[Background-music]
Narrator: Ken Saro-Wiwa,
is the charismatic leader of the Ogoni people in Nigeria. Whose land has been
polluted by shell? [pause00:00:38]
His international campaign to save the Ogonian environment, has put him on a
collision cause with NigeriaÕs military rulers, who derive most of their wealth
from oil. [pause 00:01:02] Now they
want to silence him. Saro-Wiwa languishes in prison. And Ogoni land is a
military zone, closed to the outside world. [pause00:01:39] [Claps] The 1994 Right Livelihood award was
accepted by Ogoni representatives on behalf of their leader: Ken Saro-Wiwa, who
is facing possible military execution on a murder charge in Nigeria. Known as
the alternative Nobel price, it was awarded in recognition of his courage in
striving nonviolently for the rights of his people. [Claps] As an
internationally renowned writer, environmental activist and human rights
campaigner, Saro-Wiwa's illegal detention sparked worldwide protests.
Saro-Wiwa: HeÕs guilty of
no criminal charge. And we are here to protest against the disgraceful and
immoral behavior of the Nigerian government.
Speaker 3: HeÕs an
extremely strong and courageous and dignified man. So I take my hat off to him.
And we are with him.
Speaker 4: ThatÕs why we
are standing opposite the high commission here. Hoping that people in the high
commission will be suitably embraced. The more noise we make the more placards
we have, the better.
Speaker 5: His
imprisonment has actually drawn much more attention to the plight of the Ogoni
people and whatÕs going on in Nigeria. And if he'd been a free agent allowed to
travel well express his opinion.
Speaker 6: ItÕs amazing
how peaceful approaches like these seem terrify dictators far more than even
shall we say punitive violence encounters. So Ken Saro-Wiwa has offended every
rule in the book of relationship with the military regimes. And has done it
very successfully. And his success acts as an example for other people to
follow. That is what terrifies this regime. Simply because itÕs the first
organized movement in the oil producing areas in Nigeria, to demand reparations
for destroyed natural resources.
Narrator: This film
follows the events that led to Saro-Wiwa detention.
Speaker7: Ogoni is the
land, the people Ogoni. The agony of trees dying in ancestral farm lands.
Streams polluting, wiping filth into mucky rivers. Is the poisoned air causing
the [unintelligible 00:04:51] lungs
of dying children. [pause 00:04:53] Ogoni is the dream breaking the loop in
chain around the drooping neck of a shell-shocked land. [pause 00:05:11]
Speaker7: I was unhappy
about what was happening to Ogoni as an oil producing area. Because from the
very beginning, even though I was young I could see that nothing was coming to
the Ogoni people from the oil. And I started writing about it almost
immediately, even though I was only a high school student, at the time. I also
within the context of the country I knew that we were a very small ethnic group
and our interest was likely to be ignored. [music]
Narrator: Ogoni land is
situated in the south east of Nigeria and the oil rich Niger delta.
Speaker 7: The Ogoni are a
fishing and farming people. They have lived in a very fertile and produced most
of the food that was eaten in the delta proper. Shell found oil in the Ogoni
area in 1958 since then, they found about six oil fields in an area that has
the highest population density in Africa. Which is about 1500 people per square
mile.
Narrator: Over 35 years
Ogoni land has yielded about $30 billion in oil revenue. However, most of the
people are living in poverty.
Speaker 7: What you see
behind us here is the sort of experience the Ogoni people have to live with,
all their life. This spill has been going on for the last six weeks. This sort
of pollution to live with it, in an area where land is in very high demand is
completely destructive of the community.
Speaker 9: This is my
entire farm. I have nowhere else I can grow food. I have nine children and two
already died. You should not get annoyed...but you should tell Shell to come
home and settle this problem. The problem of spillage is common here in Tai,
Gokana and Khana. This is how Shell has treaded everyone here.
Narrator: Despite the
danger of blow outs pipelines had been driven over farm lands and through
villages.
Saro-Wiwa0: Shell has
taken away our village. We have nothing in the farms any more and they don't
pay us. All our yams are gone, we are hungry. Whatever er plant does not yield.
They pass their pipes over our farmland. When there are oil spills they refuse
to pay compensation. If they don't want to deal with us, they shouldn't come to
our village.
