Written and compiled by Prince Samuel Abiodun ADEBOWALE

The situation in Ogoniland has forced itself on the attention of the world. And, without mincing words, Ogoniland within the shortest time in the history of oppressed ethnic minority has turned into a genocide musem of the century. Obviously, the outright mistreat and extermination process that took place within the period of 30th April 1993 to the 10th November 1995, can never be compared with either the Russian pogroms of the late 1800's and early 1900's or the holocaust of the 1940's. This systematic, planned annihilation of the Ogonis outweighs the afore-mentioned criminal events of the past if critically viewed. For instance, out of Ogoni's 500,000 population, 200,000 rendered homeless, many detained, many killed, 9 hanged and countless wounded.

Thus, Ogoniland has become a living museum where almost all nations in the world have sent official visitors to see how the people live(d) and work(ed). Evaluation specialists are not needed to confirm the successfulness of the educating power of the Ogoni genocide museum. Imagine, a visitor like the United Nation Mission had to recommend, to the military junta, as a result of the impact of the knowledge acquired on their visit, the constitution of a committee for the purpose of introducing improvements in the socio-economic conditions of Ogonis; enhancing employment opportunities, health, education and welfare services. The UN mission also recommends the committee to act as ombudsman in any complaints/allegations of harassment at the hands of authorities. This implies that the Ogoniland's artifacts such as the acid rains, oil spills, the nine Ogoni "muses" (hanged Ogoni environmental activists), physical violence (mobile police force popularly known as "kill and go" in Nigeria) etc, which were on display, spoke loud about the genocide and the ecological warfare in the Ogoniland.

Let us now take a critical look at the phrase "Genocide Museum". This phrase reveals the key word museum, qualified by the word genocide. Museum, according to this text, shall be defined as a place in which work of historical values are cared for and exhibited. The word Museum comes from the Greek word Museion, meaning "place of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus." A significant comparison to the word Ogoniland which means "the place of the nine sons of Ogoni" (nine Ogoni environmental activists, who were criminally hanged by Nigeria's military junta). On the other hand, Genocide, according to this text, shall be defined as the systematic, planned annihilation of a political and cultural group - Ogoni. The word comes from the Greek word Genos which means tribe and the latin cide means killing. Ogoniland is thus a genocide museum in which the criminal works of Nigeria's military junta and the Shell oil company (violent institutions) are cared for and exhibited for the world's view.

What is the true picture of Ogoniland? In answering this question, let us advert strictly to the story from someone of authority about the Ogoni issue, and also to documentary evidences. Kenule Saro-Wiwa, an artist, poet, and historian is more than an authority in this regard because he is the symbol of the Ogoni struggle. Late Saro-Wiwa was the president and spokesman of the Movement for Survival of the Ogoni people (MOSOP), an organisation which was formed to struggle non- violently for the political, economic and environmental rights of the Ogoni people. He was criminally hanged along side with eight other Ogoni environmental activists by Nigeria's military junta. Before he was criminally hanged by the junta on 10th of November 1995, he put his skill into action on 1st of September 1995 to produce a statement which he tendered to the unconstitutional Ogoni civil disturbances tribunal as his personal statement on the alleged murder charge levied against him and eight others.

The full text of the statement contains the story of the real picture of Ogoniland before, during and after Shell's intrusion. The excerpt of the statement of one of the Ogoni "muses" - Ken Saro-Wiwa - is provided in this article for a short story on the picture of Ogoniland. Thus, he narrated:

The Ogoni are a distinct ethnic group, numbering 500,000 and inhabiting the coastal plains terraces to the north of the Niger delta in south-east Nigeria. Living in an area of 404 square miles, Ogoni is one of the most densely populated rural areas in the world.

OGONI IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD
In 1947, the Ogoni people, after almost forty years of British Colonial control, finally won the right to have their own Native Authority, a right which many other Nigerian ethnic groups were accorded way back in 1924. The Ogoni had had to fight a long battle to be extricated from balkanization into Opobo division, Degema division and Ahoada division severally. At that time Ogoni was a blessed land, the fertile alluvial soils of the plain provided a rich harvest of yam, cassava and vegetable. The pure streams and seas brimmed with fish and other sea food. We lacked for nothing. And the Ogoni, industrious as ever, worked hard for a living, extracting bounty from land, streams and seas.

