Report 60 – Testimonies of Nilsson, Koblanck & Cantwell
The testimony of Bengt G. Nilsson
The seats in the gallery of Courtroom 34 were full on Tuesday in anticipation of Bengt Nilsson’s testimony. Nilsson is the journalist with the most trips to Sudan during this conflict under his belt, having been there prior to the eruption of the civil war in 1983 as well as travelling twice during the relevant period to report on the conflict.
Judge Thomas Zander opened the hearing by presenting the themes Nilsson’s testimony would address, including his professional background, his two trips to Sudan, and his media presence in relation to the conflict.
The hearing commenced with Ewa Korpi, the prosecutor leading the examination in chief, asking Nilsson to describe his background. He told the court that he got a job as a journalist in 1980. As the civil war in Sudan erupted, he pushed hard for an opportunity to report on what he called the “forgotten war”. Nilsson explained that he loved Sudan and that the country and its culture lay close to his heart. At twenty-five, Nilsson had travelled through Africa, intending to travel as far south as he could. While in Sudan he engaged with the people and their culture, which left a lasting impression on him – so much so that he went back a second time to do the trip backwards, travelling through many of the areas relevant to the current proceedings.
Nilsson went to the Equatoria province in Sudan equipped with a small video camera to film a reportage for the Swedish television program, SVT Aktuellt. In the late 1990s, Nilsson started planning a documentary about Sudan as a new oil nation. He wanted to do more long-form content, he told the court. When he met SPLA leader John Garang in 1999, he saw his chance. Nilsson asked Garang to open some doors for him, given that travelling to Sudan during this time was difficult. Garang put him in touch with some people who took him to the Nuba Mountains, which was ultimately where he learned about Lundin Oil and the company’s operations in the country. He contacted Magnus Nordin, then the company’s CEO, who was accommodating to the idea of being a part of Nilsson’s documentary. The documentary “Faith, Hope and Oil” (“Tro, Hopp och Olja”) was released in 2000 but did not garner much attention from Swedish media. Attention was, however, directed at Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, for joining the board of the company.
The Christian Aid report, “The Scorched Earth” was published in March 2001, prompting Swedish media to identify Lundin Oil as “the bad guy” as Nilsson testified. He had nothing positive to say about the contents of the report, telling the court it contained “a whole host of inaccuracies” and even going so far as to call it a propaganda pamphlet. The grounds for his animated dissent – his own experience.
Nilsson proceeded to tell the court about the trip he took to Sudan in the spring of 2001, after the Christian Aid report had been published. Ian Lundin contacted him and requested Nilsson join him in Sudan in an effort to respond to the various allegations levied against the company. Nilsson testified that he accepted the invitation without hesitation, but on the condition that the company pay for the trip in full. A contentious issue that has recurred throughout the proceedings, especially concerning journalists who visited the area of conflict, is the potential impartiality and credibility issues of their reports.
Accessing the country, and the relevant area, was difficult – if not impossible – without being accompanied by one party or the other. This has raised questions about whether, and if so to what extent, the content of a report was influenced by said party. Nilsson told the court that he was appalled when he read the indictment because the prosecution portrayed him as having been “bought” by the company for the purpose of alleviating the negative press against them, saying that such accusations affected his career negatively.
Judge Zander interrupted Nilsson at this point, asking that the prosecutor manage her witness. Ewa Korpi resumed the hearing by asking Nilsson about the political instability in the area at the turn of the century. Nilsson described the conflict between the regime and the SPLA rebels and how the regime would provide different rebel groups in the south with weapons and resources for the purposes of fighting the SPLA rebels. It was a “hit-and-run” war, he told the court. One group would seize an area and leave it, only to attack again. Block 5A was under the control of the SPLA commander Peter Gadet. Nilsson described Paulino Matiep, commander of SSUM, a government-allied group, as the main opponent of Peter Gadet. At the request of the prosecutor, Nilsson elucidated the situation between the two commanders.
