ENVIRONMENT: Shell accused of fuelling violence in Nigeria by paying rival militant gangs > The Guardian

Shell accused of

fuelling violence in Nigeria

by paying rival militant gangs

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

Militants of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta travelling between camps. Photograph: Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images

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.

Shell disputes the report, defending its human rights record and questioning the accuracy of the evidence, but has pledged to study the recommendations.

In 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.

One gang member, Chukwu Azikwe, told Platform: "We were given money and that is the money we were using to buy ammunition, to buy this bullet, and every other thing to eat and to sustain the war." He said his gang and its leader, SK Agala, had vandalised Shell pipelines. "They will pay ransom. Some of them in the management will bring out money, dole out money into this place, in cash."

The gang became locked in competition witha rival group over access to oil money, with payments to one faction provoking a violent reaction from the other. "The [rival gang] will come and fight, some will die, just to enable them to also get [a] share. So the place now becomes a contest ground for warring factions. Who takes over the community has the attention of the company."

Platform alleges that it was highly likely that Shell knew that thousands of dollars paid per month to militants in the town of Rumuekpe was used to sustain a bitter conflict. "Armed gangs waged pitched battles over access to oil money, which Shell distributed to whichever gang controlled access to its infrastructure."

Rumuekpe is "the main artery of Shell's eastern operations in Rivers state", with aroundabout 100,000 barrels of oil flowing per day, approximately10% of Shell's daily production in the country. Shell distributed "community development" funds and contracts via Friday Edu, a youth leader and Shell community liaison officer, the report said, an exclusive arrangement that magnified the risk of communal tension and conflict.

By 2005, Edu's monopoly over the resources of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) had sparked a leadership tussle with Agala's group. The latter was reportedly forced out of the community and a number of people killed. Dozens of gang members and residents reportedly died in counter raids by Agala.

The inter-communal violence killed an estimated 60 people, including women and children, from 2005-08. Thousands more were displaced by fighting that left homes, schools and churches in ruins. Many still suffer severe malnutrition, poverty and homelessness.

Platform says the local conflict soon created regional instability. Displaced villagers were hunted down in the regional capital, Port Harcourt, and killed in their homes, schools and workplaces. Gangs active in Rumuekpe collaborated with prominent criminal networks in Rivers state and doubled as Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) militants.

Mend's activity in Rumuekpe seriously disrupted Shell's operations and sent shockwaves through world markets, the report notes, yet Shell paid little heed. One of the corporation's managers was alarmingly candid: "One good thing about their crisis was that they never for one day stopped us from production."

Platform interviewed Ex-gang members claimed Shell exacerbated the conflict by providing regular funding to both factions throughout.

In 2006, Shell is alleged to have awarded maintenance contracts relating to its oil wells, the Trans-Niger pipeline, its booster station and flowstation to Edu's gang. But after Agala's counter-raid left Rumuekpe "littered" with corpses, Shell apparently switched sides and started paying Agala. It paid whoever controlled access, even if they were known criminal gangs, Platform claims.

The allegations of ex-gang members were largely substantiated by the testimony of a Shell official, Platform claims. A manager confirmed that in 2006, one of the most violent years, Shell awarded six types of contract in Rumuekpe. Thousands of dollars flowed from Shell to the armed gangs each month.

The company eventually terminated some, though not all, of the contracts. But by then the violence had reached the Shell flowstation. A Shell manager, whose name has been withheld, is quoted as saying: "Somebody came in [to the flowstation] and cut off somebody's hand. We had to vacate the place. We stopped the contract entirely."

Other contracts to "maintain the pipeline right of way" continued throughout the entire conflict, as did one-off contracts created in response to specific threats, the report found.

Matthew Chizi, a local youth leader, said: "[Shell] were going to their job, doing their operation, servicing their manifold. They never cared that people were dying. They never did anything to call the crisis to order. Rather they were using military to intimidate the community."

Platform's report offers a damning assessment: "Shell was highly likely to be aware that it was helping to fuel the conflict in Rumuekpe, since company workers visited the community on a regular basis. Even if Shell was somehow unaware of the violence, media reports were publicly available.

"Members of the community reportedly wrote to Shell to request that the company stop awarding contracts to gang leaders such as Friday Edu. Through Shell's routine practices and responses to threats, the company became complicit in the cycle of violence."It adds: "The Rumuekpe crisis was entirely avoidable... Shell operated for decades without an MoU, polluted the community and distributed 'community development' funds through an individual who had lost the confidence of the community. Once conflict erupted, Shell paid the perpetrators of gross human rights abuses as long as they controlled access to oil infrastructure. The cumulative impact of Shell's mistakes was devastating."

Rumuekpe is just one of several case studies examined by the report which alleges, that in 2009 and 2010, security personnel guarding Shell facilities were responsible for extra-judicial killings and torture in Ogoniland. Platform calls on the corporation to break ties with government forces and other armed groups responsible for abuses, and to clean up environmental damage.

Rumuekpe is just one of several case studies examined by the report which alleges, that in 2009 and 2010, security personnel guarding Shell facilities were responsible for extra-judicial killings and torture in Ogoniland.

