Report 52: The testimony of John Harker and Paul Savage
During the week of 13 May 2025, the court heard testimony from two witnesses. The first was John Harker, a former special envoy for the Canadian Government who reviewed the Canadian oil company Talisman’s operations in the Heglig oil field and presented his findings in a report titled “Human Security in Sudan: The Report of a Canadian Assessment Mission.” Prior to his review of Talisman’s operations, he had previously reviewed Shell Oil’s operations in Nigeria. The second witness of the week was Paul Savage, who had worked and traveled in southern Sudan, including in Block 5A, and had contributed to Christian Aid’s “The Scorched Earth” report.
The prosecution’s questioning of John Harker
Following a brief introduction of the witness and his professional background, the prosecution inquired why John Harker had been specifically tasked with investigating the alleged link between oil prospecting and human rights violations. Harker replied that he suspected the reason was twofold. The first was due to pressure from civil society, which had been urging the Canadian government to report about the issues in Sudan. The second reason likely stemmed from an incident at a September 1999 UN Security Council meeting during which the Foreign Minister referred to the human rights situation in Sudan and how it was affected by oil and used the word “slavery.” This greatly angered the Sudanese Foreign Minister which led to a serious conversation that an assessment mission should be undertaken to ascertain whether these claims were true. Harker did not believe that UN Special Rapporteur Leonardo Franco’s report of 17 May 1999 and its allegations about the link between increased conflict and oil production played a role in the mission’s initiation as the mission was already in its early stages when Franco was in Sudan. Harker was, however, in contact with Franco while he was looking at the complex situation in Sudan and the effects of oil investment there.
Harker and his team, which included three human rights lawyers and an expert with extensive experience and knowledge of Sudan, spent about three weeks in Sudan and conducted visits to Khartoum, Nhialdiu, Nairobi, the UN base Lokichogio, Ruweng County, Mayong, Pariang and the oil fields. Harker testified that they went to many different places yet were unable to go to others without permission from the government. They chose the locations based on factors such as reports of displaced people coming from there. The reason they went to Nhialdiu was because the Foreign Minister wanted Harker to persuade Peter Gadet not to shoot Canadian Oil workers. Harker recalled that when he raised this with Gadet, Gadet responded that Harker was his prisoner. For Harker, this anecdote showed how complicated southern Sudan was to understand.
The delegation also met with the SPLM leader John Garang and the SPLM army leader Salva Kiir. They initially flew to the oil fields with Talisman who were particularly keen on showing them specific places such as the town of Pariang, where the company had invested in the development of a hospital. On one of these trips with Talisman, which took place shortly after serious fighting between the Sudanese army and the rebel groups, they met an officer who had been shot in the head and was in critical condition.
On another trip, while flying in the Talisman helicopter, they noticed heavy smoke. Although it was not uncommon for the local population to cut and burn bush at that time of the year, Harker had also seen reports about fires being generated by fighting related to the oil development and therefore asked the pilot to fly toward the smoke. However, also aboard the helicopter were two Talisman executives and an Arabic-speaking member of Sudan’s security organization, who instructed the pilot to turn away, which Harker noted was a telling moment for him.
Harker testified that from their observations it was clear to his delegation that that people had been forcefully displaced. He was then asked if he had any concerns regarding the credibility of the stories he heard as it was the community leaders – many of whom had connections to Gadet and other rebels – who helped the delegation get in touch with the people they interviewed. Harker said that while he had conversations with key leaders, it was the three human rights lawyers with experience working on serious human rights violations who spoke to the interviewees and who took seriously their responsibilities to assess the credibility of the information they collected. He further explained that while it was possible that the stories were fabricated, the delegation handled the debris and remains of aerial bombardments in many of the places they visited. Moreover, the Antonov bomber crews were required to list their mission targets, so Harker’s delegation was able to compare the towns they visited with the ones listed as targets by Sudanese forces and thereby check whether a town that was reported to have been bombed by the government had in fact been bombed. While he described the war in Sudan as “a very complicated matter [that] could not be easily described in one or two ways,” he felt that the delegation “visited places that mattered and met people with real stories to tell.” He did not believe that they had been fed stories.
When asked if he had any concerns that their interpreter had connections to Peter Gadet, he admitted that it was true that the delegation had had no choice but to trust the interpreter’s words. However, a key Operation Lifeline Sudan official knew the interpreter well enough and spoke enough Nuer to tell Harker that the interpreter had interpreted “uncomfortably but capably.” Harker testified that he did not feel that they were being misled, either at the time or on a later occasion when he alone met the interpreter. He told the prosecution that the interpreter in question had interpreted for the three human rights lawyers who interviewed civilians on some occasions, but not on others, such as in Nhialdiu.
