17 October 2011
Re-posted from AFP

WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court said Monday it will consider a lawsuit accusing Royal Dutch Shell of human rights abuses, a case that could make companies liable for torture or genocide committed overseas.

The plaintiffs — relatives of seven Nigerians killed by the country’s former military regime — sued the Anglo-Dutch energy giant and other firms for apparently enlisting the government to suppress resistance to oil exploration in the Niger Delta in the 1990s.

The case will assess the potential liability of corporations — including multinationals with a US presence — under the Alien Tort Statute, a US law dating back to 1789 which scholars say was meant to assure foreign governments that the United States would help prevent breaches of international law.

The 12 Nigerian plaintiffs charge Shell with “complicity in human rights violations committed against them in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta in Nigeria between 1992 and 1995,” according to their complaint put before the court.

“These violations included torture, extra-judicial executions and crimes against humanity.”

It said Shell “aided and abetted the Nigerian government in committing human rights abuses,” and added: “For the victims of human rights violations such cases often provide the only opportunity to obtain any remedy for their suffering.”

Full article

image credit: Sweet Crude

Read the Reuters piece on the same subject

Another instance of the use of excessive force in the Niger Delta has prompted  Amnesty International to observe, “The excessive use of force by Nigeria’s security forces in Bundu waterfront community is contrary to Nigeria’s international human rights obligations and commitments.”

Probe Bundu waterfront shootings Amnesty Int’l, SERAP urge FG, River

October 12, 2010

By Innocent Anaba & Wahab Abdulah,
Re-posted from Vanguard News

LAGOS—Amnesty International and Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, yesterday, asked the government of President Goodluck Jonathan and the Rivers State Governor,  Mr Rotimi Amaechi to “urgently set up an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the excessive use of force and firearms by security forces, which  resulted in at least one death, and 12 serious injuries in Bundu Waterfront, Port Harcourt, last year.

Addressing newsmen in Lagos, at the  launch the report, Port Harcourt Demolitions: Excessive Use of Force Against Demonstrators, SERAP’s Executive Director,  Mr Adetokunbo Mumuni, said, “we consider the events of 0ctober 12, 2009 to constitute violation of the human rights of the victims to protest, demonstrate and take part in political activities. We also consider the excessive use of force to be unlawful, resulting in violation of the right to life.”

The 18-page report is an eye witness account  from the victims of the Bundu shootings as well as from women, who were intimidated and beaten by security personnel.

Lucy Freeman of Amnesty said, “the excessive use of force seen in the Bundu shooting is just one of many examples of the brutality with which the police and army operate throughout Nigeria, yet, few officers are held accountable. In most cases there is no investigation. There must be an end to the impunity enjoyed by Nigeria’s security forces.”

Full article

Environmental Rights Action Field Report #276: Shell’s dredging of River Nun spurs coastal erosion in Peremabiri community

Tuesday, 04 October 20

Re-posted from Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria)

To tell you the truth no one is comfortable with the way the River Nun is expanding while the community land is shrinking by the day. It is like a story now when we tell strangers that this community has lost over fifty meters of land in the last few years. And, if the trend should continue unchecked, we may join the monkeys in the swamps very soon. We are of the view that the dredging activities of Shell around us also have negative effect that is leading to the collapsing river banks and expansion of the River here. We are calling for assistance from government before we are wiped out from this location. What are we going to tell our children coming behind? – Maurice Jonathan

GPS Coordinate: Elev: -9m, N 04°38.395’, E006°04.910’

Peremabiri community is one among several Ijaw communities in Boma Clan of Southern Ijaw Local Government Area that settles along the Nun River. Farming and fishing are the major occupations of the people.  Apart from hosting the biggest rice farm [abandoned for several years now]in west Africa established by the moribund  Niger Delta Basin Development Authority [NDBDA], it is also host  to several oil wells including Shell’s Diebu Flow station, wellheads and pipelines.
Peremabiri has had its fair share of the negative impacts of oil exploration/exploitation activities: oil spills/fire and the effects of gas flaring that is still on-going at the flow station.
Information reached ERA/FoEN that the community was almost going into extinction due to river encroachment caused by dredging activities of Shell and because of this phenomenon it became necessary to visit the community and get an on-the-spot assessment of the situation.
ERA field monitors were led round the community by the current and past chairmen of Peremabiri Community Development Committee [CDC], Mr. Maurice Jonathan and Dickson Peresuote.

Read full report

photo:  Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria)

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

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.