{"id":1203,"date":"2017-12-08T02:24:04","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T02:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/?p=1203"},"modified":"2017-12-08T02:24:04","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T02:24:04","slug":"amnesty-shell-involved-in-nigeria-abuses-in-1990s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/2017\/12\/08\/amnesty-shell-involved-in-nigeria-abuses-in-1990s\/","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty: Shell involved in Nigeria abuses in 1990s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Al-Jazeera<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/organisations\/amnesty-international.html\">Amnesty International<\/a>\u00a0has obtained internal documents pointing to complicity by Royal Dutch Shell in crimes committed by the Nigerian military during the 1990s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The rights group\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/documents\/AFR44\/7393\/2017\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">released a report<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday that alleges that the British-Dutch oil giant and the Nigerian government operated as business partners, having regular meetings to discuss the protection of their interests.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">At the time, protests by the Ogoni people of southeastern Nigeria were taking place in response to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/africa\/2015\/11\/shell-accused-lying-nigeria-oil-spill-clean-151103160941729.html\">years of oil spills<\/a>\u00a0at Shell facilities, which devastated their environment.<\/p>\n<p>Documents obtained by Amnesty show that on October 29, 1990, Shell requested &#8220;security protection&#8221; to subdue peaceful demonstrations. Over the next two days, police attacked an Ogoni village with guns and grenades, killing at least 80 people, and burning almost 600 homes.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, Shell continued to ask for military help in the following years, Amnesty said.<\/p>\n<p>The allegations\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/europe\/2011\/01\/201112615645590276.html\">have been known<\/a>\u00a0for some time, but thus far had not been substantiated with internal documents.<\/p>\n<p>The rights group has gone through thousands of pages of Shell&#8217;s documents and testimony statements. The files show that Shell repeatedly urged the Nigerian army to take action against protests by the Ogoni community.<\/p>\n<p>According to the organisation, Shell called for military support from senior officials, even after the military forces had killed, tortured or raped many demonstrators.<\/p>\n<p>The directors of Shell in The Hague and London were aware of this, according to Amnesty.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement to Al Jazeera, Shell in Nigeria denied it was involved in human rights violations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have always denied, in the strongest possible terms, the allegations made in this tragic case,&#8221; the statement read.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Amnesty International&#8217;s allegations are false and without merit. Shell did not collude with the authorities to suppress community unrest and in no way encouraged or advocated any act of violence in Nigeria,&#8221; the statement added.<\/p>\n<p>Amnesty has compiled a case to start a lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Al-Jazeera Amnesty International\u00a0has obtained internal documents pointing to complicity by Royal Dutch Shell in crimes committed by the Nigerian military during the 1990s. The rights group\u00a0released a report\u00a0on Tuesday that alleges that the British-Dutch oil giant and the Nigerian government operated as business partners, having regular meetings to discuss the protection of their interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1204,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions\/1204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}