1789 US statute, the Alien Tort Claims Act, allowing noncitizens to file cases in US courts for human rights abuses occurring overseas

TO BE NOTED:

"Shell settles Nigerian human rights suit for 15.5 million dollars

Published: 9 June 2009 09:11 | Changed: 9 June 2009 16:05

By AP, Reuters

Royal Dutch Shell agreed to a 15.5 million US dollar (11,2 million euro) settlement Monday to end a lawsuit alleging that the oil giant was complicit in the executions of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and other civilians by Nigeria's former military regime in the 1990s.

Members of the Ogoni community demonstrate in front of the court in New York. Photo AP

News - Trial against Shell is postponed again News - Violence rules Niger delta since Saro-Wiwa's death Background - Nigerian rights activist finally has his day in court

Shell, which continues to operate in Nigeria, said it agreed to settle the lawsuit in hopes of aiding the "process of reconciliation." But Europe's largest oil company acknowledged no wrongdoing in the 1995 hanging deaths of six people, including poet Saro-Wiwa.

"Shell has always maintained the allegations were false," said Malcolm Brinded, Shell's executive director for exploration and production. "While we were prepared to go to court to clear our name, we believe the right way forward is to focus on the future for Ogoni people, which is important for peace and stability in the region," he said. "This gesture also acknowledges that, even though Shell had no part in the violence that took place, the plaintiffs and others have suffered."

In the 1990s protesters, who campaigned nonviolently for a fairer share of Nigeria's oil wealth for the poor and against environmental damage by the industry, were convicted of murder in a trial that human rights groups labelled a sham. Protests led by Saro-Wiwa forced Shell in 1993 to abandon its oil fields in Ogoniland, a tiny part of the Niger Delta whose people Saro-Wiwa represented.

The settlement came as the more than decade-long dispute was due to go to trial in the US. "We litigated with Shell for 13 years and, at the end of the day, the plaintiffs are going to be compensated for the human rights violations they suffered," said Paul Hoffman, a lawyer for the victims' families who had brought the cases along with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. "Had we tried the case and won, the plaintiffs were still looking at years of appeals," he said.

Hoffman said that 5 million dollars would go into a trust for the benefit of the Ogoni people. The rest of the money would go to lawyers' fees and compensation for the families.

"I think he would be happy with this," Saro-Wiwa's 40-year-old son, Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., said in a telephone interview from London. Though Shell denied any wrongdoing, "the fact that they would have to settle is a victory for us." Fourteen years after the Nigerian activists were hanged, Saro-Wiwa said he thinks Shell has started to acknowledge that it needs a "social license" to operate in a foreign countries. For example, the company has agreed to pay for a study of environmental damage that drilling has caused the Ogoni region. "They have a long way to go," he said. "But at least they realise some of their actions can come back to haunt them as we saw in New York."

"Is it enough to bring back the lives of our clients? Obviously not," said Jenny Green, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York who helped file the lawsuit in 1996. But Green said it will send a message to Shell and other multinationals that operate in developing countries. "You can't commit human rights violations as a part of doing business," she said. "A corporation can't act with impunity. And we think there is accountability in this settlement."

The lawsuits sought unspecified damages from Shell for backing the jailing, torturing and killing of the protesters as well as for polluting the region's air and water. They were brought under a 1789 US statute, the Alien Tort Claims Act, allowing noncitizens to file cases in US courts for human rights abuses occurring overseas.

A multinational company has never been found liable of human rights abuses by a US jury, but a few have settled out of court. The Shell case would have been the third to go to trial and the second involving a major oil company.

Villagers in Indonesia are suing Exxon Mobil, claiming it employed guards who kidnapped, tortured and murdered civilians. Chevron is awaiting a verdict from a judge in Ecuador that could lead to a potential 27 billion dollar judgement stemming from a dispute over the role of Texaco, which Chevron bought in 2001, in environmental damages in the Amazon rain forest."

