Report 39 – Testimony about the inside of Lundin Oil’s base camp in Rubkona
This week the court heard testimony from three different plaintiffs: John Kuiy Tap, Both Guol Nyinyar and Kuol Ruai Kuol. The proceedings were characterised by short but intense testimonies as each plaintiff only had one day in court. John Kuiy Tap’s testimony was especially interesting since he talked about his time as an employee of Lundin Oil at the consortium’s basecamp in Rubkona. He claimed that, during his time as a security guard at the camp, he observed many contacts between the company and regime-allied militias. He saw both money and fuel change hands at the basecamp. John Kuiy Tap also testified to the court about an attack on the village of Ngopthoan in 2000 in which his family was displaced from their home village. Both Guol Nyinyar testified about an attack on his home village Kalthile by gunships. His recollection of gunships coming to attack a village once and then coming back soon after to attack again corroborated many other witness statements in this trial. The defence did not have any questions for Both Guol. Kuol Ruai Koul also testified about attacks by gunships on villages in Block 5A. His testimony mentioned the soldiers in the gunships being armed with rocket launchers or RPGs.
Hearing with John Kuiy Tap
On Tuesday the 19th of November, John Kuiy Tap testified via link from Kigali, Rwanda. The hearing started with a short introduction of John. John Kuiy Tap was born in 1976 in the village of Mareng in Rubkona County. During his childhood, his family moved to the village of Ngopthoan, close to Nhialdiu. John attended school up to year twelve and speaks Nuer, English, and a little Arabic. Like most of the other plaintiffs, John chose to testify in Nuer. The prosecutor leading the hearing was Ewamari Häggqvist.
John’s time as an employee of Lundin Oil
John’s first job for Lundin was at the oil rig of Jaryang where he was employed as a ’cleaning boy’ sometime in 2000. When asked what month specifically, John said that he might have started in March. This came up as a point of uncertainty later during the cross-examination. Alos during the defence’s cross-examination John described the circumstances for working for Lundin at this time as challenging. He said that the staff sometimes would work all day and then sleep on the ground outside the fence, only to show up at the gate again the next morning to continue the work without going home in between. On the 17th of July 2001, John was offered employment as a security guard at Lundin Oil’s base camp in Rubkona. He remembered the date very clearly since his oldest son was born the same day he signed his contract. At the base camp, John was stationed at one of the gates leading into the camp and his assignment was to let people in and out of the camp.
John described how all security, military, and militia personnel could come and go as they wished to the camp. It was only if anyone wanted to take something out of the camp that he as a guard had to check for an approval from the camp management. Through this assignment, he knew that regime-allied militias came to the camp to collect medicine, food, and money. For example, one specific person belonging to the SSIM militia, Suleyman Ben, often came to the base camp in Rubkona to collect resources for his militia. One day John saw Suleyman receiving a sack from the office of the base camp managers to bring out. When Suleyman passed by the gate, John could see that the sack was transparent and that in it was a large sum of money. John also explained that he knew the money was from the company and not the government since it came from the same office where he and the other employees would receive their salaries each month. Andrew Jagei described a very similar scenario in his testimony, which you can read about in Report 32.
When he talked about the operations at the base camp, John named several white Lundin employees: Richard Ramsay, Brent Dodd, a man called Ian, and another man called Jeff. To the defence, John later made clear that it was one of these men that needed to sign off on anyone taking anything out of the camp. He did not remember exactly who signed off during the incident with Suleyman Ben and the sack of money. John explained that he knew that the militias were using these resources to keep their operations running – and therefore also to attack villages like his own. John was very clear in his testimony that he believed that Lundin and the government were responsible for the work of the militias.
The attack on his home village
During the hearing, John made some contradictory statements about whether he was present when his home village Ngopthoan was attacked or if he had only heard about it later on from his family. Most of his statements were about what he had heard from his family, making it seem like he was not present during the attack and that he had already gone to work for Lundin by the time it happened.
