Dirty Oil

Gas prices reached a record high this summer at just over one dollar a litre. Because of the ever inflating price of gasoline we had to pay more at the pump than ever before. Judging by a story which broke at the beginning of August, however, I for one would rather empty my wallet at the gas station than pay the price many under the clutches of oil companies have had to pay over the years. Chevron, one of the world’s largest energy companies has had a lawsuit filed against it by Nigerian villagers that are blaming the company for the destruction of Opia and Ikenyan, two Nigerian villages which were raided by Nigerian soldiers turned Chevron security agents in 1999. The resulting raid left most of the two villages destroyed, at lest 4 villagers dead and as many as 50 missing. Eye witness accounts indicate that blue and white Chevron helicopters and boats approached the villages and opened fire causing most of the villagers to flee. Upon returning they discovered that most of their villages had been burned to the ground. Chevron security agents claimed the action was in response to attacks on Chevron security agents by Opia villagers. The villagers deny any attack having taken place and claim the retaliation was excessive if it had.

For the past 6 years Chevron has denied having any hand in the attacks but a recent document from Chevron’s own financial records indicates that they had paid the 22 soldiers who perpetrated the acts an amount of $109.25 as early as a day after the attacks took place. The documentation is an invoice sent by the Nigerian general who led the raid to Chevron which indicates the transfer of money to the 22 men for their services in response to “attacks from Opia village against security agents.“ Many believe the documentation and the suspicious timing of the transaction 24 hours within the attack to the very people responsible for it are hard hitting evidence that Chevron knew what was going on. The lawsuit against the company is set to begin in 2006.

Corruption in the oil business is no new phenomenon, especially not in Nigeria. Shell, one of the world’s top four private sector oil companies has been heavily criticized by the world community for turning a blind eye to the environmental and social problems it has created in Nigeria. These concerns were brought to light in November of 1995 when 9 dissidents including Ken Saro–Wiwa, a well known Nigerian author, environmentalist and television producer were executed by the Nigerian government. Ken Saro–Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni, an ethnic minority whose homeland was heavily polluted by Shell Oil: Between 1976 and 1991 there were 2,976 oil spills in the Niger Delta and it is believed that the combined effect of Shell and Chevron’s natural gas flaring in Nigeria alone contributes more to greenhouse gases than the rest of the world combined. Saro–Wiwa was president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), a group which demanded reparations for ecological damages caused by oil extraction in the Niger Delta and a fair share of the proceeds of oil extraction.

Ken Saro–Wiwa was arrested in May 1994 for incitement of the murder of four Ogoni elders, a charge which he denied. He was detained for a year before he was sentenced to death by a government picked jury. Shell was implicated in Ken Saro–Wiwa’s famous pre–execution speech; “I repeat that we all stand before history. I and my colleagues are not the only ones on trial. Shell is on trial here, and it is as well that it is represented by counsel said to be holding a watching brief. The company has, indeed, ducked this particular trial, but its day will surely come and the lessons learned here may prove useful to it, for there is no doubt in my mind that the ecological war the company has waged in the delta will be called to question sooner than later and the crimes of that war be duly punished.“ Shell was condemned by human rights activists for not attempting to stop the execution by using its heavy influence over the Nigerian government, which receives 80% of its revenue directly from oil companies, more than half of which comes from Shell.

Of course, the execution of the Ogoni 9 was simply a single highly publicized incident of government and corporate corruption in Nigeria. In 1998 the UN released an unusually candid report which criticized Shell and the Nigerian government for human rights and environmental abuses in Nigeria. Among other things the UN condemned Shell for procuring a “well armed security force which is intermittently employed against protesters.“ In 1990 Shell submitted a request to the Nigerian Commissioner of Police that it “urgently“ provide them with security protection in the form of a mobile police force. This same “security force“ killed 80 peaceful demonstrators from the village of Umuechem and burnt down 495 of their homes that very year. On April 30th 1993 10,000 amassed to demonstrate against the laying of a pipeline which would destroy Ogoni farmland. The demonstration was met with violence from Shell’s mobile police force in which 10 people were killed, including a mother of five who had to have her arm amputated because of her injuries. A protest held days later in response to the shooting was also met with violence resulting in one death. In 1994 the military was sent to permanently occupy Ogoniland, and it is believed that it is responsible for the murders of upwards of 2000 people since that year. The same people who committed these atrocities were all directly or indirectly under Shell’s payroll at the time of their crimes.

Probably an even bigger initiator of corporate corruption in Nigeria is international inaction. Many countries have spoken out against the Nigerian government but none have done anything to stop the abuses. Countries turning a blind eye to the atrocities occurring in Nigeria is after all not surprising seeing as Nigeria is one of the world’s largest oil producing nations.

The United States for example is Nigeria’s largest oil consumer and any attempt by an administration to employ sanctions on Nigeria would be a threat to national economic interest. Even more predictable is the lobbying of Shell, Chevron and Mobil against aggressive US policy for human rights reform in Nigeria. The success of this tactic shows the influence oil companies have over decision making in American politics. Several key members of the Bush administration in fact first made a name for themselves as oil company executives, and it is not unsafe to assume that they still hold some loyalty to the companies that made them rich. For example Condoleezza Rice was a Chevron director from 1991 up until 2001 when she became National Security Advisor for the Bush Administration. Chevron even named an oil tanker after her. Dick Cheney was Vice President of Halliburton Corporation, which is the world’s largest oil field services company in the world. Halliburton signed multi billion dollar contracts with both Chevron and Shell while Cheney was still Vice president. It was even discovered in 2002, after the releasing of more than 13, 000 pages of previously secret documentation, that the Bush administration’s National Energy Task Force, headed by Dick Cheney, sought extensive “advice“ from oil companies, including Chevron. In some cases recommendations sent in letters from Chevron CEO David J O’Rielly to President Bush were incorporated word for word into the Bush administrations energy plan in which oil, coal and nuclear power industries received $33 billion in tax cuts and subsidies.

It is exactly this kind of influence that allows corporations such as Shell and Chevron to exist above international law. Governments stand to make a handsome profit simply by turning a blind eye to corporate exploitation. The recent lawsuit against Chevron, much like the execution of Ken Saro–Wiwa, is just another example of people who have been exploited in favor of a higher profit margin fighting back against corporate greed and government corruption.

Although it would be naïve to think that this most recent case would turn out any different than all the other such instances one can still hope that oil companies and other corporations will finally be held responsible for their actions.

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