Community | June 09, 2009 | 13 comments

Oil Giant Pays $15 Million to Settle Lawsuit Brought for Environmental Activist's Murder

source: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/ken-saro-wiwa-murder-shell.php

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pjacobs51
In one of the many tragic tales of environmental heroism, Ken Saro-Wiwa stood up to the oil giant Shell with peaceful demonstrations and vocal opposition—until he was executed by his own government on false charges. A legal battle was then waged for nearly 15 years, in which Saro-Wiwa's fellow Ogoni people charged Shell with funding the government backed security forces that lead to the violence against them. Now, Shell has just agreed to pay $15 million to settle the case out of court—though the company still says it did nothing wrong.

Ken Saro-Wiwa was an Ogoni, an ethnic group of Nigerians whose homes and health were (and still are) endangered by oil extraction practices in their native land. He took to organizing, writing, and activism to bring light to his people's plight.

According to the Environmental News Service:

An early member of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, organized and led nonviolent protests of up to 300,000 people against Shell's practices in Ogoniland, where crude oil extraction has taken place since the 1950s. The land and communities have suffered extreme and unremediated damage from decades of oil waste dumping and gas flaring, which continues today.

Shell of course despised and feared the negative PR beginning to swell around their activities, and the Nigerian government felt economically bound to the giant company. And so what happened next was yet another atrocity in the sad and despicable history of powerful conglomerates protecting their interests:

Shell grew increasingly concerned with the international prominence of the Ogoni movement and made payments to security forces that they knew to be engaging in human rights violations against the local communities.

The military government of General Sani Abacha violently repressed the demonstrations, arrested Ogoni activists, and falsely accused nine Ogoni activists of murder and bribed witnesses to give fake testimony. The nine were denied a fair trial and then hanged on November 10, 1995.

Now, nearly 15 years later, the Ogoni have won a small but deserved victory. The case they brought against the company under an obscure US law that allows foreigners to sue companies for human rights abuses has just been settled out of court. Though $15 million may seem a paltry sum to repay the vast injustices done to their people, and the murder of some of their brightest, perhaps the international attention garnered from this case will draw some attention to their plight. And even though Shell hasn't publicly admitted any wrongdoing, sometimes, actions speak louder than words.

Ken Saro-Wiwa, with his courageous dedication to protecting his people, has proved that.
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13 comments // Oil Giant Pays $15 Million to Settle Lawsuit Brought for Environmental Activist's Murder

  • krush_productions
  • Elligirl
  • JanforGore
  • Snuff99
    • 0
      Snuff99  

    • does this justify anything? of course not.

      does it help others in their fight in exposing the secrets of these giants? i like to think so.

    • 2 years ago
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  

    • BTW, this is FAR from the only victim of energy monopoly companies.

      Research Jeremy Davidson, 3 years old, of Apalachia, Virginia..............................died Aug. 20, 2004.

      A victim of coal companies ignoring the laws and regulations and putting profits ahead of any other considerations.

    • 2 years ago
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  

    • -----------"Shell got caught, but everyone else is doing it. I hate buying gasoline"-----------

      Then work to replace petroleum with biofuels.

      Biofuels are by the very nature of the raw materials they are made from, anti-monopolistic.

      Biofuels can be made from any type of plant material at all.

      Biofuels are part of nature's carbon cycle that gathers and stores energy from the sun, and sustains all life on earth.

      Big Oil does not want you to know the truth about biofuels---it would put them out of business for good.

      Send me a private message if you want more information and direction to check out biofuels for yourself----the only energy option that is a realistic alternative to petroleum.

    • 2 years ago
  • drexpressway
    • 0
      drexpressway  
    • Wetdog:

      I do't think biofuels are the perfect response though. They take up millions of acres of cropland which could be used to feed people. Yes they are a bit cleaner, but we really need to move toward transportation that doesn't emit any carbon. Check out the movie "HOME" on you tube, it has some interesting info.

    • 2 years ago
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  
    • Wetdog:

      -------"They take up millions of acres of cropland which could be used to feed people. "--------

      This is a lie promoted by petroleum interests for a long time, along with the lie that ethanol can not be made from cellulose, or that it is many years from being possible. This is not true.

      Ethanol was being manufactured commercially from waste wood in both the US and Germany well over 100 years ago. This used the Scholler process, which was also used in the US in WW2 to produce ethanol to make butadeine, artificial rubber. The letter proposing building the plant also mentioned similar plants--at least 20 in Germany, 3 in Italy, and 1 each in Japan, Manchuria, and Korea that were known to military intelligence. These plants used the Scholler process, therefore it was well known in the US----having made ethanol commercially with the process since the 1890's.

      The other process is the Fischer-Tropsch process, first developed in 1924. Germany used F-T process to make fuels from methanol and ethanol to heavy diesel after the loss of North Africa, and the Allied bombing of Ploesti left them with virtually no petroleum. F-T can use any source of carbon---and the output can be modified to produce any length of carbon chain. South Africa has been using F-T to produce jet fuel and diesel from coal since 1980.
      Range Fuels is just completing construction of a plant with a final production capacity of 100 million/gal/yr of ethanol from waste wood from logging and millwork in Soperton GA. It should be opening operations later this year, or early next year.

      Even ethanol from corn is not the situation described as "either/or". Dent corn accounts for 98% if the corn grown in the US. Humans can not eat dent corn. It is used as animal feed. Dent or field corn has a protein content of 2-4%, when it is fermented, the resulting mash is dried (Dried Distillers Grain) and used as a supplement mix to raise the protien level in the feed. DDG has a protein content of about 25%. The ethanol has to be removed so you don't end up with herds of drunk cattle. The final product of ethanol production from corn ends up as meat, dairy products, eggs, baked goods----even vitamin supplement tablets. Ethanol production from corn ends up as both fuel AND food. And much higher quality food than the corn itself.

      Biofuels are made from plant sources. In order to do that, plants must first remove CO2 from the atmosphere. When the biofuels are burned, the CO2 is returned to the atmosphere. It is impossible to raise atmospheric CO2 levels using biofuels. If the plants are unable to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere, they are not alive---no plants, no biofuel.

      Carbon is the basic unit energy exchange in the natural cycle of capture, storage and recycling of solar energy that is the basis of all life on earth.

      Carbon is not the enemy---where the carbon comes from is the important factor. Carbon dug up or pumped out of the ground, then burned to dump into the atmosphere as new carbon is the cause of global warming effect and climate change.

      What about all the acres of land destroyed by stripmining---for both coal and petroleum. Stripmined land destroys the topsoil, and exposes subsoils that contain toxins and acids that make growing anything next to impossible----for thousands of years. Stripmining destroys and pollutes water sheds, both above ground, and below ground as well. Try irrigating crops with water contaminated with acid run off from mines----you will get no crops. You can't drink water containing acid run off either, you will die as well.

    • 2 years ago
  • Selber
  • RaceBannon
  • JanforGore
  • pjacobs51
    • 0
      pjacobs51  
    • JanforGore:

      I agree, but it's a small step in the right direction.

      13 billion would be a better figure, to help with the "murder" of the environment in that area.

      I'm not saying money solves all problems, but Shell really F'd these people over, as you very well pointed out in one of your previous posts.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
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