From our friends at Platform and their Remember Saro Wiwa program:

remember saro-wiwa UNEP Report: Analysis & action Following coverage in The Guardian today of UNEP’s outrageous decision to “exonerate” Shell over oil spills in Nigeria, we present analysis of this controversial issue. Read on and take action below. Global Outrage at UN Report The UNEP’s report is in direct conflict with local environmentalists and communities who have witnessed and monitored spills for many years. We take a look at the manipulative PR and politics behind Shell’s ‘exoneration’. Read more. What’s Shell & UNEP Trying to Hide? Any child educated in Nigeria knows that oil was discovered in Oloibiri, Nigeria in 1956, and that the history of oil spills is almost as long. So why does UNEP think otherwise? Read more. More Harm Than Good? There are some things the debate over oil spills in Nigeria cannot change. Shell must clean up all oil spills. But the UNEP could undermine the pressure on Shell to take action. Read more. Take Action You can help hold Shell to account: email Mike Cowing , (head of the UNEP study) and cut and paste the following questions. Please personalise, share and add your own views. 1. Why has the UNEP decided to echo Shell’s widely disputed analysis of the number and causes of oil spills in Ogoni? 2. How does UNEP justify announcing its findings on the causes of oil spills when this is not the subject of the study? 3. Why does UNEP claim that oil spills in the Niger Delta have been occurring for only 9 years? 4. What guarantees can UNEP give that its study will not be subject to undue influence from either Shell or the Nigerian government, since both are funding the project?

Share on Facebook

Read the reaction to UNEP’s report on JINN ally website remember saro-wiwa

By Ben Amunwa on August 24, 2010

Today Amnesty International joined the chorus of disapproval and outrage at UNEP’s decision to clear Shell of all responsibility for oil spills in Nigeria. UNEP has been widely criticised for recently using Shell data to announce that the company is only 10% responsible for the causes of oil spills.

“Relying on these figures would be a serious misjudgement, with potentially significant ramifications for those living in the Niger Delta,” said Audrey Gaughran, Director of Amnesty International’s Global Thematic Issues Program. “UNEP must be aware that the figures have been strongly challenged for years by environmental groups and communities. They are totally lacking in credibility.”

Amnesty went on to highlight how UNEP’s use of Shell data raises serious anomalies:

Between 1989 and 1994 Shell itself estimated that only 28 percent of oil spilt in the Niger Delta was caused by sabotage. In 2007 Shell’s estimate had risen to 70 per cent. The figure now given by Shell has increased to more than 90 per cent. Amnesty International has repeatedly asked Shell to produce evidence to support these figures. Shell has been unable to do so.

Friends of the Earth International, the worlds largest network of environmentalists, also condemned UNEP’s uncritical announcement of the disputed Shell data. Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends the Earth International and director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria said:

We monitor spills regularly and our observations often contradict information produced by oil companies and Nigerian regulatory agencies. If the UNEP team would ask community monitors it would avoid falling into the trap of spinning Shell’s figures. The UN assessment is being paid for by Shell so we are not surprised that it tells Shell’s version of the facts. But the reality is that several studies have placed the bulk of the blame for oil spills in the Niger Delta on the doorsteps of the oil companies; particularly Shell.

Link to article on .

Share on Facebook

Read JINN ally Nnimmo Bassey’s powerful piece from the Guardian UK on the UNEP report financed by Shell:

Report blaming 90% of spills in Ogoniland on locals stealing crude from pipelines allows companies to shirk responsibility

Outrage at UN decision to exonerate Shell for oil pollution in Niger delta

Nnimmo Bassey
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 August 2010 15.13 BST

Oil leaks from the Shell flow station in Eriemu, Nigeria Oil leaks from a Shell flow station in Nigeria. The claim that pipelines have been sabotaged is particularly attractive to oil companies. Photograph: George Osodi/AP

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is preparing to issue a report announcing that 90% of the oil spills in Ogoniland, Nigeria, are caused by the locals stealing crude from pipelines – and that Shell’s aged pipelines and ill maintained installations account for a mere 10% of the spills. Why so little, we might ask?

The UNEP has now admitted this figure is based on data from the oil industry and the Nigerian government. It’s not surprising that this is in line with what Shell used to claim in the 1980s – that about 80% of the oil spills were caused by vandalism or sabotage. This claim that infrastructure has been sabotaged is particularly attractive to oil companies, because they are then exempted from paying compensation for any resulting spills. Why accept responsibility for polluting the locals’ creeks, swamps and farmlands and destroying their livelihoods when you can blame the very same people for the mess now coating their own backyards with a toxic gloss?