The only intrusions into this life of bliss at that time, were three facts: first, by 1956, the Native Authority system in Eastern Nigeria was scrapped and the Ogoni were split into three county councils: Khana, Gokana, and Eleme, and the Ogoni lost the co-operative spirit which had guided them from 1947 onwards and which should have made up for the backwardness induced by colonial neglect.

Secondly, in 1957, at the election to the Eastern Nigeria House af Assembly, the Ogoni people, in a remarkably peaceful election, voted in two members of the opposition Action Group, dumping two members of the party of power in Eastern Nigeria, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC). This electoral rebellion on the part of the Ogoni was to earn them every hatred, every taunt from the majority Igbos in Eastern Nigeria.

Thirdly, the drilling rigs of Shell began to dig deep into the heart of Ogoni, tearing up farmlands and belching forth gas flames which pumped carbon monoxide and other dangerous gases into the lungs of my people. This last intrusion, Shell, I protested from almost the very first in 1958, when I wrote pseudonymous letters to the editor of the government owned newspaper of the period.

OGONI FROM COLONIAL TO NEOCOLONIAL PERIOD
Three decades of ecological warfare by Shell:
Oil was discovered in Ogoni by Shell in 1958 and about 900 million barrels of oil of estimated value 30 billion US dollars have been mined from the area since then. There are in Ogoni 96 oil wells connected to five oilfields where gas has been flared twenty-four hours a day for thirty-five years. Shell's oil pipelines cris-cross the surface of Ogoni lands dangerously. There are, as well, a fertilizer plant, two oil refineries, a petrochemical plant and a seaport. Most of the oil wells in Ogoni are operated by Shell. Chevron operates the balance.

In 1990, the Ogoni took stock of their condition and found that in spite of the stupendous oil and gas wealth of their land, they were extremely poor, had no social amenities, that unemployment was running at over seventy per cent, and that they were powerless, as an ethnic minority in a country of over 100 million people, to do anything to alleviate their condition. Worse, their environment was completely devastated by three decades of reckless oil exploitation or ecological warfare by Shell. In brief, the Ogoni were faced with environmental degradation, political marginalisation, economic strangulation, slavery and possible extinction.

OUR ONLY OPTION WAS TO DEMAND AND STRUGGLE FOR OUR RIGHTS
The chiefs and leaders of Ogoni therefore adopted an Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR) in which they demanded (a) the right to self determination as a distinct people in the Nigerian Federation, (b) adequate representation as of right in all Nigerian national institutions, (c) the right to use a fair proportion of the economic resources of their land for their development and (d) the right to control their environment. These demands were presented to the government and people of Nigeria in October 1990. The Babangida military dictatorship ignored the demands, so the Ogoni embarked on intense publicity at the national and international levels. And MOSOP (movement for the Survival of Ogoni People) embarked on the mass mobilisation of the Ogoni grassroots, in preparation for non-violent struggle.

MOSOP: OUR NON VIOLENT STRUGGLE
MOSOP's decision to confront the slick alliance of Shell and Nigeria's military dictatorship through non-violent struggle was well-considered and accepted, notwithstanding that the MOSOP leadership was fully aware that in non-violent struggle more people die than in armed struggle. MOSOP was also aware that it could easily have targeted the economic installations in Ogoni to the detriment of the Nigerian economy, had it wanted to adopt violent means. However, MOSOP was intent on breaking new ground in the struggle for democracy and political, economic, social, and environmental rights in Africa.

On 3rd November 1992, the Ogoni people, under the MOSOP, and after extensive popular consultation, issued the oil companies operating in Ogoni with a thirty-day Demand Notice: pay back rents and royalties, pay compensation for devastated land or quit. The oil companies, Shell, Chevron and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation ignored the demand.

On 4th January 1993, the Ogoni situated their struggle in an international milieu when, in celebration of the United Nations year of the world's indigenous population, 300,000 Ogoni men, women and children staged a massive peaceful protest march against Shell's ecological war and the Nigerian government's denial to the Ogoni of all rights.

On 12 June 1993, the Ogoni boycotted the nation's presidential election, simply because MOSOP had to remain neutral among the two existing Nigerian parties, and that a boycott would make the point that the Ogoni were disenchanted with the constitution under which the elections were being held, since its provisions deprived them of their oil resources, and this was regarded as discriminatory.

