Rebels could hit Chinese oil interests in Sudan: US activist

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – A US human rights activist on Tuesday warned China that it risked rebel attacks against its oil interests in Sudan unless it put pressure on its ally Khartoum to end the violence in Darfur and south Sudan.

John Prendergast told reporters that Beijing, a veto-wielding council member which has close energy ties with Khartoum, has a “disproportionate responsibility” in helping find a settlement to the conflicts in Darfur and south Sudan.


“They (the Chinese) must fulfil that or else we are going to see Sudan burn and one of the first things that is going to burn is China’s own economic interests,” he added after he and other Darfur activists met with members of the UN Security Council.

Prendergast, a former Africa expert at the National Security Council and the State Department, said he had just returned from a trip to south Sudan where recent fighting in the flashpoint oil-rich region of Abyei had threatened a return to civil war.

AFP