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Nigeria: Shell Oil Spill
Nigeria: Shell Oil Spill
Date distributed (ymd): 010729
Document reposted by APIC
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information service
provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa Policy
Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on
Africa). Find more information for action for Africa at
http://www.africapolicy.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: West Africa
Issue Areas: +economy/development+ +gender/women+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
This posting contains a first-hand report from the Niger Delta by
Dr. Terisa Turner, an activist and scholar who has published
extensively on oil and Nigeria. For additional background see the
sources cited by Dr. Turner at the end of her report, as well as
the 1999 report by Human Rights Watch, The Price of Oil
(http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/nigeria).
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"The Land is Dead"
Women's Rights as Human Rights: The Case of the Ogbodo Shell
Petroleum Spill in Rivers State, Nigeria
June-July 2001
Terisa E. Turner
Distributed with permission of the author. Comments, updates and
questions are very welcome.
Terisa E. Turner Associate Professor Department of Sociology &
Anthropology University of Guelph, Guelph ON Canada N1G 2W1 tel
519 787 0609 fax 519 787 9332 emails: [email protected]
Please copy all emails to: [email protected] and to:
[email protected]
During my ten day visit in July 2001 to oil-impacted communities
in Nigeria's oilbelt, as a guest of Niger Delta Women for Justice
and Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria; a
massive spillage of crude petroleum took place in a large town
called Ogbodo, near Port Harcourt. The fundamental right to life
of thousands of Nigerians has been put in question by this Shell
oil pipeline explosion and the resulting 18-day long spill. Human
rights of all have been violated by corporate malpractice with
state acquiescence. But especially the human rights of women have
been violated. It is women who are the mainstay of the economy in
the pristine tropical rain forest and riverine ecology of Ogbodo.
It is women who gather seafood from the wetlands and mangrove
swamps. It is women who make palm oil in hundreds of small
factory operations. It is women who grow vegetables and gather
medicinal herbs from the forests. It is women's power that has
been undermined by the sudden destruction of the economy of
Ogbodo. Expanding corporate power, in this case expressed by
Shell, the world's second largest oil corporation; has eliminated
overnight, the ecological foundation of women's and men's
autonomous subsistence from which these self-confident
peasant-fishing people had, for centuries, derived significant
wealth and tremendous cultural resilience.
As women and men of Ogbodo struggle to survive on a day-to-day
basis without drinking water and in the midst of breath-chocking
petroleum fumes; the web of resistance is woven yet again. A very
long history of autonomous struggle is there as a grounding. But
also there is in the Delta a raw fear of massacre. Shell, other
transnational oil companies and the Nigerian state have visited
upon oil-traumatized communities in the recent past the most
terrible retribution for imagined and actual resistance to oil
company presence and to oil company destruction. Shell's
unfounded charge, immediately upon hearing reports that the Shell
pipeline carrying oil through Ogbodo had burst, was that
villagers cut the line, despite its being buried six feet deep
and split from its underside. Shell further charged that
villagers prevented Shell personnel from entering the community.
Villagers refuted these charges but expressed palpable fear that
the false allegations were a prelude to military attack and
massacre, since this was the characteristic pattern of response
by oil companies and the government to crisis in the Niger Delta.
Villagers' terror was intensified when Shell contractors set
alight crude oil on top of the creeks and lakes which surround
almost all village land.
Women's resistance is thus taking the form of declarations of
cordiality to all visitors, especially the media. Ogbodo women
moved to actively establish alliances with the non-governmental
organization, Niger Delta Women for Justice, immediately after
the crude coursed through their farms and fishing ponds. On 14
July 2001 community spokespersons appealed for help and a hearing
from human rights organizations, from Environmental Rights
Action, from the United Nations and the Red Cross and from the
international media. Women of Ogbodo draw strength from the gains
made by Ogoni women in FOWA (Federation of Ogoni Women's
Associations) within MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of the
Ogoni People), the organization established by Ken Saro-Wiwa, who
was executed in 1995 by the military regime with Shell
complicity. The steadfast stand of Ken Saro-Wiwa's parents, who
continue to call for popular resource control and the expulsion
of Shell from the Niger Delta, serves as a strength and
inspiration to the Ijaw peoples from which the women and men of
Ogbodo are drawn.
In June and July 2001, as G8 protestors against corporate
globalization prepared to go to Genoa, Italy; on the ground in
Nigeria 150,000 residents of the community of Ogbodo battled a
massive petroleum spill from a Shell pipeline which burst on 24
June, churning crude into the surrounding waterways for 18 days
until Shell clamped the pipe on 12 July. Severe environmental
damage and threat to life by Shell's neglect is the other side of
the `corporate rule' coin of ever-expanding neo-liberal license.
