10 Years Ago: Ken Saro-Wiwa Killed by Big Oil

[callady]

On the day they killed him I remember walking up a hilly street in Auckland. I was 25 years old and had flown to New Zealand to try to lobby the Commonwealth Heads of State to intervene on behalf of my father, who had been sentenced to death at the end of October. At the top of the street I turned to view the sunset. Looking out over the city center below me and out into the harbor in the distance, I watched the sun sink into the sea, casting a pale orange glow against the sky. I remember the exact moment he died. I was sitting in a restaurant chatting and laughing with friends when I felt a brief palpitation in my chest – it felt like a vital connection had been ruptured inside me and I just knew. It was midnight in Auckland and midday in Nigeria and my father had just been hanged; his broken body lay in a shallow sand pit in a hut at the condemned prisoners block at Port Harcourt Prison.




I remember how I would often find my father staring out of these windows. “Look out there,” he would say gesturing with his chin. “Out there are all the stories a writer needs.” He would stare in silence with a frown on his face as if he was contemplating some regret. Looking back, I think of him sitting there trying to come to terms with what must have seemed like the impossible burden of bringing those untold stories to the attention of the world.




Few dared to question the cozy relationship between the oil companies and Nigeria's ruling elites until my father spoke out. Born on 10 October 1941, he grew up in a traditional home in Ogoni. He saw the coming of the oil industry and as a 17-year-old began writing letters to newspapers questioning the benefits when oil was first discovered in Ogoni. For the next 30 years his commentaries on the oil nexus escalated until he became best known in Nigeria for his trenchant criticisms of the industry.



By exposing the double standards of oil companies who preached sound ecological virtues in the north while singing from an entirely different song sheet in Nigeria, my father earned powerful enemies and became a marked man. Censored by editorial boards and denied a pulpit in a country where poverty made books a luxury, my father decided to abandon his writing and took his words to the streets. In 1990 he was instrumental in forming Mosop (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People), a grassroots organization to mobilize our community to speak out for their rights. So successful was Mosop in raising awareness among the community that, within three years of forming the organization, an estimated 300,000 of our people spilled out onto the streets of Ogoni during a protest march.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/158/158_saro_wiwa.html

[Dancing_Dave]

1. He certainly wasn't the last to be killed by Big Oil!

There have been thousands this year, mainly in Iraq!

[ochazuke]

2. Let history long remember his name

and what he died for

[fed-up]

3. Thanks for the post-there was a person w/boycott Shell sign this am and

I couldn't read the rest of the sign, except that someone? died.

I also saw "The Constant Gardener" last night and highly recommend it! My teenage son and BF's son also gave it a thumbs up.

from the article you posted:

"To my mind the 10th anniversary of his death is a symbolic occasion to begin the process in earnest but while I am happy to forgive I don't want to forget – I am mindful that there are still many who are afraid of my father in this country. There is an oil company which, though it has publicly admitted making "mistakes" in Nigeria, refuses to account or atone for its role in the execution of my father.

That is why, in 1996, we filed a suit against Shell in the US under the Alien Torts Claims Act – which human rights lawyers have used to help non-US citizens file complaints against US companies in the US for torts in foreign jurisdictions. Bringing the case helped to fulfill my father's prophecy that Shell must one day have its day in court. But it is not and has never been about vengeance. On the day my father was executed I was interviewed by David Frost and when he asked me about Shell I very deliberately answered that Shell were part of the problem and must be part of the solution. I knew what I was saying and I knew the risks I was taking then. I still believe in those words. Shell remains part of the problem in the Niger Delta but my feeling is that the company mistakenly believes it can ride out the crisis and return to Ogoni one day. ...

...My father would have been so gratified that his death inspired John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener and that poets from around the world have contributed to an anthology in his name."...