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Corporate Social Responsibility
News
11.03.2005 ET
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Ten Years After Saro-Wiwa Execution, New Evidence of Human Rights Violations in Oil-Rich Niger Delta, Says Amnesty International
"It is like paradise and hell. They have everything. We have nothing... If we protest, they send soldiers."
Eghare W.O. Ojhogar, chief of the Ugborodo community.
"I was told to kneel down on the beach with some of the chiefs and their hands were tied behind their backs. Then the soldiers started beating them with horsewhips, and told us to eat sand."
Cadbury George Omieh, Igno XXI, Amanyanabo (King) of Odioma.
(CSRwire) New York - Ten years after the execution of human rights advocate
Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight fellow activists, a new Amnesty International (AI)
report reveals that the people of Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta
continue to face death and devastation at the hands of security forces.
In particular, members of poverty-stricken communities who protest the
actions of Chevron, Shell or their subcontractors, or are suspected of
obstructing oil production, risk collective punishment by forces charged
with protecting major oil installations.
"A decade after executions that horrified the world, the exploitation of
oil in the Niger Delta continues to result in deprivation, injustice and
violence," said Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director for Amnesty
International USA (AIUSA). "Security forces are allowed to kill and raze
communities with impunity, and civilians who escape such injustices often
suffer the pollution that saps their health and renders their economic
livelihood impossible. That Nigeria's federal government continues to
turn a blind eye to its own people is unconscionable."
The report, Ten Years On: injustice and violence haunt the oil
Delta, focuses on human rights violations committed this year at the
Escravos oil terminal and in the community of Odioma, both on the Niger
Delta coast:
On February 4, soldiers from Nigeria's Joint Task Force fired on
protesters from Ugborodo at Chevron Nigeria's Escravos oil terminal. One
man was shot and later died from his injuries while 30 other demonstrators
were injured, some of them seriously by blows from rifle butts and other
weapons. It took several hours to transport the injured by boat to a
hospital. Neither the government nor Chevron Nigeria provided adequate
medical care or assistance to transport the injured; no thorough,
independent inquiry has been carried out into the incident.
On February 19, at least 17 people were killed and two women
reportedly were raped when Joint Task Force soldiers raided the Ijaw
community of Odioma. The raid ostensibly was to arrest members of an armed
vigilante group, but the suspects were not captured and about 80 percent of
homes in the area were destroyed. The previous month, Shell Nigeria had
withdrawn plans for oil exploration in the area, reportedly after youths
from Odioma demanded a halt to operations and the company became aware
that ownership of the land was disputed. An inquiry into the raid has not
been made public, no one has been charged and Odioma is now almost
deserted.
"Chevron must commission an independent, impartial investigation into the
company's role during the incidents at Escravos terminal," said Mila
Rosenthal, Director of AIUSA's Business and Human Rights Program. "The
company promised to ensure respect for human rights in its worldwide
operations, but its actions in Nigeria tell a different story."
AI also demands that Shell investigate allegations of a security
arrangement between a Shell Nigeria subcontractor and a criminal group in
Odioma, and calls on the Nigerian federal government to conduct thorough
and independent inquiries into allegations that security forces killed,
injured and raped civilians and destroyed their property. The findings
should be made public and those responsible for human rights violations
brought justice.
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