Yet crucial expertise which could have painted a very different picture was sidelined. Prof Richard Steiner, an international expert on oil spills, was contracted to write the manual on oil damage assessment and restoration by the UNEP in 2004. But when Shell hired the agency to carry out the present study, Steiner’s offer to provide scientific advice and guidance to the Ogoniland report was declined.

Steiner has already said that the findings now uncovered are incorrect, and has gone on to say: “Our earlier results suggest that much of the oil spilled there was due to poor practice by Shell, rather than bunkering and sabotage… it is entirely implausible that 90% of the oil spilled was due to bunkering [the act of criminal gangs stealing oil].” In short, his opinion is that this is not an independent, credible assessment.

The report does indeed rely heavily on figures produced by oil companies and Nigerian state statistics rather than on testimonies from those most affected – the communities in Ogoniland.

The National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency of Nigeria has reported a total of 3,203 oil spills in the Niger Delta region in the last four years alone.

That list lengthens every day. The records of the Nigerian Directorate of Petroleum Resources show that nearly 2.5m barrels of crude oil were spilt between 1976 and 1996. Most damning of all, 77% of this oil was not recovered and contaminated the local environment. This is an environmental catastrophe which has a long history – some notable past spills include the Escravos spill of 1978 in which 300,000 barrels of crude oil was spilled into the coastal waters and another, in the same year, caused by tank failure at Forcados Terminal in which 580,000 barrels were spewed into the environment.

It is in this polluted environment that the people of Ogoniland have had to live for decades with spill after spill. The UNEP must be, and be seen to be, an independent arbiter of what has really happened there. There should be no room for suspicion that the $10m (£6.5m) Shell paid the agency for this report will influence the outcome.

Nnimmo Bassey is chairman of Friends of the Earth International

Share on Facebook

• John Vidal, environment editor
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 August 2010 18.36 BST

Oil pipelines in Okrika, near Port Harcourt. The UNEP denies it has been influenced by Shell, which paid for its $10m, three-year study. Photograph: Ed Kashi

A three-year investigation by the United Nations will almost entirely exonerate Royal Dutch Shell for 40 years of oil pollution in the Niger delta, causing outrage among communities who have long campaigned to force the multinational to clean up its spills and pay compensation.

The $10m (£6.5m) investigation by the UN environment programme (UNEP), paid for by Shell, will say that only 10% of oil pollution in Ogoniland has been caused by equipment failures and company negligence, and concludes that the rest has come from local people illegally stealing oil and sabotaging company pipelines.

The shock disclosure was made by Mike Cowing, the head of a UN team of 100 people who have been studying environmental damage in the region.

Cowing said that the 300 known oil spills in the Ogoniland region of the delta caused massive damage, but added that 90% of the spills had been caused by “bunkering” gangs trying to steal oil.

His comments, in a briefing in Geneva last week, have caused deep offence among the families of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the eight other Ogoni leaders who were hanged by the Nigerian government in 1995 after a peaceful uprising against Shell’s pollution.

With 606 oil fields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of the crude oil imported by the US. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 over the past two generations.

Communities accept that bunkering has become rife in some areas of Ogoniland, but say this is a recent development and most of the historical pollution has been caused by Shell operations.

Last year, Amnesty calculated that the equivalent of at least 9m barrels of oil has been spilled in the delta over the past half a century, nearly twice as much as the 5m barrels unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico by the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Tonight the investigation was accused of bias by Nigerians and environmental groups who said the study – paid for by Shell and commissioned by the Nigerian government, who both have massive oil interests in the region – was unbalanced.

Ben Ikari, an Ogoni activist, said: “Nobody from Ogoniland would be surprised, because the federal government of Nigeria and Shell are the same cabal that killed Ken Saro-Wiwa and others.”

Ben Amunwa of London-based oil watchdog group Platform said: “The UNEP study relies on bogus figures from Shell and incomplete government records. Many Ogoni suspect that the report’s focus on sabotage and bunkering will be used to justify military repression notorious in the Niger delta, where non-violent activists, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, were executed.”

Cowing defended the UN report. In a series of emails seen by the Guardian, he said: “UNEP is not responsible for allocating responsibility for the number of spills being found in Ogoniland. Rather, we are focusing on the science. The figures referred to are those of the ministry of the environment and the department of petroleum resources.

