• Ogoni plaintiffs link oil giant to Nigerian atrocities
• New York case seen as test of corporate accountability

Ed Pilkington in New York
The Guardian, Wednesday 27 May 2009

In 1995, at a trial that resulted in his conviction and execution, the Nigerian writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa vowed that the oil giant Shell would one day be brought to justice.

That day is looming large as a New York court prepares for a trial in which the oil giant Shell stands accused of crimes against humanity over its activities in the oil-rich Niger Delta of southern Nigeria.

Today, a last minute delay to the trial postponed the jury selection until next week. But when it does start, the trial will excite huge interest on the part of multinational companies and human rights bodies, because the outcome could have a bearing on the issue of corporate accountability and how far it extends.

Saro-Wiwa made his prediction days before he and eight other leaders of the Ogoni people were hanged by the Nigerian military regime in November 1995.

In a final statement at his own trial, which he was prevented from delivering, Saro-Wiwa said of Shell that “its day will surely come. The crime of the company’s dirty wars against the Ogoni people will be punished.”

When the trial does begin, relatives of the Ogoni nine, as the executed leaders are known, will be present in court as plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit against the firm. They and the other plaintiffs allege that Shell was an active participant in atrocities and abuses carried out by Nigeria’s military police.

In addition to the alleged murder of the Ogoni nine, they also hold Shell partially responsible for torture, illegal detention, forced exile and shootings of hundreds of Ogoni protesters during the 1990s.

Shell has strongly denied the charges. In a statement to the Guardian, a Royal Dutch Shell spokesman in the Netherlands said the 1995 executions were tragic events that the company tried to prevent through appeals for clemency to the Nigerian government of the time.

“To our deep regret, that appeal went unheard, and we were shocked and saddened when we heard the news. Shell in no way encouraged or advocated any act of violence against them or their fellow Ogonis,” said the statement.

The dispute between Shell and the Ogoni protesters stems from the company’s extensive interests in the Niger delta stretching back to 1958. It now owns about 90 oil fields across the country.

From the early 1990s, non-violent protests began among Ogonis unhappy about the impact of oil exploration, which they said was destroying the environment that they depended on for fishing or farming.

Clearance work to make way for pipelines was decimating the world’s third-largest mangrove forest. Oil spills were rife, polluting the land at a rate, campaigners said, equivalent to an Exxon Valdez oil disaster every year. Oil flares only made the pollution worse.

In 1990 Saro-Wiwa, a well-known journalist and activist, helped found the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, bringing its case against Shell’s destruction of the environment to an international audience. A peaceful protest in 1993 mobilised 300,000 Ogonis.

A year later the Ogoni nine were arrested on what were widely regarded to have been trumped-up charges. The men were tortured, beaten and then put on trial in front of a tribunal without legal representation. They were sentenced to death.

The civil action is slated for a federal US court under an obscure 1789 law that initially applied to piracy. In 2004 the supreme court ruled that it could be used by foreign parties to bring cases against defendants – including multinational corporations – in specific areas, notably torture and crimes against humanity.

So far very few cases have been brought to trial under the act, and none have proved successful for plaintiffs. But ­Jennie Green of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, which filed the case, said that human rights cases against corporations were still so new that no pattern had yet been established.

“Juries decide on the facts and we think we have a strong case that will convince them to hold Shell accountable for what they did. They were involved in human rights violations, participating, aiding and abetting,” she said.

If it does go to trial, the case is expected to last up to a month, with Shell calling 11 witnesses and the Ogoni campaigners presenting up to 20. Among the latter will be Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr, the son of the executed leader, who will be pressing for compensation for his father’s death.

For him, the case is not just an attempt to complete his father’s search for justice. “It’s the final stage for me,” Saro-Wiwa Jr said. “In a sense I’ve lost the past 12 years of my life.”

The other witnesses include the executed leader’s brother, Owens Wiwa. He will allege that Brian Anderson, the then head of Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, offered him a deal ensuring Saro-Wiwa would be released on condition that the Ogoni protests were called off.

