Green Left #289: Boycott Shell! (fwd)

[stephen.mills@sfsierra.sierraclub.org]

  From: EcoNet Environmental Justice Desk <ejdesk@igc.apc.org>
  Subject: Green Left #289: Boycott Shell! (fwd)
  
  
  /* Written  2:40 PM  Sep  8, 1997 by peg:greenleft in igc:greenleft.news */
  Title: Stop environmental racism in Nigeria: Boycott Shell!
  
  By Norm Dixon
  
  On November 10, 1995, the Nigerian military dictatorship hanged 
  Ken Saro-Wiwa and nine other Ogoni leaders who had been framed on 
  murder charges. Their true crime was to expose and campaign 
  against the oil giant Shell's role in the environmental 
  destruction of the Ogoni people's land and communities, as well 
  as its complicity in propping up the brutal regime of General 
  Sani Abacha.
  
  Of those arrested and charged, only Ledum Mitee was acquitted. 
  Ken Saro-Wiwa told him to continue the struggle, and he went 
  underground, becoming acting president of the Movement for the 
  Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Mitee now travels the 
  world, building solidarity with the Ogoni people, and sometimes 
  sneaking back into the Niger delta region.
  
  Mitee was in Australia in August to launch the Ogoni Freedom 
  Campaign and to urge the Australian government to support a move 
  to expel Nigeria from the Commonwealth at the next Commonwealth  
  of government meeting (CHOGM), to be held in Britain in October. 
  He spoke to a packed public meeting in Sydney on August 18.
  
  Mitee explained that Shell first struck oil in the lush Niger 
  River delta in the 1950s. Since oil production began in 1958, 
  money has poured from the delta into the coffers of Shell and the 
  pockets of the corrupt central government and military high 
  command. But the environmental and social cost has been great.
  
  ``When we talk about oil installations in Nigeria, we are not 
  talking about some remote facilities in the bush or in the sea. 
  We are talking about oil wells, gas flares and pipelines right 
  next door.
  
  ``My house in my village is less than 500 metres from a gas 
  flair. A gas flair is something unimaginable unless you have 
  experienced it. They burn 24 hours a day, for years, producing 
  toxic fumes. High pressure pipelines that carry crude oil 
  criss-cross in front of people's houses and right through 
  schoolyards. You have to step over them to enter your house.
  
  ``It was not long before these pipelines, which run between oil 
  wells and flow stations, started to burst, spilling large amounts 
  of crude oil. Because Shell knew these installations were bound 
  to cause pollution, they told the Ogoni people that crude oil was 
  medicinal. As a kid I used to rub it on my body, because we were 
  told it was good for you, that it would keep evil spirits away'', 
  Mitee said.
  
  Between 1982 and 1992, Nigeria was the site of 40% of Shell's oil 
  spills worldwide - 7.4 million litres. Drinking water in the 
  region contains levels of petroleum hydrocarbons at 350 times 
  that allowed in the European Union. Between 1976 and 1991, there 
  was an average of four oil spills a week in the delta.
  
  Mitee stated bluntly that this represents environmental racism. 
  ``We are sharing our front lawns and our backyards with oil 
  installations, pipes and flares. Where do you see oil pipelines 
  like that anywhere else in the world? In Europe and America they 
  are buried, but in Ogoniland, and in all parts of the Niger 
  delta, all pipes are above ground.
  
  ``We found out that, apart from pollution, the flares that burn 
  24 hours a day also attract all the insects. Crops are devoured, 
  and pollution kills them. So the land dies. People who live on 
  subsistence farming go hungry. The pollution enters the sea, and 
  the mangrove forest, which is abundant in that part of the delta 
  - the second largest mangrove forest in the world - is dying and 
  with it the fish who breed under the mangroves. The land is 
  polluted, the seas are polluted, the wildlife is scared away.''
  
  In the face of this, the 500,000 Ogoni people decided to organise 
  for their rights. ``We decided to launch MOSOP, led by Ken 
  Saro-Wiwa, in 1990. We demanded the right to control our 
  environment, to be able to say where a pipeline should not go, to 
  be able to say we don't want an oil well so close to our 
  communities.
  
  ``We also thought that Shell should clean up the mess they had 
  made. We demanded that the resources taken from our land should 
  be used for development of the region.''
  