The SPLA movement split into smaller factions in 1991. John Garang and Riek Machar were Dinka and Nuer respectively, an important difference, Nilsson stated. Machar rebelled against Garang in 1991 and at the same time, Matiep and Gadet were on the same side, although they would later come into conflict with one another. Nilsson painted a picture of a volatile conflict caused by religious and ethnic considerations, one in which you could never know whether you were safe or not.
Nilsson then told the court about the war in 2001 between Peter Gadet and Peter Paar: a war he claimed prevented Lundin Oil from commencing construction of the all-weather road. The war, he said, was not political, but rather concerned material things like cattle and control over areas, especially areas used for oil operations. The SPLA provided Gadet with resources, but Nilsson stated that it was unclear from where Peter Paar, commander for SSIM, got his resources. The regime would use a divide-and-conquer strategy as much as they could, equipping allied and non-allied groups with resources and weapons so that they would fight amongst each other. Loyalties, he said, switched often.
During his trip to Sudan in 2001, Nilsson visited Rubkhona and travelled along the newly built road from Bentiu to Thar Jath where the oil rig was located. During a previous visit in 2000, the village had been small with not much more than a Lundin camp and airstrip. A year later, the village had grown significantly, Nilsson recalled. He estimated that about 60 000 people had fled to the village. The refugees were mainly coming from the east and southeast of Rubkhona, Nilsson testified, from the Lundin concession site. It was noteworthy, he said, that civilians fled to this area rather than to the SPLA rebels. He argued that people were happy that the oil companies were there. The civil war had been going on for so long and had destroyed their resources so they could no longer sustain themselves and their families. The oil companies, Nilsson said, brought with them hope for an economic upturn.
In response to questions regarding aerial attacks, Nilsson said that he did not witness any himself but that they certainly occurred. He got a Russian-built Antonov plane on video during his trip, the same type of plane allegedly used for aerial attacks on various villages. The Khartoum Peace Agreement (KPA), which was meant to be in effect at the time, was brought up by the prosecutor. Nilsson told the court that a man he interviewed during his 2001 trip had a copy on him. The issue with the KPA, Nilsson said, was that Garang didn’t sign it. Instead, the SPLA sent another man, Kerubino Bol, to do so. Bol was not well regarded, rather, he was seen as a troublemaker which led to skepticism about the SPLA allowing Bol to represent them in the agreement. The KPA included a section on religious freedom, raising questions as to whether the government was willing to negotiate. Nilsson said they were, mainly due to the pressure from other parts of the world on then-president Omar Al-Bashir and the regime during this time.
After the first break, court resumed. The prosecutor directed Nilsson’s attention back to the documentary he produced in 2000, asking him to elucidate on the process of pitching his idea to SVT and on the actual trip.
It was Dokumentär Utifrån who provided the budget for the documentary. Nilsson met Magnus Nordin from Lundin Oil in Khartoum, and they arrived in Rubkhona together. He lodged at Lundin’s base camp and recalled that they had remade shipping containers into hotel rooms. The village, however, was messy and dirty. Ian Lundin arrived in Rubkhona a day later for the inauguration of the road construction. Nilsson testified that there were civilians there who had traveled from far and wide to participate in the festivities, all visibly excited about the construction of the road. He noted there were a few soldiers present as well and was told after the fact that Paulino Matiep had been there as well. Nilsson stated that it was not strange to see Matiep there. “It was a lawless land,” he said, and Matiep was the person in charge of the area at the time and for operations to run smoothly, Lundin had to be on good terms with him.
The next day, Nilsson testified, they went to inspect the oil rig at Thar Jath by helicopter. On the scene, he filmed the rig and the people around the area. There were a few government soldiers in the area, as well as a small, armored vehicle. They only stayed for a few hours.
Back in Rubkhona, Nilsson sought out people to interview. Doctors Without Borders had a closed camp in the area and the individual in charge did not want to be recorded on film for fear of making an enemy of the military.