The jury will be presented with evidence that the subsidiary told its parent company that Saro-Wiwa would be convicted and that he would never go free. They will also hear that two key witnesses at the trial that led to the hangings of the Ogoni nine later recanted, saying they had been bribed to give false testimony with offers of Shell jobs.

Karalolo Kogbara will also give evidence. She lost her crops when Shell bulldozed her village in 1993 to make way for a pipeline. When the villagers protested, Shell allegedly called for Nigerian troops, who shot her, causing her to lose an arm.

The company has yet to divulge its detailed defence, but it will be contesting every count on the grounds that the violence committed against the Ogoni was wholly caused by the Nigerian government and had nothing to do with its commercial operations.

The plaintiffs have not given any indication of the compensatory and punitive damages they are seeking, preferring to leave the matter, should they win, up to the jury. But such is the extreme nature of the charges that any award could possibly run into many millions of dollars.

Stephen Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International, who worked with Saro-Wiwa before his death, said the trial came too late for the Ogoni nine. But, whatever the outcome, he believes it will “send a message to multinationals that they have to obey local and international laws on human rights”.

Saro-Wiwa Jr said he hoped that the jury would see that the oil giant’s “fingerprints are all over this”. He added: “For a long time Shell was able to operate with impunity hiding behind a military regime. Now it’s time they were held to account.”

The execution of environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa shocked the world

Activists trying to prove oil giant Royal Dutch Shell was complicit in the 1995 executions of nine anti-oil campaigners, including Nigerian writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, have brought their case to the US.

Over the last 12 years, the family of the Ogoni poet and playwright has pursued the company through the courts with the support of American environmental and human rights campaigners.

Shell tried to persuade the government to give those found guilty clemency, and we were shocked and saddened when we heard the news Shell spokeswoman In pictures: Ken Saro-Wiwa Is democracy in Nigeria working?

Shell deny accusations they had anything to do with the executions of Mr Saro-Wiwa and eight others by the government of military ruler Sani Abacha.

The civil lawsuit, which was due to start on Wednesday 27 May in New York, has been postponed until next week.

The case is being closely watched in Nigeria, where a younger generation of oil militants has caused chaos in the oil industry, blowing up installations and kidnapping staff.

“They weren’t the hangman,” Ken Wiwa, the activist’s son, says about Shell.

“But their fingerprints are all over it.”

‘Goaded’

In 1993, Ogoni activists stood up to the international oil company, forcing them to pull out of the region in Rivers State.

OGONI TIMELINE 1958 Oil struck in Ogoniland 1990 Ogonis form the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) with Ken Saro-Wiwa as president 1993 300,000 Ogonis protest at their neglect by the government and Shell 1993 Shell pull out of Ogoniland after an employee is beaten 1994 A series of conflicts between local communities flares. The government sends the military to restore order. Mosop say the conflicts are being fuelled by the government as a ‘divide and rule’ tactic. 1994 Four community leaders are killed by a mob of youths. Mosop leaders, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, arrested 1995 Mr Saro-Wiwa and eight others are tried and executed; the military government receives international condemnation 2003-2008 International attention switches to armed conflict started by other communities in the Delta 2007 Leaks from well heads continue. One burns for three months 2008 Government announces Shell will be removed as an operator in Ogoniland. Another operator yet to be appointed Fresh start for Nigerian oil activists?

The protests were led by Mr Saro-Wiwa, famed for writing a popular TV soap.

He founded the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) which used largely non-violent means to bring the world’s attention to the environmental damage being done by oil production in the Niger Delta.

But the leadership of Mosop was accused of ordering the murder of four local traditional leaders, and arrested.

In 1995 the government of Sani Abacha shocked the world by carrying out the executions of the Ogoni Nine, as they became known.

The plaintiffs are trying to prove that Shell, in Mr Wiwa’s words, “goaded” the government into the executions.

Mr Wiwa, now an aide to the current President Umaru Yar’Adua, says he is not interested in “retributive justice”, but is trying to find a solution to the problems that still plague the region.

Like his father, he wants oil firms to realise that it is only by working with and engaging local communities that there can be longer-term profitability for all.

