Bridge Newswire July 15, 1997

[stephen.mills@sfsierra.sierraclub.org]

   July 15, 1997
   
   BridgeNews FORUM: A series of viewpoints on a major issue in international 
   politics.
   
   
   OPINION:
   Nigeria Tries To Spin Its Way Out Of Murder
   
   Nigeria Campaigns To Improve Its Image Following The Execution Of 
   Ken Saro-Wiwa And Eight Others
   
   
   By Peter Takirambudde and Stephen Mills
   
   WASHINGTON_The U.S. Conference of Mayors at its recent annual meeting in San 
   Francisco adopted a resolution calling for Nigeria's military government to 
   restore democracy, respect human rights and release political prisoners.
          Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey introduced legislation in the U.S. 
   House of Representatives to the same effect.
          The Clinton administration announced a major review of U.S. policy 
   toward Nigeria, and several U.S. cities and towns independently passed 
   anti-Nigeria resolutions and ordinances.
   
   THE U.S. CAMPAIGN in support of the Nigerian people grows. And, in order to 
   head off threats of further sanctions, the Nigerian government has developed 
   a strong interest in improving its image.
          In Washington, the Nigerian government's corporate-backed "Vision 
   2010" committee recently gathered Nigerian apologists to plan strategies for 
   redeeming Nigeria's external image.
          However, no amount of public-relations spin can cover up the brutality 
   and corruption of the Nigerian military regime.
   
   ROY INNIS of the Congress of Racial Equality, a well-known apologist for the 
   Nigerian regime, recently hosted a U.S. media tour for the widows of four 
   Ogoni leaders murdered in May 1994, allegedly at the instigation of Ken 
   Saro-Wiwa.
          A well-known author and leader of the Movement for the Survival of the 
   Ogoni People, Saro-Wiwa and eight others were hanged by the Nigerian 
   government in November 1995 for the four murders.
          Although it was quite clear that one goal of the recent tour was to 
   justify the Nigerian military's brutal execution of Saro-Wiwa, Innis 
   consistently ignored questions about the tour's funding.
   
   SARO-WIWA'S execution, following a trial before a military tribunal that was 
   a mockery of justice, touched off an international outcry against Nigeria. 
   The country has yet to recover.
          Lt. Col. Paul Okuntimo, head of the notoriously brutal Rivers State 
   Internal Security Task Force, which used indiscriminate violence to repress 
   protest in the Ogoni region, announced to the press before the trial had even 
   begun that Saro-Wiwa was guilty.
          No serious evidence was advanced by the Nigerian government that 
   Saro-Wiwa or the others were involved in the killings.
   
   THERE WAS, HOWEVER, evidence that Saro-Wiwa himself had publicly and 
   repeatedly deplored the murders and had called for an investigation to find 
   who was responsible.
          Moreover, there was evidence that he had also tried to act against 
   vigilantism within his movement.
          But that was ignored at the trial, as were statements by a number of 
   prosecution witnesses that they had been bribed to give evidence against the 
   defendants.
          The trial so blatantly violated the right to due process that the 
   defense team withdrew in disgust before it was over.
   
   SARO-WIWA'S ORGANIZATION, the most effective grass-roots protest movement in 
   Nigeria since independence, called for an end to Shell Oil's pollution in 
   Ogoni and other parts of the Niger Delta. It also called for a fair share of 
   oil profits to be returned to the oil-producing areas.
          In January 1994, just four months before the alleged acts of murder, 
   the movement brought 300,000 people, perhaps half the population of Ogoni, 
   onto the streets in a peaceful protest.
          A year earlier, Shell had ceased oil production in Ogoni as a result 
   of these kinds of protests.
   
   THE CHARGES AGAINST Saro-Wiwa owed more to the threat these activities posed 
   to the tenure of the military government than any alleged involvement in 
   murder.
          Attending the 1995 Commonwealth meeting in New Zealand, former British 
   Prime Minister John Major commented on the executions. It was, he said, "a 
   fraudulent trial, a bad verdict, an unjust sentence, and it has now been 
   followed by judicial murder."
          President Nelson Mandela of South Africa, who has reason to be glad 
   that international pressure succeeded in deterring a death sentence in his 
   case, described Nigeria's military leadership as an "illegitimate, barbaric, 
   arrogant dictatorship which has murdered activists using a kangaroo court and 
   false evidence."
   
   THE MILITARY GOVERNMENT has now charged Africa's first Nobel laureate, Wole 
   Soyinka, and a dozen others with treason, a capital offense.
          Why? Allegedly because they have been involved in a series of bomb 
   explosions. In reality, it was more likely because they have been so bold as 
   to advocate a return to democracy in Nigeria.
          Business as usual continues in Nigeria, and no amount of counterspin 
   by the anti-democratic regime supporters can cover up the unacceptable 
   injustice being practiced there.  End
   
   PETER TAKIRAMBUDDE is director of Human Rights Watch/Africa and Stephen Mills 
   is director of the Sierra Club's human rights and environment campaign. Their 
   views are not necessarily those of Bridge News.
   
   OPINION ARTICLES and letters to the editor are welcome. Send submissions to 
   Sally Heinemann, editorial director, Bridge News, 75 Wall St., 22nd Floor, 
   New York, N.Y. 10005. You may also call (212) 504-7701, fax (212) 809-4643 or 
   send email to opinion@bridge.com