Narrator: In a 15 year
period official figures recorded an average of four oil spills per week on the
oil delta. Mostly caused by equipment failure and corrosion. [pause00:09:19] 25
years ago at Hibubu, a shell pipe line carrying crude oil spilled onto farm
land. As a clean-up measure the oil was burned leaving a semisolid crust five
meters thick.
Speaker 7: What we are
working on now is crude oil not soil this land is lost forever for the next
1000 years nothing is going to grow here. Well, youÕre a doctor, a medical
doctor. All this must have had a terrific impact on the people of Ibubu.
Speaker 2: Exactly, you
can see when the sun hits this thing it melts and then it evaporates into the
atmosphere increasing the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide content and you
know people live purely by rainwater since this stream, as you can see, has
completely been destroyed. So the chemical now, the carbon monoxide and the
high concentration of carbon dioxide gets dissolved in water and what they
drink is acid water.
Saro-Wiwa: I understand
they have awarded contracts for the cleanup of this place and the place is
supposed to have been cleaned up. In fact in their books, it is that it has
been cleaned up twice.
Speaker 2: What? You are
seeing it for yourself whether this place has been cleaned, you can see it.
Narrator: Shell declined
to be interviewed for this program. They did however tell that whilst there had
been environmental problems these did not amount to devastation and they are
committed to continuous environmental improvement and paying compensation to
affected communities.
Speaker 4: On occasions
when villagers have protested against the activities of Shell, the Nigerian
Police have been called in very swiftly and sometimes with fatal results to the
protesting villagers. On the 30th of April, 1993, Wilbros the American
contracting firm were laying pipelines for Shell in the Ugunyi territory and we
had noticed that they were accompanied by soldiers. Mrs. [unintelligible 00:12 01] is a farmer and when she noticed that her
farm was being bulldozed she turned up with a number of other farmers to
question why this was happening.
Speaker 5: My farm was
destroyed. I went to retrieve what was left. When I went to gather up what they
had destroyed, they shot my arm and severed it. There is nothing I can do now
– I can't farm. They haven't paid me any money, they have done nothing.
They brought a lot of soldiers who shot at us and injured us...because of
something we own.
Narrator: After the
shootings, there were four days of protests. On the last day, one of the
protestors was shot dead. Amnesty International was critical of the way the
soldiers had been used to suppress the crowds.
Speaker 5: There is a fire
in May, it burns all night and day, flares at injustice, lives at oppression,
glows warmly in beauty.
[chanting]
[pause 00:13:34]
[chanting]
? Speaker 4: [foreign language] United Nations recognizes the rights of all the world indigenous people. Indigenous people have been cheated through laws such as are operated in Nigeria today; through political marginalization they have driven certain people to death. That happened in America and in Australia, they are trying to repeat it in Nigeria and we do not want it.
And in recovering the money that has been stolen from us, I do not want any blood spilt not of an Ogoni man, not of any strangers amongst us. We are going to demand our rights peacefully, non-violently and we shall win.
Crowd: Yes!
[singing]
Narrator: Ken Saro Wiwa is
the president for the movement for the survival of Ogoni people, known as
Mossop. In early 1993, the movement became fully mobilized with 300.000 people
taking part in peaceful marches in all six kingdoms.
? Speaker 4: Ogoni day in
1993 was the most exhilarating experience for me. It was wonderful to see a
people who had been docile for so long. It was good to see fear no longer a
part of them and on that day when I saw the large number of people streaming
into Buri from their various villages; I really felt a sense of fulfillment. If
I had died a day after that, I would have died a very happy man indeed.
[singing]
? Speaker 4: [foreign language] From today onwards, Shell is declared persona non grata in Ogoni!
[singing]
Narrator: The Ogoni people
had issued an ultimatum to Shell and the Nigerian government demanding oil
royalties and compensation for environmental damage suffered since 1958. They
received no reply.
[singing]
? Speaker 4: No to Shell!
Crowd: No to Shell!
Narrator: As tension
increased oil worker was badly beaten so Shell withdrew their staff from Ogoni
resulting in the closure of oil operations in the area. A month later in
February 1993 Shell held a meeting in London to discuss their predicament, the
memo of which specifically referred to Saro Wiwa.
