US investor buys
Sudanese warlord’s land
A US businessman backed by former CIA and state department officials
says he has secured a vast tract of fertile land in south Sudan from
the family of a notorious warlord, in post-colonial Africa’s biggest
private land deal.
Philippe Heilberg, a former Wall Street banker and chairman of New
York-based Jarch Capital, told the Financial Times he had gained
leasehold rights to 400,000 hectares of land – an area the size of
Dubai – by taking a majority stake in a company controlled by the
son of Paulino Matip.
Mr Matip fought on both sides in Sudan’s lengthy civil war but
became deputy commander of the army in the autonomous southern
region after a 2005 peace agreement.
The deal, between Mr Heilberg’s affiliate company in the Virgin
Islands and Gabriel Matip, is a striking example of how the recent
spike in global commodity food prices has encouraged foreign
investors and governments to scramble for control of arable land in
Africa, even in its remotest parts.
In contrast to land deals between foreign investors and governments,
Mr Heilberg is gambling on a warlord’s continuing control of a
region where his militia operated in the civil war between Khartoum
and south Sudan.
“You have to go to the guns, this is Africa,” Mr Heilberg said by
phone from New York. He refused to disclose how much he had paid for
the lease.
Jarch Management Group is linked to Jarch Capital, a US investment
company that counts on its board former US state department and
intelligence officials, including Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador
and expert on Africa, who acts as vice-chairman; and Gwyneth Todd,
who was an adviser on Middle Eastern and North African affairs at
the Pentagon and under former president Bill Clinton at the White
House.
Laws on land ownership in south Sudan remain vague, and have yet to
be clarified in a planned land act. For this reason, some foreign
experts on Sudan as well as officials in the regional government,
speaking on condition of anonymity, doubted Mr Heilberg could assert
legal rights over such a vast tract of land. The deal is second only
in size to the recent lease of 1.3m hectares by South Korea’s Daewoo
from the government of Madagascar.
Mr Heilberg is unconcerned. He believes that several African states,
Sudan included, but possibly also Nigeria, Ethiopia and
Somalia, are likely to break apart in
the next few years, and that the political and legal risks he is
taking will be amply rewarded.
“If you bet right on the shifting of sovereignty then you are on the
ground floor. I am constantly looking at the map and looking if
there is any value,” he said, adding that he was also in contact
with rebels in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, dissidents in
Ethiopia and the government of the breakaway state of
Somaliland, among others.
The company was embroiled in a dispute with the south Sudan
government over its claims to exploration rights for oil.
Mr Heilberg said Jarch had no expertise in agricultural development
but would be seeking joint venture partners to cultivate the land,
which is in one of the remotest parts of Sudan, in a region
bordering the Nile river but with no tarred roads.
Source:FT
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