30/May/2009 WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 480 for 23 - 29 May 2009

TO BE NOTED:

	humanitarian news and analysis UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Table of contents
1. NIGERIA: Displaced out of aid workers' reach
2. In Brief: Nigeria’s Cross River state passes child rights act
3. In Brief: Polio campaign to target ‘at-risk’ Liberia
4. CHAD: Scores of children among rebels rounded up in east
5. WEST AFRICA: Protecting children from orphan-dealers
6. WEST AFRICA: West Africa faces yellow fever vaccine shortage
7. NIGERIA: Relief workers slowly access conflict-hit Delta creeks
8. NIGERIA: Timeline of recent events in Niger Delta
9. LIBERIA: First birth registrations in Liberia for 19 years
10. BENIN: Polio vaccine drive suspended by health sector strike

---

NIGERIA: Displaced out of aid workers' reach DAKAR, 25 May 2009 (IRIN) - Aid agencies are unable to access an area in the Niger Delta where more than 2,000 people are believed to be hiding in the bush after a military offensive against militants forced families to flee their homes. full report

In Brief: Nigeria’s Cross River state passes child rights act DAKAR, 26 May 2009 (IRIN) - As violence continues in Delta and Rivers states in the Niger Delta region, international community members welcomed the passing into law of the Child Rights Act on 26 May in nearby Cross River state. full report

In Brief: Polio campaign to target ‘at-risk’ Liberia MONROVIA, 26 May 2009 (IRIN) - Liberia – declared polio-free since 2006– will be among 11 West African countries covered in a vaccination campaign to be launched 29 May by the World Health Organization (WHO). full report

CHAD: Scores of children among rebels rounded up in east N'DJAMENA, 27 May 2009 (IRIN) - At least 85 minors are among 212 suspected rebels imprisoned by the Chadian government after recent clashes between rebels and the army in eastern Chad, according to UN Children’s Fund officials, who have visited the children. full report

WEST AFRICA: Protecting children from orphan-dealers ACCRA, 27 May 2009 (IRIN) - The recent rape of an eight-month-old boy in an orphanage in the Ghanaian capital Accra revealed conditions that child rights advocates say are rampant across West African orphanages. When the authorities investigated the incident they discovered 27 of the 32 children living in the home were not orphans. full report

WEST AFRICA: West Africa faces yellow fever vaccine shortage DAKAR, 27 May 2009 (IRIN) - Up to 150 million people in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria could be at risk of contracting yellow fever says the World Health Organization, as the International Coordinating Group (ICG) on Yellow Fever Vaccine says it has just a quarter of the US$186 million it needs to vaccinate people in 12 at-risk countries. full report

NIGERIA: Relief workers slowly access conflict-hit Delta creeks DAKAR, 28 May 2009 (IRIN) - The Nigeria Red Cross says conflict-hit areas it has been able to access in the Niger Delta are in better condition than anticipated, but that continued restrictions on aid workers’ movement leaves many questions unanswered. full report

NIGERIA: Timeline of recent events in Niger Delta DAKAR, 28 May 2009 (IRIN) - Thousands of people are displaced in the Niger Delta region after the military stormed the area in pursuit of militants it said had attacked government troops. The move comes two months after President Umaru Yar'Adua said he would consider amnesty for some militants. Yar'Adua and his predecessors have battled for years with the local groups - perpetrators of regular violent attacks and kidnappings - who say they are fighting for the people's rights in the oil-rich region. IRIN highlights some of the events leading up to the latest clashes. full report

LIBERIA: First birth registrations in Liberia for 19 years MONROVIA, 29 May 2009 (IRIN) - The Liberian government says it has resumed registering births following a 19-year interruption due to the civil war. full report

BENIN: Polio vaccine drive suspended by health sector strike DAKAR, 29 May 2009 (IRIN) - Benin has suspended indefinitely a polio vaccination campaign because of a health workers’ strike, as polio re-emerges in several West African countries. full report

Nigeria has experienced 670 ethno-religious crises since 1979, leading to 85,000 deaths and over 10 million people to be displaced

TO BE NOTED: From IRIN:

"NIGERIA: Impunity for perpetrators of sectarian violence

Photo: Aminu Abubakar/IRIN

Aftermath of sectarian violence in Jos, November 2008

KANO, 24 April 2009 (IRIN) - As youths involved in recent sectarian clashes await trial in northern Nigeria, human rights groups and local residents say they are sceptical that those perpetrating violence will be held to account.