In his report, Harker wrote that the regime’s Antonov planes and helicopter gunships were based in and flew from Heglig oil field – Talisman’s oil field. When asked about his sources, Harker said that the information was provided by the mechanic who flew and serviced the helicopter that Talisman lent them and was later corroborated by Talisman’s CEO, Jim Buckee, who also told him that the planes and gunships were moved from Heglig when Harker’s arrival there became imminent. Harker further wrote in his report that “while it is clear to us that ordinary people in the south, even their leaders, can confuse Talisman, which operates north of the Bahr el Arab and Bahr el Ghazal rivers, with other oil companies such as IPC [Lundin Oil], which holds the concession known as 5A around which wars rage.”
Harker was asked what significance the stories they collected from people from Blocks 5A and 5B, both belonging to Lundin Oil, had for his report as he was investigating Talisman’s operations. Harker responded that while his focus area was Talisman, the mission stemmed from the foreign ministry and was aimed at investigating the conflict in southern Sudan. To exemplify this, he pointed to the fact that the question of slavery in Sudan was specifically included in the report. They did talk to a consultant representing Lundin Oil, but did not learn anything significant from that meeting. They did not gather a lot of information from Block 5A and as such their focus was on Talisman.
The prosecution asked if he saw any differences between the situations in Heglig and Lundin’s Block 5A. Harker stated that the stories from the areas were the same, the difference was that the oil operation in Block 5A had shut down, while that was not the case with Talisman’s operations. He did not, however, spend much time investigating Block 5A, but rather looked at the conflict as a whole.
The prosecution noted that part of the mission’s assignment was to look more closely at the allegations the UN Special Rapporteur Leonardo Franco made in his report, and asked Harker about his conclusions regarding Franco’s claims. He replied that it was clear that Franco was onto something, but Harker was not fully satisfied by Franco’s diagnosis of the situation. This made Harker feel that his own team needed to visit Ruweng County beyond Pariang, to add to Franco’s reporting. However, Harker emphasized that he was not in any way disavowing Franco’s perspective in doing so, and that his team found nothing to suggest that Franco had deliberately withheld information in his report.
The prosecution concluded its questioning by asking if Harker today had reason to believe that any conclusions he had drawn in his report had proved to be incorrect. Harker responded that the conflict and situation in Sudan was a multifaceted and complex issue and that his team may not have acquired the full picture. He testified, however, that while they may not have gotten a complete picture of the situation, there was no conclusion he drew then that was incorrect.
Questioning by the plaintiffs’ attorneys
The plaintiffs’ attorney, Percy Bratt, began by stating that there was an implicit conflict between the oil companies’ commercial interests and respect for human rights. His question, therefore, was how realistic it was to expect that oil companies like Talisman and Lundin, who relied on the Sudanese regime to protect their operations, would make demands on the regime to respect human rights. Harker responded that, in his limited experience, it is never easy to arrive at an understanding where constructive business leaders and diverse community voices come together and identify a path forward that is both achievable and mutually beneficial. Every case, therefore, has to be examined on its own merits as too few are trying to combine their interests and others in an effort to “do the right thing.” When asked to specify if there was a concrete possibility for the oil companies to influence the Khartoum regime, Harker testified that while Talisman’s officials seemed to be good people, they were not going to risk being perceived as difficult by the government.
The defense’s cross-examination of John Harker
The Lundin defense questioned Harker about the background of his mission and specifically about its purpose. Harker explained that the purpose was to examine the claims made by civil society voicing concerns about increasing reports of forced displacement due to the oil industry, and to ensure that the oil companies’ actions would not result in slavery or further harm to local communities. The defense inquired further as to whether an additional purpose was to negotiate regarding Canadian oil workers. Harker replied that this was a sudden and additional request that he received right before he was due to leave Sudan, after having mentioned to Tito Biel that it would be detrimental to all if Canadian oil workers in conflict areas were attacked. Harker was then asked to speak to Peter Gadet about avoiding harm to Canadian oil workers. Asked if his meeting with Gadet took place in September 1999 due to the accusations by the civil society and whether the U.S. government had put any pressure on the Canadian government prior to the assessment mission, Harker replied that he was not aware of any such pressure. While many American NGOs were demanding that their government take a strong interest in slavery in Sudan, as far as Harker knew they did not associate it with oil company activities.
Harker was further questioned about his meeting with Gadet: if it was true that nearly 200 heavily armed soldiers were present at the meeting, why that was the case, and if Gadet had been described as a psychopathic killer. Harker responded that there were so many soldiers because they met at Gadet’s base of operations, Nhialdiu. He said that it was imposing as the previous week Gadet had killed a person who went to negotiate an alliance with him. When asked if Gadet or his soldiers had mentioned any attacks they had carried out against government forces, Harker responded that they had not and that the sole focus of the meeting was on removing the Canadian presence in Sudan.