[music]
Narrator: Shell was most concerned that international campaigning could harm their reputation. In mid-1993, Saro Wiwa experienced continued harassment from the military authorities who prevented him from attending a UN Human Rights conference in Vienna. Throughout the summer he found himself constantly in and out of detention. This is common practice in Nigeria where a succession of dictators has ruled since independence from Britain in 1960. Shell produces 50% of the oil that stains the military regime so they are seen as being in league with the government. This dependency on oil means that a campaign like the Ogoni's could spark off a dominant effect and so threatened the dictatorshipÕs survival.
[background noise]
Narrator: The Agonis pestiferous and defective campaign has become a role model for other ethnic groups on the Niger delta such as the Uzeris, Ogbin and Idjos who complain of their own impoverished communities.
[background noise]
Narrator: Wide spread rioting broke out across Nigeria during the summer of 1993 when a promise of a return to civilian rule was broken by the dictator Baba Ngida. He announced a clamp down on all pro-democracy activists, including the Yegonis.
Speaker 2: They threaten fire and brimstone. They tread the path of confrontation and sometimes treason.
Narrator: As protests on the delta increased, the government dispatched soldiers to mount roadblocks in Agoni land. Then on the 30th of July, Agoni police were mysteriously drafted away from the area. Five days later, the small fishing village of Car war attacked. The military described the incident as an ethnic clash between the Agoni and their neighbors the Andoni. However, eye witness accounts of military style attacks using sophisticated weaponry does not support the governmentÕs claim.
Speaker 3: Before the attack, before the armed men came to kill us, the policemen here were ordered to leave, so there was no one here to attack the armed men. Everything was destroyed. My home was burned to the ground. There is no market here. I just live like this. I live only by the grace of God. I can't do anything. The Odoni had no quarrel with the Andoni. This was all planned by the government.
Narrator: Much of the footage in this film was smuggled out of the area by Agoni people at great personal risk. Some of the interviewees are being hunted by the military and so wished to protect their identities.
Speaker 4: These clashes are really organized attacks by the military government using otherwise peaceful neighbors as proxies, as front. They simply gave money and recruited thugs and criminals and even certain military personnel and they come through the creeks and the rivers and the bushes and they launch military attacks on the Agoni villages.
Narrator: In the autumn of 1993, there were further brutal attacks on 10 Agoni villages which resulted in the deaths of 750 people and left 30,000 homeless. The harrowing footage you are about to see was filmed in Piem by Agoni people a few hours after the raiders had left.
[background noise].
Narrator: The Agonis would define themselves virtually surrounded by unexplained attackers originating from neighboring territories. Military roadblocks were still in place.
[background noise].
Narrator: Just before Christmas, 1993, raiders supposedly from the Akrika community attacked an Agoni settlement in Port Harcourt. 63 people were killed and houses were destroyed using explosives and machine guns. The two day attack took place close to state police headquarters who did nothing to help Agoni victims.
Speaker 5: Oga what happened?
Speaker 6: I come back from work [inaudible 00:26:16] burnt my house and my property and [inaudible 00:26:19].
Speaker 5: Where is the [inaudible
00:26:20]
Speaker 6: [inaudible 00:26:21] I came back to the house Monday morning.
Speaker 5: Were you fire accident or people cause that.
Speaker 6: People cause that. I donÕt know the particular people. One of my [inaudible 00:26:30] --
Speaker 7: These so called disturbances are well orchestrated by the military because at the various points through which the attacks came in, were all outlet points in case there is some danger and theyÕre going to want to run away. So they were just stuck in like that. They have used the armed men, they have used the Okrika and they have used the people in Udoki area.
I would never heard any so called ethnic clashes. Why do they have to come now when the Agoni people are asking for their rights? Why didnÕt they come 20 years back? They only started in 1993 when our struggle was at its peak in order that they would cow us into abandoning the legitimate agitation for our rights.
Narrator: In a further attempt to break the peopleÕs spirit, the military authorities did not allow the Agonis to observe their cultural festival in January 1994. They did permit a modest church service which was surrounded by soldiers.
[background noise].