Nilsson was asked about the helicopter ride. He told the court that the helicopter did not fly very high. The road had not been constructed yet, so they flew across a desolate area. Although it was sparsely populated, he recalled that he saw some huts at the start of the ride but nothing as they moved along. He was unable to recall the altitude at which they flew. The question of the altitude that witnesses who flew over the road were traveling, has been significant in assessing whether they could clearly see the area along the road, including whether there were visible signs of inhabitation – or destruction. Nilsson brought this up again in the cross-examination by Lundin’s defense counsel, saying that there was no evidence to substantiate claims of villages being burnt down for the purpose of building the road. Further along the route was an area that often flooded and was therefore uninhabitable.
Some confusion arose between the prosecution and the witness when Nilsson told the court about an incident involving a helicopter being shot at. It occurred after his trip, and he said the altitude at which helicopters could fly changed as a result. He could not recall when the incident occurred. The prosecution referred to a separate incident involving a helicopter being shot at, which was mentioned in one of Lundin Oil’s security reports on 13 January 2000, asking if this was the incident he referred to. Nilsson was not aware of this incident.
Ewa Korpi asked Nilsson about the interviews he conducted during his trip in 2000. He told the court that he interviewed several individuals, including Ian Lundin. In a by now well-known segment of his documentary, he asks Ian Lundin his thoughts on the presence of child soldiers in the company’s operational area. Nilsson told the court that child soldiers were common in the conflict, and that they could be found in the military forces as well as in the rebel groups.
Nilsson testified that he was of the opinion that Ian Lundin did not take the situation seriously, trying to downplay the seriousness of the war. Although Nilsson expressed his belief that the oil operations would be beneficial for the country’s economy, he did not believe Ian Lundin took his responsibility as an entrepreneur seriously, as shown by his not providing resources to the community. Nilsson was quoted in an article by Robert Eriksson in the Swedish newspaper Finanstidningen, saying that the general opinion about the situation was that the government would use the oil revenues to escalate the conflict and that the oil companies therefore become involved because oil was a resource desired by all parties to the conflict.
Directing Nilsson’s attention back to his trip in 2001, the prosecution asked questions about the conditions in which the interviews were conducted. Nilsson produced an eight-minute reportage from that trip which was broadcast on Swedish television in 2001. Korpi noted that the broadcast portrayed a narrative claiming the civilian population was not impacted to the extent previously reported by the UN and organizations such as Amnesty International. Nilsson renounced the responsibility for that angle, saying that it was the editor who made that decision. The purpose of the broadcast, he said, was to draw attention to the situation. Notably, however, Nilsson told the court shortly thereafter that he was the one to make decisions about what footage made it into the segment. The prosecution asked whether the fact that he had been accompanied by Ian Lundin or other representatives of the company would have affected the interviews, to which Nilsson said he did not believe so. The people he interviewed did not have much of an opinion on who he was at all. Other people judged him as guilty by association, he said.
Ian Lundin’s defense counsel, Thomas Tendorf, did not have many questions for Nilsson. He commenced the cross examination with questions about the purpose of the trip and what conclusions Nilsson could draw from it. Nilsson said he wanted to find out what was happening in Rubkhona. He told the court that the road was a positive thing for everyone as it attracted people and encouraged trading and movement. He stated that there was a direct correlation between roads and well-developed economies and civilizations. Nilsson was firmly against the narrative of misery surrounding the road, which he argued was pushed by Christian or Christian-affiliated groups.
The defense counsel for Alexandre Schneiter asked Nilsson about Julie Flint, a journalist who had testified previously. Nilsson told the court that he did not hold her in high regard after seeing that she was a co-author of the Christian Aid report. He also mentioned how he came across her name when he visited the Nuba Mountains. Here, Judge Zander interrupted him quickly, emphasizing that the court would not hear unsubstantiated claims from the rumor mill.