The defense asked if he had ever met UN Special Rapporteur Leonardo Franco and what Franco had told him about displacement in Ruweng County. Harker stated that they had never met physically, but that they had a phone conversation in which Franco had told him that it was necessary for someone to gather evidence of displacement as there was much evidence available. Franco had further stated that much of the displacement was due to military actions being facilitated by roads developed for or by the government.
The defense proceeded to ask Harker about a deposition in which he had stated that he did not believe that the Sudanese regime and Talisman had a strategy to rape and violate the population to extract oil. Harker agreed and stated that the information he had received was about a joint strategy to execute torture, rape, or displace non-Muslim Sudanese people. When asked why Canada did not take any actions against Talisman following his report, he replied that he did not know but imagined that in politics and democracy there were many considerations that had to be taken into account.
Alexandre Schneiter’s defense attorney, Olle Kullinger, asked Harker about various reports written on oil extraction in Sudan and the impact on civilians, as well as about claims made by the Christian organisations Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Safe Harbour about large-scale abductions and abuses. Harker recalled that he did not think that their information was very serious and that he was concerned that they were playing a game that his delegation did not appreciate. Asked if he was aware that Christian Solidarity Worldwide supported the SPLA, he responded that he did not. The defense stated that some of Franco’s information came from Christian Solidarity, and he claimed to have quoted them in his report. Harker said that Franco mentioned that, and that his team believed the situation to be serious but were cautious about accepting Christian Solidarity’s views without closer scrutiny.
Asked whether he followed Canadian media reporting on Sudan during his trip, Harker said that he did not recall doing so because he was totally focused on the task at hand. When he got back to Canada, he read whatever he could, but during the trip, he was not being briefed on the situation, although occasionally they may have gotten information from the attached diplomats about issues of interest to the minister. The defense then referred to a November 1999 article in the National Post quoting Ed Cornwell, a pastor associated with Safe Harbour, referring to attacks and forced displacement in Biem. Kullinger asked if this article was why Harker’s delegation wanted to go to Biem. Harker replied that no one had told him about the article and that the activities of Christian fundamentalists, often backed by the US, had no bearing on what he and his team did. The defense noted Ed Cornwell and Safe Harbour had arranged a number of these so-called “media trips” to various areas, including to meet Peter Gadet so that Gadet could show them what civilians had suffered, and asked Harker for his comments on the fact that Cornwell had been in the same area shortly before Harker’s team visited. Harker replied that this was the first he had heard of it, and that it did not invalidate anything his team perceived or concluded. They did not think that their reporting needed buttressing by “outlandish claims” made by groups of questionable credibility. There was no connection between his delegation and Christian fundamentalist groups.
Kullinger asked if it was a problem that the UN organized the delegation’s travel to SPLA-controlled areas as the rebels denied them access to several locations. Harker responded that it was a problem, which was why he refused to leave Lokichogio as planned, and stayed until the delegation got its way. The defense asked if they wanted to visit Ruweng County because of Franco’s reports, to which Harker said it was. He was asked about the reasons he visited other locations, including the village of Biem, which Franco had not mentioned. Harker’s recollection was that UN officials suggested visiting the area to see if there was any further evidence supporting Franco’s reports. The delegation wanted to see it with their own eyes.
The initiative to go to Biem came from Harker and the SPLA initially didn’t want the delegation to visit Ruweng County – it was only after Salva Kiir, the SPLA army leader, intervened that they were permitted to travel there. The discussion about where the delegation should go took place in Nairobi and this external interference pushed Harker to insist on conducting the visit. Harker stressed that he was glad to have the chance to negotiate with Kiir and glad that his negotiation strategy was successful, with Kiir agreeing to let Harker carry out his plans. Claims that others had influenced the decision to go there were not true. Kullinger further noted that John Garang was involved in setting up the contact with Salva Kiir. He summarized the sequence of events that led to Harker’s delegation being permitted to carry out the trip: “So first the SPLA says no, then the SPLA’s highest leader intervenes and, in the end, allows you to go to Ruweng County.” This led up to Kullinger’s big question: “So if there really had been a giant 10-day offensive – 6000 houses burned, 17 churches burned – why in the world wouldn’t the SPLA want you to go there? There must have been so much evidence there.” Harker replied that they never assumed that an event of such a scale had occurred but also felt that they had to go look for themselves to be credible. As to why the SPLA acted as they did, he said that he had no idea, adding that he was determined to go there, he got his way, and he was glad he did.
The defense inquired further about the visit to Biem and the delegation’s report that they saw four or five burnt tukuls as well as tukuls that were not burnt and their conclusion that anyone could have burned these tukuls. Harker explained that they did not want to draw quick conclusions and could not therefore say who had burned the tukuls or when. They concluded that they could have been burned down before Franco reported on it, or it could have been done afterwards. It was impossible for the delegation to know either way, so they did not make any claims.
