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Shell Oil Paid Nigerian Military to Put Down Protests, Court Documents Show
Secret papers reveal that in the 1990s the oil giant routinely worked with the army to suppress resistance to its activities
Shell has never denied that its oil operations have polluted large areas of the Niger Delta – land and air. But it had resisted charges of complicity in human rights abuses.
Shell oil activities in Ogoniland in the Niger delta have polluted rivers. (Photograph: Akintunde Akinleye/REUTERS) Court documents now reveal that in the 1990s Shell routinely worked with Nigeria's military and mobile police to suppress resistance to its oil activities, often from activists in Ogoniland, in the delta region.
Confidential memos, faxes, witness statements and other documents, released in 2009, show the company regularly paid the military to stop the peaceful protest movement against the pollution, even helping to plan raids on villages suspected of opposing the company.
According to Ogoni activists, several thousand people were killed in the 1990s and many more fled that wave of terror that took place in the 1990s.
In 2009, in a New York federal court, that evidence never saw light during the trial. Shell had been accused of collaborating with the state in the execution in 1995 of writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and other leaders of the Ogoni tribe. Instead, Shell paid $15.5m (£9.6m) to the eight families in settlement.
Among the documents was a 1994 letter from Shell agreeing to pay a unit of the Nigerian army to retrieve a truck, an action that left one Ogoni man dead and two wounded. Shell said it was making the payment "as a show of gratitude and motivation for a sustained favorable disposition in future assignments".
Brian Anderson, the director of Shell Nigeria during those years, said in 2009, after the New York settlement, the company had "played no part in any military operations against the Ogoni people, or any other communities in the Niger Delta, and we have never been approached for financial or logistical support for any action".
But he conceded that Shell had paid the military on two occasions.
The company has been sued many times over its conduct in Nigeria. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) say oil companies working in the delta, of which Shell is the largest, have overseen a "human rights tragedy". Most of the alleged human rights abuses, they say, follow the companies' refusal to abide by acceptable environmental standards.
Despite the flood of lawsuits, cases can be delayed for years. Very few people are able to take on the oil giant, which has 90 oil fields in the delta where it has operated since the 1950s.
Increasingly, though, international groups are using courts in Europe and the US against big oil companies. Shell's Nigerian subsidiary SPDC admitted liability last month in a British court for two oil spills in 2008 around Bodo, which has severely affected the lives of 69,000 people. The company is negotiating a settlement. A similar case is being heard in a Netherlands court for three other spills.
In 2009, Amnesty international said oil companies in Nigeria had fostered a "human rights tragedy" with continual oil spills, gas flaring and waste dumping. "The people of the Niger Delta have seen their human rights constantly abused by oil companies that their government cannot or will not hold to account," said Audrey Gaughran, the group's global issues director.
HRW investigators visited the Niger Delta in 1997. Their report, in 1999, said: "People are brutalized for attempting to raise grievances with the companies; in some cases security forces threatened, beat, and jailed members of community delegations even before they presented their cases."
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Show AllOf course, Democracy Now!'s "Drilling And Killing" documented this back 15 years ago.
All the Very Serious People will now point out, though, that that happened years ago and Shell isn't doing it now and Shell is very, very sorry it happened and it won't do it again and shouldn't be held to any sort of accountability for those it had murdered, as it paid out pittances in blood money and how could you expect such a fragile corporation with such a razor-thin profit margin to do anything more for the country they took a big ol' shit in and then had people killed when they complained about the smell. Poor Shell.
Snerk.
.
Drilling and Killing:
Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship is an audio documentary produced by Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill, mixed and engineered by Dred Scott Keyes. The piece was first aired in 1998 on Democracy Now!
"Oil was discovered in Nigeria at almost the same time the country gained independence from the British in 1960. Since then there have been several coups and assassinations. But one thing has remained a constant--the role of multinational oil companies in propping up the country’s military dictatorships."
--Amy Goodman
International prosecution always has its difficulties, but there is no statute of limitations on this.
This is why in 2012 the UN Permanent Forum is addressing the Doctrine of Discovery. This hideous doctrine dating from the 13th century is either written into or has directly influenced virtually all property law of nation states that experienced European colonization. End the barbarity. Repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery.