For the past 14 years, no oil has been pumped from Ogoniland ground.

“My father always said that one day Shell would realise he was their greatest friend,” Mr Wiwa told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

The court action is being brought by Mr Wiwa and the families of seven of the nine men executed, as well as a number of other Ogonis injured or killed by the military during the 1990s.

They are being assisted by the Centre for Constitutional Rights and Earth Rights International.

The case can be heard in New York because American law allows foreign nationals to sue companies registered in the US.

Their lawyers will try to prove that the company had a close relationship with the Nigerian government, ordering military raids and attacks on villages in the name of “security”.

They say Shell executives told the government they had to “deal” with the Ogonis and Mosop.

They also claim Shell knew in advance that Mr Wiwa and the rest of the Ogoni Nine would be found guilty, and, perhaps most damningly, they say they can prove the director of Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary met with Mr Saro-Wiwa’s brother and offered his freedom in return for an end to Mosop’s campaign.

Denial

Shell says the claims are “false and without merit”.

The comfort for me is not the decision of the court, but the hope of future justice for repressed people Mosop President Ledum Mitee

A spokeswoman told the BBC that “Shell in no way encouraged any act of violence against the Ogoni Nine or any of their fellow Ogonis.

“We believe the evidence will clearly show that Shell was not responsible for the tragic events.”

The executions were carried out by the Abacha government, they say.

“Shell tried to persuade the government to give those found guilty clemency, and we were shocked and saddened when we heard the news.”

The case is trying to establish a precedent for accountability in cases where extractive industries come into conflict with local populations, says Ledum Mitee, current president of Mosop.

Mr Mitee, who is travelling to the US to testify, was arrested with the other leaders of Mosop in 1994, but had charges against him dropped.

“If the case is successful other people will know there is some legal recourse for violators,” he said.

But even if they lose, Mr Mitee says, more attention will be brought to the activities of multinational companies in similar situations all over the world.

A previous case also in a New York court found oil company Chevron was not responsible for the deaths of activists who occupied an offshore oil platform and were killed by the Nigerian military when they came to remove them.

Chevron had requested the intervention and flown the soldiers to the rig in one of their helicopters.

The oil company had pressed for damages from the community to cover their legal costs and in order to “dissuade further litigation”, but a judge ruled the community should not be liable for the legal fees.

“The comfort for me is not the decision of the court,” said Mr Mitee said.

“But the hope of future justice for repressed people.”

‘Normality’

The Niger Delta now is a dangerous mixture of armed militants and corruption.

No oil has been pumped from Ogoniland for the past 14 years

Unemployed youths join the militants looking for easy money from the extortion, kidnapping and crude oil theft they practise.

Militant leaders have grown rich on kickbacks from anyone wanting to do business in the oil-producing swamps, and their ties to political and military figures have pushed a solution seemingly further from reach.

A strong military campaign is currently under way to loosen militant control in Delta State, but it is not clear if the government is winning.

Many innocent villagers have reportedly been forced from their homes, and there are reports some have been killed.

If militants can fight back, oil companies’ income from on-shore joint ventures will be put under more pressure - it has already been cut by as much as 20% by militant activity since 2006.

In Shell’s statement on the trial it says: “Shell remains committed to reconciliation, peace and a return to normality.”

But a Shell spokeswoman was unable to describe exactly what that “normality” would be.

Editor’s note: Greenpeace UK was one of four groups releasing this report; the other three are the coordinating members of the ShellGuilty coalition: Oil Change International, Friends of the Earth, and PLATFORM’s Remember Saro-Wiwa project. Click here to read about the report and download a copy.

Financial Times

By Carola Hoyos in London
Published: May 18 2009

Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s biggest oil company, will today face renewed opposition to its investments in Canada’s carbon-intense oil sands.

A study by Greenpeace, the environmental campaigner, has concluded the company’s carbon intensity will rise 85 per cent as it develops its oil and gas fields in the coming years.

“When Shell’s total resources are taken into account, the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per barrel of oil equivalent produced will outstrip those of its nearest competitors,” Greenpeace found in its report, which will be released today in time for Shell’s annual meeting.

