Just days after a judge confirmed Shell Oil will stand trial on May 26, 2009 on charges it was complicit in the murders of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Nigerian activists, environmental and human rights groups announced they have formed a global campaign to hold Shell accountable and demand that it stop gas flaring in Nigeria.
The ShellGuilty Campaign is coordinated by the Oil Change International, Friends of the Earth and PLATFORM/Remember Saro-Wiwa.
“Ken Saro-Wiwa’s hanging revealed the true price of oil,” said Steve Kretzmann of Oil Change International. “Now, as Shell finally goes on trial for its crimes, we continue the struggle that Saro-Wiwa died for. For the climate and the communities of Nigeria, Shell must end gas flaring.”
Ken Saro-Wiwa was an activist asking for rights for Nigeria’s Ogoni people, including an end to Shell’s gas flaring in Ogoni regions. Saro-Wiwa was detained, imprisoned and tortured throughout the early 1990s. On November 10, 1995, Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists were executed by the Nigerian government.
Gas flares are open-air fires that burn the natural gas released when oil is extracted from the ground. Gas flaring in the Niger Delta sends an estimated 53 to 60 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.
“Gas flaring in Nigeria, where Shell is by far the largest oil company, poisons Niger Delta communities and is a large, wasteful, source of global warming pollution,” said Paul de Clerck of Friends of the Earth International. “It’s time for Shell to end to its human rights abuses and climate crimes, including its gas flaring in Nigeria.'
Visit: www.ShellGuilty.com
Via: Friends of the Earth
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