“Generally following flare-ups like this, perpetrators are held without charge and very rarely prosecuted,” said Erik Guttschuss, Nigeria researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW). “I don’t know of any cases in which those responsible for planning or carrying out violence in prior incidents have been prosecuted or held to account for their crimes.”

Shehu Sani, activist at a prominent rights group in Kaduna state, Civil Rights Congress, told IRIN the authorities often overlook perpetrators' actions: “The response of the government when sectarian clashes erupt has always been the same – impunity, shifting of blame, looking for scapegoats and non-implementation of probe panel reports.”

Clashes erupted on 12 April when a group of Muslims in Gwada, 110km from the capital Abuja in Nigeria’s central Niger state, allegedly disrupted a procession by area Christians. The unrest resulted in scores of injuries and the burning of two churches and a mosque, according to police spokesperson Richard Adamu Oguche.

Response

Following the violence in Niger state, Governor Babangida Aliyu vowed to “invoke the full wrath of the law on all those involved in the violence – [they] will not go unpunished,” according to a 14 April statement.

Oguche told IRIN the police were “doing all they could”, noting that on 16 April police charged 115 youths with disturbance of public peace, arson and theft.

Government spokesperson Maigari Kanna from Bauchi State, a hotbed of sectarian unrest since 1991, said government authorities are constrained from prosecuting those responsible for violence.

More on Nigeria conflict

Uneasy calm in Bauchi after deadly clashes

Aid agencies struggle to cope after Jos carnage

Under-development continues to fuel oil theft

Bloody week in the Niger delta

“Some of those involved in clashes are related to influential people…who exert pressure and ensure their relations are let off the hook. This attitude has frustrated previous attempts to prosecute the accused, which has only encouraged hoodlums to perpetrate the same crimes."

In February in Bauchi clashes killed 14 people and displaced 4,500.

In bouts of violence in Plateau state in 2001, 2004 and 2008, repeat perpetrators have never been charged, Guttschuss said.

An investigation may follow the Niger state flare-up but Guttschuss said results usually are not made public and any recommendations rarely implemented.

Bauchi state’s Kanna told IRIN: "The government is treading in a minefield…anytime there is religious conflict. This is why suspects are rarely prosecuted and government panel reports are never implemented."

Religion or politics

Religious leaders say many of northern Nigeria’s clashes are more about politics than religion.

Yakubu Pam, a Christian cleric in the northern city of Jos, accused politicians of fomenting religious fights for political ends. In November 2008 several hundred people were killed in Jos during sectarian riots over local elections.

“Imams and priests only admonish their flock in churches and mosques but politicians exploit the poverty among the youth and engage them, using financial inducements to perpetrate violence in the name of religion to achieve selfish political goals,” he told IRIN.

Imam Aminudeen Abubakar agreed: “These youths are ignorant [and] poverty-stricken, and use the cover of religion to foment trouble…No religion advocates violence.”

The line between religion and politics is usually blurred in Nigeria, particularly in the north, say analysts.

“The power struggle for religion and politics often plays out on the streets through violent clashes that are unfortunately encouraged or sponsored by religious leaders,” said Guttschuss.

Political polarisation along religious lines is linked to the fact that local rights in Nigeria are defined by whether or not residents are indigenous. In Plateau state for instance, many Muslims are not considered indigenous, and feel marginalised by Christian-dominated party rule, says HRW.

“The tension is exacerbated by poverty, which leaders use to exploit for divide-and-rule gains,” HRW West Africa director Corinne Dufka told IRIN.

Moving forward

Rights groups stress the need to hold perpetrators of violence to account. “It is our hope that [Niger state] Governor Aliyu will set the pace and ensure the prosecution of those arrested in the Easter violence to stop further senseless killings in the name of religion,” said rights activist Sani.

He said the government must implement recommendations it has made in recent years, including regulating religious groups’ activities and developing economic programmes to give youths better work opportunities and a sense of belonging in society.