Paul Savage’s testimony
The second witness of the week was Paul Savage, who worked as a priest in southern Sudan in the mid-1990s, then worked for Christian Aid where he was involved in writing the report “Hiding Between the Streams.” He visited areas within Block 5A multiple times during the years in question.
With Ewa Korpi leading the prosecution’s questioning, the hearing began with Paul Savage describing his educational and professional background. After working as a missionary in Kenya, he became ordained as a priest in England and returned to eastern Africa, ultimately working for a diocese in Sudan in 1995. However, he lost his faith and felt he could no longer continue working as a priest with integrity, so he returned to England in 1998 and completed a master’s degree. Part of his research involved the famine in Sudan and the government’s denial of aid. In 2000, he began working as a programme manager for Christian Aid, based in Nairobi but frequently traveling in southern Sudan. This was his first experience with oil in Sudan.
Here, Savage stressed that he joined Christian Aid as a non-believer, and that the organization did not proselytize or carry out evangelical activities, unlike many other Christian organisations that had more of a missionary focus, and they had Muslim employees. Christian Aid worked by redirecting funds to local churches and grassroots organisations and supported the New Sudan Council of Churches as well as women’s and children’s groups. Around the year 2000, the organization began working with more secular assistance and rule of law work, supporting the judiciary and prosecution authorities.
Savage also explained that Christian Aid was not part of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), the UN agreement with Khartoum and the SPLA, because they did not want to limit the reach of their operations. However, they were often still dependent on the OLS system to access certain locations and get information about approved travel areas. As a non-OLS organization though, they were lowest on the list to get on flights. Outside of OLS, the alternative to access southern Sudan was to pay private companies for your own flight, which is what Savage did for his trips into the field. This meant he could operate independently of both the Sudanese regime and the SPLA. He also described the role of the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA), which the SPLM set up to oversee relief and rehabilitation efforts within the areas they controlled. In order to access any part of southern Sudan, one needed to obtain a pass from the SRRA and inform the SRRA of travel plans. Sometimes the SSRA would also join field trips, especially those to the oil areas, though more to generally oversee the visit rather than to monitor activities. Savage explained that while Christian Aid needed to cooperate with the SRRA, they did not finance the SRRA or consider them a partner.
After hearing stories from John Sudan, a Presbyterian minister from Western Upper Nile, about the terrible situation and dire need for humanitarian aid in his area, Savage organized a visit to Mankien. John Sudan had told him that people living in Western Upper Nile were being cleared out and villages attacked, and that the Sudanese regime had denied access to provide emergency aid. Savage wanted to go there himself to confirm these reports. He invited several journalists along, including the BBC’s Africa correspondent, and paid the private company to fly them into the area. He testified that at the time, he knew very little about oil issues in Sudan – his work until then had been in a different region and church-related, and his main concern was humanitarian aid.
During the trip to Mankien, Savage’s task was to oversee the provision of humanitarian relief, and he worked with the chief to ensure that distribution was fair. The journalists who had accompanied him did their own thing – walking long distances gathering information, interviewing people, and writing articles or reports. They were accompanied by security from the SPLA and SRRA. Savage did not go with them, and although he did talk informally with the people he met, he did not conduct any formal interviews – his focus was on coordinating the relief situation. John Sudan was also there helping with the distribution. Asked whether his own observations on site matched what John Sudan had told him, Savage said that it was clear that people were in need and that they had been deprived of food aid and basic needs for months. However, the fighting seemed to be north of Mankien and he did not see any signs of land clearing or burning, which he did see later in Nhialdiu. Later, back in Lokichogio, the Sudanese government never explained why they had denied access to the area, but Western Upper Nile was always off-limits.
The prosecution continued by asking about Savage’s subsequent trips, the first of which was to Nhialdiu in May 2000, together with the British journalist Julie Flint, to investigate reports of attacks in the area and deliver humanitarian relief. Savage recalled that Nhialdiu had been burned. The only remaining physical structure was a medical building – all the other huts had been burned, and traders were rebuilding the marketplace, which had also been burned. Savage noted that they had flown over areas that had been burned for agricultural purposes, but that people did not usually burn their own villages. This was something else. Nhialdiu at one point was a base for Peter Gadet, but Savage did not know if this was the reason why it had been attacked.
As with the trip to Mankien, Savage’s role in Nhialdiu was to oversee the aid distribution while Julie Flint was the main interviewer. While Savage was often present during her interviews, he did not conduct any himself. Later, he submitted an internal report with his own observations and photographs to Christian Aid, parts of which were included in the Scorched Earth report. The internal report had also been submitted to the court as evidence. Some of the civilians Flint interviewed said that had fled to Nhialdiu because of threats and violence in their home villages. He testified that it was the villagers themselves who connected the violence to oil – who linked the oil to the reason Nhialdiu had been attacked. The SPLA was present, but they did not bother the relief efforts – they were happy to receive the aid.
