Send a message to Chevron about their human rights and environmental abuses.
Sign a letter to Chevron’s CEO calling on Chevron to stop paying, transporting and housing the Nigerian military and police forces who shoot, injure and kill innocent unarmed protesters in Nigeria. Sign Letter!
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.
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.
We at JINN hope you have heard about Sweet Crude, the incredible film about the Niger Delta by Sandy Cioffi. The film was recently accepted into the prestigious International Documentary Association’s 2009 DocuWeeks™ theatrical showcase which opens tonight in LA at the Archlight Hollywood Theater in LA. This program was created to provide week-long theatrical runs in LA and NY, which are required to qualify for Oscar nomination! If you live in either city – go see the film and spread the word! You can become a fan of their page on Facebook for updated information.
View the trailer:
Sweet Crude is the story of Nigeria’s Niger Delta – the human and environmental consequences of 50 years of oil extraction, the history of non-violent protest, and the members of a new insurgency who, in the three years since the filmmakers met them as college students, became the young men of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).
Delta Force,a Documentary by Glen Ellis about Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Struggle for the Ogoni People
Followed by a Panel Discussion about the upcoming case against Shell
6pm – Wine and Beer Reception
7pm – Film Screening
8pm – Panel Discussion
Artist Television Access
992 Valencia Street (at 21st) – Map
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415)824-3890
ata@atasite.org
This is a benefit screening for JINN
$10-$30 suggested donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)
Panelists include:
Cindy Cohn – Counsel to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed against Chevron by Nigerian villagers for human rights abuses committed in 1998 and heard in US court last fall in San Francisco. The Chevron case is now entering the appeals process. Cohn is the Legal Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation as well as its General Counsel.
Beresuanu Kingston – Ogoni activist now living in the San Francisco Bay Area who has first hand experience with Shell’s abuses in Ogoniland.
On November 10, 1995, Nigerian environmental activist and internationally acclaimed non-violent resistance leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 of his Ogoni colleagues were executed by Nigeria’s brutal military dictatorship. This one hour documentary, tells the story of the rise of Saro-Wiwa and the Movement for Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) and its violent suppression by the Nigerian military with the complicity of Shell Oil.
On May 26, 2009 relatives of Ken Saro-Wiwa and other MOSOP members will bring Shell to trial in New York for the company’s complicity in the death of Ogoni leaders and the destruction of Ogoni villages at the hand of the Nigerian military.
Join us at this benefit for Justice in Nigeria Now (JINN) to support JINN while socializing and learning about the Ogoni and the upcoming trial