Nigeria has experienced 670 ethno-religious crises since 1979, leading to 85,000 deaths and over 10 million people to be displaced, according to research by Civil Rights Congress which monitors outbreaks of violence. "

MEND's three-year old campaign of violence has cut oil output from Nigeria

From Reuters, let's check in on Nigeria:

1 of 1Full Size

LAGOS (Reuters) - The main militant group in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta threatened on Wednesday to end its ceasefire and attack military targets in retaliation for the killing by soldiers of a gang leader in the region.

"MEND has decreed today every soldier in uniform inside the Niger Delta region as a fair target," the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in an e-mailed statement.

"Our first spectacular urban attack on a military patrol will announce the end of the ceasefire."

The military said on Tuesday it had shot and killed a gang leader who spearheaded violent clashes between rival factions over control of a lucrative trade in stolen oil.

Tubotamuno Angolia, also known as "Boy Chiki", was arrested in the Bakana district of Rivers state but was shot when he tried to escape( COME ON ), Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, spokesman for the joint military taskforce in Rivers, said.

MEND rejected that version of events, saying Angolia had been handcuffed, urinated and spat on before being executed.

It said Angolia was not a member of MEND, but said such killings by the security forces were becoming "a common practice endorsed by the Nigerian government" in the Niger Delta.

The militant group, which has been holding two British oil workers hostage( WAR CRIME ) for four months, began a unilateral ceasefire in the Niger Delta in late September following a week of clashes with the military and attacks on oil industry installations.

MEND's three-year old campaign of violence has cut oil output from Nigeria, the world's eighth biggest exporter, by around a fifth.

It has threatened in the past to end its September ceasefire but has so far not launched any significant attacks."

This needs some input now before things get out of hand.

"Laws on land ownership in south Sudan remain vague, and have yet to be clarified in a planned land act"

Ponder this from the FT. I find it distasteful:

"US investor buys Sudanese warlord’s land

By Javier Blas and William Wallis in London

Published: January 9 2009 23:18 | Last updated: January 9 2009 23:18

A US businessman backed by former CIA and state department officials says he has secured a vast tract of fertile land in south Sudan from the family of a notorious warlord, in post-colonial Africa’s biggest private land deal( DOES THE WAR OWN THE LAND, OR SIMPLY CONTROL IT? ).

Philippe Heilberg, a former Wall Street banker and chairman of New York-based Jarch Capital, told the Financial Times he had gained leasehold rights to 400,000 hectares of land – an area the size of Dubai – by taking a majority stake in a company controlled by the son of Paulino Matip.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

Quest to create a new Sudan bread basket - Jan-09

Map: Africa’s farmland grab - Jan-09

Mr Matip fought on both sides in Sudan’s lengthy civil war but became deputy commander of the army in the autonomous southern region after a 2005 peace agreement.

The deal, between Mr Heilberg’s affiliate company in the Virgin Islands and Gabriel Matip, is a striking example of how the recent spike in global commodity food prices has encouraged foreign investors and governments to scramble for control of arable land in Africa, even in its remotest parts.

In contrast to land deals between foreign investors and governments, Mr Heilberg is gambling on a warlord’s continuing control of a region where his militia operated in the civil war between Khartoum and south Sudan.( HOW NICE )

“You have to go to the guns, this is Africa( I'M SURE AFRICANS APPRECIATE THAT ),” Mr Heilberg said by phone from New York. He refused to disclose how much he had paid for the lease.

Jarch Management Group is linked to Jarch Capital, a US investment company that counts on its board former US state department and intelligence officials, including Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador and expert on Africa, who acts as vice-chairman; and Gwyneth Todd, who was an adviser on Middle Eastern and North African affairs at the Pentagon and under former president Bill Clinton at the White House.

Laws on land ownership in south Sudan remain vague, and have yet to be clarified in a planned land act( THAT WOULD BE JUST ONE OF MY CONCERNS ). For this reason, some foreign experts on Sudan as well as officials in the regional government, speaking on condition of anonymity, doubted Mr Heilberg could assert legal rights( HE JUST SAID THAT HE'S COUNTING ON THE WAR LORD AND HIS GUNS ) over such a vast tract of land. The deal is second only in size to the recent lease of 1.3m hectares by South Korea’s Daewoo from the government of Madagascar.