Savage and Flint returned to Nhialdiu later that year in November. The prosecution displayed Savage’s report and its photographs on the courtroom screens, with Savage pointing out various details. Asked if the civilians knew that Savage was coming to the village, he said that he didn’t remember but that since they landed without any problems, they might have. The prosecution noted that the report itself said that they told the villagers they had come to Nhialdiu to gather information on the oil wars.
Over time, questions about the impact of oil on the conflict had grown and Christian Aid hired Julie Flint to investigate and report on the situation. Savage’s role as the humanitarian aid coordinator was more to manage the logistical issues to ensure that Flint could carry out her interviews and to deliver the assistance appropriately. In Nhialdiu, they walked around talking to people, gathering stories and trying to understand what people had experienced. John Sudan was often their translator, but sometimes others would help if they spoke English well enough.
The report also recounted a long walk to Rupnyegeai, a village along the river west of Bentiu that had been the site of clashes between the Sudanese army forces and the SPLA in November 1999. However, Savage was unable to recall the details the report described about villages along the river being burned and destroyed by Antonov bombings and attacks by government soldiers against the villagers. He explained that such trips were very tiring. After talking and listening to so many people, the impression he got was that their stories were authentic and emotional, that they had really gone through what they described. It was up to chance whom they spoke with – it was who they happened to run into, and he pointed out that ordinary people usually do not have the time or ability to prepare a story. Afterwards, though, he would be completely drained.
Throughout this line of questioning, Savage had difficulty distinguishing between the two trips, which became a point of issue as his report did not describe Nhialdiu as being as destroyed as he had described. One excerpt, which the courtroom translator read aloud, was about the market and prices of goods, but did not mention anything about it having been burned down, while Savage had previously said that it was being rebuilt. He thought perhaps it was a description from the second trip, but the prosecutor reminded him that he said he had written the report right after the first trip in May. The prosecution also showed a clip from Julie Flint’s film “Dying for Oil” which included scenes from the various field trips. Savage himself is featured talking about civilians being forcibly displaced because of the oil and how a market once stood there. Asked now if he knew when the film clip about the market had been recorded, he responded that it was from the first trip, saying that he recalled seeing the burned buildings as soon as he got off the plane and that he remembered that it was cloudy and there were children going through the burned huts collecting wood.
Unfortunately, this answer also proved unsatisfactory for the prosecution, who noted that Savage had said something different during his police interview. The interview transcript showed that he told police investigators that the film was from November 2000. Savage could only say “Everything happened when it happened,” and that he could not swear to which trip it was. He believed that everything with burnt huts was from the first trip in May and the images with tukuls and built fences looked like the second trip. He recalled that it had been overcast and cloudy the first time and sunny the second. Either way, whichever trip it was, he said, he wanted to emphasize that he believed the stories they heard were genuine and they reported what they heard from the people with whom they spoke. He added that he had told the prosecutors when he sent them the photographs that he did not know exactly when they were taken.
A further complication was that Savage had also told the police that an attack had occurred in June and that they went to Nhialdiu to investigate the attack. In his police interview, he only talked about a single trip to Nhialdiu, whereas in court and in his reports, he described two separate trips to the village. Ewa Korpi asked once again how certain he was about what he had told the court – that what he had described happened in May 2000 and not November. He replied that he was not sure. The report was written in May so it must be May. What he could recall was the weather – that they unloaded the plane while it was overcast and saw the burnt village. And he remembered and stood by the stories he heard and what he saw. He added that Julie Flint had done her thing and he did his. He didn’t know he was being filmed, and he never asked her about what she published after the trips. His focus was on delivering humanitarian aid.
The final part of the prosecution’s questioning addressed Savage’s role in the Scorched Earth report and his additional trips. He had arranged the various trips into the field, to Mankien, Nhialdiu, Tam, among others, during which the testimonials that were used in the report were collected, and that others including Julie Flint contributed, but that he himself did not write any part of the report, which was drafted in London. All he could speak to was where he went and what he saw.
He also briefly described a trip with Julie Flint where they met Peter Gadet. When they got off the flight, they were met by a group of 1 500 soldiers, which they hadn’t expected. Savage accompanied Flint to interview Gadet about why he had switched sides and what he knew about oil.