Testimony of Anna Koblanck
Anna Koblanck visited Sudan in 2001, where she drove along the then-constructed all-weather road and wrote two articles for the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet about the conflict. Her trip and the two articles, published 23 March 2001 and 28 April 2001 respectively, were the main focus of her examination.
Anna Koblanck went to Sudan as a journalist for the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in early April 2001. She could not remember the exact date, but she knew that the article published on 28 April 2001 was published only days after she came home. She testified that she travelled with the UN for the purpose of investigating the situation as there were conflicting reports about the extent of Lundin Oil’s involvement in the human rights violations perpetrated by the government forces. She stated that she contacted Lundin Oil to request access to the road as only the company and government were allowed to use it and that Lundin Oil helped speed up the visa process so she could visit during the time Ian Lundin was present. This was a fact she disclosed in her article.
Koblanck recalled that they landed on a local airstrip in Bentiu after the plane chased off a herd of cows on the field. She interviewed refugees and civilians in the village for two to three days before travelling along the all-weather road. The organizations she interviewed on scene requested they not be named for fear of retaliation by the regime. The civilians all described similar experiences of attacks against their villages, perpetrated by ground troops and aerial attacks. One woman showed with her arms how the bombs were dropped on her village. Koblanck told the court how the interviews were conducted inside an aid organization’s compound and that guns were not allowed inside. Her impression from these interviews was that the witnesses spoke freely.
When asked about the location from which the civilians had fled and whether they understood who had perpetrated the attacks, Koblanck said it was difficult to determine where refugees had fled from as they had no maps and many were illiterate. Uncertainty regarding names and precise locations of villages has been a reoccurring issue during the trial. She further stated that to the civilians, the conflict at large didn’t matter as much. Rather, they focused on the attacks they had suffered themselves.
Koblanck testified that Richard Ramsey and Maria Hamilton, Lundin Oil’s head of security and public relations respectively, accompanied her and her photographer on their journey along the all-weather road. They met Ramsey and Hamilton at the Lundin Oil compound, located outside Bentiu. Koblanck described the compound as being well-equipped with flushable toilets and air conditioning, noting that these were amenities that not even the UN camp enjoyed.
The journey took a day. Koblanck and her photographer were in the backseat of a company car, with Ramsey and Hamilton occupying the front seats. In front of them, she could see a Toyota land cruiser with a flatbed and a machine gun affixed to the roof. Government affiliated soldiers occupied the vehicle and were there for their protection.
They made several stops along the road. As they drove past a village near Bentiu, Hamilton pointed to a three-legged goat limping along the road and said they have pets, so they are well off. Koblanck testified that after having interviewed people who had lost everything, this jarring statement seemed at best a gross exaggeration of the situation. Another moment that left an impression on Koblanck was when they met a group of children, all dressed in clean white shirts with ‘Lundin Oil’ printed on the front. Hamilton said they could take a photo of them. Koblanck thought this absurd: “What is a white shirt if you have nothing else?” During this visit, the interpreter pulled her aside, telling her about his experience of an attack on his village. Koblanck shared that they saw at least one abandoned village and barely anyone along the road. She noted that abandoned villages usually meant something had happened, because elderly people and children usually stayed behind in villages rather than following the cattle herders.
Koblanck recalled a village at the most southern point of the road, by Leer. There was a military fortress there with soldiers occupying the village. As they arrived, people flocked to them and told Ramsey about how military soldiers had raped the women in the village. Suddenly, there was gunfire, she recalled. It sounded like an attack; however, it turned out that the government soldiers fired shots as they got off duty.
As they were about to leave the village, a woman came up to the car and attempted to hand them her baby. It was sick, and there was no medical care in the village. Koblanck could not recall what happed to the woman or child. She further recalled that the helicopter flew three kilometers from the all-weather road on the way back but could not recall why.
Koblanck told the court that she had read reports from both sides and that the purpose of the trip was to get a good understanding of the situation on the ground. She said that the company had claimed that they contributed to the development and stability of the area; however, she saw nothing that would indicate that they had done so.