Narrator: The guest of honor was missing.
[background noise].
Speaker 8: I wake up in the morning and I find there are troops at my gate. My chauffer alarmed at the presence of the soldiers tries to lock the gate but then they order him to stop to come out and I watch as three blows are rained on him. They finally gain entry and infest the area and making sure that I do not go out and no member of the family of my household gets out all day and all night for three days. I have to suffer that particular [unintelligible 00:29:03]. But I guess IÕm used to it and I expect a lot more of it.
Narrator: Representatives of the new dictator General Abacha visited Ogoniland in early 1994, as part of an official tour of oil producing areas. The military were determined to crash the resilience of the Ogoni people, whose will had not been broken by the massacres. Saro-Wiwa had become more outspoken on the issue of minority rights, and was gaining national support.
Saro-Wiwa: On behalf of the entire Ogoni land, its chief people and spirits, and on behalf of the movement for the survival of Ogoni people also I say, welcome to our Shell shocked land.
Speaker 2: We want to ensure and we want to -- weÕre [unintelligible 00:31:22] that most of the demands of various communities including yours can be met by the government. But that can only be met if there is a climate of peace, and fear and suspicions are removed from our minds.
Narrator: Hoping that Shell might return to the area, Lieutenant Kano Colonel launched a full assault on Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni people, using military force to silence remaining opposition. Major Paul Okuntimo was to command this operation, and it was he who drew up this revealing memo which sets up their agenda. For the first time in an official document the question of oil company payments to the military was raised.
Shell deny any knowledge or involvement with the actions outlined in the memo, or that they have made any financial contribution to military operations in Ogoni.
Speaker 3: Everyone was quiet and then on the morning of May 21 as we woke up in the morning, most of the Ogoni villages were filled with the soldiers and the mobile policemen, armed with sophisticated weapon. And we donÕt know why they just came only it was only when four prominent Ogoni sons were killed later in the afternoon of that day that we -- Ogoni suddenly knew that there was a grand designing to cause disturbances in Ogoni, in order to create an excuse for the government to send in more troops.
Narrator: The four victims were allegedly set upon by a mob, murdered and burned in this car. The military accused Saro-Wiwa of inciting the attack, even though security agents had prevented him from entering Ogoni land earlier that day. On the following morning Lieutenant Kano Colonel held a press conference. Despite there having been no judicial investigation into the murders which MOSOP had immediately asked for.
He is convinced of who is responsible and their forensic work was displaced for the cameras.
Kano Colonel: And in the bag there for you to inspect later are remnant and pieces of bones from various parts of body that they have been able to recover from the scene where the burning took place.
Speaker 4: This is the jaw look at the teeth, can you see?
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 4: This is one, two, three. So the potion of the mouth here have been tone off and then bones just as you can see. But then this particular appearance of teeth will actually convince that this is part of human being, and so many other things.
Paul: Ogoni is bleeding and not by federal troops genocidal federal troops as some of the papers carried some days back, but by irresponsible and reckless thuggery of the MOSOP elements, which as I said must stop immediately. And I therefore call on you to report accurately this event and to stop it being used as propaganda tools conveniently for some dictator like Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Narrator: Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni leaders were taken into detention but not charged with any crime. Now the military had removed him from the scene, they set about sealing off Ogoniland.
Paul: I have directed to all the villages they had took part must be rounded up. MOSOP leadership that was part of this kill must be arrested, and the security persons are out to doing just that.
Narrator: Major Onkuntimo received troop reinforcements and began in his own words, sanitizing Ogoniland. As hundreds of people were rounded up and leaders declared wanted, MOSOP was effectively driven underground. This was all part of a plan called, operation restore order in Ogoni land which was drafted in April. It clearly shows that the military had already decide to deploy new detachments of the combined armed forces into the area one month before the very murders which were cited as the reason for the reinforcements.
One of the missions of the operation was to ensure that those carrying out business ventures within Ogoni land are not molested. This was seen as a move by the military to facilitate the reopening of oil operations. Ogoni people were now trapped in a military zone.
Speaker 3: The military descended on Ogoni, a move in their personal and armed carriers into Ogoni. They drive all over Ogoni in their army jeeps killing people. They normally come very early hours of the morning about 2:00 AM or 3:00 AM when everybody is asleep, and they be about 200. They drop down from the truck as if theyÕre attacking an enemy position and then they start to knock on your doors.