Savage also led a trip in March 2002 that was the basis of the subsequent report “Hiding Between the Streams.” This trip included Diane de Guzman, John Sudan, Nils Carstensen from DanChurch Aid, a woman called Marianne, and someone from the SSRA. They traveled to Wichok after hearing that forcibly displaced civilians had fled there, and upon arrival found that Peter Gadet was also there. He sent a few soldiers with them for protection but seemed otherwise uninterested in them. Walking around one morning they heard artillery fire, which he speculated may have been the reason for Gadet’s lack of interest. Savage recalled that it was Good Friday. They walked around looking for displaced civilians, wading across streams with water up to their necks. After crossing several streams, they came across a large group of people who had been displaced. He recalled that they sat in a hut and explained that they had come to assess the situation and the people’s needs and to gather their stories. The people told them that they felt safe in the area between the streams because the horsemen could not reach them there. It was clear that they were surprised to see a group of white people show up in the middle of nowhere. Their sudden appearance, however, reinforced for Savage the credibility of the stories they were told there. “They were not expecting us […] we turned up out of the blue.” They had no opportunity to prepare a story or decide what to say.
Once they started interviewing people, the stories were all similar – everyone described having fled attacks. The image of a young boy on the cover of the final report was chosen because the boy’s story was so powerful: he had fled with his friend into the streams as the helicopter gunships approached their village. While he made it to the safety of the water, his friend was shot and killed. Savage described hearing the boy’s story – how it was raw and real and everyone who heard it believed it. There was no way the boy could have been primed to tell it. Savage explained that he felt more skeptical when interviewing educated people like chiefs and SRRA members, who sometimes had an agenda, but as to the stories they heard from ordinary people, he said “I’m here today to tell their stories and give credence to their stories.” He added that he was not there to defend Scorched Earth or the other reports, but that he would always defend the people and their stories. “They are raw, real stories and I believe them.”
Asked how many displaced people he encountered while moving between locations, he said it was difficult to say. Whatever they estimated, the SRRA would say it was higher, though they did not believe them. They estimated between 50,000 and 75,000, though it was hard to say exactly. However, the people he talked to came from different villages – they were not all coming from the same location, but they described similar experiences. He believed in their authenticity. They talked to people who were not expecting to be interviewed. Savage said that he could not understand why anyone would want to discredit those stories.
In response to the prosecution’s final questions, Savage told the court that the limited airstrip in the area, which had prevented humanitarian aid from reaching the villages, had in the end been extended after his report on the situation. The community themselves extended it to enable relief planes to land there, and several weeks after Savage’s visit, relief was flown in. It took some time because they had to clear the airstrip, send notice to Christian Aid, and then Christian Aid had to raise money and organize the delivery. Savage, however, was not part of the relief mission: although he was involved in fundraising and budgeting for the effort, they gave the UN and other organisations the coordinates and necessary information to carry out the delivery. Asked if he was aware of subsequent reports that the people who delivered the aid had had to flee from an attack on the site shortly after the delivery, he said no.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys questioned Savage briefly, eliciting further details on his trips into the field and how the interview subjects were chosen. Savage again stated that the stories they heard were consistent, with people consistently describing Antonov bombings, helicopter gunships, and armed horsemen chasing them and burning villages. While not all the people they spoke to had necessarily experienced all of this, there was a consistency across the stories.
The defense’s cross-examination of Paul Savage
Alexandre Schneiter’s defense, led by Per Samuelsson, began its cross-examination by asking Savage if he had ever been on the road from Rubkhona to Thar Jath. He had not, nor had he ever flown over it. Samuelsson proceeded to go through a series of villages, asking Savage if he had been to them. While he had been to some villages in Block 5A, he had not visited most of the places the defense named. Nor had he had contact with any representatives of Lundin Oil or the government of Sudan. All his travels had been into SPLA-controlled areas. He had never witnessed any warfare. In fact, the defense pointed out, the only source of information he had about what had happened was from people telling him what had happened.
Savage again explained why he believed the stories he had heard, saying that over time, one learns how to filter information from others that helps assess the credibility of that information. He repeated that he was less skeptical of information he heard from ordinary people, whose stories were much more raw and real, than that from more educated people who had access to outside news and knew that NGOs sometimes had an agenda that they could influence.
Through further questioning, Savage explained how on the field trips they found people to interview and how the interviews were conducted. While it was not usually possible to follow up with interviewees after they had left, unless they bumped into each other again by coincidence, he did try to check and investigate reports he received of human rights abuses. The trips to Mankien and Nhialdiu were examples of this: he had gone to those places to confirm if the stories he had heard about displacement were true.
