Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for allowing me to testify today.
I represent the Sudan Divestment Task Force, which is a project of the Genocide Intervention Network. We're an NGO that is based in Washington, D.C. We also have offices in London.
Our organization primarily focuses on a model of targeted divestment we have developed that focuses on ameliorating the situation in Sudan by placing targeted economic pressure on worst-offending corporate actors, primarily those in the oil, mineral extraction, power, and military equipment sectors.
Before I begin, I would like to piggyback off the previous testimony by saying that we actually encourage investment in southern Sudan and eastern Sudan and Darfur and other marginalized areas of the country.
This is a model of divestment that has been adopted by 22 states in the United States. The federal government in the United States recently passed divestment and contract prohibition legislation that we authored, and international pension funds, including one Dutch pension fund, have also started to look into the matter and divest. It's a model of divestment that encourages investment in marginalized regions while focusing exclusively in those areas that actually benefit the regime.
This is a regime that is exceptionally vulnerable to economic pressure. Its foreign debt exceeds its gross domestic product, and with its overwhelming reliance on oil—90% of its export revenue comes from oil—it makes sense why up to 70% of that oil revenue then goes toward its military expenditures.
Sudan, though, does not have the technical expertise to exploit its own oil resources. For that, it relies on a small subset of foreign oil companies—primarily, a majority are wholly state-owned companies from China, Malaysia, and India—to drill and provide the profits necessary to prosecute the war in Sudan.
There is such a thing as responsible investment in Sudan. As was mentioned in the previous panel, Montreal-based La Mancha Resources is the largest mining company in Sudan. It primarily operates a gold mine in eastern Sudan. After being on our highest offenders list for several months, it became receptive to engagement and decided to take a number of steps. This is precisely the type of corporate presence we want in Sudan.
Sudan is China's fourth largest provider of oil; we don't see China leaving Sudan any time soon. It is the same with India and Malaysia. But there are ways that companies can use their influence for good, use their economic leverage to help end the atrocities. La Mancha is a great example of that.
The company publicly refrained from any new investment in the country—they had previously planned to do a multi-million dollar mine expansion, which would have given the Government of Sudan a lot of new revenue streams—until a peacekeeping force consistent with Resolution 1769, UNAMID, fully deploys unimpeded. They have also committed to funding humanitarian efforts in Darfur in addition to what they were already doing in eastern Sudan, even though Darfur is on the other side of the country from where they operate. They also met with Sudan's then-minister of Energy and Mining, Dr. Ahmed Al-Jaz, to discuss the situation, urging the Government of Sudan to again allow the UNAMID force access to the region.
That's the exact type of the operations we want to see happening in Sudan. Unfortunately, foreign companies, primarily these Asian companies, have done quite the opposite.
I would point your attention to one specific company, and that is China National Petroleum Corporation, which operates six of the seven active oil blocks in Sudan and has also invested in a couple of others that are currently in the exploration phase. It facilitates weapons transfers to the Sudanese regime and allows its facilities to be used as staging points for attacks by the government on civilians. It also refuels military aircraft.
Sudan's air force is primarily Chinese and Russian equipped. Iran also provides some small arms. In fact, this government, which partially funds an NGO called the Small Arms Survey, has done a really excellent job of documenting just that, as did the Harker commission in 2000 when it investigated the Talisman case.
A question about the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company was brought up earlier. CNPC is the operator for that consortium and for most of the other major consortiums currently doing work in Sudan. The total number of people who have been displaced as a result of CNPC's drilling in Sudan is well above 15,000. There is, however, an ability for this government to change that. There are several things that Canada can do.
First, it can join the targeted divestment movement that's already well under way in the United States. Many of Canada's public pension plans may be invested in these foreign companies and therefore have power as shareholders to change the behaviour of those companies in Sudan. They can also, if those companies prove unresponsive, divest and hit their share price.
Second, CNPC, as was alluded to before by a question from MP Dewar, currently has 11 oil blocks in Alberta in the tar sands. None of them is currently operating yet, but they've expressed interest in acquiring several more. ONGC, which is the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India, India's primary oil company operating in Sudan, has also expressed interest in drilling the tar sands in Alberta.
On New Year's Eve, President Bush in the United States signed the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act. That act prohibits contracts from going to companies that are considered highest offenders, that meet the criteria for having a harmful presence in Sudan and have refused to take any actions to address that.
Perhaps more so than any other western country, because of the Alberta tar sands contracts, Canada has unique leverage, truly a more important type of leverage, to engage with CNPC to make it stop the displacement, stop the weapons transfers, stop refuelling military aircraft, and most importantly, pressure the government to end these atrocities.
In many cases, state-owned enterprises follow the lead of their home country governments. In the case of Sudan, CNPC is actually, in some ways, leading China's foreign policy. China protects Sudan at the UN and China gives weapons to Sudan to the extent that it does because of CNPC and for very little other reason.
I would urge this government to use its unique position of leverage to seriously engage with CNPC to make clear to CNPC and ONGC and any other state-owned enterprise or other company involved with Sudan in problematic ways that doing business in Canada must be contingent upon respecting human rights in other parts of the world where they're operating.
Thank you very much, again, for allowing me to testify. I would be happy to take any questions.