The campaigner will warn Shell’s investors that this disadvantages the company vis a vis its peers as US and European policymakers move towards a broad cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions.

Shell’s growing carbon intensity stems from its resource base, which is heavily made up of Canadian oil and Nigerian gas whose production is relatively carbon intense, Greenpeace said.

In its latest sustainability report Shell admitted that its upstream energy intensity had risen by more than a quarter since 2001 as it had ventured into dirtier projects. However, Shell said: “On a ‘wells-to-wheels’ basis, oil sands fuel is 15 per cent more CO2-intensive than conventional crude-based fuel, and we continue to seek opportunities for GHG emission reduction.”

Shell was an early entrant into Canada’s vast oil sands reserves, which in the past six years have attracted interest from all the big western oil companies.

Shell, Total of France, Chevron of the US and the rest of their peers have found it increasingly difficult to invest in conventional oil fields, such as those in the North Sea and the Middle East. Many of the older fields are drying up, and those fields with the most potential are being closely guarded by the national oil companies of the countries that control them.

This has left companies such as Shell having to venture into ever more remote and complicated oil fields.

Producing oil from Alberta’s sands is environmentally difficult and costly. The oil must be separated from the sand, either by being mined and mixed with hot water, or by being coaxed from the ground by steam injection.

These processes use a lot of energy and therefore produce higher emissions than conventional oil production. But because extracting this oil is also more expensive than producing conventional oil, Shell has delayed the second phase of its Canadian oil sands development, thereby also delaying the expected emissions release.

Annual meeting will face an outcry from shareholders and campaigners over boardroom bonuses and pollution record

by Terry Macalister, Guardian (UK)
Sunday 17 May 2009

Shell will come under fire from shareholders and environmentalists on Tuesday over executive pay, polluting gas flaring and alleged human rights abuses in Nigeria.

Flames from a Shell flow station in Nigeria's Delta

The annual general meeting in London will see a rebellion from investors angry that the board has used its discretion to award bonuses despite the company’s failure to meet pre-set targets.

The Association of British Insurers has issued an “amber top” alert to its members about its concerns while one of the top 10 Shell investors has already said privately that it would vote against the company’s remuneration report.

The louder noise is likely to come from outside the annual meeting at London’s Barbican Centre where a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) under the banner of ShellGuilty has promised to stage a “noisy and fiery” demonstration.

Pressure on Shell has increased because the company will stand trial in New York next week for alleged collusion in human rights abuses dating back to the 1995 hanging of the writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. He had campaigned against Shell’s operations in his native Niger Delta region.

Shell also faces legal action in the Netherlands, the first time the Anglo-Dutch energy group has had to defend itself in a Dutch court. Friends of the Earth Netherlands and Nigerian plaintiffs are bringing an action over repeated oil spills in the Niger Delta.

“Shareholders need to start worrying more about Shell’s impact on the planet than the impact of the company’s pension packages on their pockets,” said Richard Howlett, campaigner at Platform, one of the organisations in the ShellGuilty campaign.

“Shell are planning to invest $5bn [£3.3bn] in tar sands – the dirtiest means of oil extraction. This money would more than cover the cost of ending gas flaring in Nigeria. Shell needs to wake up to its responsibility for environmental devastation,” he added.

Anne van Schaik, of another member of the NGO coalition, Friends of the Earth Netherlands, said: “We hope the Dutch judge will decide that Shell HQ is accountable for the company’s operations worldwide and that the company will be forced to clean up the pollution and compensate the victims properly.”

The campaign’s chief demand is an end to gas flaring in the Niger Delta. The practice poisons communities, emits huge amounts of greenhouse gases, and wastes approximately $2.5bn of natural gas annually, argues ShellGuilty.

Steve Kretzmann, from Oil Change International, added: “We are glad to see Shell finally being held to account for their human rights abuses in this month’s trial. But for justice to really be done the illegal gas flaring Ken Saro-Wiwa died fighting against must end.”

Shell declined to comment, saying it would answer any questions at the annual meeting.

