JULY/AUGUST 1996 · VOLUME 17 · NUMBERS 7 & 8

---

I N T E R V I E W

---

Multinational Monitor: When did you leave Nigeria?

Dr. Owens Wiwa: I left Nigeria on November 13, three days after the murder of my brother Ken Saro Wiwa.

MM: What do you think are the real reasons he was executed?

Wiwa: The claim that he incited a murder is totally false. He was a man of peace.

My brother was executed because he was an effective environmentalist dedicated to a clean environment in Nigeria. The major players in the oil industry did not like what he was doing. Both the Nigerian military and Shell Oil were uncomfortable with what he had been saying. So they decided to give him the final censorship.

MM: Why do you think the regime ignored the substantial international pressure to lift the execution order on your brother?

Wiwa: He was a very effective messenger; his message was a call for change in the Nigerian system, in the alliance between the Nigerian military and Shell, whereby the military officials are taking quite a lot of the oil money and putting it into their private pockets. The military did not want that to end. Shell wanted to continue drilling for oil.

There is no doubt it would cost Shell a lot of money to clean up Ogoniland and to use better standards -- if they are allowed to continue drilling oil there at all. I am of the opinion that Shell did not want to spend the money cleaning up the environment, but wanted to silence the messenger.

MM: Do you think more intense international pressure could have saved your brother's life?

Wiwa: The international pressure that came after the execution was well appreciated. But we would have hoped that we would have gotten it before the execution, or even before the trial.

We do appreciate what everybody did in the attempt to save his life. We would hope that such pressure will become even more intense on behalf of the environment and also for the 19 Ogonis now in detention who are set to face similar trial.

Shell and the military listen to one thing: blood money from oil. We know that Shell listened to the concerns of those who use their oil. More pressure can change the situation.

MM: Did Shell in fact offer to intervene in the case if Ken agreed to end his protests?

Wiwa: During the time my brother was in detention, we exchanged a lot of letters. And I visited quite a number of embassies in Nigeria, and worked with human rights and environmental groups. All of the people I met pointed in one direction: go and talk to Shell.

So I went to the British High Commissioner in Nigeria, and told him about the problems, and that I would like to see the head of Shell to discuss my brother's freedom and the freedom of our colleagues who were detained.

At my request, he arranged a meeting between myself and the head of Shell in Nigeria. Over three periods that we met, I pled with him to use his influence to stop the trial and to save the lives of my brother and the other colleagues.

He said to me that it would be difficult, but not impossible. But he said we should show good will.

So I asked him what he meant by good will. He said that I should write a press release on MOSOP [the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People] letterhead, saying there was no environmental devastation in Ogoniland. He also said that I should stop the international campaign against the Nigerian military and Shell. I replied that I did not have the power to do that, but that I would write his request to Ken. And I did that.

Ken wrote back to him and rejected his demands. Ken went on to tell him what he could do for the campaign to stop. Once Shell responds to the environmental concerns of the Ogonis, he wrote, the campaign against Shell would stop.

MM: Have you had any contact with Shell since the execution?

Wiwa: Not directly, but I did meet some of the officials in Brussels, in the European Parliament, where I was invited by the European Parliament to talk about the problem. Shell officials were also invited, and in that forum, we both voiced our concerns and thoughts. I have not had any contact with Shell after that, thank God.

MM: What are current conditions in Ogoniland?

Wiwa: The human rights suppression has intensified after the murder of my brother and eight of our colleagues. The military presence is intense. Activists are still being hunted. There are 45 in detention, apart from the 19 that have been in detention since 1984. Most people who are identified as environmental activists or as belonging to MOSOP are quickly rounded up and put in detention. Due to this repression, many Ogoni men and women have left the land and are in a neighboring country in a refugee camp, being taken care of by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Ogoni is under siege by the military. Shell wants to come back to the place. But the people are very resolute and ready to lay down their lives if Shell makes that attempt, without taking responsibility for and ending the human rights abuses and environmental devastation that have gone on there.

MM: What are the social effects of the environmental degradation caused by Shell?

Wiwa: The environmental problems we have in Ogoni have so many effects you can't count them.

There is a major effect on the culture of our people. We treasure our land -- the land and the people are the same. Many of our cultural sites have been destroyed by the seismic surveys and the blowouts and the spillages. And with that, we can no longer do most of the traditional things we used to do on our land.

Because of the gas flares, we do not know when it is night and when it is day; it is just one huge orange glow in the evening. There are quite a lot of cultural things that are done only at the night, without light, including the use of fireworks at festivals. These have already stopped. That phase of our culture is gone.

Also, within the culture, we used to use our forest, our trees to make masks, for our dances. Those who used to depend on carving, the carvers, the craftsmen, are no longer passing their skills to their children or to their apprentices, because the trees are no longer there for the masks. That goes also for the wood from which we used to make our drums and xylophone.

So we see everything that was life to us just going.

Above all, the water that we drink, the air that we breathe, are gone.

