Selling Blood For Oil
Julia Christensen, The Ubyssey

In 1976, Oronto Douglas was just a ten-year old boy.

Born and raised in the small village of Okoroba, in the Niger Delta region in southern Nigeria, the world was small to him. A fisherman's son, he was never in want of food or comfort. Hunger was not common in his community - the land provided for all. One year, Douglas left his small village to live with his uncle in the southwestern part of Nigeria so he could attend school. His visits home were limited to the summertime and different breaks throughout the school year. Each time he returned home, more and more had changed.

The once happy and comfortable village of Okoroba became less and less recognisable to Douglas as the wonderful place of his childhood memories.

"I noticed that the river was not flowing as naturally as it used to. I noticed that a lot of the crops that I was used to were not there. I noticed that there was a lot of talk about disharmony and internal division," he says. The problems were being attributed to environmental degradation and uneven economic development from the oil and gas development of Royal Dutch Shell, a company that had been in Nigeria since the 1930s.

"The whole talk was about hopelessness and frustration and destitution. And it was really very heartbreaking."

Douglas spoke in Vancouver last week on tour for his recently released book Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights, and Oil in the Niger Delta, sponsored by the Sierra Club of Canada, Amnesty International, Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP). The internationally-recognised human rights lawyer told the story of how he became involved in his people's fight against the corrupt and oppressive Nigerian government and Shell Oil, which wreaked social and environmental havoc in Nigeria.

When Douglas came back to his village, and witnessed the destruction that was going on there and in neighbouring villages, he felt compelled to make a change. In a situation where the law was constantly being used against the people, Douglas believed that by becoming a lawyer himself he might help turn the tables.

"I went to law school because I see law as an instrument of social engineering. I see law as a tool with which we can change society for the better. I don't see law as a conduit pipe through which you can amass wealth. I see as it as one vehicle through which we can keep ourselves together as a people, as a society, and make progress. So I went to law school in this strategy to contribute to human progress," he says.

While attending law school, Douglas became president of the Civil Liberties Organisation, the largest human rights organisation in Nigeria. Through his work there, he was able to familiarise himself with the social and political injustices taking place in his country.

"When I left law school, I felt that I should get involved much more practically in terms of deploying legal strategies to help change society because I noticed that the whole world revolved around legalism. If an oppressor wants to take your land, he points to a law. If some dictator wants to emerge, he points to a law. If a corporation wants to pollute your water and take away your land in collaboration with the oppressive regime that we have in Nigeria, they point to laws. And I felt that if they're going to point to unjust laws, it rests on us to overthrow those unjust laws and create just laws that will help create a society of fairness, of justice, of equity."

As a lawyer, Douglas helped the Ogoni people, an ethnic community of about 500,000, in their attempts to assert their rights in the face of a repressive military regime and the business practices of Royal Dutch Shell. Since Royal Dutch Shell first struck oil in the Niger Delta in 1956, the environment and economy of the country have been in steady decline. Douglas says that irresponsible practices on the part of Shell - including gas flaring (the ignition of gas in the atmosphere), oil spillage, indiscriminate construction of canals, laying dangerous high-pressure oil pipelines aboveground, and pollution of water sources - have degraded the land and left many local people destitute.

The line between Royal Dutch Shell and the local security forces has been often blurred in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Nigerian police in the region have been lent to the oil company in the past, which, until the early 1990s, financed the purchase of their weapons. In one incident in 1990, Shell called the Mobile Police Force for security. After a clash in which a policeman was killed, the police massacred 80 villagers and burned 495 houses, according to a government report.

"Essentially what we see in these communities," says Douglas, "is destruction of the base of production, destruction of that harmonious spirit that keeps the communities together, and a general harassment of the people. Therefore, what you see on the faces of the people is fear. Fear from the violence of the guns of the military, which have been propelled and supported by the oil company."