They rape the young girls, they beat the fathers, they shoot some people to frighten people. They shoot anyone on the sight; they target you as if they are learning how to shoot.
Speaker 6: I was in the house with my children, I don't know when they army arrived. They started searching the whole town. They were looking for people to shoot to kill. Becayse the govenrment has been stopped from taking the oil. They shot me and my daughter. They shot my arm and leg and that's why I am in a hospital bed.
Speaker 3: The woman has a daughter and is a crippled daughter. She had a bad leg from butt she couldnÕt walk well. And so when the army entered into their community and started shooting it was like the woman felt bad, how can I run away and leaving my daughter behind? So the woman decided to try to carry the daughter. So everybody run into the bush the woman could not run.
The army they could drove by and some of them struggling to move, instead of sympathizing with them they decided to shoot. They shot about five bullets; they shot the mother by the leg and shot the crippled leg of the daughter. So both of them fell there and stayed there for six hours, and bleed almost to death.
Narrator: At a press conference Major Paul Okuntimo boasted to chiefs and reporters that he knew 221 ways of killing human beings. As head of state security his monthly budget had risen to at least $ 1 million. Here he describes how some of these resources were deployed.
Saro-Wiwa: I operated in the night. There is nobody who knows where I was coming from. What I will tell you is that I will just take some part of soldiers I donÕt stay at four corners of the house. They back the town, listen. They will back the town but the town of the [inaudible 00:40:17] that sound death, if you hear the sound, you will freeze and then I will be calling out to our friendly and give them what we need at profit very hard one.
The machine gun with 500 rounds will open up. When four or five [inaudible 00:40:36] like that open up and then we throw the grenarde into the bush and it goes boom! Then they know that I am around and what will people do? And we have already put roadblocks on the main road. We donÕt want anybody to start coming. So the options remain was that we should take all these boys, all these people into the bush with nothing except the pants and the wrap theyÕre using that night. We should take everybody to the bush.
Speaker 2: So the next day was a mass stampede into the forest and to the creeks. So you see family of 10, 20, from 15 from the smallest child to the biggest carrying their property. Some people run naked because theyÕre afraid. Those who refuse to run were killed but those who run into the bush, some of them were saved.
[background noise].
Speaker 4: If they come across a girl, they will rape her. Even a house wife, pregnant women, they rape them. If they came across some boys, they shoot them to death and even beat them mercilessly.
Speaker 4: We really find it difficult to go back to our homes because the soldiers at any time they see anybody outside they shoot and then we find it difficult to go back to our homes and houses.
Speaker 3: The army has pursued my family and myself into the bush. We live like this in the bush, day and night. We can't go to Bori to buy or sell food. They pursue us relentlessly, we can't stay in our homes. They steal our food, property, goats, chickens and cloth. We have nothing left. They are killing us. I'm tired. I don't know what to do. Why won't this war end? In God's name, what can we do? We have to live in the bush and we have done nothing. Look at my children in the bush, in the rain. What have we done to deserve this?
? Speaker 2: By six in the morning maybe they have completed the operation. The can arrest as much as 200 people. When they get to the army station, they have to torture them and they have to pay some money before they are released. Most people would receive about 50 to 60 strokes of the cane every morning, afternoon and evening, every day.
[background noise].
Speaker 6: Good day sir. The Niger army trashed us and beat us mercilessly.
Speaker 7: At four?
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 7: How were you beaten there at four?
Speaker 6: They ask us to lie down, face flat, they trashed me and hit my buttocks with their boots, yes. I got dislocation.
Speaker 7: What did you do before you were arrested?
Speaker 6: I did nothing.
Narrator: Between late May and mid-June 1994, most Ogoni towns had been raided by AkontinoÕs men. At least 600 people had been detained, 40 killed and 160 tortured were wounded. Some of those imprisoned and flogged were under the age of 12. Amnesty international described the operation as extensively searching for those directly responsible for the killings of the four Ogonis. But in fact deliberately terrorizing the whole community, assaulting and beating indiscriminately.
