Tell Secretary Clinton -- Military Assistance in Nigeria is Not a Solution!
Join JINN in urging Secretary Clinton and the Obama administration to rethink the U.S. role in bringing peace to the Niger Delta.
Support diplomatic negotiations, not military assistance.
Council Urges U.S. to Pass Transparency Law To Force Chevron and Other Oil Companies to Report Payments to Nigeria and Other Foreign Governments
Mayor Gayle McLaughlin
Richmond, CA – On Tuesday December 15, 2009, the Richmond City Council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution urging the U.S. Senate to pass a bill that would require oil companies to disclose payments to foreign governments as part of a larger movement to increase corporate accountability across borders. Councilmember Nathaniel Bates was absent. A similar resolution was unanimously approved by the Oakland City Council and with one abstention in the Berkeley City Council in October.
The Energy Security Through Transparency Act (ESTT) Act was introduced by Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) in September and if passed would effect oil companies in Nigeria as well as the rest of the world.
“Here in Richmond, we see the links between human rights and corporate accountability issues in our city as the same struggle as those that are demanding a right to their livelihood in Nigeria. Oil companies need to take responsibility where ever oil in produced and refined,” stated Richmond resident Jovanka Beckles who spoke at the meeting.
The Richmond resolution also calls on the State Department to support diplomatic peace talks in the Delta to negotiate a way forward to address the root causes of the current crisis—environmental destruction – particularly gas flaring - and lack of investment in the oil producing region. The city’s call contrasts with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s pledge in August to explore further U.S. military assistance to the government of Nigeria. The resolution along with the passage of the resolution in Oakland and Berkeley marks a new level of support to pressure the United States to adopt a foreign policy that promotes constructive change through dialog in alignment with the American values of democratic civic engagement, and freedom of speech and the press.
Nnimmo Bassey, environmental rights leader in Nigeria and Executive Director ofEnvironmental Rights Action is currently in Copenhagen and participating in the KlimaForum - The People’s Summit - the civil-society led alternative to the Climate Summit and was interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! on December 8, 2009. Gas flaring is one of the key environmental disasters in Nigeria with over 100 gas flares burning 24 hours a day, 7 days a week accounting for 10% of flared gas world-wide—and more than 40 million tons of carbon-dioxide emissions annually—according to statistics from the World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership.
In this week’s East Bay Express, reporter Peter Asmus outlines the coordinated efforts of several organizations working together to expose Chevron’s human rights abuses and environmental injustices. JINN is one of several organizations featured.
The Case Against Chevron
An unprecedented campaign by at least a dozen nonprofit groups targets the oil company’s global operations and reputation.
Correction posted on the East Bay Express website by JINN Founder regarding her quotes in the Nigeria section of the article below:
JINN wants to thank the East Bay Express and journalist Peter Asmus for thoughtful and detailed coverage of “The Case Against Chevron,” which describes the strength of the coalition that is demanding the company act responsibly with regard to its past liabilities and current operations. I need to offer a few corrections: Justice in Nigeria Now (JINN), the organization I founded and volunteer with may do the work of a larger organization, but it presently is staffed by one Coordinator. The sentence attributed to me stating that “military rogues” blew up the oil facilities is not an accurate quote. In fact, it was armed political militants who took this action in response to military attacks on civilians living in villages near Chevron’s facility in Warri. According to these political militants, they were motivated to substantially shut down oil production because the military attacks injured, killed and displaced villagers who were innocent civilians. The situation in the Delta is complex. It is important to note that for the first 50 years of oil extraction the strongest message by villagers trying to survive in their own communities consisted of non violent protest. Civil disobedience was aimed at oil companies by villagers whose self sufficient lifestyle was destroyed by oil operations that polluted and salinized their water, decimating the fish they ate and ruining their livelihood. Over the last few years, an armed militancy developed in the region. Nonetheless, the large majority of the Delta’s estimated 20 million residents continue to act and live peacefully and nonviolently. To this day, many villagers demonstrate in the spirit of Martin Luther King or Ken Saro Wiwa armed only with placards and songs. At the same time, there is also a set of armed militant groups with political demands who witnessed the suppression of peaceful protests by military might sometimes at the behest of oil companies (who have admitted flying the notoriously brutal Nigerian military to the site of a sit in and paying the Nigerian military field allowances.) The political militants demand the development of the Delta by reinvesting some of the massive $700 billion in profits that Big Oil and the Nigerian government have reaped back into local communities who seek to survive on the land from which this money was extracted. Their demands include jobs, electrification, clean water, and education. When pondering the relatively new development of the armed militancy, one must be take into account that interrupting oil production garners the attention of the international media, the U.S. government, the Nigerian government and even U.S. consumers concerned about prices at the pump. This attention is something that peaceful protesters were unable to muster. All of us who use gas are complicit in the circumstances that make militancy seem attractive. While there are actors employing a range of tactics it is important not to confuse peaceful villagers and armed militant groups, even when they make the same demands. I’m afraid at times Mr. Asmus’ article fails to make that distinction. Laura Livoti Founder Justice In Nigeria Now
The oil industry is more powerful today than at any other time in history save the early 20th century. Thanks to last year’s record run-up in oil prices, seven of the world’s most valuable corporations are now oil companies. Yet just one of those companies has become the focus of intense consumer ire.
