The trail of blood starts with oil‘s contamination of water
March 6, 2018
Two major reports, appearing within 48 hours of each other, each detailing how South Sudan‘s corrupt elite has funnelled ill-gotten oil revenues to the financing of the militias responsible for the ethnic cleansing, widespread rape, the eradication of democratic opposition and the other horrors of wars plaguing South Sudan.
And each report was compiled by a highly-respected investigative body:
the London-based Global Witness:
https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/south-sudans-leadership-uses-state-owned-oil-company-nilepet-funnel-millions-brutal-security-services-and-ethnic-militias/
and the Washington-based The Sentry
https://thesentry.org/reports/fueling-atrocities/
“This trail of blood in South Sudan starts with Big Oil’s contamination of the groundwater and with other crimes against the environment and human beings perpetrated by it,” states Klaus Stieglitz of Sign of Hope, the Germany-based NGO which has spearheaded for over a decade the campaign against these misdeeds.
“Instead of investing in facilities capable of properly treating the wastes from the pumping of oil and in other environmental protection measures – such as the safe disposal of chemicals used in these processes, China National Petroleum, India’s ONGC Videsh, Malaysia’s Petronas and other companies forming part of South Sudan’s oil consortia were apparently allowed by the country’s government to engage in practices that have devastated the health and habitats of indigenous peoples,” explains Stieglitz.
“The upshot of this deal: the oil companies maximized revenues and profits – and South Sudan’s oil elite was supplied with ill gotten gains,” Stieglitz concludes.
As the literally hundreds of articles and Tweets recapitulating the reports have pointed out, one effective way to dry up this swamp of corruption, suffering and contamination would be to launch a country-wide investigation of oil contamination in South Sudan – and to compel Big Oil to commence the Great Clean-Up.
