, the Sudanese national oil company, which is part of the regime. This is one of Lundin’s major strategic growth areas, and will probably be where much of RBS’ financing goes: 4 out of the 13 exploration wells Lundin will drill in 2008 are in Sudan. Its Sudanese assets are estimated at a potential 500 million barrels – 42% of the 1200 million potential barrels to be targeted in 2008.

Due diligence by RBS should have thrown up concerns as to Lundin’s suitability, based on its past record. Southern Sudan has been one of Lundin’s core sites of operation since 1997 – including during the destructive civil war. Human Rights Watch and Christian Aid asserted that, if not complicit, the company enabled Sudanese military operations against local civilians, including the clearing of villages and widespread rape.

While exploring and extracting oil from Block 5A (neighbouring its current operations in Block 5B), Lundin cooperated and worked with the Sudanese government and military. Lundin’s construction of a bridge and road allowed year-round access by Baggara militias to attack local villagers, apparently leading to enormous human rights abuses and significant depopulation around Lundin’s operations.

Currently the ceasefire in the south continues to hold shakily, yet Lundin’s clear support for the Sudanese government and lack of commitment to human rights gives little hope.

Beyond Sudan, AllAfrica.com reported on 14 February that Lundin approached the government in Somaliland, Somalia’s northern breakaway region, seeking exploration rights. Lundin is currently also investing in what it terms “high risk, high reward frontier exploration” in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, a Somali-inhabited region suffering under the army’s current crackdown on separatist rebels.

Lundin Petroleum is not an exception; the self-styled “Oil and Gas Bank” has repeatedly underwritten the operations of oil and gas corporations working in conflict zones or highly repressive countries. The RBS oil & gas team cofinanced an $850 million financing facility for Tullow Oil, which is working with the state oil company of Equatorial Guinea to pump 44,000 barrels of oil per day from the offshore Ceiba field.

President Mbasogo maintains absolute control of Equatorial Guinea, claims to have received 97% in the most recent elections and has been criticised for extreme human rights abuses by Amnesty International.

Tullow Oil is also pursuing an “aggressive exploration programme” in the North Kivu region on the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. 400,000 civilians fled their homes in North Kivu during 2007 to escape fighting between government soldiers, local militia and Tutsi insurgents. The conflict in the DRC is widely seen as fuelled by attempts to control natural resource extraction.

Financing occupation

RBS finances numerous oil corporations contributing to human rights abuses globally. However, in some situations, the bank finances the problem project directly. In late 2007, the RBS Oil & Gas Team participated in an $884 million project financing BP’s controversial Tangguh LNG (liquefied natural gas) project in West Papua, occupied by Indonesia since 1963. Amnesty International has estimated that 100,000 West Papuans – one sixth of the population – have been killed by the Indonesian military.

Despite BP’s human rights assessments, local residents have raised issues around disempowerment, environmental degradation, social degeneration and a failure to fully compensate. Local NGOs LP3BH and Perdu have warned of increased militarization in the region and a failure in recognition of customary rights.

More insidiously, the Tangguh LNG project plays a key role in asserting and institutionalising Indonesia’s occupation of West Papua. Repression is still rife.

Peaceful protests involving the Papuan flag have led to 15 year prison sentences. In 2004, US Senators wrote that “a military campaign in the Central Highlands has led to an inestimable number of civilian deaths and significant population displacement” and “government security forces are operating with impunity”.

Papuan NGOs reported in autumn 2007 that military “sweep operations” in the highlands were causing displacement and starvation. The Indonesian government’s restrictions on international media and humanitarian organisations makes assessing the reality in West Papua very difficult.

RBS assets also appear to be supporting the Burmese junta. With control over 8.25% and a seat for its CEO Fred Goodwin on the board, RBS is the most significant private shareholder on Bank of China, key backer of Chinese oil companies propping up the military regime in Burma. Petrochina and Sinopec have been criticised heavily for co-operating closely with the Burmese military rulers. Both named Bank of China as their principal banker and continue to borrow and repay loans of hundreds of millions of dollars.

In September 2007, Sinopec began drilling an onshore well in a joint venture with the Burmese regime’s Myanmar Oil & Gas Enterprise. The launch ceremony on September 26 coincided with the first day of the dictatorship’s brutal crackdown on civilian dissent and was attended by military officials and Sinopec executives. Oil & gas ventures in Burma have been repeatedly condemned by human rights organisations as propping up the regime. Sales of natural gas, such as those to Petrochina, account for the single largest source of revenue to the military government.

Whether through its assets, by financing specific projects or through corporate loans to oil & gas corporations, RBS’ lending is contributing to major human rights violations across the planet. Whether this is through a wilful refusal to recognise human rights as a relevant concern or merely repeated failures at due diligence remains unclear.

Legal but Immoral

Ellie Keen — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 18:23:03 +0000

THE Law Lords’ decision on Wednesday that sending refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan to squatter camps near Khartoum did not amount to “unduly harsh” resettlement is one for the record books.

For it must be one of the most obtuse judgements ever handed down by that august assembly of lawyers.

In April, the Court of Appeal allowed appeals by three black African Darfuris against rulings of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal that they could lawfully be sent back to Sudan, where they feared that torture and death awaited them.

The Law Lords’ reversal of that decision rests on some fairly fine points of legal interpretation but it clearly has very little to do with human concern or even common sense.

For return to Darfur, in most cases, will amount to a death sentence.

And it is inconceivable that the noble lords didn’t know that.

It is hardly a secret that the Sudanese government is complicit with the janjaweed militias in a near-genocidal campaign of terror and mass murder of its black African citizens in the region.

The government is facing dozens of rebel groups who have alleged that the region is being neglected and claiming that the government is oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs and it has used the rebels as an excuse for a vicious campaign of repression.

Refugees from Darfur have reported that, following raids by government aircraft, the janjaweed Arab militias ride into villages on horses and camels, slaughtering men, raping women and stealing whatever they can.

Women refugees have told of multiple rapes, abductions and sex slavery.

The situation is so out of control that the United Nations security council has recently approved a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force to replace the 7,000 African Union observer mission which was swamped by the problems of the region.

Millions of people have fled their towns and villages and are now immured in camps with little food, water or medicine, camps that they cannot leave for fear of prowling militias.

Hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to have died either in the fighting or from starvation and disease in the camps.

And over 200,000 have fled the country to neighbouring Chad, where they find that living in barren camps along the border is preferable to returning to Sudan.

This is the situation to which the Law Lords consider it right and proper to return asylum-seeking Darfuris.

Echoing the original tribunal ruling that it would not be unreasonable or unduly harsh to relocate such refugees to camps in other parts of Sudan, they found that such a return would discharge all of the government’s legal obligations to the asylum-seekers.

That may well be so but, if it indeed is, that merely serves to illustrate just how narrowly drawn and inhuman the law is.

If the decision is legally correct, it is far from morally satisfactory.

It is to be hoped that, having won her little legalistic victory in court, Ms Smith now honours her pledge to review Home Office policy on Sudan in the light of the Aegis Trust report highlighting the torture of failed Darfuri asylum-seekers who were sent to Khartoum.

Law Lords or no Law Lords, common humanity requires no less