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AWARD TO CHEVRON
AN UNNECESSARY INSULT
By
Environmental Rights Action
Nigeria's leading environmental human rights pressure group
Environmental
Rights Action (ERA) has portrayed the United States Secretary of
State's
Corporate Excellence Award to ChevronTexaco as an unnecessary insult to
the
peoples of the Niger Delta and other Nigerians.
In Washington DC, USA, on October 15, ChevronTexaco was given the US
Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence for its
"outstanding
corporate citizenship" in Nigeria. In presenting the award to
ChevronTexaco
which has Chevron Nigeria Ltd as its affiliate, US Secretary of State
Colin
Powell said the company has demonstrated best international business
practices and good corporate citizenship in Nigeria.
In its reaction, ERA described the award was insensitive and
condescending.
"Powell's applause for Chevron is a vintage expression of corporation's
being the fingers behind governments", said Nnimmo Bassey ERA Executive
Director. "The fingers of the US government officials are both dipped
in oil
and blood of the Niger Delta. It is not just a question of short sight
or
lack of knowledge, it is the case of cash blocking every other
considerations".
ERA observed that the US Government has in presenting this award to
Chevron
proved beyond doubt that the oil corporation's complicity in series of
environmental human rights abuses in the Niger Delta mean nothing to
it.
According to ERA, Chevron's attitude to environmental human rights is
poor.
It listed several atrocities committed by Chevron, including:
.In July 1997, Mr. Gidikumo Sule, 30, from Opuama, near Warri, Delta
State
was shot dead by Mobile Police at a Chevron barge when local youths
went to
the facility to demand employment;
.In May 1998, soldiers from Madigho base, opposite Chevron's
operational
base in Escravos swooped down on Ilaje youths who had occupied the
Parabe
platform in demand of environmental and community justice. Two of the
protesting youths Messrs Arunikan Irowaonu and Jola Ogungbeje were shot
dead. Chevron's spokesman in Nigeria Mr. Sola Omole later admitted to
Pacifica that it was the company that called in the soldiers;
.On January 4, 1999, soldiers using boats and a helicopter belonging to
Chevron and its joint venture partner the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation invaded Opia and Ikiyan communities in Delta State. An ERA
team
that visited the two communities in February, 1999, established
that:
47
persons, including a mother of five children were missing; 15 persons
injured; two killed; 58 houses burnt completely and 65 canoes destroyed
in
Ikiyan. At Opia, 20 persons were missing; 15 injured and two killed.
Chevron's weak defence over this incident is that it does not have
control
over the use of equipment leased to it and its joint venture partner!
Chevron is now being sued in the United States of America over some of
these
abuses.
ERA noted that the Niger Delta environment remains polluted and its
people
impoverished due principally to the activities of the oil moguls and
wondered why any self-respecting person or persons or institution would
contemplate rewarding a polluter. The environment and development NGO
said
that only on October 19 a Danish oil vessel servicing Nigeria Agip Oil
Company Ltd sunk a few nautical miles from Bonny offshore oil terminal
and
Okonu oil terminal. It explained that this clearly proves the fact of
insufficient response facilities and threat to the Niger Delta
environment
by the oil giants.
DOIFIE OLA
Head, Lagos Office
Dec 2003
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