Is this what oil exploration brings...?

[wind.talker]

Oil exploration in Nigeria - which intially promised "economic development" - has long ago turned into an all-out war between the federal gov't (working for the interests of foreign oil companies) and the local populace. Just like the people of Nigeria, the people of a part of Somalia are now being promised "economic development" by a few hungry cats who want to profit from Somalia's war ruins. I'd rather have a dirt poor Somalia led by a just and able leader than a Somalia ruled through proxy leaders who represent foreign interests (government or company).

 

Take note people. The truth is out there.

 

Security Forces Kill Unarmed Civilians While Protecting Oil Majors, Amnesty Alleges

 

Vanguard (Lagos)

November 3, 2005

 

NIGERIAN security forces often gun down unarmed civilians while protecting

foreign oil majors

in the Niger Delta, rights group Amnesty International said in a just released report, calling on US and British firms to investigate two recent violent incidents.

 

The pressure group's report comes one week before the anniversary of the execution of minority rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was hanged in 1995 along with eight of his comrades following a controversial show trial conducted by the Abacha regime.

 

Saro-Wiwa had campaigned against the Anglo-Dutch oil major Shell, which he said had brought pollution to the land of the Ogoni minority

without contributing to local development.

 

"Ten years after... new evidence shows that the people of Nigeria's oil producing Niger Delta continue to face

death and devastation

at the hands of the security forces," Kolawole Olaniyan, director of Amnesty International's Africa programme, said in a statement.

 

Amnesty's report focuses on two recent incidents in which deadly force was used by troops after local communities had challenged the rights of two oil majors --

Shell and the US giant Chevron

-- to operate in their area.

 

On February 4, soldiers shot one protester dead and injured 30 more when villagers from the Ugborodo community invaded Chevron's Escravos oil terminal, the report alleges.

 

Two weeks later, on February 19, at least

17 people were killed when soldiers from the same Joint Task Force

-- which has been deployed to protect the oil industry -- raided Odioma, burning much of the town to the ground in a fruitless search for an armed vigilante group, the report says.

 

"

Amnesty International

is calling on the Nigerian Federal Government to conduct thorough and independent inquiries into allegations that the security forces killed, injured and raped civilians, and destroyed their property," the statement said.

 

Amnesty "also demands Chevron commission an independent and impartial investigation into the company's role during the incidents at Escravos terminal ... and Shell investigates allegations of a security arrangement between a Shell Nigeria subcontractor and a criminal group in Odioma."

 

Following the February's incidents, spokesmen for both oil firms said that they had no control over the soldiers and sailors of the Joint Task Force (JTF), which is largely housed in oil plants and receives logistical and communications support from the oil companies.

 

The Nigerian government deployed the force in response to the threat to oil production -- the source of 95 of the country's foreign revenue -- from pirates and separatist ethnic groups in the delta, a Scotland-sized swathe of wetlands and mangrove forest on the Atlantic coast.

 

In the case of the Odioma raid, which was launched after a local gang was accused of killing councillors from a nearby community, JTF commander Brigadier-General Elias Zamani told AFP that the town had caught fire after stray rounds hit jerry cans of fuel stored among the houses.

 

But a reporter who visited Odioma saw evidence of more systematic and widespread destruction, with scores of homes and shops burned to the ground and most of the town destroyed.

 

The once busy fishing port was almost deserted following the attack, while local chiefs said that 16 people had been killed and that town leaders had been trussed-up on the beach and beaten.

 

Earlier hostility had broken out between Odioma and nearby Obiaku after Shell sent a survey team to prospect for a new oil well without realising that the land in question was in dispute between the two communities. Shell has shelved plans to develop the well, the company said.

[Camel Mlik]

Quote:wind_talker

Oil exploration in Nigeria - which intially promised "economic development" - has long ago

turned into an all-out war between the federal gov't (working for the interests of foreign oil companies) and the local populace. Just like the people of Nigeria, the people of a part of Somalia are now being promised "economic development" by a few hungry cats who want to profit from Somalia's war ruins. I'd rather have a dirt poor Somalia led by a just and able leader than a Somalia ruled through proxy leaders who represent foreign interests (government or company).

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I couldn't agree with your more walahi. It's not the right time to bring in foreign companies to any part of Somalia with out a powerfull government. Don't they see what our Nigerian brothers are going through.

[Thankful]

Lol, first of Puntlanders are brothers and they wouldn´t fight like that, puntland is a place of peace. That is why President Cade and Abdulahi Yusuf signed the peace deal(where else in Somalia does that happen?). I was there this summer and I was shocked at the peace for a place with so many guns, so much poverty and such a poorly funded police force. It was extremely safe, OF COURSE THERE IS CRIME AND MURDER. That is normal in all SOCIETIES, but there is no place in all of africa (heck in the WORLD)that is suffering like puntland is and has our peace...I´M SURE OF THAT.

Speak about the good things that oil has done for nigeria´s economy, how it made their health care stronger and the education system that produces so many Ph´ds stronger. There is no other country in Africa that is moving forward like Nigeria. I am not talking about the (Arab league), a large reason is oil exploration.

So continue the propoganda and focus on the bad things but remember that the truth will come out.

Camelmilk I respect your opinion. But after what I saw I realized I wont be one of those somalis living abroad drinking starbucks complaining about puntland. For us it is easy to say it is not the right time, it doesnt affect us, but for the people it is the right time. They need the deal and that is why puntland is in favor of it, any deal is better then none. It´s easy for us to not want it. I support anything to help the people