During my practice in Ogoni, the incidence of respiratory disease was so much higher than what I saw in other parts of Nigeria where I practiced. There were very high rates of asthma, tuberculosis, bronchitis and lung cancer. There was so much you would just feel terrible about it.

Of course, the skin diseases associated with contact with oil were also there.

Agriculture was also gone; the crops would not give a good yield.

We concluded that in Ogoni you had a community where everybody, and everything, was just dying, slowly but surely. We had to do something about it. We had to stop it. We don't want to be extinct from the world. We will not give Shell that benefit.

MM: What are Shell's business plans for Nigeria?

Wiwa: Well, Shell is drilling is quite a lot. They have one new big oil find, they say. And they have plans for natural gas plants which they are already working on. They are putting pressure on the Ogonis, because they want to put a pipeline through Ogoni, again.

MM: Do the other oil companies operating in Nigeria affect the Ogonis in any way?

Wiwa: The only other oil company that operates in Ogoni, apart from Shell, is Chevron. And they have two oil wells. They have not operated their oil wells, to the best of my knowledge, since 1994. Most of their other operations are offshore, though they do operate in other parts of the delta.

But the important thing is that Shell is the operator of the joint venture between other oil companies and the Nigerian government. Shell is the technical operator. Whatever Shell says is what they do.

MM: So Shell is the one in charge, not the government?

Wiwa: Shell is the one, of course. Shell is in charge. That is well known; it is typical of the behavior of multinational oil companies with military dictatorships -- they are the people actually giving the orders. The dictators are just a mask, and Shell are the people inside the mask.

MM: What is the current human rights situation in Nigeria, outside of Ogoniland?

Wiwa: The human rights situation in Nigeria has regressed, badly, after the death of Ken. The military has gone haywire, because the international community did not impose enough sanctions to check the regime. Oil is still flowing, and oil is all that the military wants. As long as the oil is flowing, they will just do what they have to do.

In the rest of the country, we are seeing situations that are worse than in early 1994, as the beatings and the arbitrary arrests and detentions increase. Recently, they don't even bother to arrest vocal and effective opponents and take them to court. They just silence the person, and they are gone. Then they tell the world that hoodlums killed the people.

So generally, it has gotten worse. There is widespread insecurity, and state violence has increased.

MM: What sort of linkages are there between the Ogoni struggle and the Nigerian democratic struggle?

Wiwa: The linkage is very definite. Part of our struggle is also for the total democratization of Nigeria, for respect for human rights and for minority rights. We have been in contact with other pro-democratic groups, and are working in concert with them.

We believe that with democracy, the multinational oil companies will not get away with the sort of atrocities they are committing. Democracy will mean that they cannot bribe one person in order to get their oil leases or bribe one person to tell them to go out and kill people who complain about environmental devastation.

Democracy will mean a lot for Nigeria, because it will give us back our dignity.

MM: What are the prospects for democratic reform in Nigeria?

Wiwa: On one hand, it may appear far fetched. But on the other hand, if we have the help of the West and those who respect justice, democracy is not too far off.

We want the alliance between multinational oil companies, especially Shell, and the Nigerian military to be broken. And the only thing that will break that alliance is oil sanctions. Once that alliance is broken, the military will not continue to be in power; democracy will come in; and then things will be done better than they are now.

Nigeria will not be great the minute democracy comes in; but it will give us a chance to talk and dialogue, and to reach a consensus among ourselves.

Right now, we can't do that. When we talk, they shoot. And then they keep on taking the oil.

It is a vicious cycle: the money from the oil is of no use to the people. It is taken for bank accounts in the West, to be kept in the secret accounts of the generals. The rest is used to buy guns from Britain and other countries, in order to kill and silence and intimidate people, in order for more oil to come. That oil is just blood money.

When there is a ban on arms to Nigeria, you have the multinational oil companies like Shell importing arms into the country.

MM: You are saying that they in fact are bringing in arms to supply the military?

Wiwa: Shell has acknowledged that they bought and supplied arms to the military, the same arms which the military used to devastate Ogoni villages and kill 2,000 people, just to stop our legitimate protests for our rights -- for our environmental rights, for the right to our land and for the right to our rivers.

MM: What specific things can other countries and citizens in other countries do to support democracy and the Ogoni cause in Nigeria?

Wiwa: We've told them our case, and we ask that they remove the ammunition from the military and from Shell.

Individuals shouldn't give money to Shell. They shouldn't buy from Shell gas stations; they shouldn't buy Shell gas products; they should remove their money from the shares of the Shell company, because that money is used to stifle democracy, to jail journalists, to kill writers and to kill Ogoni people and other Nigerians who protest environmental devastation and military dictatorship.

We want the countries that import oil from Nigeria to stop the importation until the human rights abuses stop, until democracy comes in.

It may appear we are asking too much, but the oil from Nigeria contains the blood of the Ogoni people and other Nigerians. It is not right to have oil polluted by the blood of innocent children and women.