Shell insisted that it respected human rights and was committed to working with Nigeria to ensure that the country benefited from its natural resources. "We have long acknowledged that the legitimate payments we make to contractors, as well as the social investments we make in the Niger delta region may cause friction in and between communities," a spokesman said. "We nevertheless work hard to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of the benefits of our presence.

"In view of the high rate of criminal violence in the Niger delta, the federal government, as majority owner of oil facilities, deploys government security forces to protect people and assets. Suggestions in the report that SPDC directs or controls military activities are therefore completely untrue."

He added: "It is unfortunate that Platform has repeated several old cases, some of which are unsubstantiated and some proven inaccurate, because doing so obscures the good work which has been going on for many years. However, we will carefully examine its recommendations and look forward to continuing a constructive dialogue with the Nigerian government and other stakeholders to find solutions to these issues."

via guardian.co.uk

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Shell oil spills in the Niger delta: 'Nowhere and no one has escaped'

Two oil spills caused by Shell in 2008 have triggered ongoing social and environmental problems for the 69,000 people who live in the vicinity of Bodo

The oil wellhead near the village of K-dere, Ogoniland, Niger, Delta.
An oil wellhead in Ogoniland, Niger delta. Photograph: Amnesty International UK

The air stinks, the water stinks, and even the fish and crabs caught in Bodo creek smell of pure "sweet bonny" light crude oil. The oil has found its way deep into the village wells, it lies thick in the mudflats and there are brown and yellow slicks all along the lengthy network of creeks, swamps, mangrove forests and rivers that surround Bodo in the Niger delta.

The first oil ever exported from Nigeria was found just five miles away from Bodo in 1958. But chief Tella James, chair of Bodo's maritime workers, says life for the 69,000 people who live in the vicinity changed dramatically in August 2008 when a greasy sheen was first seen deep in the Bodo swamps miles from the nearest houses.

Shell disputes that, saying that a weld broke in September 2008 in the 50-year-old trans-Niger pipeline that takes 120,000 barrels of oil a day at high speed across the Niger delta. Either way the spill was not stopped until 7 November 2008. By that time, as much as 2,000 barrels a day may have been spilled directly into the water.

A month later in December 2008 the same pipeline broke again in the swamps. This time Shell did not send anyone to inspect or repair it until 19 February 2009. According to oil spill assessment experts who have studied evidence of the two spills on the ground and on film, more than 280,000 barrels may have been spilled.

Bodo is at the epicentre of several pipelines that collect oil from nearly 100 wells in the Ogoni district and there have been plenty of minor spills in and around the communities over the years. But this was far more serious, says Nenibarini Zabby, head of conservation at the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development in Port Harcourt.

"This was an exceptionally sensitive ecosystem," said Zabby. "The spill lasted a very long time and it spread with the tides. The health of people is at risk. The company needs to compensate the people but they must also recover the environment," said Zabby.

Chief James, assistant secretary to the Bodo council of chiefs and elders, said every family had been affected by the disaster.

"Nowhere and no one has escaped," he said. "This has caused serious poverty to everyone. Nearly 80% of people here are fishermen or they depend on the water. They have lost their livelihoods. People are leaving the community in their hundreds to search for greener pastures. We used to live beautifully. People caught so much fish we could sell it to the cities. Now we have no hope," he said.

A Bodo woman said social problems had followed the environmental ones. "People go hungry, there is more petty stealing," she said.

According to the community leaders, youths from the area started to steal oil and refine it in illegal camps only after the two spills occurred. "It was the negligence of Shell which compelled people to steal. When our livelihoods were destroyed the youth went to places where they learned how do bunkering. They were desperate. They learned from others to steal. It was to survive," says Groobadi Petta, president of the Bodo city youth federation.

Sylvester Vikpee, a barrister and legal adviser to the council of chiefs, said Shell had not responded humanely to the disaster. "They do not know the scale of the devastation. One of the richest companies in the world has done this to us. We have tried to talk to them and asked them what they plan. They have told us nothing."

The Niger delta is one of the most polluted regions in the world, withmore oil spilled across the region each year than spilt in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. According to Nigerian government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillage sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller spills still waiting to be cleared up.

More than 1,000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone, but while the company has been been fined many times by courts in Nigeria for pollution incidents, appeals can take years and communities complain that proper clean-ups and compensation money never reaches them.

"For decades claims have swirled around in the Nigerian courts getting nowhere. Having a venue to bring claims in a proper structured way will revolutionise the process and hopefully ensure that the Nigerians who have suffered loss from the many, many spills, will have a much more ready outlet for their grievances and claims," said Martyn Day of Leigh Day and Co.

Shell, which admitted to spilling 14,000 tonnes of oil in 2009, works in partnership with the Nigerian government in the delta, but argues that that 98% of all its oil spills are caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage by militants and communities and only a minimal amount by deteriorating infrastructure.

No one from the Shell petroleum development company in Nigeria was available to comment on the Bodo spills this week, and a spokesman forRoyal Dutch Shell in London said the company could not say anything while the case was ongoing.

"That Shell has now accepted responsibility for the massive spill at Bodo is surprising only in the sense that it is out of place for polluters of this sort to bow to the truth. We only hope that now they will wake up and accept responsibility for other places in the Niger delta," said Nimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International from Lagos.

Map: Ogoniland in NigeriaMap: Ogoniland in Nigeria Photograph: Guardian