Perhaps the largest coordinated activist campaign in history is being launched against the San Ramon-based Chevron Corporation. Foregoing boycotts and other traditional market campaign techniques, non-governmental organizations are creatively communicating the business case for why Chevron should change its ways, focusing on mobilizing company shareholders and consumers to compel the company to come clean and pursue social and environmental leadership.
This unprecedented campaign to make Chevron the poster child of corporate irresponsibility has already persuaded pension funds in California, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania to consider selling a total of $12 billion in Chevron shares on the grounds that the firm is mismanaging its operations around the globe. The prime focus of this ongoing anti-Chevron effort has been the company’s annual shareholder meetings, but protests at the Richmond refinery and a series of movie and PR stunts have been also been effective tactics….Read full article
Nigeria Section of article:
Nigeria may represent Chevron’s toughest challenge yet. What happens in Nigeria could have major impacts on future operations in a continent destined to become the top oil producer for the United States in the coming decades. In fact, Africa already supplies the United States with more oil than the Middle East.
Nigeria’s population of 150 million people makes it the most populous country in Africa. The country is torn by cultural and religious strife. The north is predominately Muslim and has traditionally dominated governing structures. The south is comprised primarily of poor Christian populations living near the oil reserves in the Niger Delta, a former fishing community. These southerners traditionally have not had much voice in governmental affairs.
Oil operations have decimated fish populations, interrupting the traditional way of life in the Niger Delta. Many villagers write long detailed letters to Chevron about the impacts oil operations have on their lives — but they never get a response. Chevron employees live in barricades so they have no interaction with the local population. As of late, villagers have become armed and steal oil — locals call it “bunkering” — and Chevron has begun to bribe armed rebels to allow oil to get to market, further entrenching a culture of corruption in Nigeria.
“Oil is so lucrative that a web of mysterious relationships between oil companies, the government, militants, and communities has evolved,” said Laura Livoti, founder of Justice in Nigeria Now, and a longtime activist and radio reporter. Without her group, the issues surrounding oil and this troubled African country would never make the news and become part of the ongoing dialogue about how to reform Chevron and other oil companies operating there. The media tends to ignore what happens in this part of the world, but Livoti’s group, with a staff of two, is determined to change that.
Earlier this year, for example, 20,000 villagers were displaced during a government-backed crackdown funded by Chevron. “No humanitarian aid was allowed, no journalists, no human-rights observers. Military rogues blew up facilities, which shut down the oil industry. Things got so bad, Chevron pulled out all non-essential employees,” Livoti said.
It was this development that prompted the government to offer an amnesty program for militants this past May. While many balked, a large number have come forward to accept amnesty, except the militants most committed to political ideals as well as genuine solutions to local poverty.
The militants and ongoing corruption in Nigeria complicates things. “When the Nigerians were peaceful protestors, it was a lot easier to gain sympathy,” acknowledged Livoti. “Now that an armed resistance as risen up in Nigeria, attracting sympathy — and financial support — is much more difficult,” she said. Read Full article
Militancy and amnesty aside, the challenge of resolving the puzzle that has denied the many communities and clans of the resource rich Niger Delta has reached emergency levels. Although the crisis was easily predictable, successive governments had treated the anger and protests as mere irritations that can be brushed aside with warning shots, arrests or in extreme cases, devastating attacks on communities.
For scholars and survivors, there is something new that should worry all lovers of peace and livelihood - the completed project of the regionalization of anger and the now emerging nationalization of grievances anchored on stubborn defiance.
