Scarcity and surfeit : the ecology of Africa's conflicts

218 Scarcity and Surfeit

ambivalent about the liberation movement; and to the degree that the south's
external 'partners' engage with the SPLA/M, it is through its third arm, the
Southern Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association. The SPLA's human rights
abuses and factional conflicts and the NIF government's opportunistic manip-
ulation and ethnic cleansing campaigns aggravate the problem. Relief and com-
mercialisation and corruption appear to be thriving hand in hand. Or, as a long
time OLS staffer commented, food relief flights no longer return empty.
So where does this leave the Nuer and Dinka conflict? Ultimately, internal
fragmentation in the movement for an independent New Sudan has encouraged
the government to further exploit ethnic fault lines and political rifts. Disruption
of the traditional Dinka-Nuer economic symbiosis, which formerly operated
despite periodic raids and counter-raids, has left the grain-hungry Nuer the
more vulnerable party. The government has filled this gap by extending its
divide and rule tactics to the purchase of Nuer military commanders and line-
age chiefs. This has facilitated the state's capture of the big prize - unchal-
lenged control of the oil reserves lying under the "dead flat clay plain':

Case Study 3: Private Sector Participation in Oil

Production in Sudan

As the previous sections show, the sources of conflict in Sudan are many, and
the disparity between the two regions - north and south - is extraordinary.
Conflict would likely rage on should oil production not continue. Yet the dis-
covery of oil and its subsequent exploitation has become a major issue in the
conflict. The Numeiri government annexed the oil-bearing lands to the north,
creating Unity state, upon discovering oil in the south. The government of
Sudan considers oil a national resource while the southerners consider the
oil a southern resource.
There can be little question that access to and control of petroleum wealth
plays a critical role in sustaining and escalating the Sudanese civil war.
Arguably, the degree of stability and control enjoyed by the government in
the north is at least partially a function of the southern resources it controls.s0
This case study urges the integration of the links between resource extrac-
tion and community insecurity in corporate management decisions, and calls
for greater international political will in preventing the sale of valuable com-
modities - not only oil, but also timber, diamonds, gold and other minerals
that are central to conflict in Sudan and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.

Links between Resource Extraction and Conflict

The Sudan civil war is the result of complex and cumulative causal factors.

This case study focuses on those rooted in natural resource extraction.