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opnews@siwash.be.ca

Showdown at Shell

ower Mainland groups protest Big Oil

 

  

   
   
 
   
 

by Jim Chliboyko

he scene around the station
seems too bustling for a
Canadian-type protest. It is
more reminiscent of a scene from a
Stephen J. Cannell production, filled
ith Vancouverite extras. But that’s
ext door, at St. Paul’s hospital. The
people demonstrating at the Shell
station at Burrard and Davie have
othing to do with the mobile dressing
‘ooms or the trucks filled with
generators, lighting and wires, parked

  
  
   
    
  
   
 
 
   
  
   
  
 
   
 

in the alley beside the station; they are
eal demonstrators. Dozens of placard-
holding students wave messages at
bassing cars, talk to pedestrians and
bystanders, pass out bumper stickers
nd pamphlets. A yellow-
acketed demonstrator and a
high school student wearing
sandwich-board criss-
ossed with slogans are

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One middle-aged man drives his
Encore up, and gets out to work the
pumps, only to be interrupted by

several protesters trying to hand him a

leaflet. He looks embarrassed, but
doesn’t stop what he’s doing. One
demonstrator starts shouting at him,
only to be gently pushed back by a
protest organizer.

The Shell station manager, a woman

in her thirties dressed in the red
sweater and the grey slacks of the

Shell employee, starts forward to
break things up, but the low-key
confrontation breaks up by itself. The
man driving the Encore nods as he
gets into his car, holding a leaflet. “I
will read it, I will read
it,” he says.
The manager
herself is not eager to

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ovember 8, Vancouver. Sid Tan glances over at the lone police officer standing beside the service
tation entrance, adjusts his handle on the “Boycott Shell” banner he’s holding, and says, “It seems
e’re having some effect.” The effect Tan wants to make is a very specific one. He’s hoping to
nspire a boycott of Shell, to teach the corporation a lesson over their widely-reported abuses of
nvironment and human rights in Nigeria, as documented by such different media sources as the
conomist, the Wall Street Journal, Greenpeace and Amnesty International.

He is smiling, gesturing, and sur-
rounded by a crowd of men, who all
look a little more concerned than he
does. Saro-Wiwa, executed by the
Nigerian government last November

after the
executions of
the Ogoni. The
company ran full page
ads in Canadian news
dailies under the
heading “Clear
Thinking in Troubled
Times.” Among its arguments: Shell
has no business nosing around the
workings of any country’s govern-
ment, Shell Canada imports no

10 on trumped-up charges, along with Nigerian crude, and Shell Canada

eight other Ogoni leaders, was a
writer, Nobel Peace Prize nominee,
and spokesperson for the Movement
for the Survival of the Ogoni People
(MOSOP). The nine executed are
often referred to as the Ogoni 9.
Above the photo is the
headline Shell Shocked!

in Murder. The complicity
has been well documented.
Shell has been operating in
Ogoniland since 1958,
trucking out an estimated
$30 billion worth of oil in
almost four decades of

nothing back into the local
community (0.000007% of
what they’ve taken),
building roads and erecting
above-ground pipelines
without the say of local
people, and conducting no
before-the-event Environ-
mental Impact Assessments.
Another connection between Shell
and the Nigerian government; the last
civilian president, appointed for three

months in between Ibrahim Babangida know it.”

and Sani Abacha, was Ernest
Shoveran, a former director of Shell
Nigeria.

There are other examples of
closeness of the Abacha regime and

Shell and Nigeria: Complicit

drilling. This, without hiring
many Ogonis, putting almost

dust!

talk. “I’m sorry,Iam the petroleum company. The commu-

busy passing leaflets through not allowed to say nication between the two groups is
bpen windows of cars, which ; » anything.” Sheruns frequent and explicit. In 1990, the
e trapped, waiting for the don { i to get the number of Guardian reported that in Etche
raffic light to change. \  aShell spokesper- _ territory, which borders Ogoniland, 80
They seem unimpressed by ‘ puy 4 son in Calgary, and _ people were killed and almost 500
ome of the feedback. Gavin i \\ | returns with a houses were raised by Nigeria’s
Davidson of the Better i She \ three-page fax Mobile Police Force (MPF), during a
nvironmentally Sound \ . \ with the title peaceful protest against Shell. (It is
ransportation (BEST), the \ Oil . | ‘HowtoHandle estimated that 2000 have died in recent
bne in the yellow jacket, says, i S \ the Nigerian troubles in the area.) Shell had asked
‘Most seem to understand, ‘ Tha : Problem’ written for the assistance of the MPF before-
but a lot of them are indiffer- ; . \ across the top, hand.
it, which is really sad.” \ all it ‘ and recites the As well, one Shell memo states,
“Canadians can exercise ; \ number. (Shell —_ according to the Sierra Club, that
hoice,” says Tan, “it doesn’t \ takes ? 4 Calgary could Saro-Wiwa should be “closely
ake much. Just don’t buy ‘ ; | notbereached monitored” as he is “at best a nui-
phell Oil. That’s all it takes. i \t S a :  forcomment __ sance, at worst a great danger.
*s a simple thing. A lot of i . \ e ‘ before press It is not just a matter of human
eople are buying Shell oil for ; simp » time.) She rights, though. The environmental
ihe Air Miles. They say, ‘how ‘ : \ looks up damage has been loudly decried by
m I going to get my Air thing : from her groups such as MOSOP and
iles?’ That’s ridiculous, the i < * paper and Greenpeace. A Greenpeace document
ir Miles have the blood of the { oe é sees another claims that “the Niger Delta and
Dgoni people on them.” i ; Ss protester Nigerian coastal wetlands have been
The groups are what Tan Renevesnnnrataertes y approach- _ described as one of the most fragile
alls a coalition. Tan himself is ing a ecosystems in the world and include

    
   
 
  
 
 
  
  
 
 
  

om the Sierra Club, Davidson’s
BEST is represented, there is a group
rom King George Secondary’s City
chool program, Amnesty Interna-
onal, and the Ogoni Solidarity
etwork (OSN). “It’s just a coalition, I
ean we put the word out, and they
e. I’m sure I missed a couple of
roups. It’s really gratifying that all
hese people came together.”

