Oil discovery adds new twist to Darfur tragedy

Sudan announced in April that its ABCO corporation – which is 37 percent owned by Swiss company Clivenden – had begun drilling for oil in Darfur, where preliminary studies showed there were “abundant” quantities of oil.
The news has prompted some humanitarian experts to wonder whether oil could be guiding Khartoum’s actions in Darfur, where a scorched-earth policy against rebels’ communities has left tens of thousands dead and forced at least 2 million from their homes.
“There’s some speculation that one of the reasons that these land grabs are going on is to get the African tribes off the ground so they can be controlled by the government in Khartoum,” Ken Bacon, president of U.S. advocacy organisation Refugees International, told AlertNet.