Saro-Wiwa: Put it [inaudible 00:45:01], we visited 27, you corrected me. 27 [inaudible 00:45:07] rallies addressing people asking them to have a change of heart and I currently, we have their [inaudible 00:45:14] our people are dying, weÕre hungry, weÕre [inaudible 00:45:24] listen. Before three days, that youÕre understanding what I mean and in [inaudible 00:45:34] respect, that is in [inaudible 00:45:36]. That was exactly where they [inaudible 00:45:38] before I put everybody there into adoption.
You have raped my land black brother, silenced my song, your fingers drip with my blood, staining your nails black and crude. Vampire, tyrant, rapist. Black brother of the same womb but cruel as the flares that burn poisonous gases into our skies.
Narrator: At the end of June, Komo met with Ogoni chiefs who wanted to know why their people were being killed. Komo denied the allegations but asked them to sign a document which would ban Mossop and that would allow all economic activities including shells operations to recommence. The chiefs refused to sign.
? Speaker 2: Most of the villages in Ogoni have been raided but the intense of the destruction that they had been flattened, completely ruined and nobody can even stay there at all. We had a combined total number of 100,000 internal refugees in Ogoni who have been affected by these military raids on Ogoni.
They kill, they maim, they set fire to houses, they loot property, they rape women, they extort money, they arrest, they detain and they torture unarmed and defenseless Ogoni people. We understand they had instruction from the higher military quarters to wipe out the Ogoni people and the Ogoni people had been shattered, they have been brutalized and I just hope that one day we can get over this.
Narrator: In February 1995, as international criticism of their operations grew, shell announced a new environmental survey of the Niger delta. It is hard to see how this might benefit the Ogoni people who now enjoy a brutal military occupation designed to crush resistance to shellÕs operations. The European parliaments have described the effects of oil extraction on the delta as an environmental nightmare.
However, the survey would put much emphasis on non-oil activities such as farming and population. Shell have re iterated their intention to return to Ogoni land but only with the agreement and support of the communities. However, the survey will exclude Mossop and is to be headed by the chairman of Dunlop, Nigeria, a company which uses oil by products for the manufacture of tires.
The trial of Ken Saro Wiwa and four others began in February 1995 after they had been held without charge for nine months in an army camp. If found guilty, Saro Wiwa could face the death penalty. Amnesty international considers him to be a prisoner of conscience detained primarily because of his campaign against shell. General Sani AbachaÕs regime has bypassed normal legal procedures and set up a military tribunal to judge him.
? Saro-Wiwa: The military tribunal is just another evidence of the outlaw nature of this terrorist organization which calls itself a government. The military as a body expressed it elf as being inimical to the very existence of the Ogoni people. How can anybody have any confidence or even want to come out and give evidence before a military tribunal? The very military who have been prosecuting their very existence? No itÕs a -- I do not think that we should look to this tribunal for any justice for Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Narrator: A number of the main witnesses for the prosecution have admitted to being bribed to discredit Saro-Wiwa. The recently promoted Lieutenant Colonel Okuntimo attempted to block the defense lawyers from the court. When this failed, he had Saro-WiwaÕs 70 year old mother horse-whipped and barred from attending the trial. Despite suffering from a heart condition, Saro-Wiwa had been denied access to doctors and lawyers and chained to a wall for 65 days. Even so, he managed to smuggle out a speech for Ogoni day, which was celebrated against all the odds.
Saro-Wiwa: My brothers and sisters, my beloved children, dance, dance. Dance this 4th of January, 1995 as we inaugurate the United Nations' Decade of the WorldÕs Indigenous People. Dance your anger and your joys. Dance the military guns to silence. Dance their dumb laws to the dump. Dance oppression and injustice. Dance the end of ShellÕs ecological war of 30 years. [crowd cheers] Dance my people, for we have seen tomorrow and there is an Ogoni star in the sky.
[music playing]
Saro-Wiwa: Out of the bowels of the night came the rhythm of drums in the distance. The hooting of owls, the swooping and beeping of birds, the burping of toads, the humming of night-birds, and the words of a mouthful song, welcoming me to the embrace of the spirits of my home, my sweet home. [music playing]
[End of audio] [00:53:39]