The Ogoni people voted to participate in the National constitutional conference which many Nigerians were boycotting because it was seen as an opportunity that can help resolve the Ogoni crisis. The MOSOP steering committee put me forward to contest the elections. But the entire election was marked by irregularities there was no enabling law and deadlines were altered at short notice.

As the Ogoni planned peace and dialogue, Shell and the Nigerian military plotted death and destruction. The crime of the Ogoni people is that they had the temerity to ask for their rights from both the government of Nigeria, and Shell. The punishment for this crime has been genocidal attacks on the Ogoni. To justify genocide, it has suited the Nigerian government to put it to the world that the Ogoni and MOSOP have organised violence. Enormous sums of money have been spent on this propaganda. But the method is well known. It is the case of the lion and the sheep of Aesop's fable. And it will not wash.

Lt-Colonel Komo's cohorts have not captured a single rifle in Ogoni in the two years of their sojourn there. Bribing a few Ogoni politicians who have sold their conscience for a mess of pottage to join the government in putting it out that the Ogoni struggle is violent and that MOSOP is a violent organisation, is cheap blackmail. From the very beginning, I have made it a point of duty to brief the diplomatic community in Nigeria on the aims and methods of MOSOP. Accordingly, several diplomats visited Ogoni on their own, observed MOSOP rallies, spoke to MOSOP activists and other Ogoni people and were able to form independent conclusions.

"For better or for worse, MOSOP and Ogoniland (sic) are the conscience of this country. They have found the courage to be free and they have evolved a political consciousness which denies power to rouges, hypocrites, fools and bullies. For better or for worse, Ogoniland (sic) carries our hopes. Battered and bleeding it struggles on to realize our promise and to restore our dignity. If it falters, we die." AMEN!

STATE VIOLENCE UNLEASHED
I was in my hospital bed on 15th July 1993 when there came news that about one hundred and thirty-two Ogoni men, women and children returning from their sojourn in the Cameroons had been waylaid on the Andoni river by uniformed men wielding automatic weapons, massacred and sent to their watery graves. Only two women were left alive to tell the story. A complaint was laid with the commissioner of Police, River state. He bluntly refused to investigate the massacre, giving room to belief of complicity of the security agencies in the tragedy.

On the 5th and 6th of August 1993, the Ogoni market village of Kaa on the Andoni border was attacked with grenades, mortar shells and automatic weapons. Two hundred and forty-seven people were killed and all the villagers forced to flee. The primary and secondary schools in the village were laid waste. Foreign journalists who visited the scene the very next day, confirmed the carnage. On both days, the villages of Tenama and Tera'ue on the Andoni border with Ogoni were also attacked and property destroyed. Several lives were lost.

Accordingly, further attacks against Ogoni villages on the Andoni border were staged by armed troops. The troops used boats belonging to Shell and Chevron, and on the days of the attacks, a helicopter which Shell often charters, was always seen in Ogoni skies. The villages of Eeken, Gwara and Kenwigbara were devastated in these attacks which took place between the 1st and 15th of September 1993. Over 1000 Ogoni men, women and children were massacred and about 20,000 rendered homeless.

On the 12th and 13th of December 1993, right under the nose of the police, navy and army, the residencies of Ogoni people at several waterfronts in Port Harcourt were targeted. Fifty- three Ogoni men, women and children were massacred and all buldings belongng to Ogoni people dynamited out of existence. Lt-Colonel Komo (new military administrator of River state) set up a commission of inquiry headed by a serving military officer, Major Paul Taiwo, to investigate the disturbances and make recommendations.

According to a leaked copy of the report of the inquiry panel, the commission came to a predictable conclusion: "In all the water fronts where there was a mixture of ethnic groups, say Ogonis, Okrikans, Ibos, Yorubas etc; destruction of houses was really selective. Only the Ogoni houses were handpicked and destroyed... The evidence before the commission suggests a situation in which one well prepared party caught the other unsuspecting party sleeping, in a series of attacks co- ordinated with expertise and precision... The disturbances should not be described as a communal clash as it was nothing of the sort."

