Judge Rules Shell Oil May Be Liable in Activist's Murder

If anything can comfort us when a heroic activist dies at the hands of a cruel regime, it's the prospect that justice will eventually be done. Ken Saro-Wiwa, whom I was fortunate enough to call a friend, was such an activist. And while nothing can make up for his unlawful execution in 1995 by the Nigerian government, I take some satisfaction in a recent court ruling that Royal Dutch Shell may be held liable for his death.

I first heard of Ken at a meeting with a delegation of Ogoni activists in June 1993 at the United Nations International Human Rights Conference in Vienna. I found their gentle demeanor deeply impressive -- especially considering the heartbreaking stories they recounted of the destruction of their homeland by Shell contractors and their brutal treatment by Nigerian security forces.

The Ogoni had lived peacefully as farmers and fishermen in the Niger River delta for centuries. All that changed when Shell discovered oil in the delta in 1958. Oil quickly became the mainstay of the Nigerian economy, providing 80 percent of the government's revenue -- and a powerful incentive for the state to seize tribal land for further exploration. Since then, Shell's drilling and pipelines have devastated the livelihoods of the Ogoni, leaving their waters polluted and their land poisoned.

I also learned at that meeting that the leader of the Movement for Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, had been arrested by the Nigerian government en route to the conference. It was immediately clear to us at The Body Shop that we had to do whatever we could to help the Ogoni in their struggle against this giant corporation and its brutal protectors, beginning with a letter-writing campaign to demand Ken's release. Ken was released from prison that August, but was rearrested the following year on trumped-up charges, along with eight other Ogoni environmental activists. In October 1995, to our horror, they were sentenced to death.

During the next few weeks, we did everything in our power to save them. But despite the redoubling of our efforts to publicize their plight and that of the Ogoni people -- a campaign for which Ken expressed his gratitude in a moving letter smuggled from his prison cell in Port Harcourt -- they were executed in November. Their deaths provoked a global outcry.

In 1999, Ken's family filed a civil lawsuit against Shell for its role in the persecution and illegal execution of the activists. The suit, Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., was brought on the basis of two U.S. anti-torture statutes, the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victim Protection Act. It charges the multinational oil giant with complicity in the detention, trial and subsequent hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and John Kpuinen, an Ogoni youth activist, as well other egregious human rights abuses.

Thankfully, the recent ruling by U.S. Federal Court Judge Kimba Wood means that Shell can be held liable in the U.S. for its role in these crimes. It also permits another claim against Shell to move forward under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. And on top of that, Judge Wood has said that the facts presented by Ken's family about Shell's complicity, if true, may well constitute crimes against humanity under international law.

"Shell had direct involvement in human rights violations against the Ogoni people," said Judith Chomsky, an attorney for the Wiwa family. "Any company that profits from crimes against humanity should be brought to justice. When they do business in the U.S., they should be made to answer for their actions in U. S. courts."

These executions weren't Shell's first collaboration with the Nigerian regime. In 1993, Shell called in a government hit squad (dubbed the "kill-and-go mob" by locals) against the Ogoni after claims that they had sabotaged Shell equipment. Shell's earlier requests for government help with Ogoni "troublemakers" had resulted in murders and massacres, and this instance differed only in scale: Security forces killed about 2,000 Ogoni and leveled 30 villages.