Koblanck was questioned about the credibility of the information she had published. She had considered the impact of certain circumstances would have on the content of her investigation, stating that she did not focus on interviewing civilians during the journey along the road because she thought the presence of military soldiers and company representatives could influence testimonies. Koblanck and her photographer also held an open dialogue throughout the entire trip, discussing the credibility of the interviews. Throughout her testimony, Koblanck emphasized the importance of impartiality, objectivity and verifying sources.
Percy Bratt, counsel for some of the plaintiffs, raised his hand in response to Judge Zander querying attending counsel for questions. He asked questions regarding Carl Bildt at the Lundin Annual General Meeting. There had been a discussion about a proposed bill which would prevent oil companies operating in Sudan from being listed on the Nasdaq. Koblanck testified that Bildt had denied the existence of such a bill in front of the audience. Having read the proposed bill herself, she approached him, querying why he had claimed that the proposed bill did not exist. He told her that he himself had not seen it.
When it was time for the defense counsel for Ian Lundin, Torgny Wetterberg, to proceed with the cross examination, he asked Koblanck to clarify the name of the village she visited with Ramsey and Hamilton as her article mentioned both Leer and Jadayang in the same context. Koblanck clarified that she understood the village to be Leer and the military tower to be Jadayang.
The testimony of Oisin Cantwell
Oisin Cantwell is a journalist who travelled Sudan in 2001 to report on the conflict for the Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet. Cantwell published an article “Those who did not flee were killed” (“De som inte flydde dödades”) on 27 March 2001 which gave voice to some testimonies of people who had been displaced as a result of attacks against their villages.
Cantwell got a job as a general reporter at Aftonbladet in 1997 but testified that he had no formal education as a journalist. When he received the assignment, he was still “green” though he had had previous experience reporting from regions in conflict. Cantwell only had general knowledge of Africa when he left for the trip, but Martin Adler, a well-respected Swedish war photographer, was experienced and would accompany him on the trip.
Cantwell told the court that at the time, the situation in southern Sudan had started to gain traction in Swedish media, mostly because of the link between the conflict and Sweden via Lundin Oil, which was highlighted in a British documentary on forced displacement in southern Sudan. The media drew much attention to the former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt, who at the time of the alleged crimes was a board member of the company. Cantwell and his editor decided that he would travel to the area in question to try to understand what was going on.
Cantwell and Adler left for Bouth, a village in Sudan, located close to Lundin Oil’s operational site. He could not remember whether they had decided on the village or if it had been suggested by the rebels who issued their travel permits, a contentious issue raised by Ian Lundin’s defense later during the hearing. However, Cantwell told the court that they had wanted to get close to the famous Lundin Oil road, which was the subject of some of the allegations in the media.
Their journey to southern Sudan took them first to Nairobi where they collected their travel permits from the SPLA rebels controlling the area, then to Lokichogio where they rented the plane that would ultimately fly them to Sudan. Cantwell recounted that in return for helping an aid organization transport corn and salt, they were able to rent the plane and a pilot for a good price. Once in Sudan, they spent a total of three days interviewing people who had been displaced, and the article was published three days after they left.
Cantwell recalled that prior to the trip, he did quick research on the conflict by reading available reports. The security situation was assessed as they went. He testified that despite these precautions, the nature of the work was such that uncertainty was always a factor. However, they were under the protection of the rebels.
The prosecutor asked Cantwell to describe the plane ride to Sudan. He told the court that they saw the all-weather road. He wrote about this in his article. The pilot had told them that it was important to fly at an altitude of around five thousand feet or they risked an attack from ground and aerial levels.
Cantwell recounted that upon arrival, they were received by the rebels, who provided an interpreter. They were brough to Bouth, which was made up of mud huts and housed thousands of refugees from the Nhialdiu area. He recalls that the refugees’ living situation was horrible. In the interviews, people would tell Cantwell about how they had been displaced, forced to leave behind property and family. Each person he interviewed largely told the same story about soldiers setting fire to huts, civilians being forced to flee, and families being killed.