The defense asked about the eight-year-old boy featured on the cover of the report and how they found and interviewed him. The boy had said that the clashes he witnessed happened in February 2002. The defense questioned whether a young boy would know dates and months, noting that many Nuer people had been heard in court and often spoke about wet and dry seasons. Savage replied simply: “That’s what he said. Nuer know the months, they have a planting season, and they know the months. Whether an eight-year-old boy knows them, I can’t say, but that was his testimony.” The boy had also specifically mentioned Antonov planes and government soldiers, which the defense also questioned, asking whether Savage believed that an eight-year-old would know different aircraft models and types of soldiers. Savage said yes – Antonovs were common in south Sudan and had a distinct noise. Everyone knew them and could distinguish between C-130 planes that flew in relief supplies and Antonovs. Savage specifically clarified that children in southern Sudan would know the sound of an Antonov plane and would also know that they were called Antonovs because that was what people called the government planes that bombed. It was the only plane that they used to bomb. “Everybody knew in south Sudan that the government used Antonovs to bomb and they recognized the sound of the plane, and I would have thought an eight-year-old would have experienced the sound of that plane and his parents or community reacting to the sound fo that plane being potentially a government plane that would bomb […]. Everyone, including him I would suspect, knew the sound of an Antonov flying overhead in distinction to other kinds of aeroplane.” As for distinguishing between troops, Savage speculated that the boy would likely know if the troops were coming to help his people or attack them.
In the defense’s next line of questioning, Samuelsson asked Savage if he knew about Lundin Oil’s operations in early 2002 and that they demanded peace through peaceful means in order to resume work. Savage replied that he had no clue at the time what the company was doing. They inquired about what he had seen – if he had seen burned areas and bomb craters. In his 2019 police interview, Savage said that he had been shown what villagers claimed to be bomb craters but that he thought that while it was clear they had been attacked, it looked more like the destruction was caused by people on the ground rather than by planes.
The defense also asked about Savage’s meeting with Peter Gadet. Savage could not recall which village the meeting took place in and said it must have been either Julie Flint or Christian Aid who set it up. Here, the defense displayed a series of photographs that Savage had taken during the visit and went through them, with Savage describing what they showed. Some were of Gadet himself, while others showed groups of soldiers, both uniformed and in civilian clothing; Flint and their Kenyan cameraman; and weapons.
Savage recalled that the mood was fine, Gadet was expecting them, and they greeted him by shaking hands (“it’s Africa, you shake hands”). He did not remember having any particular feelings about Gadet – Savage was there to facilitate Julie Flint’s interview, and his initial reaction was “Blimey, look at the number of soldiers here, let’s see what happens.” Another photograph showed Flint interviewing Gadet under a tree, with John Sudan interpreting. Asked if there was an element of propaganda in what Gadet told them, Savage replied, “Always. He’s a commander in the SPLA, of course he’s going to give us propaganda – or his perspective, it depends how you interpret propaganda, but everybody talks with an agenda […]. He’s not going to tell us he’s a war criminal.”
The defense later took issue with Flint’s interview with Michael Chian, a former oil company security guard Savage and Flint met during the visit with Peter Gadet. They played a clip from the interview, which had been aired during a Swedish television program in March 2001, pointing out that Chian, who spoke critically of the oil industry, was shown wearing civilian clothing in the interview and Flint did not inform viewers that he was in fact a high-ranking officer in Gadet’s army. Asked why this was, Savage responded that he did not know and that only Flint could explain it. The defense stressed that the interview was broadcast on one of Sweden’s biggest news programs and triggered an intensive media campaign against Lundin AB. Did Savage think it was fair that the public had not been informed about Chian being a high-ranking SPLA officer and, moreover, a person with authority and part of Peter Gadet’s inner clique? Savage said only that he was not involved in the film production and was not responsible for it. Christian Aid hired and paid Flint for the film; he was only there to get her in and out of the locations, not to control what she did.
This led to questioning about Christian Aid as an organisation. Since having testified otherwise the previous day, Savage said that he now recalled that they may have given small grants to the SRRA’s office in Nairobi. Christian Aid had done so over several years and described the SRRA office as a local partner. He also acknowledged that the SRRA was close to the SPLA’s senior management and that the lines between the SRRA, SPLM, and SPLA were often blurred and there was clearly some overlap.
The defense asked Savage whether he had met various people, including John Garang (yes) and Salva Kiir (no), and his contact with other NGO organisations outside of OLS, such as Danish Church Aid and Norwegian People’s Aid. They also inquired further about John Sudan and where he got the information he passed on to Savage, suggesting that it was from the SRRA radio. Savage clarified that the SRRA often allowed others to use their radio, so it was possible that John Sudan had been talking to other locals and getting information from the field. Savage was not aware that John Sudan was one of the parties who sued Talisman in New York.
The defense also had questions about Julie Flint and her neutrality vis-à-vis the SPLA. Savage said that she was at times very critical of them “like many of us – we were pro-south but not necessarily pro SPLA.” She believed in their cause of self-determination and while she was close to Yousif Kuwa, the SPLA commander in the Nuba Mountains, she had less respect for John Garang and Riek Machar and had had a dispute with Peter Gadet because of his actions. “We all walked this fine line between […] believing in the southern cause but knowing that the SPLA was not the nicest bunch of guys.” Savage clarified that Flint knew Yousif Kuwa, but he did not believe she knew the other SPLA leaders closely.