As to "strong allegations against MOSOP to the effect that MOSOP not only planned the disturbances but also directed Ogoni military operations during the disturbances" the Commission said: "The Commission wishes to point out that it has painstakingly investigated these allegations to try to establish a link between the disturbances and MOSOP, but was unable to establish MOSOP's involvement with the disturbances in the remotest possible way. The Commission therefore concludes that the allegations made against MOSOP are completely without foundation and are a clumsy attempt at shielding the real culprit by pointing fingers at innocent parties... The only involement of MOSOP with the disturbances has been of a positive nature. This is because most of the Ogonis affected by the disturbances had communication difficulties and could not articulate their losses or experiences. Here MOSOP stepped in. It not only served as a rallying point for the aggrieved Ogonis, but it also became a mouthpiece of these harassed and suffering people. MOSOP was able to compile a list of those affected, a list which the commission found most invaluable in accomplishing its task."

The Commission refused to comment on "the attitude of the Nigeria Police before, during and after the crisis". But it did disclose that when it asked the police for a "comprehensive report of the Disturbances," it was given a report which appears to have been deliberately framed to give away as little information as possible.

I have dwelt at length on this report because it is the only official government investigation of the putative "common clashes" organized by the state and Shell against the Ogoni people, and it clearly identifies the role of the security agencies, of MOSOP under my presidency, and the state itself in the mayhem.

Following representation which we had regularly made to the new administration of General Abacha, a ministerial committee was sent by the federal government to tour the oil bearing areas of the country. The committee started their tour in Ogoni on the 19th of January, 1994. No sooner had the team left Port Harcourt than Lt-Col Komo, no doubt acting on the advice of the security council which he had inherited and which has commenced the aggression against the Ogoni people, constituted the River state Internal security task force which he placed under Major (now Lt-Col) Paul Okuntimo, a course- mate of his at the Nigerian defence academy and who had, as camp commandant of the 2nd amphibious brigade in Port Harcourt, supervised all the earlier acts of aggression against the Ogoni people. He had personally carried out the cold-blooded murder committed under the eyes of Shell employees at Korokoro on 18th October, 1993. The orders to the illegal and unprecendented task force was simple: "Box in the Ogoni and subject them to the authority of the Rivers state internal security task force."

On Easter day, in April 1994, Nigerian troops struck Ogoni on its northern borders. Information gathered from the troops who carried out the attack, are that a securtiy report was sent to Abuja, to the effect that 10,000 armed Ogoni youths (always the magic number) were on their way to attack the Afam Power station which is on Ogoni soil. Abuja had no difficulti in confirming Lt-Col Komo's orders to the Internal Security Task Force to destroy all the Ogoni villages in the area. Between the 3rd and 15th of April, over 800 Ogoni men, women and children were massacred and six villages completely flattened. Women and children were raped, and the villages were looted before they were burnt down. Wrote a Catholic nun who was resident in the area: "The military are busy flattening anything left standing (on the 9th of April, 1994) in the six villages and are taking up residence there to eat the goats and crops."

WASTING OPERATION
The eastern border of Ogoni was not easy to tackle in this same deceptive fashion. No ready excuse (e.g. land disputes between individual Ogoni and the neighbouring Ibibio) could be found in order to engineer another "Communal Clash." So the Internal Security Task Force Commander, recommended creating internal dissension among the Ogoni as a ruse for invading all of Ogoni and carrying out "wasting operatons". In a 12th May, 1994 memorandum to Lt-Col Komo, Major Paul Okuntimo, after noting that "divisions between the elitist Ogoni leadership exist" recommended: intra-communal/kingdom formulae alternative as discussed to apply. Wasting operations during MOSOP and OTHER (emphasis mine) gatherings making constant military presence justifiable. Wasting targets cutting across communities and leadership cadres especially vocal individuals of various groups.

This amazing memorandum is a confirmation of the genocidal intentions and plans laid by the Nigerian military dictatorship against the Ogoni people. The fact that it was actually carried out is even more blood-chilling. Shell's interest in the plan is clearly indicated in the memorandum, although the company will, as usual, deny it publicly.

A proposal by the police dated April 21 to inundate Ogoni with policemen along with other arms of the Armed forces in order to "restore and maintain law and order" and "to ensure that ordinary law abiding citizens of the area, non-indigenous resident or carrying out business ventures or schooling within Ogoniland (sic) are not molested" and "to re-establish government presence in the area so as to bring to the knowledge of the citizenry that there was competition between the varous arms of the security forces for the huge sums of money, to be supplied by Shell, that were being spent on destroying the Ogoni. Made publicly by MOSOP and protested by foreign and local opinion, the Police were excluded from the lethal "wasting operations" hatched by Major (as he then was) Okuntimo and Lt-Col Komo in early May.

