Shell has admitted liability but has a long way to go to make amends
Oil spills destroyed my village in Nigeria and decades of environmental and social injustice are still to be addressed
by Patrick Naagbanton, Thursday 4 August 2011 Reposted from guardian.co.uk 
Shell’s admission of liability for two massive
oil spills in 2008-09 in my village of Bodo in the Niger Delta is a step
forward in the long struggle for corporate accountability. An
impoverished village that yesterday lay in ruins has today felt a
welcome glimmer of hope and justice. We are happy with the news that
Shell could be forced to clean up the environmental devastation it has
caused and to pay more than $400m in compensation. But our jubilation is
overshadowed by more than five decades of environmental and social
injustice yet to be addressed. Bodo village is a fishing community in
the minority Ogoni region of the Niger Delta. Shell was forced out of
Ogoni in 1993, following mass protests led by writer and activist Ken
Saro-Wiwa, who was executed on 10 November 1995 alongside eight other
campaigners. Shell’s vast network of oil wells, pipelines, flow-stations
and gas flares remained in Ogoni and are an everyday reminder of what
we have suffered. Many of Shell’s rusty, leaky pipelines date back to
the 1970s and have been poorly maintained ever since (see pages 31-36
and 43 of Friends of the Earth Netherlands report). It was equipment
failure that caused Shell’s high-pressure Trans-Niger pipeline to
rupture on 28 August 2008, gushing an estimated 2,000 barrels of oil per
day into Bodo for weeks. The land and water was covered in thick layers
of crude. Shell was also responsible for a second spill from the same
pipeline on 2 February 2009. Oil spills have effectively destroyed my
community. Local farmers and fishers were forced to abandon their
traditional ways of life. Bodo Creek is, ecologically speaking, dead.
The fish that were not killed by the heavy pollution now reek of
petroleum and cannot sustain a village population of 69,000 people.
Shell has violated our basic human rights to food, water and livelihood.
The compensation Shell offered us – £3,500 plus bags of rice and sugar –
was insulting and wholly inadequate.
Full article Image: Ogoni Spill-Amensty International photos
Shell’s admission of liability for two massive
oil spills in 2008-09 in my village of Bodo in the Niger Delta is a step
forward in the long struggle for corporate accountability. An
impoverished village that yesterday lay in ruins has today felt a
welcome glimmer of hope and justice. We are happy with the news that
Shell could be forced to clean up the environmental devastation it has
caused and to pay more than $400m in compensation. But our jubilation is
overshadowed by more than five decades of environmental and social
injustice yet to be addressed. Bodo village is a fishing community in
the minority Ogoni region of the Niger Delta. Shell was forced out of
Ogoni in 1993, following mass protests led by writer and activist Ken
Saro-Wiwa, who was executed on 10 November 1995 alongside eight other
campaigners. Shell’s vast network of oil wells, pipelines, flow-stations
and gas flares remained in Ogoni and are an everyday reminder of what
we have suffered. Many of Shell’s rusty, leaky pipelines date back to
the 1970s and have been poorly maintained ever since (see pages 31-36
and 43 of Friends of the Earth Netherlands report). It was equipment
failure that caused Shell’s high-pressure Trans-Niger pipeline to
rupture on 28 August 2008, gushing an estimated 2,000 barrels of oil per
day into Bodo for weeks. The land and water was covered in thick layers
of crude. Shell was also responsible for a second spill from the same
pipeline on 2 February 2009. Oil spills have effectively destroyed my
community. Local farmers and fishers were forced to abandon their
traditional ways of life. Bodo Creek is, ecologically speaking, dead.
The fish that were not killed by the heavy pollution now reek of
petroleum and cannot sustain a village population of 69,000 people.
Shell has violated our basic human rights to food, water and livelihood.
The compensation Shell offered us – £3,500 plus bags of rice and sugar –
was insulting and wholly inadequate. Full article Image: Ogoni Spill-Amensty International photos
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