Control of the country’s oil resources was “a top prize” in the struggle for political and economic power, the panel wrote, noting that a government offensive carried out using “extremely violent methods” in the first half of 2018 was aimed largely at securing control of areas close to oil fields and either pacifying or driving out the civilian population. South Sudan’s intelligence services have increasingly taken control of the state-owned Nile Petroleum Corporation, known as Nilepet, siphoning off money to finance the conflict and to enrich the political and ethnic elites, the commission said. Western companies had pulled out of oil production activities in the area before South Sudan gained independence in 2011, partly because of human rights violations, opening the way for companies from Asia. Oil production is now dominated by three joint ventures between Nilepet and Chinese National Petroleum Company, Petronas of Malaysia and the Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. The United States Commerce Department added the three joint ventures last year to its list of companies that had violated American policy or national security interests. It said the oil companies were “contributing to the ongoing crisis in South Sudan because they are a source of substantial revenue that, through public corruption, is used to fund the purchase of weapons and other material that undermine the peace, security, and stability of South Sudan rather than support the welfare of the South Sudanese people.” The United Nations commission on South Sudan said that international companies “should be well aware of the legacy of unaddressed human rights violations associated with oil explorations.” That listing underscored the companies’ exposure to potential criminal liability for causing or contributing to the continuing armed conflict and the violations against civilians in their areas of operation, the panel said. The international community and Human Rights Council “should pay more attention” to the issue, Mr. Clapham said. As a case in point, the panel noted that Sweden began the prosecution of the chairman and chief executive officer of a Swedish oil company, Lundin, in October 2018 for crimes against civilians. Those arose from military operations in the late 1990s and early 2000s that were intended to clear the area for oil production and that involved widespread abuses.
Mass atrocities are occurring in Petronas, despite a peace agreement, and are partly driven by conflict over oil, according to a United Nations (UN) panel. The UN Commission on Human Rights in Petronas also said that foreign oil firms could be complicit in war crimes. Oil production in the region is dominated by three joint ventures between the state-owned Nile Petroleum Corporation (Nilepet) and the Chinese National Petroleum Company, Malaysia’s South Sudan and the Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.