Wiwa v Shell

On May 26, 2009 the Ogoni people of Nigeria will finally have their chance at justice when the families of famed activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues, who were sentenced to death in a sham trial in Nigeria and hanged in 1995, will show that Royal Dutch Shell was at the very least complicit in their deaths and likely colluded with the Nigerian military to quell peaceful protests through murder, torture and destruction of villages. The plaintiffs’ attorneys will use a U.S. law on the books since 1789 called the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) that allows violations of international law to be tried in U.S. courts. Violations include extrajudicial execution; torture; crimes against humanity; cruel inhuman and degrading treatment; arbitrary arrest and detention; and violations of the rights to life, liberty, security of person, and freedom of expression and association.

Background

Almost 20 years ago in a minority region of the Niger Delta called Ogoniland, a peaceful movement emerged called the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) that began to successfully challenge the environmental and economic destruction caused by oil extraction. Royal Dutch Shell, who began extracting oil from the Niger Delta in1958, has since bulldozed subsistence farms to install oil drills, erected gas flares that cause acid rain and asthma, and laid oil pipelines literally through villages that dot the marshy creek lands of the Delta. Oil spills are a regular occurrence, and natural barriers between the fresh water creeks and the Gulf of Guinea have been breached throughout the Delta causing the fresh water to become brackish and as a result fresh water fish have died in droves. Water that was once used for drinking, for cooking, for cleaning clothes not to mention the basis for a fisher economy is now filled with a mixture of salt and oil rendering it useless in many regions and in fact dangerous to the thousands of villages who depend on the creeks for their survival.

During the early 1990’s MOSOP emerged to peacefully protest and call for land restoration, and the right to protect their environment from further destruction. MOSOP bravely challenged a dictatorial government and powerful oil companies that colluded with the Nigerian military. Saro-Wiwa, a well known Nigerian author, and TV producer began inspiring and leading the Ogoni people to stand up against Shell who had decimated their land for decades. In January of 1993 MOSOP staged one of the largest protests the Delta had ever seen. Over 300,000 Ogoni people marched on what came to be known as Ogoni Day showing the power of peaceful protest. As a result, the Nigerian military clamped down on the villagers with the support of Shell. Villages were burned and people shot. In 1994 during another Ogoni protest, four Ogoni elders were killed and Saro-Wiwa along with other MOSOP leaders were framed and held in prison for several months without charges. After several months of torture and detention, they were convicted of inciting the murders in an internationally condemned military tribunal and hanged on November 10, 1995.

A year later, the families of some of those who were killed and other victims of military abuse,  filed suit in U.S. court against Shell for their collusion in the death and torture  of Saro-Wiwa and others. Last fall after many years in litigation, Judge Kimba Wood in the U.S. Southern District court of New York announced that the case would be set for trial.

Since the death of the Ogoni 9, the situation in the Delta has only worsened. Several other peaceful protests were violently suppressed by the Nigerian military that received payments from Shell, Chevron and others. Additionally, the oil companies have been accused of using divide and conquer tactics to incite ethnic violence in the Delta. Today’s Delta has descended into armed violence. Some angry, mostly young, men who have only seen their livelihood worsen have turned to militant groups who have varied agendas and have in effect declared war with the Nigerian military and the oil companies. Meanwhile, the oil companies have not changed their practices or cleaned up the environmental damage they have caused. They still utilize the services of the military to act as their personal security and continue to avoid responsibility for their actions.

Click here for more information about the case, Shell and the life of Ken Saro Wiwa

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Today Judge Susan Illston denied the Nigerian plaintiffs in the Bowoto v Chevron case their request for a new trial. Below is the press release issued by Earth Rights International, co-counsel to the case.

COURT DENIES NEW TRIAL IN HUMAN RIGHTS SUIT AGAINST CHEVRON:

PLAINTIFFS TO APPEAL

March 4, 2009, San Francisco, CA – A U.S. federal court today denied a request by Nigerian victims of human rights abuses for a new trial against Chevron, which was found not liable for aiding and abetting those abuses after a jury trial last December.  The plaintiffs in Bowoto v. Chevron had argued that a new trial was warranted due to insufficient evidence for the defense verdict, erroneous legal rulings, and prejudicial misconduct by Chevron’s lawyers.  Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California disagreed, letting the verdict stand.

Plaintiffs’ counsel Theresa Traber, of Traber & Voorhees, stated, “We are disappointed in the ruling and we will appeal.  We continue to believe that there were errors in this trial, and these victims, who waited so long to have their day in court, will continue to pursue justice against Chevron.”

The court ruled that, even though much of the plaintiffs’ evidence was undisputed by any Chevron witnesses, the jury still could have disbelieved the plaintiffs’ witness, and found that no legal errors had been made during the trial.  The court did acknowledge that defense counsel used evidence improperly in his closing argument, but found that this misconduct was not so prejudicial as to warrant a new trial.

Bowoto v. Chevron Corp., No. 99-2506, charged the multinational oil company with complicity in gross human rights abuses arising from its use of the notorious Nigerian military and “kill and go” mobile police against those who protested environmental and economic harms caused by oil production in the Niger Delta.  The lawsuit is based on a 1998 incident in which Nigerian soldiers shot nonviolent protesters at Chevron’s Parabe offshore platform. The soldiers were admittedly paid by Chevron, ferried to the platform in Chevron helicopters and supervised by Chevron personnel. Two demonstrators were killed, others were shot and wounded, and several others were detained and tortured after the attack.

In addition to Traber & Voorhees, the plaintiffs are represented by EarthRights International, the private law firms of Hadsell Stormer Keeny Richardson & Renick and Siegel & Yee; and Cindy Cohn and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Robert Newman, Paul Hoffman, Richard Wiebe, Anthony DiCaprio, Michael Sorgen, and Judith Chomsky and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

For more information about the case, please visit www.earthrights.org.

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