“This is a Nigerian issue, not a UNEP issue. However, I would add that from our extensive field work throughout Ogoniland we have witnessed, on a daily basis, very large scale bunkering operations.

“It’s very controversial. We cannot say whether a particular spill is from one cause or another. Our observation is that there is a serious [bunkering ] problem. I am being seen to be siding with the oil companies, but I am not.

“We were provided with the official spill site list. This is given by the oil companies themselves but is endorsed by the [government] agencies. We are not on the side of the oil companies.”

He denied the UN was being influenced by Shell or the government. “We believe that it is correct that Shell [Nigeria] fund the study, as this is in compliance with the internationally accepted norm of the ‘polluter pays’. No party … will be able to influence the science.”

The full report, due to be published by December, is expected to warn of an environmental catastrophe.

“This is not directly comparable to the spills that occurred in the Gulf [of Mexico],” said Cowing. “But we have a serious and profound problem.”

Tonight, environmental groups expressed shock at the report. Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends the Earth International and director of Environmental Rights Action, Nigeria’s leading environment group, said: “It is incredible that the UN says that 90% is caused by communities. The UNEP assessment is being paid for by Shell. Their conclusions may be tailored to satisfy their client. We monitor spills regularly and our observation is the direct opposite of what UNEP is planning to report.”

A June 2009 report by Amnesty International called the damage in the delta a “human rights tragedy”, and blamed the government and oil firms, mainly Shell, for years of pollution. It recognised that oil bunkering had caused spills, but said “the scale of this problem is not clear”.

The UN report saw more than 1,000 soil and water tests and other investigationscarried out, and hundreds of communities consulted. The data generated is the first step towards a massive clean-up.

Oil production in the delta started during the 1950s, but was suspended in the 90s due to unrest. The oil fields in Ogoniland have since remained dormant.

Share on Facebook

We hope you enjoyed April Fools this year as much as we did, thanks to the stellar jokesters the Yes Men who have a habit of impersonating corporate spokespeople.  The people of the Niger Delta still need you to

email Shell’s CEO, Peter Voser, or call Shell’s headquarters at (031) 70 377-9111, or US office at (713) 767-5400, to

encourage Shell to make real amends by ending gas flaring in the Niger Delta and investing in job training and educational opportunities for every resident of a village whose self-sufficient lifestyle was damaged by Shell.

If you missed the prank, read the statement below and watch the video above of Shell’s apology to the Niger Delta.

A huge thanks to the Yes Men for driving a 100% increase in traffic on JINN’s Facebook page over the last week!

from http://shellapologises.com/statement.html:

The Hague, 27 March 2010

Today, Royal Dutch Shell is holding back the tears no more. Shell apologises to all inhabitants of Nigeria’s Niger Delta for the many years of human rights violations, for which Shell takes full responsibility.

Confronted with massive evidence of human rights violations that can only be attributed to its operations in the Niger Delta, Royal Dutch Shell is extremely proud to be the first international petrochemical company to publicly say:

We are sorry.

Since Shell first discovered oil in the Niger Delta in 1956, the company has ravished the land and polluted the environment. “We thought these people didn’t know what was good for them,” explains Bradford Houppe, Vice-President of Shell’s newly established Ethical Affairs Committee. “We never knew that we were bringing them impoverishment, conflict, abuse and deprivation. Now we know.” Shell acknowledges that it is responsible for large-scale oil spills, waste dumping and gas flaring. Each year, hundreds of oil spills occur, many of which are caused by corrosion of oil pipes and poor maintenance of infrastructure. “Our failure to deal with these spills swiftly and the lack of effective clean-up greatly exacerbate their human rights and environmental impact,” says Houppe. “And that is wrong. It’s just really wrong.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Share on Facebook

"SHELL, COME TO TERMS WITH NIGERIA" Photo Credit: Radio Netherlands Worldwide

On December 30, 2009 a civil court judge in the Hague ruled that Royal Dutch Shell can be sued in the Netherlands—its corporate headquarters—for pollution it caused in Nigeria.

Four Nigerian villagers and Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie) brought the claim, forcing Shell to face up to charges of environmental and social damage it has caused in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Estimated damage from pipeline spills and gas flaring caused by the oil industry as a whole amounts to up to $20 billion, according to a variety of independent organizations. Royal Dutch Shell is the largest oil company operating in Nigeria.

