Ijaws / Shell

[Steve Kretzmann <steve@moles.org>]

  Reuters August 8, 1997
  
  NIGERIAN IJAW ACTIVISTS STEP UP PRESSURE ON SHELL.
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  By Segun James
  
  WARRI, Nigeria - Nigerian Ijaw activists have stepped up pressure on Royal
  Dutch/Shell to pay a long-standing compensation claim or stop producing oil
  in part of the River Niger Delta.
  
  The Niger Delta Oil Producing Communities Development Organisation
  (NIDOPCODO) and Environmental Rights Action in Warri on Wednesday demanded
  Shell stop producing oil while it appeals against a court ruling that it pay
  up.
  
  "We state that Shell must stop the production of oil in the area during the
  appeal," the statement from NIDOPCODO said.
  
  Shell has appealed against a May court ruling that it pay 30 million naira
  ($360,000) to four communities where oil was spilled in 1982. It says the
  spill was caused by sabotage.
  
  The four communities at the heart of the dispute, Sokebolou, Obotobo,
  Ofoegbene and Ekeremor Zion, last month threatened to shut down flow
  stations in the midwestern area if the money was not paid.
  
  But the threats came to nothing.
  
  Industry sources say the two flow-stations closest to the communities in the
  Burutu area pump between 50,000 and 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude
  oil.
  
  Activists said that a July 28 meeting to diffuse tension between the
  communities and Shell had failed because the oil company tried to pressure
  the communities through local people who had Shell contracts.
  
  "Contractors to Shell, whose loyalty to Shell cannot be in any doubt, were
  hand picked and brought to the venue by Shell to create confusion," the
  statement from NIDOPCODO said.
  
  The activists say they are planning to take unspecified action against Shell
  and trying to encourage others among the several million-strong ethnic Ijaw
  population to join them.
  
  But they will not say what action or when it will take place.
  
  The region is already tense after clashes earlier this year between Ijaw
  tribesmen and rival Itsekiris in which scores of people were killed and
  several flow stations were forced to shut down for short periods.
  
  Shell officials privately say the potential threat to production from ethnic
  Ijaws is much greater than from the 500,000 Ogonis whose sabotage drove the
  company out of their homeland in 1993 and caused a global publicity
  nightmare.
  
  When Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight kinsmen were hanged for murder
  in 1995, campaigners attacked Shell for not putting pressure on Nigeria's
  military rulers to spare their lives.
  
  "We appeal to Shell to stop all oil and gas production in the four
  communities as it proceeds on appeal," the Environmental Rights Action
  statement said.
  
  "Shell must not hide under the hard shell of military dictatorship to create
  the Ogoni atmosphere the company now so craves in Delta State," it added.
  
  The joint venture between Shell and the Nigerian government pumps most of
  Nigeria's more than two million bpd of crude oil, on which the economy is
  totally reliant. ($1=83 naira) 
  __________________
  Steve Kretzmann
  
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  510-705-8983 - fax
  
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