  Profits
  
  Oil accounts for 95% of Nigeria's foreign earnings. Shell 
  produces 50% of Nigeria's oil. Nigeria, the world's eighth 
  largest oil producer, accounts for almost 14% of Shell's global 
  oil production.
  
  In the Niger River delta, Shell's oilfields have yielded an 
  estimated US$30 billion since 1958, yet the 6 million people who 
  live in the region remain desperately poor.
  
  Mitee told the audience: ``Since Shell came to the delta, 
  billions worth of oil and gas have been taken out, yet the people 
  have no electricity, no running water, no hospitals, no schools. 
  It costs Shell about $2.70 to produce one barrel of oil, and they 
  are selling that oil for $19 or $20 a barrel. As a result, Shell 
  is one of the world's largest and most profitable companies.''
  
  MOSOP presented its demands to Shell, Mitee explained. It also 
  launched a campaign of mass action. In January 1993, in defiance 
  of the regime's ban on public demonstrations, more than 300,000 
  Ogoni and their supporters marched in a massive show of support 
  for the MOSOP's demands. Soon after, Saro-Wiwa was detained 
  several times, prompting more large-scale protests.
  
  The support the movement was gaining worried the military regime 
  and Shell. The corrupt and brutal military regime is propped up 
  by US$30 million a day in oil revenue, and 90% of Nigeria's oil 
  lies beneath the Niger delta.
  
  Instead of addressing the Ogoni people's grievances, Mitee said, 
  Shell ``took advantage of the fact that Nigeria has a brutal 
  military administration. Shell went to the military and said: 
  `The economy is dependent on crude oil. If you don't crush this 
  movement, it will affect the economy.' The military sent in their 
  troops. People were shot, people were wounded. About 15 villages 
  were completely destroyed.''
  
  Saro-Wiwa, Mitee and other leading members of MOSOP were arrested 
  in May 1995 on trumped-up murder charges. After a show trial 
  which featured false evidence and bribed witnesses, Saro-Wiwa and 
  eight others were hanged. Mitee was the only one to be acquitted.
  
  Another 20 Ogoni leaders remain in prison in Port Harcourt on the 
  same trumped-up charges. The Nigerian regime, aware of the 
  international furore another trial would bring, is keeping the 
  leaders out of court and refusing them bail.
  
  On August 11, the Ogoni 20 began a 10-day hunger strike. They are 
  being kept in overcrowded cells; all must sleep on the floor in 
  shifts. They are tortured, poorly fed, denied medical care and 
  deprived of toilet facilities.
  
  Repression
  
  Mitee said that the repression is continuing. ``Since 1993 an 
  estimated 2500 people have been killed. The military are shooting 
  people every day. They have prevented the dead from being buried, 
  so the people are deprived even of their final human right. 
  Mourning is completely banned.''
  
  Shell has its own armed police force, which has been responsible 
  for acts of repression.
  
  Mitee urged solidarity activists to pressure the Australian 
  government to take action against Nigeria at the October CHOGM 
  meeting. Mitee has been lobbying Commonwealth countries for 
  Nigeria's expulsion but has been disappointed at the response. He 
  has also called for sanctions against oil exports from Nigeria.
  
  ``When the Commonwealth took the decision to suspend Nigeria 
  after Ken Saro-Wiwa's murder, they said that unless the 
  dictatorship respected human rights, released political prisoners 
  and returned Nigeria to democracy within two years, they would be 
  expelled.
  
  ``That two years has ended! Even though Commonwealth governments 
  I have met with all agree with me that things are getting worse, 
  they are not prepared do to anything. It is because it would pit 
  them in a struggle against one of the world's most influential 
  and profitable companies.''
  
  Mitee also encouraged activists to think of ways to hit Shell's 
  profits. He reminded them of the success of Greenpeace's Shell 
  boycott in protest at its plan to scuttle the Brent Spar oil 
  platform in the North Sea.
  
  ``The distance between the Niger delta and Sydney is only as far 
  as the nearest Shell service station or shop that carries that 
  symbol. The only thing that will make Shell move is when their 
  profits are affected. These people only think about profits and 
  money.''
  
  First posted on the Pegasus conference greenleft.news by 
  Green Left Weekly. Correspondence and hard copy subsciption 
  inquiries: greenleft@peg.apc.org