Annual meeting will face an outcry from shareholders and campaigners over boardroom bonuses and pollution record

by Terry Macalister, Guardian (UK)
Sunday 17 May 2009

Shell will come under fire from shareholders and environmentalists on Tuesday over executive pay, polluting gas flaring and alleged human rights abuses in Nigeria.

Flames from a Shell flow station in Nigeria's Delta

The annual general meeting in London will see a rebellion from investors angry that the board has used its discretion to award bonuses despite the company’s failure to meet pre-set targets.

The Association of British Insurers has issued an “amber top” alert to its members about its concerns while one of the top 10 Shell investors has already said privately that it would vote against the company’s remuneration report.

The louder noise is likely to come from outside the annual meeting at London’s Barbican Centre where a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) under the banner of ShellGuilty has promised to stage a “noisy and fiery” demonstration.

Pressure on Shell has increased because the company will stand trial in New York next week for alleged collusion in human rights abuses dating back to the 1995 hanging of the writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. He had campaigned against Shell’s operations in his native Niger Delta region.

Shell also faces legal action in the Netherlands, the first time the Anglo-Dutch energy group has had to defend itself in a Dutch court. Friends of the Earth Netherlands and Nigerian plaintiffs are bringing an action over repeated oil spills in the Niger Delta.

“Shareholders need to start worrying more about Shell’s impact on the planet than the impact of the company’s pension packages on their pockets,” said Richard Howlett, campaigner at Platform, one of the organisations in the ShellGuilty campaign.

“Shell are planning to invest $5bn [£3.3bn] in tar sands – the dirtiest means of oil extraction. This money would more than cover the cost of ending gas flaring in Nigeria. Shell needs to wake up to its responsibility for environmental devastation,” he added.

Anne van Schaik, of another member of the NGO coalition, Friends of the Earth Netherlands, said: “We hope the Dutch judge will decide that Shell HQ is accountable for the company’s operations worldwide and that the company will be forced to clean up the pollution and compensate the victims properly.”

The campaign’s chief demand is an end to gas flaring in the Niger Delta. The practice poisons communities, emits huge amounts of greenhouse gases, and wastes approximately $2.5bn of natural gas annually, argues ShellGuilty.

Steve Kretzmann, from Oil Change International, added: “We are glad to see Shell finally being held to account for their human rights abuses in this month’s trial. But for justice to really be done the illegal gas flaring Ken Saro-Wiwa died fighting against must end.”

Shell declined to comment, saying it would answer any questions at the annual meeting.

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A civil trial that will judge any involvement by oil giant Royal Dutch Shell in the executions of protesters in Nigeria will start this month in New York City, more than 13 years after their deaths.

Shell is accused of human rights abuses, including in connection with the 1995 hangings of prominent activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other protesters by Nigeria’s then-military government. Shell has denied allegations of involvement.

The protesters, who campaigned nonviolently for a fairer share of Nigeria’s oil wealth for the poor and against environmental damage by the industry, had been convicted of murder in a trial that human rights groups labeled a sham.

This trial in U.S. federal court in Manhattan stems from lawsuits filed by relatives of the protesters. They seek 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.

The lawsuits were brought under a 1789 U.S. statute, the Alien Tort Claims Act, allowing noncitizens to file cases in U.S. courts for human rights abuses occurring overseas. The trial begins on May 26 and is expected to last two weeks.

“Shell was involved in the process that led to my father’s execution, they wanted my father out of the way,” plaintiff Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., 40, who is due to testify in the trial, said in an interview. “He stood up for the rights of minority people, he made them stand up for their environmental and human rights, and for that he was executed.”

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say evidence in the trial will include documents in which Shell called Saro-Wiwa a threat that should be eliminated.

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. Nigeria is the world’s eighth biggest oil exporter.

“They (Shell) assisted the military regime to deny the human rights of my father and his people,” Saro-Wiwa said.

SHELL SAYS ALLEGATIONS LACK MERIT

Shell spokeswoman Robin Lebovitz said the allegations were “without merit.” She said the company had tried to persuade the Nigerian government to “grant clemency” to the protesters and that Shell had been “shocked and saddened” by the executions.

