Our Dependence on Oil Affects Far More than Gas Prices
DL Ennis
August 21, 2006
There has been a lot of talk, in the past couple of years, about the inhumanity of the death penalty in the United States. Sure innocent people are imprisoned and some even executed, I know that that is outrageous thing to let happen, still most who receive the death penalty are guilty of crimes that need to be punished in such a manner in my opinion; after all, their lack of respect for human life is what landed them in the predicament in the first place.
That said, there are far greater atrocities going on in the world. Take for example the death penalty handed to millions of innocent Africans each year. The only thing that most of them are guilty of is being in the way of oil companies who rape the land, kill whoever gets in their way, and support corrupt governments, which in turn, make slaves of or kill those who speak out against them.
Nigeria is the world’s fifth-leading oil producer, and oil corporations have operated there for decades without fear of penalties for trashing the environment or violating the human rights of nine ethnic groups in the Niger Delta. In 1958, Shell Nigeria began drilling oil and gas flaring and river dredging for pipelines began almost immediately, transforming the fertile delta into a wasteland of oil, chemicals, and pollutants rendering the people who lived off the land, fishers and farmers unable to continue their way of life thus eliminating their ability to feed themselves. In the nearly fifty years since, things have only gotten worse.
The resultant destruction of land and contamination of rivers has made it impossible for Niger Delta citizens to continue to fish and farm. Meanwhile, Nigeria’s leaders have grown rich from corporate oil, and gladly assign security forces to counter, and sometimes silence, citizen protests. In 1995 the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha deemed hanging to be the necessary means to quell the articulate voice of poet Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight fellow Ogoni activists.
According to a recent Amnesty International report, Chevron has failed to pursue an independent inquiry into Nigerian soldiers' use of force against more than 200 protesters at its Escravos oil terminal in Ugborodo, which resulted in 30 serious injuries and one death earlier this year. Similarly, an alleged security arrangement between a Shell Nigeria subcontractor and a criminal group in Odioma led to the murders of 17 people, the rape of two women, and the razing of 80 percent of the homes in the area. Neither the company nor the Nigerian government has investigated the incident.
The Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights specify that companies should make public their policies regarding human rights conduct to security providers, and work to see that security is provided in a manner consistent with those policies. Shell and Chevron must immediately investigate and report on the incidents this year in Odioma and Ugborodo. In addition, the United States needs to guarantee that our oil companies in the Delta comply with the Voluntary Principles.
"The oil companies can't pretend they don't know what's happening all around them," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, an international monitoring group based in New York. "The Nigerian government obviously has the primary responsibility to stop human rights abuse. But the oil companies are directly benefiting from these crude attempts to suppress dissent, and that means they have a duty to try and stop it." Roth noted that recent events in the Niger Delta, especially the crackdown on Ijaw communities over the New Year's weekend, indicate that the Nigerian government is continuing to use violence to protect the interests of international oil companies.
In one particularly serious incident on January 4, soldiers using a Chevron helicopter and Chevron boats attacked villagers in two small communities in Delta State, Opia and Ikenyan, killing at least four people and burning most of the villages to the ground. More than fifty people are still missing. Chevron has alleged to a committee of survivors of the attack that this was a "counterattack" resulting from a confrontation between local youths and soldiers posted to a Chevron drilling rig. Community members deny that any such confrontation took place. In any event, the soldiers' response was clearly disproportionate and excessive.
American oil companies are not the only ones involved in this contemptible display of greed. BP, British Petroleum is one of the largest offenders, placing its pursuit of profits above any human or environmental concerns. BP prides itself on knowing no boundaries in its transnational ventures and it vehemently defends its extensive operations in apartheid South Africa. The international anti-apartheid movement regards the company as a long-standing enemy. BP sells oil and gasoline to the South African military and co-operates Durban’ South African Petroleum Refineries, the largest refinery in the country.
BP is one of the last three multinational oil companies which continue to refine crude oil in South Africa despite an international oil embargo. The company also violated the United Nations oil embargo against colonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), supplying the then white-minority-led government with oil smuggled through South Africa and Mozambique until the country gained independence in 1980.
According to TransAfrica Deputy Director Anne Griffin, "The BP/Shell operations in South Africa are an international model in the anti-apartheid movement of what should not be allowed to happen. Until apartheid is completely and overwhelmingly dismantled," she says, the organization remains opposed to foreign companies doing business in South Africa and will continue to sponsor its boycott of BP products begun in January 1986.
BP justifies its presence in South Africa by stating its position that "more investment means more employment" and therefore "more income and more housing and more education" in South Africa. Cleveland TransAfrica representative Grace Waite Jones charges, "According to BP it is giving employment opportunities to Black South Africans. But the opportunities provided to its workforce are negligible when compared to BP’s negative impact: the stalling of democracy in South Africa. Without crude oil, the South African government would stop working; So BP is keeping the apartheid government alive." TransAfrica Deputy Director Anne Griffin says, "The bottom line is always the profit margin."
