Religious groups challenge oil giant

Christian Century, April 19, 2000

A coalition of Canadian religious groups is preparing to challenge what they say is a North American oil giant's connection to the massacre of Christians and animists in the African country of Sudan. More than a dozen church-related organizations have successfully pressed to have their voices heard on a shareholder proposal they will make at the May 3 annual meeting of Talisman, the Calgary-based oil company doing business in war-ravaged Sudan.

Talisman, Canada's largest independent oil producer, owns one-quarter of the Greater Nile Development, which contains reserves of about 800 million barrels of low-cost oil in Sudan. Critics of the Greater Nile Development, including the U.S. government, say the estimated $200 million revenue from the project enables the Muslim government in northern Sudan to pursue its 16-year-old war against rebels in the largely Christian and animist south who are seeking greater autonomy from Khartoum. Some estimates put the death toll from the war as high as 2 million people.

The shareholder proposal by the coalition of religion-linked groups--whose members range from the 100-member Sisters of St. Ann in British Columbia to the 300,000-member Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, which covers Catholic and public-school educators--calls on Talisman to submit its Sudan operations to an independent human rights examination. "An enormous number of people have suffered because of Talisman's development in the Sudan. We are trying to make our investment stand for something we believe in," said Sister Dorothy Moonen, who leads the Sisters of St. Ann in western Canada. The sisters, who own 3,500 shares of Talisman as part of their investment package, are among the religious groups upset with the Canadian government's recent failure to penalize Talisman or Sudan over the war.

The U.S. government imposed sanctions against the Sudanese government and Talisman in February. The sanctions mean that oil from the Greater Nile Project cannot be refined in the U.S. Other financial dealings between the Sudanese company and U.S. firms are also banned.

The influential Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, an umbrella organization representing nearly all of Canada's evangelical Christians, has urged Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy to follow the U.S. lead and take strong measures to end the slaughter of Christians and animists in southern Sudan. David Mann, a spokesman for Talisman, said his company will do everything it can to bring peace to Sudan, particularly in light of last month's Canadian government report that said wealth from Talisman is exacerbating Sudan's war.

Other religious organizations that plan to use their shares in Talisman to challenge its actions in Sudan include the 800,000-member United Church of Canada, the Scarboro Foreign Mission of the Catholic Church, the Task Force on the Churches and Corporate Responsibility, the Jesuits of Upper Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Sisters of Service, the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary of Quebec and the Ursuline Sisters of Ontario. Canadians own about 45 percent of Talisman stock; Americans have about 35 to 40 percent, with the balance held by Europeans. -RNS