MURDER, MAYHEM
As the Ogoni planned peace and dialogue, Shell and the Nigerian military plotted death and destruction. The elections to the National Constitutional Conference proved to be the occasion the conspirators were waiting for. Again, the plan was to provoke the Ogoni people and find occasion to visit mayhem on them. Consequently, I was stopped by armed troops from explaining to the Ogoni why they had to be represented at the Conference. This was totally unprecedented, high-handed and illegal. At the same time, the Gokana Council of Chiefs was allowed to hold a campaign meeting. Ogoni had been inundated with security agents on the day, the 21st of May, 1994 yet none of them was asked to secure the campaign meeting attended by, among others, those who had, a week earlier, on the 11th May, 1994 called upon a section of the Ogoni people (the Gokana) to abando MOSOP and to allow the resumption of oil activities in the area. They also asked for troops to be drafted into the area. They had been left in no doubt that the masses were opposed to all such betrayal of the people by a spontaneous peaceful protest march staged in the area on 13th of May 1994.

GIONKOO MURDERS
On 21st May, 1994, a mob was said to have set upon four prominent Ogoni men at Gionkoo in Gokana on the day, and brutally murdered them. Two of the murdered men were my in- laws. The other two were my very close friends. The police were not allowed to investigate these urders, the Internal Security Task force being ordered by Lr-Col Komo that very day to round up leading members of MOSOP whom he accused, very strangely, of having comitted the barbaric murders. Lt-Col Komo's intent was not in doubt. It was the total destruction of the Ogoni pople: genocide.

This case of homicide was the pretext for the Internal Security Task Force to invade every single Ogoni village and to loot, rape, burn and kill unarmed men, women and children. The Commander of the Task Force, Lt-Col Okuntimo has himself publicly confessed to these crimes.

At a press conference broadcast by the Nigerian Television Authority, he described his involvement in Ogoni after the May 1994 murders as "psychological warfare" intended to facilitate constructive dialogue. He gave the following account of the actions of his forces during the first three days of the operation:

"The first three days of the operation, I operated in the night. Nobody knew where I was coming from. What I will just do is that I will just take some detachments of soldiers, they will just stay at four corners of the town. They ... have automatic rifle(s) that sound death. If you hear the sound, you will freeze. And then I will equally now choose about twenty (soldiers) and give them ... grenades ... explosives ... very hard one(s). So we shall surrouned the town at night ... the machine gun with five hundred rounds will open up. When four or five like that open up, and then we are throwing grenades, and they are making "eekpuwaa!" What do you think the people are going to do? And we have already put roadblock(s) on the main road, we don't want anybody to start running ... so the option we made was that we should drive all these boys, all these people into the bush with nothing except the pant(s) and the wrapper they are using that night."

Hundreds of Ogoni men and children were shot by the Nigerian troops in cold blood: many were maimed, and hundreds of thousands were driven into the bush. Money was extorted from the over six hundred men who were detained and tortured in special detention centres established for the purpose at Kpor and Bori, and an as yet unspecified number of Ogoni people were driven out of government and privte sector employment. Many houses were destroyed and a lot of private property looted. Villages were forced to pay protection money in order to escape major (as he then was) Okuntimo. Human rights Watch/Africa has given a full report of the brutalities committed against the Ogoni people in this war of genocide.

For organizing these "wasting operations," this genocide, neither Major Okuntimo nor Lt-Col Komo was chastised. The Nigerian Army subsequently promoted Major Okuntimo to the rank of Lt-Colonel and Lt-Col Komo continues to act as Military Administrator of Rivers state and excutioner of the Ogoni.

Late Ken Saro-Wiwa studied the past and with great accuracy predicted the future. He said, "I predict that a denouncement of the riddle of the Niger delta will soon come." Almost two months after his prediction, Ken and eight others were illegally and criminally hanged by the Nigerian military dictator. Besides, nineteen other MOSOP leaders are still languishing in detention, thousands living in refugee camps across the globe. And the Ogoniland remains in the same situation he left it.

***Source: Statement to the Ogoni civil disturbance tribunale - Kenule Saro-Wiwa, 1st September 1995, and the video evidence (The Drilling Fields).