OIL- SHELL'S History Of Environmental Degradation

Kenule "Ken" Beeson Saro Wiwa (October 10, 1941 – November 10, 1995) was a Nigerian author, television producer, environmental activist, and winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize. Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in Nigeria whose homeland, Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta has been targeted for crude oil extraction since the 1950s and which has suffered extreme and unremediated environmental damage  from decades of indiscriminate petroleum waste dumping. Initially as spokesperson, and then as President, of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Saro-Wiwa led a nonviolent  campaign against environmental degradation of the land and waters of Ogoniland by the operations of the multinational petroleum industry, especially Shell. He was also an outspoken critic of the Nigerian government, which he viewed as reluctant to enforce environmental regulations on the foreign petroleum companies operating in the area.

At the peak of his non-violent campaign, Saro-Wiwa was arrested, hastily tried by a special military tribunal, and hanged in 1995 by the military government of General Sani Abacha, all on charges widely viewed as entirely politically motivated and completely unfounded. His execution provoked international outrage and resulted in Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth of Nations for over 3 years.

The Case Against Shell: 'The Hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa Showed the True Cost of Oil'

       Ken Saro-Wiwa: his last interview, part I 

Ken Saro-Wiwa: his last interview, part II 

http://remembersarowiwa.com/

Will BP Oil Spill Make Shell ‘Come Clean’?

By Ben Amunwa on June 16, 2010

As the US government takes BP to task over the disasterous Gulf of Mexico spill, many Nigerians  are asking, ‘what about Shell?’. There is nothing clean about Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta, where daily oil spills are  frequently ignored for months and where ‘clean up’ methods include dumping oil-drenched soil into pits before burning them.

So poor is Shell’s record that over the weekend, the Nigerian government had to remind the company to respect international standards when it does get around to cleaning up a fraction of over 2,400 spill sites in the Delta.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades

“If this Gulf accident had happened in Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention,” said the writer Ben Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people. “This kind of spill happens all the time in the delta.”