Mr Heilberg is unconcerned. He believes that several African states, Sudan included, but possibly also Nigeria, Ethiopia and Somalia, are likely to break apart in the next few years( HERE HE'S PROBABLY CORRECT. ), and that the political and legal risks he is taking will be amply rewarded.

“If you bet right on the shifting of sovereignty then you are on the ground floor. I am constantly looking at the map and looking if there is any value,” he said, adding that he was also in contact with rebels in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, dissidents in Ethiopia and the government of the breakaway state of Somaliland, among others.( IT DOESN'T SEEM TO MATTER TO HIM HOW THESE PROPERTY RIGHTS ARE ACQUIRED. )

The company was embroiled in a dispute with the south Sudan government over its claims to exploration rights for oil.

Mr Heilberg said Jarch had no expertise in agricultural development but would be seeking joint venture partners to cultivate the land( PR ), which is in one of the remotest parts of Sudan, in a region bordering the Nile river but with no tarred roads.

"Nigeria is reluctant to take on debt owed to Western majors."

I have to say that I'm suspicious of this. From the FT:

"Royal Dutch Shell hopes to boost oil output in Nigeria after agreeing a new plan to tackle chronic funding shortfalls hitting production at its joint venture with the government.

The Anglo-Dutch oil major has accepted the outlines of a presidential proposal under which the joint venture would raise its own financing rather than rely on cash from the government, say people familiar with the talks.

As an interim measure, Shell has offered to lend the government the money to back its share of the financing costs until the scheme is finalised. Terms have yet to be agreed, partly because Nigeria is reluctant to take on debt owed to Western majors."

I'm wondering whether this reluctance is due to human rights questions.

"More than 10,000 Nigerians have died in sectarian violence since civilian leaders took over from a former military junta in 1999."

Many people don't know about the Sectarian problems in Nigeria. From the NY Times:

"JOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Mobs burned homes, churches and mosques Saturday in a second day of riots, as the death toll rose to more than 300 in the worst sectarian violence in Africa's most populous nation in years.

Sheikh Khalid Abubakar, the imam at the city's main mosque, said more than 300 dead bodies were brought there on Saturday alone and183 could be seen laying near the building waiting to be interred.

Those killed in the Christian community would not likely be taken to the city mosque, raising the possibility that the total death toll could be much higher. The city morgue wasn't immediately accessible Saturday.

Police spokesman Bala Kassim said there were ''many dead,'' but couldn't cite a firm number.

The hostilities mark the worst clashes in the restive West African nation since 2004, when as many as 700 people died in Plateau State during Christian-Muslim clashes.

Jos, the capital of Plateau State, has a long history of community violence that has made it difficult to organize voting. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people."

This is a terrible problem in Nigeria:

"Authorities imposed an around-the-clock curfew in the hardest-hit areas of the central Nigerian city, where traditionally pastoralist Hausa Muslims live in tense, close quarters with Christians from other ethnic groups.

The fighting began as clashes between supporters of the region's two main political parties following the first local election in the town of Jos in more than a decade. But the violence expanded along ethnic and religious fault lines, with Hausas and members of Christian ethnic groups doing battle.

Angry mobs gathered Thursday in Jos after electoral workers failed to publicly post results in ballot collation centers, prompting many onlookers to assume the vote was the latest in a long line of fraudulent Nigerian elections.

Riots flared Friday morning and at least 15 people were killed. Local ethnic and religious leaders made radio appeals for calm on Saturday, and streets were mostly empty by early afternoon. Troops were given orders to shoot rioters on sight.

The violence is the worst since the May 2007 inauguration of President Umaru Yar'Adua, who came to power in a vote that international observers dismissed as not credible.

Few Nigerian elections have been deemed free and fair since independence from Britain in 1960, and military takeovers have periodically interrupted civilian rule.

More than 10,000 Nigerians have died in sectarian violence since civilian leaders took over from a former military junta in 1999. Political strife over local issues is common in Nigeria, where government offices control massive budgets stemming from the country's oil industry."

That's right. 10,000 people in 9 years.