“Shell in no way encouraged or advocated any act of violence against them or their fellow Ogonis,” Lebovitz said. “We believe that the evidence will show clearly that Shell was not responsible for these tragic events.”

Shell also is accused of other abuses against the Ogoni people, including torture and the forced exile of Saro-Wiwa’s brother, Dr. Owens Wiwa, and the shootings of two other people in attacks on protesters.

A multinational company has never been found liable of human rights abuses by a U.S. jury, but a few have settled out of court. The Shell case, which could result in millions of dollars in damages, is the third to go to trial and the second involving a major oil company.

In December, a federal jury in San Francisco cleared Chevron Corp of liability sought by Nigerians for a violent clash on an oil platform off their country’s coast more than a decade ago.

(Editing by Michelle Nichols and Will Dunham)

NEW YORK — Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr. has been fighting for more than 13 years to make his late father’s prediction come true.

It will happen this month when relatives of victims of the Nigerian government’s violent crackdown on residents of the oil-rich region, where Royal Dutch Shell had drilling operations, will get to challenge the deaths and injuries in a U.S. court.

Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., son of playwright and oil industry opponent Ken Saro-Wiwa, is photographed during an interview with the Associated Press, Monday, May 4, 2009 in New York. Saro-Wiwa's father and eight others oil industry opponents were executed on Nov. 10, 1995, after a military tribunal convicted them on what were widely viewed as trumped up charges of murdering four political rivals.(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

The trial that starts May 26 in U.S. District Court in New York stems from two lawsuits accusing Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. and the former managing director of its Nigerian subsidary, Shell Transport and Trading PLC, of being complicit in decisions by Nigeria’s then-military government to hang oil industry opponents, including playwright and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.

“In a sense we already have a victory, because one of the things my father said was that Shell would one day have its day in court,” Saro-Wiwa said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday. “We felt they had ducked their responsibility for what happened in Nigeria, so we wanted to fulfill that prediction.”

Saro-Wiwa’s father and eight other oil industry opponents were executed on Nov. 10, 1995, after a military tribunal convicted them on what were widely viewed as trumped-up charges of murdering four political rivals.

Saro-Wiwa and others in the Niger Delta believe his real offense was leading protests against the operations of multinational companies in Ogoniland, an oil-rich region in southeastern Nigeria that is home to the Ogoni minority, and the Nigerian military junta they accused of pocketing oil wealth while leaving the locals to live in misery.

“When your father … is executed for a crime he did not commit, very publicly like that, it’s painful,” Saro-Wiwa said. “And to live for 12 years without justice, without getting a sense of relief, seeing the perpetrators of the crimes continuing to benefit from their crimes, these are difficult things for any human being to live with.”

His father and other Ogonis came together to form the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) in 1990, demanding more local control over oil wealth and billions of dollars in compensation from Shell for decades of pollution. His trial and subsequent execution prompted worldwide condemnation.

The two lawsuits that are coming to trial — one against the parent company and one against the former managing director of the company’s Nigerian subsidiary — accuse Shell of complicity in human rights abuses against the Ogoni people. A third, related lawsuit against Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary is on appeal after a judge granted a motion to dismiss.

“We feel their fingerprints are all over the torture, the murders, the extra-judicial executions of Ogoni people between 1993 and 1996,” Saro-Wiwa alleged. “They paid logistical support to the soldiers who were involved in the human rights abuses against the Ogoni people. They facilitated, and they provided support.”

Shell denies the accusations.

“Shell in no way encouraged or advocated any act of violence against (the activists) or their fellow Ogonis,” company spokesman Stan Mays said in a statement e-mailed Monday. “Shell attempted to persuade the government to grant clemency; to our deep regret that appeal — and the appeals of many others — went unheard, and we were shocked and saddened when we heard the news.”

The crackdown by the military government intensified after Shell withdrew from Ogoniland in 1993, under attack from activists who were sabotaging the oil wells and beating Shell staffers to get them to leave the region.

The country’s new government, for which the younger Saro-Wiwa works as adviser to the president, has yet to announce who will replace Shell in the small ethnic region that is considered the birthplace of political activism against Nigeria’s petroleum industry. Saro-Wiwa declined to say what company might take its place, noting that it was an issue for the Nigerian government to decide.

