The Oil Industry and Human Rights in the Niger Delta - EarthRights ...

All Costs and Few Benefits: a Bad Deal for Delta ResidentsInhabitants of the Niger Delta receive little in return for the environmental degradationand destruction that jeopardizes their traditional livelihoods. Instead of reaping benefitsin education, employment, and health, their fishing stocks have declined, their fields havelost fertility, and their children have been denied opportunities to improve the economiccircumstances of their communities. Meanwhile, foreign oil companies have flourishedin their midst, protected and supported in their disputes with the locals by governmentresources in the form of armed security personnel.Human Rights Violations in the Military Suppression of Oil ProtestersWhile five multinational corporations operate oil fields in Nigeria, most reported humanrights abuses have been associated with two of them: Shell and Chevron. Most of thecomplaints concerning Shell relate to the Ogoni crisis in the 1990s, although sporadicincidents of violence have been reported in recent years. Abuses tied to Chevron aregenerally more recent, and Chevron, unlike Shell, does not appear to have changed itsrelationship with the Nigerian security forces.Oil Companies and Nigerian Security ForcesNigeria has one of the largest standing armies in Africa, with an estimated 94,000soldiers in the armed forces 16 and more employed by paramilitary and police forces. TheNigerian security forces are widely known to be corrupt, undisciplined and characterizedby an abysmal human rights record. 17 The paramilitary mobile police have an especiallybrutal reputation; they are known locally as the “kill and go.” Nigeria was under directmilitary rule from 1966 to 1979, and again from 1983 until 1999; in 1993, the NigerianArmy’s own retiring Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Salihu Ibrahim, condemned the breakdownof professionalism among the armed forces, describing the military as “an army ofanything is possible.” 18In 1999, with the return to civilian rule, an attempt was made to clean up the military. 19Yet even this year’s Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Nigeria, published bythe U.S. Department of State, concludes that the human rights record remains “poor” andthe national police, army and security forces “committed extrajudicial killings” and “usedexcessive force” while the police were “poorly trained . . . and poorly supervised” and16 D. Farah, “U.S. to Help Nigeria Revamp Its Armed Forces, Washington Post (April 29, 2000).17 S. Adejumobi, “The military and the national question,” in A. Momoh & S. Adejumobi (eds)., TheNational Question in Nigeria at 155-83 (2002); Amnesty Int’l, A 10 point Program for Human RightsReform (1996); Amnesty Inernational, Nigeria: Releases of political prisoners - questions remain aboutpast human rights violations (1999); Amnesty International, Nigeria: Security forces constantly fail toprotect and respect human rights (2002); U.S. Dep’t of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices:Nigeria (multiple years).18 Jane’s Information Group Ltd., Jane’s World Armies at 628 (J.C. O’Halloran, A. Oppenheimer, & M.Stenhouse eds., June 2004).19 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Nigeria: Moves to Clean Up Military (1999).Page 7 of 29