Although he admitted that the accuracy of the interpreter could have been an issue, he testified that he did not get the impression that these were stories that had been coached. “It felt like they were speaking straight from the heart. Their words were translated but I felt they were speaking freely.” He later clarified that at the time, he did not feel there were issues with the translation.
Cantwell also testified that they met a militia leader, who turned out to be Peter Gadet, although Cantwell at the time did not understand the significance of this. They shared a meal upon their arrival. Gadet told them they were under his protection and wanted to share his opinion of the conflict, which was that the militia was making huge progress against its opponent. Cantwell recalled that he could tell Gadet was “an experienced warrior – and that one should take his account with a pinch of salt.”
It was when the prosecutor concluded her examination in chief and Per Samuelsson, defense counsel for Alexandre Schneiter, commenced his cross examination that the mood took a different turn in courtroom 34.
The defense for Alexandre Schneiter raised several issues with Cantwell’s testimony. They questioned the impartiality and credibility of the information he had provided in his article two decades earlier.
They started off by asking Cantwell about the journalistic standards he followed as a reporter and of Aftonbladet as a workplace. Cantwell emphasized that impartiality and objectivity are two fundamental pillars of the profession, and that his job as a journalist is to convey the message of the story or person he was assigned.
The defense then shifted the focus to Cantwell and Adler seeking out the rebels’ office in Nairobi. Cantwell told the court that they had found out that the SPLA had an office in Nairobi where they could get the required paperwork for their travel permits. He was unable to recall whether he or Adler had contacted them but said the SPLA would “take them under their wing” and provide protection for them on their trip. The defense then raised the question of whether Bouth had been their choice or if the rebels had suggested it, in an attempt to cast doubt on the impartiality of the location. However, Cantwell clarified that it had been his and Adler’s choice to go there. “We had done research beforehand and found this village close to the Lundin area where many refugees had gathered.” When the defense suggested that it was rather a big coincidence that they happened to go to the same village where Peter Gadet was, Cantwell pointed out that he did not even know who Gadet was at the time.
Cantwell was asked about individual testimonies in the article, attempting to clarify where the information came from; however, he was unable to say more than that the testimonies published in the article came from the individuals he interviewed. Furthermore, Cantwell told the court that he did not choose all of the interviews himself, rather some were brought to him by the rebels.
Touching again on the journalistic standards of credibility and impartiality, the defense asked Cantwell about the steps he took to verify the information he was told in the interviews. Cantwell told the court that he did not have time to verify the information he had received regarding the perpetrators of attacks on villages in the Nhialdiu area. The defense pointed out that his article cited reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Christian Aid, and asked Cantwell whether he had verified those sources. Cantwell said that he had probably read the reports but did not check himself that the information they contained was correct – but that was not his role. “That is how journalism works,” he explained. “You can tell stories and quote from reports, and then readers see where the information comes from. We didn’t have time to verify [the reports]. The important thing is to openly cite where the information comes from.”
Cantwell continued to sit in the hot seat as Torgny Wetterberg, the defense counsel for Ian Lundin, commenced his cross examination. Wetterberg did not have a lengthy cross; however, some well-placed questions were clearly intended to cast further doubt over the impartiality of Cantwell’s article. Suggesting that there were potential issues with translation and the impartiality of the translator that accompanied Cantwell, the defense questioned the decision not to bring their own interpreter and asked whether Cantwell kept a record of his interviews. Bringing a translator on such a trip would be expensive, Cantwell told the court. He went on to explain that common practice at the time was to just take handwritten notes. He did not use tape recorders unless he wrote an article on a politician, in case they should change their mind about what they had said. Had he known that he would sit in a court room twenty-four years later, testifying in a trial about grave human rights violations, he would have recorded the interviews.