The plaintiffs hope the lawsuits will send oil companies and other multinationals the message that they cannot act with impunity when operating in foreign countries and get around efforts to hold them accountable in a U.S. court.

“Corporate behavior has to include respect for human rights standards,” said Jennie Green, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed the lawsuits on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Shell has fought attempts to have the case tried in New York, but the Court of Appeals ruled in 2000 that the United States was the proper forum for a lawsuit because one of the plaintiffs was a U.S. resident and because Shell had an office in the city.

Although Nigeria boasts Africa’s largest oil industry, most Nigerians remain deeply impoverished after years of corrupt and incompetent government management. The oil industry has also contributed to environmental degradation in the south, and many residents say they should receive more money and play a greater role in the industry — an idea given international attention by the plight of the senior Saro-Wiwa.

“No one is denying the Shells of this world the right to produce hydrocarbon,” Saro-Wiwa said. “But you must do it by respecting your environment and by respecting human rights.”

In recent years, militants have emerged in the southern oil region, bombing pipelines and kidnapping foreign workers in hopes of forcing the government to allocate more oil-industry revenue to the area. The gunmen also help politicians rig elections that have been held since the end of military rule in 1999.

By Patricia Cohen
The New York Times

“I had a surprising call this week,” the author Richard North Patterson told the audience that had gathered last weekend as part of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. It was former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Patterson’s new novel, “Eclipse,” is based on the case of the Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Mr. Clinton spoke of a phone call he had made 14 years ago to Gen. Sani Abacha of Nigeria, asking him to spare Mr. Saro-Wiwa from the hangman.

Ken Wiwa, son of the Nigerian writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, says his father’s legacy has influenced his own life and career choices.

The Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Mr. Clinton said General Abacha “was very polite,” but “he was cold,” Mr. Patterson related. “Clinton took away from that, among other things, that oil and the need for oil on behalf of the West and other places made Abacha, in his mind, impervious.”

The event’s moderator, the Nigerian novelist Okey Ndibe, added an unexpected epilogue. A friend in the Abacha cabinet said the general later boasted: “All these pro-democracy activists run to America and expect America to save them. But the U.S. president himself is calling me ‘sir.’ He is scared of me.”

Mr. Saro-Wiwa, a popular author who helped create a peaceful mass movement on behalf of the Ogoni people, was executed in November 1995 along with eight other environmental and human rights activists on what many contended were trumped-up murder charges. His body was burned with acid and thrown in an unmarked grave.

PEN, an international association of writers dedicated to defending free expression, along with Guernica, the online literary magazine, sponsored the panel with Mr. Patterson, Mr. Ndibe and Ken Wiwa, Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s son, to discuss Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s literary and political legacy.

Ken Wiwa, son of the Nigerian writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, says his father’s legacy has influenced his own life and career choices.

Fourteen years have passed. General Abacha has died, and Mr. Saro-Wiwa has had a proper burial, but the circumstances surrounding the nine executions, along with related incidents of brutal attacks and torture, are getting another hearing. This month the Wiwa family’s lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell over its role in those events goes to trial in federal court in Manhattan.

“We feel that Shell’s fingerprints are all over,” Ken Wiwa told the audience. “Clearly Shell financed and provided logistical support.”

Among the accusations are that Shell employees were present when two witnesses were offered bribes to testify against Mr. Saro-Wiwa, said Jennie Green, a senior lawyer at the nonprofit Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing the family. She said Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s brother Owens has also stated that Shell’s managing director, Brian Anderson (now retired), told him, “If you call off the campaign, maybe we can do something for your brother.”

Under American law you don’t have to be the one who “tightened the noose” to be found guilty, Ms. Green said.

In a statement Shell said: “Shell in no way encouraged or advocated any act of violence against them or their fellow Ogonis. We believe that the evidence will show clearly that Shell was not responsible for these tragic events.” The company added, “Shell attempted to persuade that government to grant clemency.”