What John had heard about the attack was that it was ground troops belonging to the SSUM and SSIM militias that attacked the village. During the attack, houses were burned, property looted, and cattle killed. Civilians fled from the village in all directions. The purpose of the attack, according to John, was that the Sudanese regime wanted to drive out the SPLA soldiers around the village. The prosecutor Ewamari Häggkvist tried several times to ask John whether there were SPLA soldiers present in the village at the time it was attacked but he only gave general answers about how the military and regime-allied militias were together working to displace all civilians from Koch in the south to Nhialdiu in the north – all to clear the land for the purpose of extracting oil. After the attack, his parents and the rest of his family moved in with him in Bentiu where he was living while he worked for Lundin Oil in Rubkona.
The contacts he had in Khartoum afterwards
During the hearing, the prosecutor was very concerned with finding out whether John had had any contact with Andrew Jagei, the other plaintiff who testified about working on the base in Rubkona and witnessing how the company supplied militias with resources. To this, John answered that they had never talked about the case. Firstly, they could not have done so because they didn’t know at the time that there would be a case, and then later on they were too scared of what would happen if they did.
John told the story about how he got to know about the trial: In 2017 he and his family had fled South Sudan to Khartoum in northern Sudan because of the civil war. In Khartoum, he was contacted by an old boss of his called Mohamed Ali. Mohamed told John that Andrew Jagei, a man named John Kang, and some others were suing the company., He said that Andrew Jagei was lying and asked John to support Lundin and become a witness for them in the trial, offering compensation if he did so. Mohamed also asked if he knew where Andrew and some of the other plaintiffs were because they wanted to find them. This made John scared that they would try to kill them to stop the trial. After this, he found the phone number of John Kang, who was safely in Kampala, and John Kuiy Tap warned him and Andrew to not go to Khartoum.
Two days after his warning to the other plaintiffs, John was arrested in Khartoum and brought to an unfamiliar place. The people there asked him a lot of questions, for example about what clan he belonged to. He was held there for a long time until he was released. John was very clear that he was not beaten or tortured during this incident. However, it was then that he realised that this trial would mean problems for him.
To the prosecutor’s last question about how this incident had affected John’s motivation to participate in the trial, he answered that it did, especially after he he talked to Mohamed Ali and learned he wanted them to be on their side. However, when he was an employee at the company, he had been beaten and badly treated. Why should he be with them then?
Cross-examination by the defence
Ian Lundin’s defence attorney Torgny Wetterberg led the cross-examination of John Kuiy Tap. The defence employed the same strategy as with the other plaintiffs: they brought up discrepancies between the police interview and the hearing and asked the plaintiff to comment on them. This time there were two discrepancies that they focused on most, both concerning the exact years and when the Lundin company was active in certain areas. During his testimony during the hearing, John said he didn’t start working for Lundin until 2001, but in the police interview, he said he was already working for them in 2000. To this, John said that what was written in the protocol from the interview might be wrong. John explained that he knew that Lundin Oil was drilling in Thar Jath as early as 2000, but that he himself did not start working for the company until 2001.
Another discrepancy was that John told the police that he started as a security guard in 2002, but to this John gave the same explanation. This was related to an issue that the defence and the prosecution are not in agreement on: whether Lundin Oil had any activity in the area in 2002. John firmly described that there was “full activity” in 2002.
Wetterberg then started asking a lot of questions about what John was doing during the South Sudanese civil war in 2013 and asked if he knows what the UPDF was. John said that he did not understand the relevance of the question. At one point, John dismissed one of Wetterberg’s questions in a way that prompted Judge Zander to remind him that he could choose to not answer a question, but he should not question them so much. When Wetterberg asked John if he was a soldier in the civil war, John said no. Wetterberg then showed pictures from John’s Facebook that showed him in a military uniform with a nameplate reading UPDF. He was also holding a big gun in the picture. John said that yes, it was him in the photo but denied being a soldier.
Testimony from Both Guol Nyinyar
On Wednesday the 20th of November, Both Goul Nyinyar testified to the court in Stockholm via video link from Kigali, Rwanda about his life in the area around Block 5A from the years 1997 to 2003. Most importantly, he told the court about an attack against his home village Kalthile by armed helicopter gunships in November of 1999. Compared to other plaintiffs, Both Guol’s testimony was a little bit shorter than usual.