In the early days of the struggles by our people against the corporations and governments, the focus of mobilisation remained in islands of clans with small numbers of dedicated individuals and rarely was cross clan collaboration involved. In the renewed agitations of the 1990s, the idea of clan collaboration began to take firm root with the emergence of the Chikoko Movement and several groups worked like this. Read the rest of this entry »
Sweet Crude Playing at United Nations Film Festival - SF screening, Free Admission
Sunday, October 18, 2009 at 2:50pm
San Francisco, Variety Screening Room
582 Market Street, San Francisco -Map
Sweet Crude, is playing for FREE on Sunday October 18th in San Francisco as part of the United Nations Film Festival. The award winning documentary captures the complex reality of how the oil industry and the Nigerian government have left the Delta in such desperation that some have turned to militancy while others struggle to survive. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with the Director and experts and activists focused on the issues in the Niger Delta.
Stay for the panel discussion with film’s Director Sandy Cioffi, Nigerian activist Suanu Bere, Professor Michael Watts who is featured in the film and Daniel Volman, Director of the African Security Research Project.
This film gives one of the best historical contexts to the current conflict in the Niger Delta, where oil companies and the Nigerian government have left the region in abject poverty, created major environmental disasters and a history of human rights abuses.
“Good characters make good docs, and Cioffi is fortunate to have thoughtful men and funny, feisty women (and sometimes vice versa) to ornament a film that provides enough history to make sense and enough humanity to wash it down. Despite the utter destruction of their environment and the fact that mothers now have to describe to their children the animals that once ran free around their homes, a sense of despondency and/or resignation is absent from what Cioffi presents. There are plenty of reasons for dread; the speed with which the air quality rots the zinc roofs of the houses makes one shudder to think what it’s doing to the inhabitants. But the mood is generally upbeat and optimistic, despite anyone’s prognosis”
On Sunday, several of the Niger Delta’s prominent militants agreed to the Nigerian government’s offer of amnesty at the 11th hour before the deadline on October 4th. However, it’s unclear if this is a step toward peace in the Delta or just another failed attempt of the government to gain back control of the oil producing states. The situation is still tenuous and nothing of substance has been negotiated. Here are a few perspectives:
Hector Igbikiowubo
MORE than 90 days after the amnesty package for militants in the Niger Delta came to a close, an air of uncertainty persist over the effectiveness of the initiative, especially against the backdrop of threats by the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) to call off its cease-fire and reports that government has been busy acquiring fast attack helicopters and flat bed speed boats for a final showdown with militants. Read Full Article
By Caroline Duffield BBC News, Niger DeltaTalk to taxi-drivers and hotel clerks in Nigeria’s Delta region, and you hear the same words again and again: “We must give peace a chance.”
Shopkeepers smile with delight, chattering with customers about decommissioning and peace talks in the country’s oil-producing area.
For the past three months, people have watched militant warlords hold disarmament ceremonies, bringing out thousands of their followers, and stacking guns high in public.
Rocket-propelled grenades, guns, explosives, ammunition and even gunboats have all been dumped. Read Full article
Thousands of militants surrendered their weapons under the just-concluded amnesty program after years of fighting in the oil-producing Niger Delta. Government officials have hailed the amnesty as a huge success. It may be too early to say whether the initiative will translate into lasting peace. Read Full Article
It wasn’t an oil spill that made Nnimmo Bassey an environmentalist. It was a massacre — the 1990 assault by Nigeria’s armed forces on the village of Umuechem, where residents of the oil-rich Niger Delta had accused the Shell Petroleum Development Company of environmental degradation and economic neglect. In two days of violence, 80 people died and nearly 500 houses were destroyed. “We woke up from a sleep and … everything was collapsing around us,” says Bassey, 51, head of Environmental Rights Action, the Nigerian chapter of Friends of the Earth.
The deaths convinced Bassey and his colleagues that they needed to broaden their efforts. “We realized that if people don’t have a safe environment to live in, then they don’t have literally any other rights,” he says.
The petroleum wealth of the Niger Delta runs from the ground into government coffers and the accounts of foreign oil majors, leaving the region one of the poorest in the world. Its schools are crumbling. Its hospitals often lack doors — never mind modern equipment. Electricity, drinking water and employment are all in short supply. The oil itself doesn’t always flow smoothly. Spills are common, all the more so because thieves tap into pipelines and angry villagers prevent infrastructure maintenance. If oil catches fire, it can burn for days. Bassey’s group documents all these consequences and educates people about their rights. “Oil has been the destruction of the Nigerian economy,” says Bassey. “It destroys the relation between the people and the state.”
In a country where 85% of government revenues rely on oil money, Bassey’s positions often pit him against the authorities. Under the dictatorship of the 1990s, he was stripped of his travel papers and detained without trial several times. As the battle over Nigeria’s oil wealth has turned into full-blown militancy, he has found himself on the same side as the armed rebels who have taken on the now democratic government in Abuja. While Bassey disagrees with the militants’ tactics — kidnapping of oil workers, attacks on infrastructure, clashes with the military — he stops short of condemning them. “Any society that uses violence against its own people will eventually have a segment that stands up against it.”