The dangers to human life, human rights and the environment were
dramatically experienced by Ogbodo community members in Nigeria's
`Shell-Shocked' oilbelt. It is precisely these dangers that the
100,000 protestors in Genoa sought to causally link to the
expansion of corporate rule.
Under the rubric of co-called `free-trade' Shell and other oil
companies are being given carte blanche to expand petroleum
exploration and production activities in Nigeria and elsewhere
with ever-decreasing provision for ecological and social
accountability. For example, Nigeria and the World Bank have, in
2001, agreed to a US$15,000,000 loan, in which World Bank public
funds are made available to enable contractors to Shell to build
petroleum infrastructure. What is especially negative about this
loan is that it is made under a new `fast track' provision which
licenses Shell's contractors, who are the loan beneficiaries, to
forego the carrying out of normal and, under World Bank operating
principles, legally required, environmental and social impact
assessments (Institute for Policy Studies and Friends of the
Earth, `World Bank plans to fund `Risky' Project Involving Shell
in Nigeria,' 24 May 2001. For copies of the leaked document
containing details, visit http://www.seen.org). Shell's June-July
2001 violations of environmental and human rights are assessed in
the following eight points:
1. On 24 June 2001 the community of Ogbodo (150,000 people) in
Rivers State, Nigeria, heard a loud explosion which was the
bursting of a Shell Petroleum pipeline which traverses the
village lands, themselves nearly surrounded by waterways. Crude
oil began to spill out into the environment. Rains and swiftly
flowing water rapidly distributed the crude oil into the
waterways surrounding the community.
2. The next morning, June 25th, community members informed Shell
Petroleum Development Corporation in Port Harcourt of the oil
spill. Shell workers were on strike. No quick response was
forthcoming. Days passed as the oil flowed into rivers around
Ogbodo. Finally a Delta State based Spill Response Company
contractor to Shell arrived on the site. Then a major fire raged
around the town. Villagers claim that the contractor set the fire
to burn off some of the crude. Trees were burned and community
members fled in terror.
3. Eventually Shell deposited ten 500-litre drinking water
plastic tanks in Ogbodo. This was drastically inadequate for the
150,000 people all of whom had depended on creeks for water. The
tanks were filled every two to three days by Shell. The supplies
of water were then withdrawn from the tanks by villagers in just
a few hours. Shell's extremely inadequate response left the
community with almost no drinking water, and nothing for cooking
food, washing dishes, clothes or their bodies.
4. Some days after the spill began Shell sent an old van with
three community health workers in it to dispense first aid,
mainly in the form of tablets. There was one doctor with the team
for a few hours each weekday but not on Sundays. Villagers were
acutely ill. On Saturday 14 July I was informed by one of the
health workers that he had seen only 12 patients that day. He
would not comment further. Villagers complained of many ailments
and told our media team that they were not being attended to.
They informed us that three people who had been in good health
prior to the spill had died just after it. Families with money
and alternative lodging were evacuating Ogbodo. But the vast
majority had no lodging alternatives and no water. Petroleum
fumes were intense as were insect infestations including
malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
5. On Monday 9 July 2001 contract workers employed by Shell
stated that they had removed 70,000 barrels of crude from
waterways via truck. On Saturday 14 July crude was covering
waterways. I took a sample of water from the community's main
water supplying stream: it is mainly crude oil.
6. On Tuesday 10 July Shell issued a press release in which the
company falsely alleged that:
a. the pipe was opened by community members engaged in sabotage;
b. the community members prevented Shell personnel from
approaching the spill site. The accusations were of hostility to
Shell and threats of hostage taking
c. unknown parties had cut plastic tubes of about six inches in
diameter which the clean-up contractor had placed in creeks in a
(futile) attempt to stem the flow of crude into surrounding
villages;
d. Shell had provided drinking water, food and medical attention
to Ogbodo victims.
On 14 July chiefs and villagers stated that these claims were
false. The Shell claim to have provided emergency water, food and
medical attention was true but the amounts were so pitifully
inadequate as to suggest that the claims were made by Shell
strictly for public relations purposes.