Both Goul was born in the village Kalthile in 1982. His family lived peacefully in Kalthile, farming and tending to their cattle. He attended school in his home village for some time, but it wasn’t until after the war that he completed his education and learned to speak both English and Arabic. Both Goul grew up together with his parents and his siblings, and his father was village chief. Even though Both Goul was not physically present in the courtroom in Stockholm, one could still see that he gestured expansively with his hands as he spoke and that the volume of his voice varied with his feelings about the subject he was talking about.
Attack on Kalthile in 1999
Both Guol described to the court that by 1999, fighting had already been going on in the area of his home village for some time. One night in November in 1999, at about 7 p.m., gunships suddenly appeared in the sky above Kalthile. Both Guol remembered the month of the attack well as it had just started to get colder, and he remembered it was not very long before Christmas. Both Goul was bringing some calves into the luak, the house where the cattle was kept, for the night and his mother was sitting near him milking some other cows when they were surprised by the armed helicopters. Gunships often came flying low over the ground and were harder to spot as they did not make as much noise as the bomber planes.
Both Goul said the gunship dropped a bomb which killed his mother and injured him badly in the right leg. He passed out when he was hit with shrapnel from the bomb and did not remember anything until the next morning. Both Goul told the court that there was nothing left of his mother’s body after she was hit by the bomb. It took Both Goul a long time before his leg healed and he still today has a big scar. Pictures of his injuries were shown to the court at the beginning of the hearing with Both Guol.
The village was completely destroyed in the attack and everyone who had lived there was forced to flee. . Both Guol and his family fled to a village called Boi Tong where they lived for several years. In 2001 Both Guol’s father passed away and in 2003, Both Guol was forcibly taken to Khartoum by Arabs. The prosecution did not ask any follow up questions to any of these statements.
Further details about the attack
Both Goul described the gunship that attacked him and his mother in great detail. It had the same colour as a military uniform, meaning that it was camouflage coloured. It had propellers that sounded like wind blowing. The gunships were equipped with two kinds of weapons. On the wings there were big ’rocket’ weapons, and inside there were machine guns. It was possibly one of these rockets launched from the wings that hit Both Guol and his mother since he described that what injured his leg was sharp metal shrapnel and not bullets.
To the question of whether the SPLA was present in the area, Both Guol answered that yes, the SPLA was there. They had a base close to Nhialdiu, but they would live in the villages too, relying on food from civilians which they got by asking the village chiefs. SPLA rebels would also sleep in the villages with the civilians. Both Guol did not remember seeing any SPLA rebels in his village the day when they were attacked by gunships but there had been some fighting only one or two days before.
Since the defence did not have any questions for Both Guol, the hearing with him concluded early.
Clarity on circumstances between the prosecution and the defence
For some time now, the defence and the prosecution have been engaged in an ongoing disagreement about what activity Lundin Oil had in Block 5A in 2002.
On Tuesday 19 November, Judge Zander ordered the prosecution to answer the defence’s question of whether they attest to the fact that Lundin Oil did not have any actual drilling or seismic activity in the area after January 2002. On Wednesday 20 November, the prosecution replied with a statement saying that “the prosecution acknowledges that the drilling rig did not have time to be moved to Mala before operations were suspended in January 2002 and that thereafter until the end of March 2003 no drilling or seismic survey was carried out in Block 5A and that the rig was therefore not moved to Mala during that time.”
Hearing with Kuol Ruai Koul
On the day the last witness of this week, Kuol Ruai Kuol, was supposed to be heard in court, Stockholm was hit by a blizzard. Despite the snow laying thick on the ground the court proceedings still went on as normal in Courtroom 34.
Kuol Ruai Kuol testified about his experiences living in the area in and near Block 5A during the period 1997 to 2003. His home village of Buryan was attacked by gunships in 1999. In the attack, Kuol’s stepmother, stepsister, and grandfather were all killed. Kuol was also injured in his right leg. Prosecutor Martina Winslow led the hearing with Kuol.
Kuol Ruai Kuol was born in 1987. He lived in in the village Buryan where he also went to school up until the war started. Kuol later received a high school diploma in Kenya.