While Royal Dutch Shell's operations account for more than 40 per cent of the Nigerian government's revenue, local communities have not received a fair share of oil royalties and have received little compensation for the devastation. Despite the incredible oil and gas wealth of the Niger Delta, much of the local population remains extremely poor, often lacking basic amenities such as piped water and sanitation facilities. In 1995, Douglas was part of the legal team that represented Ken Saro-Wiwa, leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), an organisation fighting against the environmental and social devastation plaguing the Niger Delta by the government and its close ties with Royal Dutch Shell. On Nov. 10, 1995, the Nigerian government executed Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists who fought Shell and the government for environmental clean-ups and Ogoni rights. The men were convicted of murder in a sham trial that Shell never criticised. Two days before the executions, Shell urged that the sentences be carried out on humanitarian grounds.

Discussing the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa is still difficult for Douglas, who met Saro-Wiwa when he was still a student in law school. The pain, he says, "will always be there."

"I met Ken in 1989 when I was editor-in-chief of a magazine through the university press. He had a political television program which every Nigerian turned on their television to watch every night at 8 p.m. We felt we should profile him, so we went to see him in his office. At that time, he spoke about his struggling for us young ones and in a couple of years we were going to see; things were going to be better. A year later, he set up MOSOP in 1990...we became very involved," he says.

When Douglas finished university in 1993, he was asked by the Civil Liberties Organisation to lead a team of investigators in documenting what was happening to the Ogoni people.

"The military dictatorship had unleashed incredible violence on the Ogoni people," says Douglas. "We felt like we were face-to-face with the nakedness of oppression. After that, there was no turning back, because helping the Ogoni was helping all the other oppressed ethnic nationalities within the Niger Delta and also helping other people around the world who might be similarly affected by the activities of the transnational corporation as it was happening in our communities in the Niger Delta."

Saro-Wiwa's murder only intensified Douglas' conviction in the struggle for environmental and human rights in the Niger Delta. And Douglas wasn't alone. Across the world, in Vancouver, a group of people heard about Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni people and were appalled. So appalled, in fact, that they launched a Vancouver-wide anti-Shell campaign that eventually resulted in the creation of the Ogoni Solidarity Network.

Beginning Oct. 27, 1996, 76 consecutive weekly rallies at Shell stations were held across Vancouver. The solidarity efforts with the Ogoni people helped to stop a proposed Shell five-year $30 million petroleum products contract with Vancouver and surrounding municipalities in 1997.

In his speech, Douglas asked that people in Canada, and across the world, continue to act.

"While the people of the Niger Delta have been bearing the heavy burden that comes with fighting for environmental and human rights, there has not been a corresponding uprising in the rest of the world in practical terms to these issues. There had been emotional support, there has been expression of support from groups like Amnesty International and Ogoni Solidarity Network who have taken to the streets which has helped to raise awareness of the issues," Douglas said.

"We need to look at the issue of oil...what is this resource that is now holding the world to ransom? Is it possible for us to start to think of a shift so that human rights will not be violated, so that the planet Earth can be protected, so that tomorrow's generation will not blame me and you for not doing anything?"

Douglas added that there is no room for neutrality when it comes to human rights and environmental degradation. No one, he says, can afford to remain neutral in the struggle for justice, because "if you are neutral, then you are collaborating with the continuation of injustice."

In March of 1997, Royal Dutch Shell, the world's largest oil company, issued a set of business principles that called for respect of human rights "in line with the legitimate role of business." Shell promised that it would consult with local groups before beginning sensitive projects. It also stated that it would require managers to report on whether operations complied with human rights criteria. The gesture was an attempt by Shell to make wrongs right, says Douglas. But the government's cooperation is also needed in recognising human rights. And even though the old Nigerian dictatorship was replaced in May of 1999 by a self-described "civilian" government, Douglas says "nothing has changed...absolutely nothing."

The new government, he says, "is a military government without the uniform... they are all ex-generals. They have changed their faces and are saying 'we now have a civil regime' and it's just not true." A shift in the way we think is necessary, says Douglas. Big business depends on consumers, and if we, as consumers, do not demand that businesses respect human rights and care for the environment in their practices, then things will never change.

"What is important should not be profit - it should be people."

[ Back to issue 12 ] [ Send The Peak a comment on this story ]

The contents of The Peak are protected by copyright. For information on rights regarding specific articles (including reprinting, where applicable), please contact epeak@mail.peak.sfu.ca with the full URL of the content in question.