Shell’s Shame in Nigeria Continues
by Andy Rowell
If there is one country where Shell’s broken promises ring hollower than anywhere else it is in Nigeria.
For decades, the company’s operations in the country have been mired by pollution and community protests which in turn have been met with endless cycles of violence against protestors.
The communities in the Niger Delta have been protesting for decades against this chronic pollution and grinding poverty. But year after year, promises from Shell of a better future for the local communities have been found to be as broken as brittle bones.
And the community in Nigeria where the wounds impacted by Shell probably go deepest is the Ogoni, once led by the charismatic Ken Saro-Wiwa, before he was brutally murdered by the military junta in the mid-nineties. Shell has always denied complicity in his death, despite evidence to the contrary.
Ogoniland is where Shell has operated at the centre of this vortex of pollution and violence and where you would have thought the oil company would be most willing to try and make amends. A place where it would try to heal the deep and bitter wounds.
But you would be wrong.
For seasoned Shell-watchers, it is of no surprise that three years after the publication of a report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on oil pollution in Ogoniland, which urged Shell to clean up the area, the company has spectacularly failed to do so.
In fact its operations have been deemed “shameful” by a group of influential NGO’s such as Amnesty International, Environmental Rights Action, Friends of the Earth Europe, Human Rights and Development and Platform.
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http://priceofoil.org/2014/08/04/shells-shame-nigeria-continues/
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/05/shells-shame-nigeria-continues