NIGERIA: Shell faces civil charges over Saro-Wiwa murder

Oil giant Anglo-Dutch Shell in September lost its appeal to prevent a jury hearing a multi-million dollar civil suit in New York. The case, brought against Shell by Nigerian exiles, charges Shell with aiding and abetting the torture and murder of Nigerian activists, the most prominent being Ogoni civil and environmental rights leader Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Shell is also accused of organising a series of raids by the Nigerian military on villages in the Ogoni region that left more than 1000 people dead and 20,000 homeless.

Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) were arrested on trumped up murder charges in 1994. They were swiftly found guilty by military tribunal and executed in November 1995.

The civil suit has been lodged by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York on behalf of three Nigerians, including Saro-Wiwa's brother Dr Owens Wiwa. They are demanding millions of dollars' damages from Shell.

"We believe Shell facilitated Saro-Wiwa's execution", Jenny Green, from the Center for Constitutional Rights, told the September 19 London Independent. "We believe there is a basis in US law to hold Shell accountable."

Dr Wiwa and the other plaintiffs allege that Shell Nigeria:

• appropriated land for oil development without adequate compensation. The operations have seriously polluted air and water in Ogoniland.

• lent boats to Nigerian troops in September 1993 which were used to attack Ogoni villages. On the days of the attacks, a helicopter chartered by Shell monitored villages where later the military massacred more than 1000 villagers;

• demanded assistance from Nigeria's notorious "kill-and-go" mobile police force to crush Ogoni protests. In 1990 the police carried out "scorched earth" operations which resulted in the murder of 80 villagers and the destruction of hundreds of homes;

• called in federal Nigerian government troops to fire on villagers in Biara who were peacefully protesting the destruction of their homes to build the an oil pipeline; and

• helped fabricate the murder charges against, and bribed witnesses to give false testimony, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ogoni youth leader John Kpuinen and other protest leaders. They were tortured by the government and later hanged.

The suit was originally filed in a Manhattan federal court in 1996 under laws that allow action in the US against firms accused of human rights abuses anywhere in the world. Shell, which wants the case heard in England, said that the Nigerians' allegations were "false and unsubstantiated".

From GLW issue 424