Re-posted from Social Action
Saturday, 17 September 2011

Over 700 families in Ogoniland are angry with the Rivers State government over what they allege was a forceful land acquisition by the state Ministry of Agriculture.

Consequently, the families, under the Ogoni Solidarity Forum and Ogoni Civil Society Platform have joined forces with two non-governmental organisations – the Social and Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC) and Social Action (SA) – to show their displeasure and concern over what they described as the “grave human rights and due process breaches” by the Rivers State government.

The said farmland of about 200 hectares is being acquired to enable a Mexican investor, Union De Iniciativa S.A De C.V, undertake a commercial banana plantation project. As a result of this, families in the Nyokhana, Tai and Babbe kingdoms of Ogoniland stand to be affected by the land acquisition.

According to some of the affected family members, heavily armed military men have been coming every week in vehicles to patrol the area and survey new lands since May 16, 2011. They force anyone in their way to lie on the ground and people report being afraid to challenge the military for fear of the consequences.

Although the farmers have been explicitly forbidden by the military to return to the land, some now sneak back onto the land to harvest the few crops that remain in order to feed their families.

Full article

by Claire Thompson

Re-posted from Grist

28 Sep 2011 1:10 PM

Overnight, Nigeria went from being a British colony to being owned by Shell oil. Filmmaker Sandy Cioffi went to the Niger Delta — Nigeria’s oil-rich southern region — in 2005 intending to document the construction of a library in a small village there. But something about the effort smelled foul to her; it smacked of the type of empty philanthropy that’s carried out by well-intentioned but misguided volunteers and backed by controlling interests hoping to distract or make up for deeper, systemic exploitation. Fifty years of oil extraction in the delta has polluted the region’s ecosystem to the point where what should be a vibrant equatorial swampland humming with life is now a silent dead zone where human life expectancy hovers around 40.

As Cioffi took all of this in, she also earned the trust of a few local college students, politically savvy young men who, as Cioffi puts it, “were getting that I get it.” So she decided to take advantage of the rare press access she’d been granted as part of the library filmmaking team and return to the area, supposedly to follow up on the library’s progress. “I flat-out lied,” she said. “I felt I needed to film in that moment, because I had access. No one had made a documentary about the Niger Delta in years, and it’s not because they didn’t want to, it’s because nobody could get a visa or press passes to get in. I was the only person in the delta with a camera legally.”

Sweet Crude, the film that resulted from Cioffi’s stealth return, documents the effect the oil industry has had on the political and human destiny of the Niger Delta. Since its release in 2009, Sweet Crude has racked up dozens of selections and awards at festivals across the world. Now that it’s out on DVD, we got a chance to screen it here at the Grist office, before sitting down with Cioffi for some background.

Q. How did you come to realize that the film you needed to make was not about building a library?

A. It was pretty gross to me to see all of the outpouring of resources from oil companies, from the American embassy, from all the sort of high-and-mighty and, as it turns out, quite corrupt Nigerian officials, who all wanted a piece of looking like they were for this library effort. Why should we be bringing the books that children in a Nigerian village are going to be reading? I mean, billions of dollars of oil under your feet — all they need is for us to get out of the way of their political destiny. I tried very hard to make a film that, without being an anti-philanthropy film, would be clear that I wasn’t looking at the people there as victims or perpetrators; I was trying to look at them as complicated people, like any of us are.

Q. What role does the oil industry play in Nigerian politics?

If you look at the amount of untapped oil that’s still there, not only is it untapped, but it’s also sulfur-free, which makes it incredibly valuable because you don’t have to process it. That’s why it’s called sweet crude. To an oil company, it’s liquid gold.

It’s impossible to discuss situations like the Niger Delta in a context that isn’t also immediately about the 50-year history of colonialism being turned into corporatism. Nigeria’s probably the most perfect example of a place that never had a shot because they overnight went from being a British colony to being owned by Shell Oil. We always talk about [the Biafran War in the Niger Delta] in what I consider to be fairly racist terms — look at all those crazy Africans fighting each other because of their tribal issues — well, those were ethnic tensions that were intentionally manipulated, first by the British and then by oil companies.

