Darfur rebel group kidnaps foreign oil workers
KHARTOUM (AFP) — Darfur rebels on Thursday gave a foreign oil consortium a week to pull out or face further attacks after they kidnapped five oil workers, including foreigners, during a raid on a Sudanese oilfield.
"We attacked Defra oilfield and kidnapped two foreign workers, one is Canadian and another is Iraqi," said Abdelaziz el-Nur Ashr, field commander for the Justice and Equality Movement in Kordofan east of Darfur.
Ashr said his group has also kidnapped three Sudanese oil workers and that the captives were "safe and in good condition... They will be safe as long as the government doesn't bomb us."
The attack was on Tuesday, he said, with Darfur peace talks due to begin in Libya on Saturday. The Islamist JEM has already said it will not attend the negotiations it derides as "a masquerade."
The oilfield is run by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC) a consortium involving China's CNPC, India's ONGC, Malaysia's Petronas and Sudanese state-owned Sudapet.
Defra produces more than half of Sudan's around 500,000 barrels per day, most of which is exported to China.
"We give them seven days from today (Thursday) to leave, we have the ability to stop their activities in the field," Ashr told AFP.
He claimed that at least eight other nearby oilfields have already shut down fearing attacks.
Tuesday's attack came during a visit to Khartoum by Beijing's Darfur envoy Liu Guijin, who said on Wednesday that "the Darfur issue is developing generally towards a positive direction in spite of some difficulties."
Liu had been due to leave Sudan for the peace talks in Sirte on Thursday.
Sudan's Defence Minister Abdel Rahman Mohammed Hussein refused to confirm or deny the attack, saying of the JEM threat that they "can say what they like but they are incapable of doing anything.
"The JEM say that they will attack oilfields but these are dreams that will not come true," he said.
In Beijing, however, a foreign ministry spokesman confirmed reports that the oilfield in Darfur had been attacked, but said Chinese citizens working there were safe.
The Canadian foreign ministry said it was unable to confirm that one of its citizens was missing.
The JEM commander told AFP: "We want China, India and Malaysia to stop oil business because Khartoum is using the oil money to buy arms and kill the people in Darfur. This is our country and they must go."
He said government forces at the oilfields fled the attack, during which neither those forces nor rebels had suffered casualties.
He said the two hostages would be released when the consortium agrees to hold talks with the rebel group, one of several that have been fighting the Sudanese government in the western region of Darfur since early 2003.
"We earlier made contacts with China through some diplomats, but it has refused to deal with us. It is now our position that we will release the two hostages after we talk with the company that employed them," Ashr said.
China is Sudan's top oil buyer and a key weapons supplier in a relationship that has drawn much criticism in the West.
Sudan has extracted more than 13 billion dollars of oil since drilling was intensified after a 2005 peace deal ended Africa's longest-running civil war between north and south.
China has often been accused of failing to exert pressure on President Omar al-Beshir to stop the bloodshed in Darfur, where conflict has left at least 200,000 dead and displaced more than two million, according to UN figures.
The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said: "We attach a high-level of importance to the incident and hope all sides will immediately implement a complete ceasefire. We hope the Sudan problem will be resolved as soon as possible through peaceful negotiations.
"We hope Sudan can attach importance to China's concern."
Talks on the Sudanese conflict are scheduled to start in Libya on Saturday. But the JEM and six factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement fighting in Darfur have vowed to boycott them.
Plans are under way to deploy a much larger hybrid African Union-UN peacekeeping force to replace an undermanned and ill-equipped 7,000-strong African force in Darfur.
The 15-member UN Security Council on Wednesday raised the prospect of sanctions against rebels who impede the peace process -- whether by attacks or by not attending the Libya talks.