Savage and Flint’s trip to the Nuba Mountains was also a topic of the defense’s questioning, as well as Christian Aid’s connections with the SPLA leadership there. Savage explained that Christian Aid had a partner in the area, but it was difficult to get into Nuba because it was in the north and to get there, it was vital for them to have good contacts with the SPLA. The SPLA accompanied them for protection. It was dangerous territory – “there was no games in the Nuba.” They had to rely on the SPLA to bring in relief to the Nuba people.
The defense asked about the Scorched Earth report and certain quotes it contained, although Savage did not know who the source was. He said that he could defend his parts of the report but could not vouch for everything in it. He knew what he had seen and done but could not speak to what others saw and did, and he was not involved in Christian Aid’s research on Talisman and Lundin. Asked whether the report painted a worst-case scenario, Savage acknowledged that on the whole, advocacy documents can lean in certain directions.
The defense asked additional questions about the field trips and the Hiding Between the Streams report, as well as whether John Sudan sympathized with Peter Gadet. Savage explained the complexities of being pro-south and self-determination and how this was intertwined with being pro-SPLA. The defense also noted further connections between the SRRA and SPLA, with the SRRA director being a former high-ranking SPLA military advisor. Savage, however, was not surprised to hear this, noting another instance of this and reiterating that there was a grey area between the SPLA and SRRA.
They also asked about claims, repeated in a report, that the Sudanese regime used biological chemical weapons, though Savage dismissed the claims as hyperbolical false allegations that were also rebutted in the report itself. The defense noted that one of the people who made such a claim was Mathew Mattiang, one of the plaintiffs in the trial. Savage explained again that on the ground, one learned to distinguish between the statements made by ordinary people and those made by more educated people and chiefs who had a better understanding of how to play the international agenda.
The last part of the cross-examination, conducted by Olle Kullinger, again dealt with Julie Flint’s assignment with Christian Aid to investigate the role of oil in the conflict. Asked whether they had checked if she had any conflicts of interest in taking the assignment, Savage again stressed that Christian Aid headquarters was responsible for contracting her. Kullinger noted that Flint had been close to SPLA leader Yousif Kuwa and that Kuwa had died in England. Savage said that Flint had helped him in that process. Kullinger also mentioned a report that Flint had helped Kuwa charter a plane that flew ammunition into the Nuba Mountains and asked if Christian Aid would have hired her had they known about this. Savage replied simply that he had no idea what HQ would have done, adding that it was a serious financial commitment to hire a plane to fly into the Nuba Mountains. Kullinger asked again about Flint helping Kuwa. Savage said he knew only that they were close – they were friends, and she liked and greatly respected him. Whether she had helped him with money or other support, they would have to ask her. Kuwa had been a teacher before he was an SPLA commander and was reportedly almost forced to become a military commander. Savage recounted Flint’s story of when the Nuba decided to join the SPLA, Kuwa gave the people the choice of whether to leave or to stay and fight and let them decide. She had great respect for his belief in education, and he was “quite democratic” as a military leader. Savage noted that this was all second-hand information he had gotten from Flint but added that one should be careful not to demonize someone just for being an SPLA commander: “It’s too binary and too simplistic to demonize everyone just because they are fighting in a rebel cause.”
Here, Kullinger displayed an excerpt from the journalist Bengt Nilsson’s book “Lundin Oil, Truth and South Sudan” which quoted an SPLA official who claimed that Julie Flint was Yousif Kuwa’s lover. Asked if he knew whether Flint and Kuwa had had such a relationship, Savage said no – saying firmly that this was a question for Flint and that she would be there under oath so they could ask her directly. Kullinger noted further that Julie Flint contributed a lot to the Scorched Earth report, which was published two weeks before Yousif Kuwa died. He asked whether this could have affected Flint’s work on the report. “Separate issues,” was all Savage said in response.
The defense’s final questions were about Derek Hammond, who had traveled with Julie Flint. Savage did not know Hammond but had heard about him from Flint, who called him “a wacky extreme Christian.” Savage said that they did not get along – Flint told him that she and Hammond had had a falling out during their trip and Hammond left her stranded in an unfamiliar part of southern Sudan and she had to “run around trying to find someone” to take her back. Sitting in Courtroom 34 recalling Flint’s story, Savage laughed, adding “It’s quite a colorful story, she’ll tell you that one. It’ll brighten up the afternoon.” Kullinger’s last question was whether Savage saw a problem with using a person like Derek Hammond as a major source in the report, even if Savage himself wasn’t responsible for the report. Savage replied simply, “Yes, I do. I think he had an agenda and yes, I think there is a problem using him.”
With that, Paul Savage’s testimony concluded. Judge Zander thanked him and the ensuing discussion about Savage’s travel expenses was a lighthearted end to his two days in court.
