By Norm Dixon The Queensland Greens are to launch a campaign over the execution of Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders. Internationally, there are growing demands for an immediate imposition of sanctions on Nigeria's oil trade and for a boycott of Shell. Media coordinator Mark White told Green Left Weekly that leaders of the Qld Greens will visit Shell's Brisbane office on November 27 to challenge Shell to place petitions in all its outlets so that customers can express their outrage at the execution of Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues. White said that the Greens were not calling for a boycott at this stage to allow "Shell an opportunity to respond". Should the company refuse, pickets of Shell service stations will be organised for the December 2-3 weekend. Further pickets will take place in January. The parallels between the situations at Ok Tedi in PNG, Freeport in West Papua, the CRA copper mine in Bougainville and Shell in Nigeria highlight the need for the Australian government to legislate for a "Charter of Responsibility" that compels Australian companies operating overseas to apply the same environmental and social standards as they do at home, White told Green Left. In other parts of the world pressure is mounting in favour of meaningful sanctions against the brutal military regime of General Sani Abacha and Shell's collaboration with it. South African president Nelson Mandela's earlier support for "quiet diplomacy" provoked a near revolt in the ranks of the African National Congress and its allies, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who for months has campaigned for oil sanctions against the Nigerian regime, sharply criticised Mandela on the eve of Saro-Wiwa's execution on November 10 over his support for the "softly softly" approach favoured by the British, US and major European governments. The South African Nigerian Democracy Support Group (SANDSG) — drawn from ranks of the ANC, SACP, COSATU, South African Prisoners Organisation for Human Rights, churches, Nigerian exiles and other groups — launched a campaign of demonstrations and pickets outside Nigerian consulates and Shell offices demanding sanctions and the withdrawal of Shell from Nigeria. SANDSG's spokesperson Cheryl Carolus (also ANC deputy general-secretary and a leading member of the SACP) explained on November 18 that sanctions were needed to bring a speedy end to the Abacha regime: "Our own past experience in this country tells us that an extra day under a dictatorship is too long." In the face of this mounting criticism, and seemingly genuinely shocked by the executions, Mandela turned around and joined the campaign for sanctions with gusto. Mandela has called on the US and Britain to also act because they are Nigeria's major oil customers. He said the announced bans on military sales by the US, Britain and the European Union were not enough on their own. "I am not satisfied with the fact that they are not applying oil sanctions", he said, arguing that the failure to impose oil sanctions would weaken any other action because oil was the "lifeblood" of the Nigerian regime. The cabinet of the Government of National Unity (GNU) has unanimously endorsed Mandela's call for sanctions. On November 17, hundreds of South Africans marched to the Nigerian consulate in Johannesburg in a demonstration organised by SANDSG. Archbishop Desmond Tutu told the crowd: "There is all kinds of nonsense going around that sanctions will hurt the ordinary people. Twaddle! People used to say the same thing about sanctions on South Africa when we were saying: 'Bring them, they will help bring down apartheid'. The only way to hurt [the Abacha regime] is if we hit them in the pockets." On November 21, Mandela summoned Shell South Africa executives to protest the company's decision to go ahead with a massive US$3.8 billion natural gas project in Nigeria. Earlier, on November 17, the ANC announced that it was to lead a consumer boycott of Shell products and push the GNU to penalise the company unless Shell withdrew from the project. In other developments:
- Saro-Wiwa's son, Ken Wiwa, is touring European capitals to lobby for oil sanctions against the Abacha regime. Wiwa has also added his support for a boycott of Shell.
- On November 13, picketers closed Shell service stations in Britain and Germany. Protesters in Hamburg erected a mock gallows outside Shell's German headquarters.
- Members of the Ogoni Solidarity Group occupied the offices of Shell Ireland in Dublin on November 16.
- On November 18, more than 100 Shell service stations in 75 cities and towns throughout Britain and Ireland were picketed. Thousand of motorists refused to cross the picket lines. The pickets were organised by a committee that includes Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the National Democratic Coalition of Nigeria, and the British Ogoni community. In London, 500 people rallied outside the Nigerian High Commission. Dan Suleiman of the NDC called on the West to impose sanctions on the Nigerian regime "to prevent a political catastrophe".