As Tan speaks, protesters circle
ight other stations within Vancouver
ity limits. People drive into the

ation despite the scene.

customer. “Oh, God, there’s

another one.”
The Ogoni of Ogoni Solidarity
Network refers to the tribe that live in
Ogoniland, a small chunk of land in
Nigeria’s eastern River State, an oil-
rich patch of the Niger river delta. The
Ogoni are 500 000 member tribe,
considered by many in the Nigerian
government to be insignificant in a
country of 250 tribes and 100 000 000
people.

The cover of the OSN pamphlet
features a picture of Ken Saro-Wiwa.

rainforest and mangrove habitats.” The
document goes on to call the area “the
most endangered delta in the world.”
Not only are the plants and animals of
eastern Nigeria jeopardized by the
pollution, though. Average life
expectancy in Nigeria is 54 years, but
in oil-rich Ogoniland, the life expect-
ancy is 48, according to Saro-Wiwa’s
brother, Dr. Owens Wiwa. And despite
its rich resource base, and further
investments by Shell, the per capita
income has gone down in Ogoniland.
Shell has vocally defended itself

Limited has no relation to Shell
Nigeria. Shell Canada Limited is 78%
owned by Shell Investments Limited
and according to Greenpeace, Shell
Investments Limited has extensive
involvement in Nigeria: Shell Canada

and Shell Nigeria have the same parent

company.
As for Shell’s claims, a demonstra-
tor from the OSN, Jaggi, says “That’s
nonsense. The chairman of the board
of Shell International is on the board
of Shell Canada. But if Shell says they
are not connected, that’s one thing,
they know about the issues why
haven’t they
spoken out. Do
they condone
murder by their
own parent
company, do they
condone environ-
mental abuses by
their own parent
company? They
haven’t done any of
that. It’s nonsense

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enough to kill him; that his mother
was hassled by thugs for wearing
black in commemoration of her dead
son.

Back in Canada, Dr. Owens Wiwa,
hunches his shoulders to ward off the
cold, metres away from the UBC
campus’ Tiananmen Square Goddess
of Democracy statue. He looks worn
from his speaking tour, and has just
finished another long Q & A session
with a curious audience. In between
drags on his cigarette, he takes
student reporters’ questions with a bit
more bite than the man who was
standing at the podium minutes
earlier, bookending every single one
of his answers with grave ‘thank-
you’s. He seems a little more cynical,

too. When asked whether or
not he thinks the Nigerian
government knows where
: he is, he scoffs. “If they
don’t know where I am,
| Shell will tell them,” he
. says. Then, nerves frayed
: from travel and a hectic
_ schedule, he states
: dramatically, “Don’t you
| see? I should’ve been

, dead. Anybody vocal

‘ against Shell is a

 

and they know it. , target.”
And it’s up to us to been _ Though Wiwa spoke
make sure they i to the audience before
\ de ad . _ the current troubles

As for Shell’s PR : | caused by Rwandan
campaign Jaggi i Any- . Tutsi incursions into
says, “Owens Wiwa : : Zaire, Africa’s
called it diabolical — pody | propensity for self-
and deceitful. It’s \ } destruction was
like spitting on the ‘ yocal + obviously on his
grave of Saro-Wiwa ; : mind.
and the eight other ‘ against | Speaking to the
people. Just days t . ‘audience, he
after the deaths. It’s i Sh ell \S | prophesized that
like blaming the : : what will happen
ee ar a target = te Nips if

e charges ae _ corporate

the Ogoni Nine | = | complacency is
faced came from an #

incident in May,
1994. At an
Ogoniland rally, four pro-government
Ogoni elders were killed when a riot
broke out. Saro-Wiwa was not at the
rally, having been turned back by a
roadblock. Still, he was arrested at his
home, in the middle of the night a few
days later, and kept in jail for more
than a year before the Abacha
government convened a special
tribunal to take the case. The process,
after which no appeal would be
granted, the government ordered, was
internationally mocked.

The other eight members of the
Ogoni Nine executed on November
10, 1995 were Baribor Bera, Saturday
Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbokoo,
Dr. Barinem Kiobel, John Kpuinen,
Paul Levura, and Felix Nuate. But it
was Saro-Wiwa, that received most of
the media’s attention.

Specific details of Saro-Wiwa’s
confinement were well-documented
and widely circulated: that he was
chained to his cell wall, despite his
heart condition, for days on end; that
he had to be hung a minimum of six
times before the hastily-built hang-
man’s tower actually worked properly

 

 

wm? allowed to
continue. “It will

make Rwanda look like child’s
play.” Troubles still exist in
Ogoniland. 19 Ogoni activists are
currently languishing in prison,
awaiting the same type of trial that
Saro-Wiwa experienced. Abacha is
still in power.

At Burrard and Davie, Tan speaks
of big plans. “This (protest) is more
about activist building. It’s less of a
media event now, than it is about
activist building. Once we build the
activist network, then the work will
be a lot easier, quicker and faster.”
Another passing car honks at the
protesters, distracting everyone, and
the demonstrators wave. Tan says,
“We need to do more of this, Canadi-
ans need to do more of this. They
need to get outraged more.” Tan looks
over his shoulder and shouts at the
crowd, “Hey folks, let the lady
through.” He points to a mother
pushing a carriage. The crowd of
protesters part immediately.

The Other Press October 29 1996