Bishops’ conference to hear Talisman position

The Sudan Catholic Bishops, who are holding their annual meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, from 21 August to 1 September, have agreed, at the company’s request, to hear a presentation by the Canadian oil company, Talisman, on its operations in Sudan, according to a press statement on Wednesday. The bishops noted that “in their search for truth and mutual understanding” they had been addressed by different parties to the conflict without condoning their activities or ideologies, and that the oil company’s presentation was not “a sign of their approval of Talisman’s present activities in Sudan”. Talisman’s request for a meeting resulted from a letter the Catholic bishops wrote to the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in mid-September, suggesting that the production of oil in Sudan would fuel the civil war. IGAD is the body internationally mandated to seek a just and comprehensive political solution to the Sudanese war. The bishops wrote to IGAD that oil production had been followed by the government of Sudan losing interest in pursuing peaceful solutions to ending the war, as well as to (southern Sudanese) people being driven from their ancestral lands to facilitate the exploitation of oil. The Catholic and Episcopal bishops of Sudan on 17 August jointly called for the suspension of oil production in Sudan until peace was achieved. “Its continuation fuels the war, uproots civilian populations and reinforces the existent imbalance in wealth-sharing,” they added.