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ERIC REEVES REPLY TO SVEN BANKEL OF FLODA, SWEDEN A reply from Eric Reeves to a very foolish and nasty man, Sven Bankel--the ugly soul who has decided to do Lundin Oil's dirty work for them. May 10, 2001
Mr. Sven Bankel of Floda, Sweden has chosen to defend Lundin Oil by attacking me publicly, much as the notorious David Hoile of the European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council has decided to expend a good deal of his own peculiar energies in attacking me for demanding that oil development in Sudan be halted pending the negotiation of a just peace for the people of this brutally torn land. As both Mr. Bankel and Mr. Hoile know, even if they won't admit it, my motives are hardly difficult to discern. I offer them here in the same terms I have for over two years: Sudan is suffering from the most destructive and longest civil war in Africa. It is arguably the most destructive civil conflict in half a century. More than 2 million people have perished through war and war-related causes. Over 4 million more human beings have been uprooted by the war. The World Food Program estimates that 3 million Sudanese are at risk from famine and drought conditions now obtaining in this blighted land. I desperately want peace for Sudan. And since every substantial report on the consequences of oil development in Sudan---every single one of them---has determined that such development exacerbates conflict and extends destruction, I want see an end to oil development pending the just peace that will truly end this terrible conflict. These are my only motives. I work for no organization; I haven't taken money from anyone, indeed I'm on unpaid leave of absence; I have no secret mandate or agenda. I simply want peace for a people who deserve it more than any other on earth. I should acknowledge that I've not been to Sudan; rather, I've seen
my task as researching all that is published on Sudan, and assimilating
as much information as possible that comes from those who do go to Sudan---and
go with the eyes and experience of humanitarian or human rights experts.
I have many excellent contacts in the region; a number of those who know
of my published work and advocacy efforts, and who work or operate in Sudan,
have sought me out and provided me with valuable information. My
task is to assimilate and synthesize fully, on a very regular basis, a
great deal of information that does not
But let me be frank about my research: far and away the most useful information for my purposes has emerged from the major reports on oil development in Sudan: [1] "Sudan: The Human Price of Oil," Amnesty International, May 3, 2000 (London, UK) [2] The Harker Report, the final product of a Canadian Assessment Mission appointed by former Canadian Foreign Minister, Lloyd Axworthy (Ottawa, January 2000) [3] The reports of the UN's Special Rapporteurs for Sudan, Gaspar Biro, Leonardo Franco, and presently Gerhart Baum (most particularly useful is the October 1999 report by Leonardo Franco) [4] "The Scorched Earth: Oil and War in Sudan," Christian Aid, March 2001 (London, UK) [5] The annual reports on Sudan by Human Rights Watch What all these intensely well-researched and authoritative reports reveal is that oil development is exacerbating conflict in Sudan, indeed, is giving rise to scorched-earth warfare that is the means by which the Khartoum regime affords "security" to its oil development partners. This isn't a conclusion that is reached in some reports and not others; it is the conclusion of all these reports, which stand without significant rival, either in research commitment and resources, or a claim to disinterestedness. One of the companies that presently benefits directly from this policy of scorched-earth warfare is Lundin Oil of Sweden. And it is Lundin Oil that our Mr. Bankel is trying to defend against charges that the company is complicit in the immensely destructive consequences of this scorched-earth warfare. He does so in a document entitled "Christian Aid and the Eighth Commandment." To be sure, he tries to parse the subject rather differently in his bizarre opening rhetorical gambit; but defending Lundin Oil in the face of its deadly complicity is clearly what he sees as his task. How cogent is Mr. Bankel's defense? Well, it's hard to tell
at times: his English prose is sufficiently execrable that one can't always
be sure just what he means. He praises me as being an "excellent
writer" (which I must confess gives me a shudder), perhaps by way of disarming
me, or blunting my professional assessment of his use of the English language. But I'm afraid
I must render a verdict (perhaps it will be of use to Lundin management
in determining just how well they've been served by Mr. Bankel's efforts):
his writing is frequently opaque (he has a painfully difficult time with
English punctuation rules), often
But of course this isn't Mr. Bankel's native language; simply the one he has chosen to butcher in an effort to present gullible readers with a highly distorted view of the matters at issue. And charity obliges a consideration of all possibilities, so I should note that Mr. Bankel may be the victim of some mindlessly cruel automatic translation machine, secured on a tightly limited budget---though I must say I smell the odor of the distinctly humanly inept. So what is at issue? Nominally, Mr. Bankel is attempting to
criticize the extraordinarily damning report by Christian Aid (UK), a humanitarian
organization with almost 30 years of experience in Sudan, in both the north
and south. What makes the Christian Aid Report of particular concern
to Mr. Bankel and Lundin Oil is that it presents the most up-to-date and
revealing report on Concession Block 5a, south of Bentiu in western Upper
Nile Province. Bentiu is the epicenter of oil development in western
Upper Nile, and previous reports (by Amnesty International, the Harker
Report, and the UN Special Rapporteurs) have