Mr. Wiwa, 40, said his father was an ebullient, ambitious man with a wicked sense of humor. “All other things being equal, he probably would have been a comedian or an actor, but he was compelled to write,” he said.

At the start of the panel two performers read a short excerpt from Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s play “The Transistor Radio,” one of many he wrote for Nigerian radio and television that satirized the country’s numbing poverty and rampant corruption. “Why were you fired?” one man asks another. He responds, “For getting the job.”

Mr. Wiwa, who published a memoir in 2001, “In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son’s Journey to Understand His Father’s Legacy” (Steerforth), said: “My father was a great man. I grew up with this man, the myth and the memory always in front of me.”

He added, “The struggle to define yourself against your father gives you a sense initially of something to write about,” as did the political situation he found himself thrust into.

Mr. Wiwa is now writing a novel, but he has also felt compelled to carry on his father’s environmental and human rights work. He serves as a special assistant in the government but warns that the ecological and human devastation in the Niger delta, one of the world’s largest wetlands, is worse than ever.

Thousands of miles of oil pipelines run through coastland occupied by the Ogoni people, one of 250 ethnic tribes in Nigeria. Noxious fumes, spills and development have turned much of the area into a wasteland, causing severe deforestation as well as desperate poverty.

Going off on his own and writing, untroubled by politics, has “been a dream for 30 years,” said Mr. Wiwa, who is Ogoni, like his father. But he added, “A lot of my most profound thoughts originate from being involved in this struggle. It compels you to consider the idea of what happens if you just go away and write. Because you may not have anything to say.”

Mr. Ndibe asked about sacrifices his family made because of his father’s commitment, but Mr. Wiwa demurred.

“All of us have a choice, to make our children safe in the world or to make the world safe for our children, and there are implications to that,” Mr. Wiwa said, referring to others he has met who share his situation, like Nelson Mandela’s daughter Zindzi and Nkosinathi Biko, the son of the South African activist Steve Biko. “Our fathers chose a different path.”

Mr. Patterson was on the board of PEN 15 years ago when the organization lobbied on Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s behalf. Before the panel began, he explained how he came to write “Eclipse.” Since 9/11 the United States has become even more dependent on Nigerian oil, Mr. Patterson said. “I thought it was time to put Saro-Wiwa in the context of today’s politics of oil: how we are all implicated in the lives of people we don’t even know.”

During his imprisonment Mr. Saro-Wiwa said that he often envied Western writers “who can peacefully practice their craft.” Yet he also recognized that wasn’t his path. As he wrote in 1993, “The writer cannot be a mere storyteller, he cannot be a mere teacher; he cannot merely X-ray society’s weaknesses, its ills, its perils, he or she must be actively involved shaping its present and its future.”

April 23 (Bloomberg) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company, must face a lawsuit seeking to hold it responsible for violations of international law by Nigeria’s military government, a judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood in New York refused today to toss out the case on jurisdictional grounds in a setback for Shell. A trial in the case, which was brought by relatives of human-rights activists killed in Nigeria, is scheduled to begin in New York on May 26.

“Once again Shell thought it could evade justice,” Jennie Green, a lawyer with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “Now, the public will have the opportunity to see how Shell’s complicity with a murderous military regime was its standard operating procedure for doing business in Nigeria.”

The case, filed in 1996, was brought under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows U.S. courts to hear suits by non- citizens claiming violations of international law.

In an opinion today, Wood threw out claims that Shell violated the activists’ rights related to peaceful assembly. She said other claims alleging crimes against humanity may go forward.

“Although defendants are correct that there is not universal agreement on every element of a claim based on crimes against humanity, this limited inconsistency does not frustrate the court’s jurisdiction to hear such claims,” Wood said.

Stan Mays, a spokesman for The Hague-based Shell, declined to comment on Wood’s ruling, though the company disputed allegations that it aided the military and said it worked to save the activists.

“Shell in no way encouraged or advocated any act of violence,” the company said in a statement about the allegations against it. “Shell was not responsible for these tragic events.”

The case is Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, 96-cv-8386, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: David Glovin in U.S. District Court in New York at dglovin@bloomberg.net.