Carl Bildt – Besserwisser mot bättre vetande

När man läser Christian Aids kortfattade men upplysande rapport med vittneskommentarer om Lundin Oils agerande i Sudan förstår man att den självförhärligande eufemismen ”Jag arbetade för fred” lika gärna kunde författats av Idi Amin. I ”The Scorched Earth – Oil and War in Sudan” kan man läsa ögonvittnesskildringar om hur armén och Lundin Oil agerade samfällt:

”Here we report on displacement from three oil areas, based on interviews with people displaced from those areas:

1. Block 5a, south-east of Bentiu, operated by Sweden’s Lundin Oil, Austria’s OMV and Malaysia’s Petronas. Testing operations here began in January 2001 after a ruthless, year-long government assault to secure the environs to the concession and the access road leading to it. Oil was struck again in early March 2001. [. . . ]

1. Block 5A: Lundin Oil

In April 1999, Lundin Oil of Sweden drilled an exploratory well at Thar Jath,10 miles from the Nile, and reported finding as many as 300 million barrels of ‘excellent’ reservoir quality oil. A month later, according to Human Rights Watch, the government moved troops to Thar Jath and adjacent areas, displacing tens of thousands of people.”

In March 2000, amid fighting for control of the Thar Jath site, Lundin said it was suspending drilling because of ‘logistical difficulties and safety considerations’. It announced the resumption of drilling in January 2001 ‘within days of the inauguration of the 75 kilometre all-weather road’ from its base camp at Rub Kona. Taban Deng, a former Minister of State for Roads in the Khartoum government, told Christian Aid the road was built by Chinese workers and paid for by Lundin at a cost of up to $400,000 per kilometre.

What Lundin did not say in its press release was that in the intervening 10 months, as the oilfield tripled in size and its airstrip was extended, government troops and militias had burned and depopulated the entire length of this oil road. In visits to Western Upper Nile in August and November 2000, Christian Aid found thousands of Nuer civilians displaced from villages along this road, hundreds of miles away in Dinka Bahr el-Ghazal. They all told the same tale. Antonovs bombed the villages to scatter the people. Then government troops arrived by truck and helicopter, burning the villages and killing anyone who was unable to flee – in most cases, the old and the very young.

Chief Peter Ring Pathai said that government troops airlifted to Kuach were shooting at villagers from the air, hanging out of the doors of their helicopters. ‘All the villages along the road have been burned,’ said John Wicjial Bayak, a local official who had been driven from a village close to the oil road. You cannot see a single hut. The government doesn’t want people anywhere near the oil.’ Aid workers who have flown over the oil road confirm these claims. An independent aid worker familiar with the area said that all the villages existed along the road to Pulteri have been razed to the ground. ‘As one flies along the new oil road, the only sign of life are the lorries travelling at high speed back and forth to the oilfield,’ said the aid worker.

‘Small military garrisons are clearly visible every five kilometres.[. . .]'”

”The evidence of the atrocities committed along the Lundin oil road and in Eastern Upper Nile appear to condemn these areas to the fate already suffered by areas north of Bentiu, around the Heglig and Unity oilfields.[. . .] Companies such as Lundin, Petronas and CNPC are contributing to the extension of the war by permitting government forces to clear new areas for them to exploit.”[…] (min fetstil i samtliga citat)

Läs: Christian Aid – ”The Scorched Earth – Oil and War in Sudan”, Human Rights Watch: ”Sudan, Oil and Human Rights”

Vår statsminister har inga problem med att hysa en utrikesminister som Carl Bildt i sin regering. Och det kanske inte är att undra på – för lönen bara höjs och höjs och höjs ändå – utom för ”förlorarna” förstås. Brott lönar sig. Och istället för ”dimhöljda” besked så är det tvärsäkert hårda bud som gäller när den borgerliga Alliansen vanstyr så det mänskliga skeppet går i kvav.

Men när det gäller besked om vad Lundin Oil egentligen hade för sig i Sudan så duger däremot de dimhöljda beskeden mer än väl för Carl Bildt som helst verkar se att saken inte granskas närmare än så. Författaren Kerstin Lundell som skrivit boken ”Affärer i blod och olja . Lundin Petroleum i Afrika” (2010) kommenterar saken i Aftonbladetartikeln ”Lundin Petroleum har något att dölja”:

”Carl Bildt säger för sin del att eventuella kopplingar mellan individer som kan ha begått brott och Lundin Oil utreddes rätt noga 2001 och 2003, utan att det gick att hitta några kopplingar”, skriver TT 11 juni. Vilka utredningar det handlar om har jag inte lyckats få reda på, så nu får man bara hoppas att åklagarmyndigheten klarar det bättre.

För jag vill väldigt gärna veta vilka utredningar han hänvisar till. Efter att ha närgranskat företaget under snart fem år har jag aldrig hört talas om några undersökningar av det slag som Carl Bildt beskriver. Hade jag gjort det skulle jag ha satt stopp för arbetet med boken Affärer i blod och olja, Lundin Petroleum i Afrika.”

Se även: AB, , AB2, Expressen, GP, DN, SVT – Reinfeldt: ”Ingen time-out för Carl Bildt”, DN – Ny generalstrejk i Grekland, DN – Mångmiljonrepresentation på Fiskeriverket, Aftonbladet – Kerstin Lundell: ”Lundin Petroleum har något att dölja”, Tomas Melin – Att intervjua Carl Bildt (tack till Motvallsbloggen för länken), SVD – Magnus Eriksson: ”Lundin Oils okunnighet ifrågasatt i reportagebok”