Niger Delta villagers go to the Hague to fight against oil giant Shell

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian

This once self-sufficient community suffered from the excesses of oil firms and corrupt officials. Now, the villagers are blamed for everything and the arms dealers are having a field day

John Vidal | Saturday August 6 2011 12.23 BST

Goi is now a dead village. The two fish ponds, bakery and chicken farm that used to be the pride and joy of its chief deacon, Barrisa Tete Dooh, lie abandoned, covered in a thick black layer. The village's fishing creek is contaminated; the school has been looted; the mangrove forests are coated in bitumen and everyone has left, refugees from a place blighted by the exploitation of the region's most valuable asset: crude oil.

Last Thursday, a long-awaited and comprehensive UN study exposed the full horror of the pollution that the production of oil has brought to Ogoniland over the last 50 years.

The UN report showed that oil companies and the Nigerian government had not just failed to meet their own standards, but that the process of investigation, reporting and clean-up was deeply flawed in favour of the firms and against the victims. Spills in the US are responded to in minutes; in the Niger delta, which suffers more pollution each year than the Gulf of Mexico, it can take companies weeks or more.

"Oil companies have been exploiting Nigeria's weak regulatory system for too long," said Audrey Gaughran of Amnesty International. "They do not adequately prevent environmental damage and they frequently fail to properly address the devastating impact that their bad practice has on people's lives."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/06/shell-oil-spills-niger-delta-pollution

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A man walks on slippery spilled crude oil on the shores of the Niger Delta
swamps of Bodo, a village in Niger's oil-producing Ogoniland

Lengthy and disturbing article that's well worth reading in full.

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[IScreamSundays]

2. It is consequences such as these on the peoples of the

world that cause me to hate my country.

[cpwm17]

3. Rush Limaugh's model country: Nigeria

The last time I heard Rush Limbaugh he was saying that the US should follow Nigeria's example on oil drilling regulation. This was during the Gulf oil leak.

[dorksied]

4. And Republicans believe that these corporations should and would monitor and regulate themselves.

What a joke... the people responsible for this should be taken behind a shed and shot.

[saras]

6. Republicans believe that Nigeria is an acceptable outcome - they don't see the NEED for regulation

I mean, after all, what did they do wrong in Nigeria? They're poor people, and colored, and we're just worth more than they are. One American getting to drive their SUV for one more year is worth killing thousands of brown people. Do you have a problem with that? And all the environment is getting destroyed anyways, because that's how people are, and you can't change human nature. Because the environment gets destroyed anyways, it's best to do it in a way that ensures maximum profit. In the war of all against all that God intended humanity to live under, you have to keep killing, even innocents, just to stay on top of your form. That's why God gave the West all the good weapons.

I hope the :sarcasm: tag is not needed...

[Fuddnik]

5. They'te not in the Hague. They're in Alaska now.

Thanks Mr. President.