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M. Gessen

By M. Gessen

Opinion Columnist

At the end of the 1990s, a Swedish company called Lundin Oil started drilling in a war-torn region of what was then Sudan. To secure the drilling sites, the company contracted with the Sudanese government. Over the next several years, the price of oil skyrocketed, and Sudanese government and allied forces displaced, as human rights groups estimate, 160,000 people in the area, bombing and burning their villages. The groups say some 12,000 people were killed.

Two former executives of the company, which has since been renamed and reconfigured, are now defendants in the longest criminal trial in Swedish history; it began in September 2023 and is expected to continue through next May. They stand accused of complicity in war crimes. The defendants reject the charge,........

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