BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
Several thousand students rallied on the campus of Obefemi Awolowo University in the Nigerian city of Ile Ife December 5. They were protesting the November 10 hanging of environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others by the military regime of that country. "Down with the murderers of Ken!" and "No to the military dictatorship!" the students chanted. "The blood of Ken Saro-Wiwa will water the tree of freedom in Nigeria," opposition leader Gani Fawehinmi told the crowd.
The rally, which was preceded by several smaller ones on that campus, also called for an end to military rule. Nigeria's military dictator, Sani Abacha, has staged pro- government rallies in nearly 30 cities since the hangings and ordered a general clampdown on actions against his regime.
"If we express our anger, the government will tell the soldiers to kill us," a teacher in the village of Bera told the Washington Post. Residents in Port Harcourt, where Saro- Wiwa was killed, said that Nigerian troops confiscated newspapers containing stories about the executions and public meetings are banned. The regime has arrested ministers accused of supporting the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), of which Saro-Wiwa was a central leader.
MOSOP was formed to struggle for the rights of the Ogoni people, one of the national minorities who live in the Niger delta region. Saro-Wiwa led MOSOP in a battle for compensation from the Royal-Dutch Shell Corp. for environmental damage in the oil-rich region known as Ogoniland. That fight forced Shell to abandon Ogoniland in 1993 and pushed the regime to raise compensation rates for oil-producing areas from 3 percent to 13 percent.
Critics of the military government assert that Abacha wanted Saro-Wiwa and the others silenced, so they could not hamper projects by the oil companies around Rivers state. That area produces more than 60 percent of Nigeria's oil, which accounts for 80 percent of the country's revenue. According to the November 21 New York Village Voice, Shell, concerned about growing protests by Ogonis against its polluting plants, reportedly helped frame Saro-Wiwa for the 1994 killings of four pro-government Ogoni chiefs.
Eyewitnesses say Saro-Wiwa's grisly execution was filmed by a video cameraman while government officials and prison authorities watched. "Ken was struggling and thrashing his arms around," one eyewitness told Newsweek. "It took him 20 minutes to die." The tape was sent to Abacha as proof of Saro-Wiwa's death.
The executions prompted strong protests from around the world. Thousands of students and others have continued to organize pickets at Shell oil stations, calling for a boycott of the company until it leaves Nigeria, and other actions.
Calls for sanctions
In November, South African president Nelson Mandela
called for a boycott of Nigeria's oil exports. "In my view
we should use the strongest method to show our disgust and
resentment at what [Abacha] has done," Mandela told the
Guardian Weekly in an interview published Dec. 3. "We are
dealing with an illegitimate, barbaric, arrogant military
dictatorship which has murdered activists, using a kangaroo
court and false evidence."
Mandela warned Shell to "suspend" its $3.7 billion liquefied natural gas project in Nigeria or face action against Shell in South Africa. Mandela also said that democratic forces were not waging a strong campaign against the dictatorship within the country. "It is not good enough for Nigerian leaders to shout from abroad and not ensure that the fires of resistance are burning inside Nigeria," he said.
On December 11, leaders of the 12-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) met in Pretoria, South Africa. SADC leaders decided not to take any actions against the Nigerian regime at that meeting. "We have refrained from taking any new initiatives as we are aware that the international community in general is addressing the issue," said Botswanan president Ketumile Masire, chairman of the SADC.
Asked after that meeting if he was still pursuing sanctions against Nigeria, Mandela said, "All possible options are not excluded... any such options must be through the [Commonwealth] structure."
The U.S. government, the European Union, and some African countries have put an arms embargo on Nigeria and recalled their ambassadors. The regime has been suspended from the Commonwealth. Almost half of Nigeria's oil exports are sold to U.S.-based companies, while those in Europe purchase 40 percent.
Randall Robinson, president of Trans-Africa, and other Black political figures, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, have called on the Clinton administration to impose economic sanctions against Nigeria, ban new investments in the country, and freeze international assets held by the military rulers.
On December 12, a Nigerian court delayed the trial of 19 youths who were arrested on charges of complicity in the murders of the four Ogoni chiefs. Human rights lawyer Fawehinmi had filed a suit on behalf of the young men, who are members of MOSOP. They face the same tribunal that convicted Saro-Wiwa.
Judge Babatunde Belgore adjourned hearing the suit until Feb. 12, 1996.