By Amy Goodman &
Jeremy Scahill
THE NATION

The Niger Delta is on fire. The explosion of a gas pipeline in Nigeria's oil-producing region in October killed more than 700 people. It is also fueling the rage of millions in the delta who want an end to the pollution caused by the oil companies, and compensation for their oil-rich land (which the oil companies have stolen). A third of the country's oil production has been shut down by unprecedented acts of resistance, infuriating transnational oil corporations and their Nigerian military business partners. (The Nigerian military runs the government of Nigeria. WFI Editor)

Three years after Ken Saro-Wiwa's execution for exposing the relationship between Shell and the regime, it has come to light that U.S. oil giant Chevron played a major role in the killing of two delta activists earlier this year. The corporation facilitated an attack by the feared Nigerian Navy and notorious Mobile Police on a group of people from a delta village called Ilajeland who had occupied one of Chevron's offshore drilling facilities. Among their demands: clean drinking water, electricity, environmental reparations, employment and scholarships for young people. On May 28^th, after occupying the facility for three days, villagers thought they were waiting for Chevron's final response to their demands when helicopters swooped down. "We were looking at these helicopters thinking… people inside these helicopters might have been Chevron's reps who are actually coming to dialogue," said one of the activists, known as Parrerre. "They were about to land when we heard shooting of tear gas and guns." The Nigerian military shot to death two protestors, Jola Ogungbeje and Aroleka Irowaninu, critically wounded a third man, and injured as many as thirty others in an explosion of violence.

Responding to inquiries from Human Rights Watch in London, following the attack, Chevron consistently claimed its only action against the occupation was to call the federal authorities and tell them what was happening. But in a startling admission during a recent three-hour interview with Pacifica Radio's daily national newsmagazine Democracy Now!, Chevron spokesperson Sola Omole admitted that the company had in fact transported the Nigerian soldiers to the facility, to carry out the violent and illegal attacks.

Following the interview conducted in Nigeria, Pacifica requested further comment from Chevron's headquarters in San Francisco. Michael Libbey, the company's manager of media relations, wrote the network a letter stating that Sola Omole's comments, "fully represent the views both of our Nigerian business unit and of Chevron." Chevron's acting head of security in Nigeria, James Neku, admitted he flew in with the military the day of the attack. He further revealed that the naval attack force included members of the Mobile Police, known as the "Kill'n'Go" unit.

"The Kill'n'Go shoot without question, they kill, they maim, they rape, they destroy," said Niger Delta environmental lawyer Oronto Douglas, who was one of the lawyers for Ken Saro-Wiwa, who exposed the authentic record of brutality of the government's Kill'n'Go unit in Ogoniland. Chevron spokesperson Omole conceded that the villagers were unarmed. Chevron contends that when the helicopters landed on a barge at the occupied facility, the soldiers got out and issued a warning; villagers who were there, however, say that there was no warning, that the soldiers just opened fire on the unarmed protesters.

After the shooting incident, eleven activists were held in a barge shipping container for hours and then jailed for three weeks. Bola Oyinbo says that during his imprisonment he was handcuffed and hung from a ceiling-fan hook for hours for refusing to sign a false statement written by Nigerian authorities, that the protestors had destroyed a helicopter. Among the villagers, it is a known fact that the Nigerian military serves as a hired gun for the transnational oil companies in the delta. (In the U.S. the police are usually the hired guns of local commercial interests, showing their interests preferential treatment. WFI Editor) But most oil companies do not want to admit this. When asked who paid the military, Chevron spokesperson Omole said, "Those guys were working for the contractor; I guess you have to ask the contractor that." But Bill Spencer, area manager of ETPM, the company that leased the barge to Chevron, said this was not true. "They were not ours. They were paid. They were supplied by Chevron, ALL of them. Everybody that was out there."

Following the broadcast of the Pacifica Radio program, U.S. Chevron spokesman Libbey described Spencer's comments as "ambiguous" and said, "We categorically deny we paid a dime to any law enforcement agency representative." The Berkeley-based corporate watchdog Project Underground, is launching a campaign against Chevron, its San Francisco neighbor. Oronto Douglas, the Niger Delta lawyer, says he is considering filing a lawsuit in the United States against Chevron, on behalf of the victims of the attack. "It is very clear that Chevron, just like Shell, uses the military to protect its oil activities," he says. "They drill, and they kill." The United States buys nearly half of all Nigeria's oil, and has its own illicit alliance between government and corporations. As the spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria put it, "it is the policy of the embassy to support American companies and their operations abroad."

INTERVIEW: The interview can be heard on the internet at www.pacifica.org

SOURCE: Excerpted from the 16 November, 1998, issue of the Nation, a weekly newsmagazine. Reprinted in the public service of the national interest of the American people.