The case charges Shell with environmental degradation arising from its oil operations in the village of Oruma, where a high-pressure wellhead spewing oil and gas ran uncontained for 12 days, polluting land and drinking water in nearby communities, with “clean-up”—comprised of dumping toxic waste into pits and burning them—beginning four months later. Shell also faces claims for damage in Goi, where in 2005, Shell’s Trans-Niger pipeline caught fire and destroyed farmland and homes and polluted fisheries, with the mess remaining for 33 months, as well as for an enforcement action of a court order against Shell to stop the illegal practice of gas flaring, which the federal high court of Nigeria declared a violation of human rights in 2005.

The first substantive hearing, which pertains to the Oruma oil spill, is slated to begin in the Hague Civil Court tentatively in spring 2010.

Royal Dutch Shell continues to deny responsibility for, and contest jurisdiction abroad over, its actions in Nigeria.

Read more here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/30/shell-oruma-alleged-pollution-claim

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8434736.stm

Share on Facebook

The Critical Now

By Oronto Douglas

November 20, 2009

Reposted from NEXT

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 »

Share on Facebook

Berkeley, Oakland urge oil money transparency

By Josh Richman
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 12:39 pm

Reprinted from The Contra Costa Times Political Blogger

Share on Facebook

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.

Share on Facebook

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua on Wednesday August 12, she will discuss what JINN thinks are some of the most important and interconnected issues facing the country today: electoral integrity, corruption and the Niger Delta. We hope she sends a strong message that reform in all three areas is necessary for Nigeria to continue functioning as a State and to continue as a key U.S. ally.

Nigeria is known for its fraudulent elections and politicians who employ armed thugs to ensure votes are cast in their favor. The Nigerian government faces a crisis of credibility that has the potential to become volatile, if members of minority communities and residents of the politically disenfranchised economic engine of the Delta continue to feel that they do not have any real power or say in their own governance. In fact, the armed insurgency that gained world attention by disrupting oil operations in the Delta has its roots in the gangs armed by political candidates. Electoral integrity and the ability for all citizens of Nigeria’s democracy to participate meaningfully should be high on Secretary Clinton’s agenda.

Legendary for its high levels of corruption, Nigeria must institute real reform. For those living in the Niger Delta, corruption means that the majority live in poverty while the approximately $700 billion in oil revenues earned over the last fifty years was split between the Nigerian government and the oil companies, with which the government partners. Although the Nigerian government claims to send a small percentage of its oil revenues to the communities where it is extracted, and although oil companies claim to provide local community benefits, the majority of those living in the Delta’s oil producing communities live on less than $1 per day and have seen their living standards decline over the years. Secretary Clinton must insist that the Nigerian government institute measures to ensure greater transparency and accountability, which are critical to ensuring that the country’s revenues benefit the many and don’t just line the pockets of a few. Ultimately, U.S. businesses will also find it easier to operate in a less corrupt environment.

The Niger Delta and its oil resources fuel the Nigerian treasury, which depends upon oil for 80% of government revenue. The oil of the Delta is important to both countries. In 2006 more then 40% of Nigeria’s oil was exported to the U.S. and it represented 15% of the U.S. supply. However, a political militancy has reduced Nigerian output for the last few years. Output has been even more dramatically reduced since May of this year when militants began blowing up oil installations in reprisal for an ongoing series of attacks by the Nigerian military claiming to be rooting out militants, but destroyed local villages and displaced, killed and injured innocent civilians who still cannot return home. The political militancy of the last five years arose after 45 years of peaceful protest by villagers yielded no major improvements for local communities whose quality of life was decimated. When Secretary Clinton meets with President Yar’Adua it is imperative to U.S. economic and energy security, to the stability of Nigeria and to the lives of those who live in the Delta that she urge President Umaru Yar’Adua to:

• Withdraw the Nigerian military forces from the Niger Delta and institute an official ceasefire;
• Initiate third party monitored diplomatic talks that include all stakeholders;
• Allow free and unfettered access to all parts of the Delta by journalists, humanitarian aid groups and human rights organizations;
• Make real investments in the development of the Niger Delta and rebuild villages destroyed by the recent military attacks.

Electoral integrity, transparency and accountability and addressing the root cause of the troubles in the Niger Delta are interconnected issues that we applaud the Obama administration for publicly stating are on its agenda. JINN hopes that in her discussions regarding the Niger Delta that Secretary Clinton recognizes the imperative of seeking long term solutions that will meet the real needs of villagers in oil producing communities while once again increasing production output and oil revenues.

Share on Facebook