Meanwhile, close to two million people in arid Niger are going hungry in 2006, "…1, 810, 356 people in 1,017 villages are at risk of food crises either because of late planting, the early end of the rains or because of the deterioration of soil quality," said Nigerien minister for animal resources, Abdoulaye Jina.
That said, there are far greater atrocities going on in the world. Take for example the death penalty handed to millions of innocent Africans each year. The only thing that most of them are guilty of is being in the way of oil companies who rape the land, kill whoever gets in their way, and support corrupt governments, which in turn, make slaves of or kill those who speak out against them.
Nigeria is the world’s fifth-leading oil producer, and oil corporations have operated there for decades without fear of penalties for trashing the environment or violating the human rights of nine ethnic groups in the Niger Delta. In 1958, Shell Nigeria began drilling oil and gas flaring and river dredging for pipelines began almost immediately, transforming the fertile delta into a wasteland of oil, chemicals, and pollutants rendering the people who lived off the land, fishers and farmers unable to continue their way of life thus eliminating their ability to feed themselves. In the nearly fifty years since, things have only gotten worse.
The resultant destruction of land and contamination of rivers has made it impossible for Niger Delta citizens to continue to fish and farm. Meanwhile, Nigeria’s leaders have grown rich from corporate oil, and gladly assign security forces to counter, and sometimes silence, citizen protests. In 1995 the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha deemed hanging to be the necessary means to quell the articulate voice of poet Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight fellow Ogoni activists.
According to a recent Amnesty International report, Chevron has failed to pursue an independent inquiry into Nigerian soldiers' use of force against more than 200 protesters at its Escravos oil terminal in Ugborodo, which resulted in 30 serious injuries and one death earlier this year. Similarly, an alleged security arrangement between a Shell Nigeria subcontractor and a criminal group in Odioma led to the murders of 17 people, the rape of two women, and the razing of 80 percent of the homes in the area. Neither the company nor the Nigerian government has investigated the incident.
The Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights specify that companies should make public their policies regarding human rights conduct to security providers, and work to see that security is provided in a manner consistent with those policies. Shell and Chevron must immediately investigate and report on the incidents this year in Odioma and Ugborodo. In addition, the United States needs to guarantee that our oil companies in the Delta comply with the Voluntary Principles.
"The oil companies can't pretend they don't know what's happening all around them," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, an international monitoring group based in New York. "The Nigerian government obviously has the primary responsibility to stop human rights abuse. But the oil companies are directly benefiting from these crude attempts to suppress dissent, and that means they have a duty to try and stop it." Roth noted that recent events in the Niger Delta, especially the crackdown on Ijaw communities over the New Year's weekend, indicate that the Nigerian government is continuing to use violence to protect the interests of international oil companies.
In one particularly serious incident on January 4, soldiers using a Chevron helicopter and Chevron boats attacked villagers in two small communities in Delta State, Opia and Ikenyan, killing at least four people and burning most of the villages to the ground. More than fifty people are still missing. Chevron has alleged to a committee of survivors of the attack that this was a "counterattack" resulting from a confrontation between local youths and soldiers posted to a Chevron drilling rig. Community members deny that any such confrontation took place. In any event, the soldiers' response was clearly disproportionate and excessive.
American oil companies are not the only ones involved in this contemptible display of greed. BP, British Petroleum is one of the largest offenders, placing its pursuit of profits above any human or environmental concerns. BP prides itself on knowing no boundaries in its transnational ventures and it vehemently defends its extensive operations in apartheid South Africa. The international anti-apartheid movement regards the company as a long-standing enemy. BP sells oil and gasoline to the South African military and co-operates Durban’ South African Petroleum Refineries, the largest refinery in the country.
BP is one of the last three multinational oil companies which continue to refine crude oil in South Africa despite an international oil embargo. The company also violated the United Nations oil embargo against colonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), supplying the then white-minority-led government with oil smuggled through South Africa and Mozambique until the country gained independence in 1980.
According to TransAfrica Deputy Director Anne Griffin, "The BP/Shell operations in South Africa are an international model in the anti-apartheid movement of what should not be allowed to happen. Until apartheid is completely and overwhelmingly dismantled," she says, the organization remains opposed to foreign companies doing business in South Africa and will continue to sponsor its boycott of BP products begun in January 1986.
BP justifies its presence in South Africa by stating its position that "more investment means more employment" and therefore "more income and more housing and more education" in South Africa. Cleveland TransAfrica representative Grace Waite Jones charges, "According to BP it is giving employment opportunities to Black South Africans. But the opportunities provided to its workforce are negligible when compared to BP’s negative impact: the stalling of democracy in South Africa. Without crude oil, the South African government would stop working; So BP is keeping the apartheid government alive." TransAfrica Deputy Director Anne Griffin says, "The bottom line is always the profit margin."
Meanwhile, close to two million people in arid Niger are going hungry in 2006, "…1, 810, 356 people in 1,017 villages are at risk of food crises either because of late planting, the early end of the rains or because of the deterioration of soil quality," said Nigerien minister for animal resources, Abdoulaye Jina.
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