But the Christian Aid report gives a much fuller and deeply disturbing account of Block 5a, where Lundin is operational, and so this is the report Mr. Bankel has been tasked to attack, in whatever way possible. In fact, the only ways in which Mr. Bankel finds it possible to proceed are so obtuse, so illogical, so ignorant, so revealing of a mind that has been utterly corrupted by its vicious task, that one can gain all too full a sense of his intellectual perversity from just a few examples. As some of my friends are inclined to say in situations like this, "you don't have to eat the whole egg to know it's rotten!" Herewith, then, a rather brief reply to the very foolish, the exceptionally foolish and ill-informed, Mr. Bankel. I hope he is satisfied by what I offer him here, because he can be sure that I won't be inclined to spend this much time again responding to his twaddle. [1] Mr. Bankel is guilty of a great series of truly egregious errors of fact. For example, by way of explaining the fighting south of Bentiu in 2000 he has declared that the forces of Riek Machar and the SPLA forces of John Garang united ("realigned" says Mr. Bankel) in combat against the Government of Sudan, this following Riek's resignation from the Government of Sudan in 1999. For any who have followed the antagonism between Riek and Garang, or have taken note of the debilitating conflicts between Nuer and Dinka forces in southern Sudan, and between rival Nuer factions, this assessment will seem perversely misinformed. Unfortunately, this same assessment will be forced upon readers of Mr. Bankel's absurd account at various points. Indeed, Mr. Bankel admits he is not even equipped with a decent map of the region he purports to speak about, and---rather remarkably---complains in his document about not being able to locate the geographical sites at issue. [2] Mr. Bankel, in an unwittingly amusing and "knowing" manner, points out that there are passages in the Christian Aid report that are (and here is his big discovery!) quite similar to passages in a couple of my (virtually daily) analyses---analyses which had appeared earlier than the release date of the Christian Aid report. From this Mr. Bankel draws a mind-numbingly preposterous conclusion: that the whole Christian Aid report was secretly authored by---Eric Reeves! To be sure, I would like to take credit for all the excellent work of Christian Aid; indeed, I'd like to take credit just for the brief passages that appear in the Christian Aid report and that are so similar to passages in my work. But credit here really must be given where it is due, and that is to our common source (our common source, Mr. Bankel!), clearly identified by me as a professional humanitarian worker with extensive responsibilities and experience in southern Sudan. Of course this extremely well-informed person was the same source, providing the same language, to Christian Aid. It is hardly surprising that there are a limited number of such highly reliable and authoritative sources. Mr. Bankel has confused, in the most revealing of ways, a "propter hoc" and "post hoc" relationship." Since Mr. Bankel's linguistic talents leave me in some doubt as to whether he can satisfactorily understand or render this difference, certainly in English, let me point out to our befuddled Swede that simply because an event comes after another event (or text) doesn't mean that the one caused (or served as the source) for the other. There can be a common cause (source) for both events (texts). Do we understand now, Mr. Bankel? That this most obvious of conclusions has evidently escaped the busy Mr. Bankel should give rather full pause to those assessing his analytic skills. [3] Mr. Bankel makes much of my surmise (based on first-hand information conveyed directly to me from someone working in the region of Block 5a) concerning pipe sections carried by truck down the new all-weather road that allows Lundin to move south from Bentiu. The company is moving through what were formerly villages, now destroyed; and it is their destruction that has been similarly chronicled by me and Christian Aid. My surmise was that these pipe sections were for a pipeline that would allow oil pumped from Block 5a by Lundin to reach the 1000-mile pipeline originating at Unity Field (which carries oil to Port Sudan on the Red Sea for export). Unity Field is north of Bentiu, and thus about 60 miles away from Lundin's recent 5,000 barrel/day find at Thar Gath. As it turns out, according to Mr. Bankel (whose credibility one might have begun to doubt), these pipe sections were supposedly for Lundin's continuing deep drilling. But yet again, Mr. Bankel fails to grasp the obvious: simply because present pipe sections moving to the areas of Lundin's oil find are involved in other exploratory efforts doesn't mean that piping for moving the oil north to Unity Field won't be necessary later, perhaps very soon. In fact, the only sensible way for Lundin's oil to be moved over the long term is by being connected to the pipeline originating at Unity. Oil could be moved by barge down the Nile River for now; but the larger the quantities found, the less likely it is that barge movement of pumped crude oil will be satisfactory. And yet, as obvious as this conclusion is, Mr. Bankel fails to see it, or at least articulate it. So at this point we need to ask the hard question: which is worse? Which reflects more tellingly the sorry character of the mind that produced this silly attack by way of defending the transparently culpable Lundin Oil? Is it that Mr. Bankel doesn't see the eventual necessity for transport piping to be conveyed down the new all-weather road? Or that, knowing full well this to be the case, he doesn't say so? In other words, is it better that Mr. Bankel is stupid or disingenuous? I've made my decision. Insofar as Lundin see its public relations fate in Mr. Bankel's hands, they will have to render their own judgment of this fatuous and mindlessly tendentious bit of mental drool. **************************************************
[1] The Swedish Embassy in Washington, DC--- Email address:
Address: 1501 M Street, NW Suite 900
Telephone: (202) 467-2600 [Africa political officer is Gunnar Alden]
email address:
Address: 377 Dalhousie Street
[3] The Swedish Embassy in London, UK--- Email adddress:
Address:11 Montagu Place
Telephone: 020 7917 6400
The Swedish Prime Minister's Office may be contacted by email at:
The Swedish Foreign Ministry may be contacted by email at:
The Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications may be contacted
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