Calls for actions against Shell

Calls for actions against ShellBy Norm Dixon As the Nigerian regime imposed death sentences on 19 more Ogoni leaders on November 26, calls for the federal government to take action have increased. The Canberra Young Christian Workers Movement (YCWM) and ACT Green MLA Lucy Horodny have urged the federal government not to renew its petrol contract with Shell, which expires in mid-December, for its vehicle fleet. Shell sees itself as a neutral party, YCWM's Tim Gill said in a letter to Minister for Administrative Affairs Frank Walker. In fact, they are the central cause of the trouble in Ogoniland ... Were it not for Shell, the Ogoni people would have their farms and a peaceful existence, and Ken Saro-Wiwa would probably still be alive today. By not renewing the contract, your government could put real pressure on Shell to act, and would show that you are serious in your denouncement of the situation in Nigeria. To renew it would be clearly hypocritical, said Gill. The YCWM is urging people to fax Walker with this demand on (06) 273 4541. On November 23, a prominent representative of the Niger River delta communities, Professor Claude Ake, resigned from a Shell-initiated environmental "survey" of the Niger delta. Environmental groups and Ogoni leaders had previously denounced the survey as a public relations stunt. Ake said that Shell's lack of response to Saro-Wiwa's execution showed that the oil industry in Nigeria had not unchanged. On November 27, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), representing more than 20 million workers world-wide, demanded that the Nigerian regime immediately and unconditionally release all detained trade unionists and prisoners of conscience, remove all restrictions on trade unions, and hand over power to a democratically-elected government. (Four leaders of the Nigerian oil and gas workers' unions, NUPENG and PENGASSON, are still being detained without trial after an oil industry strike in 1994.) The ICEM is also calling for economic and political sanctions against the regime, including an embargo on the purchase of Nigerian-produced fuels. It urged foreign corporations in Nigeria to use their great influence to ensure compliance with the federation's demands or withdraw immediately from Nigeria and warned that it would consider consumer boycotts and industrial bans against corporations that fail to act. Leaders and activists from ICEM-affiliated trade unions from around the world demonstrated on November 21 outside the Washington offices of Shell and Chevron. The demonstration was held jointly with TransAfrica, a US coalition of labour, civil rights, political, religious and community groups. Several union and community leaders were arrested after they formed a human chain across the entrance.