Shell (Oil) accused of fuelling violence in Nigeria by paying rival militant gangs

Source: The Guardian

Oil company rejects watchdog's claims that its local contracts made it complicit in the killing of civilians

David Smith Monday October 03 2011

Shell has fuelled armed conflict in Nigeria by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to feuding militant groups, according to an investigation by the oil industry watchdog Platform, and a coalition of non-government organisations.

The oil giant is implicated in a decade of human rights abuses in the Niger delta, the study says, claiming that its routine payments exacerbated local violence, in one case leading to the deaths of 60 people and the destruction of an entire town.

Platform's investigation, which includes testimony from Shell's own managers, also alleges that government forces hired by Shell perpetrated atrocities against local civilians, including unlawful killings and systematic torture.

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In http://platformlondon.org/nigeria/Counting_the_Cost.pdf">Counting the Cost: Corporations and Human Rights in the Niger Delta, Platform says that it has seen testimony and contracts that implicate Shell in the regular awarding of lucrative contracts to militants. In one case last year, Shell is said to have transferred more than $159,000 (£102,000) to a group credibly linked to militia violence.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/03/shell-accused-of-fuelling-nigeria-conflict

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Militants of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta
travelling between camps.


Shell oil paid Nigerian military to put down protests, court documents show

Secret papers reveal that in the 1990s the oil giant routinely worked with the army to suppress resistance to its activities

John Vidal | Monday October 03 2011

Shell has never denied that its oil operations have polluted large areas of the Niger Delta – land and air. But it had resisted charges of complicity in human rights abuses.

Court documents now reveal that in the 1990s Shell routinely worked with Nigeria's military and mobile police to suppress resistance to its oil activities, often from activists in Ogoniland, in the delta region.

http://www.shellguilty.com/evidence/">Confidential memos, faxes, witness statements and other documents, released in 2009, show the company regularly paid the military to stop the peaceful protest movement against the pollution, even helping to plan raids on villages suspected of opposing the company.

According to Ogoni activists, several thousand people were killed in the 1990s and many more fled that wave of terror that took place in the 1990s.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/03/shell-oil-paid-nigerian-military

Or are just really really savvy.