Full article

Photo: Kendra E. Thornbury

Re-posted from BBC News

20 September 2011

A US court has overturned a block on Ecuadoreans collecting damages totalling $18.2bn (£11.5bn) from Chevron over Amazon oil pollution.

The order reversed a previous judge’s ruling that froze enforcement of the fine outside Ecuador.

But it is not the end of the legal saga, which is also going through the courts in Ecuador.

Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, was accused of dumping toxic materials in the Ecuadorean Amazon.

In February, an Ecuadorean court ruled that Chevron should pay to clean up pollution, awarding damages of more than $9bn as well as punitive damages of more than $8bn.

But Chevron, which argues that this judgement was fraudulent, successfully appealed to a New York judge to have collection of the fine blocked.

That decision was overturned on Monday, when the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York lifted the injunction.

Full article

Image: Humberto Piguaje, Tribal Leader, Secoya of the Ecuadorian Amazon, after the Chevron Shareholders meeting May 2011. Photo credit: Todd Sanchioni

The wait is over! The film Sweet Crude is now available on DVD.

You can buy it right here, right now.

Sweet Crude is an acclaimed documentary that captures the realities of the Niger Delta. Directing attention to a region devastated by oil, Sweet Crude movingly portrays the strength, beauty, and resilience of communities in the Niger Delta while unpacking myths about the region, particularly by exposing actual distortions in reporting by international media.

As the official activist partner of the film team, JINN has been helping to engage viewers to take action in theaters and beyond. We now encourage everyone to screen the film with friends, helping to widen the circle of awareness about the origin and extent of the crisis in the Niger Delta.

September 7, 2011

By Emma Amaize & Akpokona Omafuaire

Re-posted from Vanguard Media

WARRI-HUNDREDS of placard-carrying women, from about 10 Gbaramatu communities in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State, yesterday, laid siege to the project site of Chevron Nigeria Limited at Chanomi Creek and disrupted the laying of pipelines for the multi-billon dollars Escravos Gas to Liquid project.

The workers of an indigenous service company, Fenog Nigeria Limited, handling the project were helpless as the women refused to vacate the site, while soldiers guarding them looked on.

The women, from Okerenkoko, Oporoza, Benikrukru, Kurutie, Kunukunuma, Azama, Igoba, Pepe-Ama, Tebizon, Kokodiagbene communities, led by Mrs. Comfort Oguma, said both the Federal Government and Chevron deceived them and demanded that all pre-contract agreements be fulfilled.

Full article

Image: Oporoza, Niger Delta, Image source: Sweet Crude

Group wants fair hearing for detained campaigner

By Ben Ezeamalu
September 4, 2011

Re-posted from NEXT

Sunny Ofehe

The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has asked the Dutch authorities to give detained environmental campaigner and founder of Hope for Niger-Delta Campaign, Sunny Ofehe, a fair hearing when his case comes up for hearing on September 5.

ERA/FoEN’s call is predicated on the manner the Dutch authorities have so far handled the matter after Mr. Ofehe’s arrest and detention for unstated reasons.

Mr. Ofehe was arrested by Dutch authorities in Rotterdam on 22 February, 2011, and has been kept in detention since. The Dutch authorities initially kept mum over the reason for Mr. Ofehe’s arrest and denied anyone access to him except his lawyer who was barred from speaking to anyone on the matter.

Earlier reports from his clients indicated that the charge against Mr. Ofehe was based on people smuggling and forgery. This was subsequently substituted with terrorism which was hinged on tapped phone calls between him and an acquaintance in Nigeria in which Mr. Ofehe was said to have tried to come to an agreement to record bunkering of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta-region.

The questioned phone calls were said to have been intercepted during a massive investigation against the activist which was said to have started more than a year before his February arrest. Subsequently, his phones and computers were allegedly tapped and a camera placed in front of his office for three weeks.

“While we believe an accused is deemed innocent until otherwise proven, it is suspicious that what Ofehe was arrested for is not what he is now standing trial for,” said Nnimmo Bassey, ERA/FoEN’s Executive Director.

Full article