Faris is the author of Forecast: The Surprising — and Immediate — Consequences of Climate Change
GREEN TIP
‘Plant a garden today, even if in boxes! Save all that energy used to transport food over thousands of miles.’ — Nnimmo Bassey
Last week, it was reported that the Nigerian government is gearing up for another offensive in the Niger Delta, despite the government’s pledge to support an amnesty and a 60-day ceasefire and the widespread belief that a military offensive will not solve the crisis in the the Delta. Below is an analysis by the Director of the African Security Research Project
Reprinted from Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON, Sep 13 (IPS) - There is mounting evidence that the government of Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar’adua is set to launch a full-scale offensive in the Niger Delta when a ceasefire declared by rebels ends on Sep. 15.
And this time, Nigerian military forces will be using special warships, helicopter gunships and troop transports, and unmanned drone intelligence planes and ships sold to Nigeria by Israeli, Malaysian, Singaporean, Dutch and Russian companies.
Israeli and Russian instructors have been providing specialised training to Nigerian Navy and Air Force sailors and pilots in how to operate the ships and helicopters over the past few months, and some of these instructors may help operate them during the offensive.
On Jul. 15, President Yar’adua declared a 60-day amnesty for members of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the armed group that has been conducting an insurgency campaign in the Delta for the past five years. The amnesty offer is set to expire at midnight on Oct. 4.
In mid-August, while Secretary Clinton was in Nigeria meeting with the President and the Foreign Minister she pledged to explore ways that the U.S. can provide additional military assistance to Nigeria. This disturbing promise signals that that the Obama administration’s foreign policy with regards to Nigeria is headed in the wrong direction. We need you to sign a letter that will send a strong message demanding that Secretary Clinton and the Obama administration rethink the U.S. role in bringing peace to the Niger Delta. Support diplomatic negotiations, not military assistance.
Nigeria is the one of the largest producers of oil in Africa, and is an important strategic partner for the U.S. – Nigeria is the fifth largest exporter of crude oil to the U.S., Africa’s most populous country, and a key country in maintaining regional security in West Africa, making Nigeria one of the most important stops on Secretary Clinton’s 7-country trip to Africa.
During her visit, Secretary Clinton rightly highlighted the importance of electoral reform, the need for transparency and the concern regarding widespread corruption, however her comments indicating the U.S. would explore military assistance for Nigeria is not the right approach to supporting Nigeria in resolving the crisis in the oil producing Niger Delta. Residents of the Niger Delta have struggled for decades to demand their share of the oil wealth which makes up 80 percent of the Nigerian government’s revenues. Since oil was discovered in the late 1950’s the region has become poorer, with most villagers living on less than a $1 a day. In addition, the people have suffered mass human rights violations at the hand of the Nigerian military (sometimes at the behest of U.S. oil companies) when they have spoken up to demand clean water, electricity, and access to healthcare, education and jobs; and environmental destruction by the oil companies including oil spills, water contamination and gas flares that burn 24 hours a day 7 days a week contributing to respiratory illnesses, cancer and significant Co2 emissions. Civil society groups and armed political militant groups alike have called for diplomatic negotiations as the way toward peace. They seek a say in their own governance and a genuine investment in the development of the Niger Delta. Ask Secretary Clinton to support diplomatic negotiations.
As Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and her entourage arrives this week in Abuja, the bright new capital of the Nigeria, their hosts will try to put the best face on what is the gravest political crisis the country has faced since their civil war ended almost four decades ago. The uninspired government of President Musa Yar’ Adua, who took office in 2007 on the back of elections massively fraudulent even by Nigeria’s appallingly low standards, faces a dual political crisis. In the oil-producing Niger delta a long simmering military insurgency has crippled the oil and gas industry which accounts for over 80% of government income and virtually all of Nigeria’s export revenues. A counter-insurgency by federal forces launched in May 2009 produced a ferocious response by the insurgents including in July an audacious attack on key oil installations in Lagos, the economic capital of the country.
In the north of Nigeria, the Muslim heartland and the home-base of the powerful ruling northern oligarchy, a Taliban-styled Islamist group – Boko Haram – was brutally repressed by government security forces in early August. Heavy bombardment of the movement’s compound resulted in large numbers of casualties, and culminated in the extra-judicial killing of the movement’s leader Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri at the hands of the police. Two key economic and political regions of the Nigerian federation are in effect under lockdown. After two years of drift and serial ineptitude, Nigeria now stands at a tipping point.