7. On 14 July the chiefs refused to receive a few bags of relief
food supplies until Shell retracted its false accusations
regarding alleged sabotage of the pipeline (Shell's standard
charge despite not ever bringing suspects to account) which was
old and deteriorated with rust. The pipeline was well past its
lifetime of safe operation and should have been replaced by Shell
years ago. Villagers refused the token food supplies, which Shell
deposited at the local police station, until Shell retracted its
claims about hostility from villagers as Shell's reason for its
very late response to the spill.
8. Shell drew up a draft `Memorandum of Understanding' between
itself and the Ogbodo chiefs in an attempt to conflate the
following two distinct stages of oil company response to its
spill of petroleum:
a. Stage One: emergency life support to the victims, including
medical and evacuation response; combined with prompt halting of
flow of crude in the broken pipeline, clamping of the pipeline
and emergency clean-up of spilled crude;
b. Stage Two: longer-term reclamation of the environment,
documentation of both short and long-term health implications
pending compensation; and documentation of all other impacts and
costs, in particular those concerning economic loss and
elimination of a whole riverine, fishing and agricultural way of
life.
By delivering a draft Memorandum of Understanding to the chiefs
on 14 July prior to taking care of the first emergency concerns
(a, above); Shell was making life-support dependent on chiefs
signing a long-term compensation agreement. The villagers were in
crisis and hence were not in a position to settle final
compensation claims. The immediate need was and is for life
support. But Shell was making the provision of such life-support
conditional upon community agreement to substandard terms for
basic compensation and fundamental rehabilitation. This is
unprincipled and was identified by chiefs as yet another instance
of continuing environmental racism on the part of Shell against
their community and other settlements in the Niger Delta.
Shell was said to be offering compensation of 100 million naira
(100,000 US dollars or UK sterling 60,000) to compensate for the
devastation. This sum is absurdly inadequate, even for a single
person from the 150,000 strong community. Nevertheless, the
Nigerian media reported that government representatives were
endorsing Shell's proposed `settlement.'
The chiefs' counter claim was to ask Shell for copies of the full
agreements with the last five communities into which Shell had
spilled crude oil which are located in Western Europe and North
America. The Ogbodo chiefs intended to seek comparable long term
reparations.
By mid-July Ogbodo women were working actively with members of
the non-governmental organization, Niger Delta Women for Justice,
in completing reporting questionnaires which facilitated their
documenting the health and economic impacts of the Shell oil
spill. Members of the Niger Delta Women for Justice have raised
the question of seeking global solidarity in instituting a
renewed international boycott of all Shell petroleum products.
Members of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth
Nigeria are engaged in defining methods for establishing
`resource control' by local people over petroleum in the Niger
Delta. These non-governmental organizations along with the
International Oil Working Group are raising the human rights
violations committed by Shell and other petroleum transnationals
in all available fora, with a view to gaining experience in
organizing coordinated initiatives in several countries to resist
and transcend the life-threatening corporate-rule regime.
Meanwhile the August-September 2001 United Nations `World
Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Related Intolerance', Durban, South Africa, will decide on how
comprehensive reparations, including for corporate environmental
and economic racism, can best be secured.
Further Information:
Terisa E. Turner is a co-director of the United Nations
non-governmental organization, International Oil Working Group,
(IOWG), which possesses digital video footage, broadcast quality
audio and still photographs of the Shell oil spill in Ogbodo, of
the impact of petroleum transnational corporations in Nigeria's
oil belt, of the father and mother of Ken Saro-Wiwa, of
testimonies from villagers and from resources people working with
human rights and ecology non-governmental organizations in the
Niger Delta. The documentation was gathered jointly with
Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria and with
Niger Delta Women for Justice, who, along with the IOWG, are the
custodians of these valuable chronicles of corporate crime and
popular struggle. The International Oil Working Group is
committed to making this media coverage available to people
acting in solidarity with the communities which are standing up
to corporate destruction, by (a) direct loan and (b) posting to
Indymedia web sites.
For additional information and analysis please consult the
following documents or contact the web sites and lists:
Video: Delta Force Information about this video may be obtained
by writing to [email protected]
Environmental Rights Action and Friends of the Earth
http://www.essentialaction.org/shell/era/eraPrinciples.html
Niger Delta Women for Justice http://www.kabissa.org/ndwj/
Inter-Church Coalition on Africa
http://www.web.net/~iccaf/genderinfo/gender.htm
Drillbits & Tailings, the world's first progressive petroleum
newsletter, delivered via the Internet [email protected]
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by Africa
Action (incorporating the Africa Policy Information Center, The
Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa). Africa
Action's information services provide accessible information and
analysis in order to promote U.S. and international policies
toward Africa that advance economic, political and social justice
and the full spectrum of human rights.
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