Attack by gunships in 1999
In 1999, Kuol’s home village Buryan was attacked by gunships. During the attack, Kuol was injured in his leg. He sustained the injury as he was running away from the attack. His leg was bleeding as he ran. When he couldn’t run anymore, his mother carried him. He was only 12 years old at the time. It took two whole years before his leg was healed. After they ran, they first arrived to Nhialdiu, hoping to seek shelter there. As they approached Nhialdiu, though, they saw that it had also been attacked. Nhialdiu was brutally attacked in 1999, as other plaintiffs have corroborated. Instead of going to Nhialdiu, they then headed back to Buryan and hid under some bushes a little farther away. This was when they realized that Kuol’s grandfather, stepsister, and stepmother had been killed. They had been shot inside their houses. However, it was unclear if Kuol and his family had seen this themselves or if they heard the news from other civilians in the area. Most of the cattle belonging to his family had also been killed. He said: “We lost everything, including our family”.
He also experienced those in the helicopters threw bomb-like objects. He was not alone in the observation that the gunships, as the attack helicopters used by the Sudanese military and allied militias were called, not only fired at the ground with firearms but also used bombs and shells against the villages they attacked. Juma Puok Gatkek also described this in his testimony, covered in report 37.
Kuol never actually saw the troops, but he heard the shots. He was outside the village when the shooting started. He was with a friend tending cattle and when they saw their family members come running from the village they started running too. This was when his leg was injured. After the attack, he never saw his friend again, and still to this day doesn’t know if he survived or not.
Kuol did not know which militia attacked his village, he only knew that they came from the east, from Nhialdiu, and that they wore uniforms. He got this information from his mother, however, as he never saw the troops himself since he was away from the village tending the cattle.
His father’s role
Kuol’s father was a soldier. He was not with them when the attack on their village happened. Kuol, saw his father arriving along with men in uniform and civilian clothes. In the hearing with the prosecutor. Kuol insisted that he didn’t know which group his father belonged to. His father talked a lot with the village chiefs. Later, upon being prompted, Kuol said that the chiefs only tried to see if everyone was okay and that they did not participate in the attacks in any way.
Contact with the case
In response to a question about how he got involved with the case, Kuol answered that he first learned of the case while he was living in Nairobi. He was a sort of leader of a South Sudanese community and felt he had a duty to his community to participate in the investigation and spread knowledge of the situation. His interview with the police in 2016 was carried out in English, Kuol claimed that he didn’t know English very well in 2016 and had asked for an interpreter, but his request was denied. The prosecutor asked Kuol if he had been threatened before participating in this trial. Kuol replied yes. Surprisingly, the prosecutor had no further questions about this and the hearing continued.
Cross-examination by the defence
Thomas Tendorf, Ian Lundin’s defence attorney, led the cross-examination of Kuol Ruai Kuol. As usual, the defence focused on discrepancies between the protocol from the plaintiff’s interview with the police and the hearing in court. One circumstance that was discussed a lot was whether an interpreter had been present during the police interview or not. According to the protocol, there was an interpreter present, but his assignment was just to sit in the background and clarify things in English if needed. Throughout the protocol, there was no indication of the interpreter speaking up anywhere. Kuol expressed his view that he felt the interpreter should have intervened more.
Thomas Tendorf pointed out a number of discrepancies between the transcript from the interview and Kuol’s testimony in court. For example, Kuol stated in his interview that the attack on Buryan happened in 1997 and not 1999. Kuol’s comment to this was that it was a miscommunication and that he meant 1999. Additionally, Tendorf asked a lot of questions about Kuol’s father and how it was possible that Kuol didn’t know which group he was working for. Kuol explained that in his culture it is not common for children to be close with their father. The only thing he knew as a child was that his father was a soldier and that he was far away. His father came home one time along with armed people, some in uniform and some in civilian clothing. According to Kuol, when you see people in uniforms and people in civilian clothing together, it meant that they were there to look after the interests of civilians.
After a while Johan Rainer, Alexandre Schneiter’s defence attorney, took over the hearing. He asked Kuol if it was correct that he didn’t know if his father was a part of SPLA or not, to which Kuol replied yes. Rainer then confronted Kuol with a part of the transcript from the police interview in which Kuol said that his father was a member of the SPLA. To this, Kuol responded that he did not deny that his father had been a soldier and that people in his community sometimes used the name SPLA for soldiers, but he did not know himself if his father was with them or not.
Next report
The next report will cover the testimony of some of the plaintiffs in the Lundin trial before the Court hears from Ian Lundin himself.
[EW1]His family was taking care of the wounded?