In 2008 the US Episcopal church repudiated the presence of this in US law. Think about where the human rights tragedies are occurring and what the history is. This was reaffirmed in US law by the SCOTUS in 2007 - this is not ancient history.
Sample of the papal bulls from which this method of colonization of the legal system originated can be found here:
http://www.doctrineofdiscovery.org/
Link to just one of many academic papers written on the subject:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1924842
"Shell has never denied that its oil operations have polluted large areas of the Niger Delta – land and air. But it had resisted charges of complicity in human rights abuses."
Royal Dutch Shell has had Nigerian Government and Military on the take for DECADES.
Shell is complicit in human rights violations and abuses, having been caught providing funds to buy the small arms used by Nigerian forces to attack and murder Nigerian poor. Shell was also found responsible as the driving force behind the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a world renowned poet, author and activist.
From the Wikipedia entry on Ken Saro-Wiwa:
"Saro-Wiwa was arrested again and detained by Nigerian authorities in June 1993, but was released after a month. On May 21, 1994 four Ogoni chiefs (all on the conservative side of a schism within MOSOP over strategy) were brutally murdered. Saro-Wiwa had been denied entry to Ogoniland on the day of the murders, but he was arrested and accused of incitement to them. Saro-Wiwa denied the charges, but was imprisoned for over a year before being found guilty and sentenced to death by a specially convened tribunal. The same happened to other MOSOP leaders."
"Nearly all of the defendants' lawyers resigned in protest against the trial's cynical rigging by the Abacha regime. The resignations left the defendants to their own means against the tribunal, which continued to bring witnesses to testify against Saro-Wiwa and his peers. >>>Many of these supposed witnesses later admitted that they had been bribed by the Nigerian government to support the criminal allegations. At least two witnesses who testified that Saro-Wiwa was involved in the murders of the Ogoni elders later recanted, stating that they had been bribed with money and offers of jobs with Shell to give false testimony – in the presence of Shell’s lawyer<<<."
"Very few observers were surprised when the tribunal declared a "guilty" verdict, but most were shocked that the penalty would be death by hanging for all nine defendants. Many were skeptical that the punishments would actually occur, as the Nigerian government would face international outrage and possible sanctions and other legal action should the penalties be carried out. But on 10 November 1995, Saro-Wiwa and eight other MOSOP leaders (the "Ogoni Nine") were killed by hanging at the hands of military personnel. According to most accounts, Saro-Wiwa was the last person to be hanged and so was forced to watch the death of his colleagues. Information on the circumstances of Saro-Wiwa's own death are unclear, but it is generally agreed that multiple attempts were required before Saro-Wiwa died."
"Beginning in 1996, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), EarthRights International (ERI), Paul Hoffman of Schonbrun, DeSimone, Seplow, Harris & Hoffman and other >>>human rights attorneys have brought a series of cases to hold Shell accountable for alleged human rights violations in Nigeria, including summary execution, crimes against humanity, torture, inhumane treatment and arbitrary arrest and detention. The lawsuits are brought against Royal Dutch Shell and Brian Anderson, the head of its Nigerian operation.<<<"
"The cases were brought under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 statute giving non-U.S. citizens the right to file suits in U.S. courts for international human rights violations, and the Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows individuals to seek damages in the U.S. for torture or extrajudicial killing, regardless of where the violations take place."
"The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York set a trial date of June 2009. >>>On June 9, 2009 Shell agreed to an out-of-court settlement of $15.5 million USD to victims' families.<<< However, the company denied any liability for the deaths, stating that the payment was part of a reconciliation process. In a statement given after the settlement, >>> Shell suggested that the money was being provided to the relatives of Saro-Wiwa and the eight other victims, in order to cover the legal costs of the case and also in recognition of the events that took place in the region.<<< Some of the funding is also expected to be used to set up a development trust for the Ogoni people, who inhabit the Niger Delta region of Nigeria The settlement was made just days before the trial, which had been brought by Ken Saro-Wiwa's son, was due to begin in New York."
Fuck the oil industry, and all other industries that stop at nothing in order to continue amassing their obscene wealth.
It's like Ken Saro-Wiwa all over again.