After the decolonization, greedy and ruthless despots came to power. Behind these unheard stories full of pride, force and extravagance are the dark secrets of global concerns and the murmuring interests of Western governments. The insatiable appetite for chocolate, oil, diamonds, and gold makes the planet turn a blind eye to human rights violations by unprepared dictators who have ruled Africa with an iron hand for years by stealing valuable resources from their countries. It's a communicative of the raking of the full continent that continues to this day. (from the material of the publisher).
We would like to thank the Jagiellonian University publishing home for making the passage available for publication. We encourage you to read the full books.
Almost all chocolate bar we eat began in the cocoa forests of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, the 2 largest producers in the world. Anyone who affects cocoa crops in West Africa has large power.
The book deals mainly with the period that followed the decolonization of Africa, although dictatorial urges can be decently understood only in the context of what has happened before. Colony decay occurred as a consequence of the improvement of national movements in the 1950s and 1960s and due to the increased awareness that attitudes towards imperialism had changed forever. Local leaders abruptly received a board of directors over valuable resources, which have so far been in the hands of London, Madrid, Lisbon and Paris. Most of them were unprepared to rule. The countries to which they came to regulation are artificial European creatures with careless boundaries, which do not include eternal tribal feuds. Sometimes families were separated with 1 unthinkable stroke of a pencil. Hostile peoples shared a common territory, and conflicts between them were to be resolved through an electoral urn. fresh leaders were willing to support the interests of their tribe at the expense of the others. Valuable minerals and precious metals were utilized to reward obedient and silence enemies. Leaders clinged to power for fear that their competitors would dominate Africa's wealth and impose their own way of life. Maintaining the dominance of 1 clan or household meant more than anything. In a tiny oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, the Nguema household started a dynasty that ruled until now since the Spaniards gave up power in 1968.
Some European countries have waited to retreat their administration, from independent African states, so as not to release natural goods there. Belgium has retained military forces in the Congo not only to halt the alleged threat from the communists, but besides to shamelessly direct profits from diamonds and copper to Brussels.
Multinational companies have done business with African authoritarian rulers, closing their eyes to human rights violations and safeguarding their rights to valuable minerals. BP flourished in Nigeria, while successive dictators tortured and massacred the population of oil mining regions protesting the demolition of their land. De Beers was profiting from diamonds for most of the Mobut regulation period in the Congo. Western governments were no different, supporting respective of the most violent African dictators in Libya, Nigeria and Sudan to get their hands on the oil there.
The book tells of how an full continent was robbed in broad daylight. And how it happens to this day. It's a communicative about the people who stole Africa.
[...]
Unfortunately, I'm Nigerian. I'd alternatively not be one, but I'm doing everything I can to be one. Ken Saro-Wiva
Ken Saro-Wiwa, photograph by dignidadrebelde / CC BY 2.0One 100 and sixty kilometres from the Nigerian coast, the ocean's bottom drops to an underwater equivalent of space. fewer people have come this far. All the information is collected by the shoulders of the robots that dig through the grey bottom of the ocean and transmit to us grainy, highly exposed images. However, all metre of this area has its own owner. The water region surrounding the crescent coast of Nigeria forms a mosaic consisting of hundreds of separate oil parcels: smaller, more desirable are closer to the mouth of the delta; larger, any of Luxembourg's area scope the boundaries of territorial waters.
Somewhere in the middle, a rectangle was drawn, 1 of the richest oil fields in the world. His resources are most likely 9 billion barrels. This would be adequate to satisfy Nigeria's needs for almost a century, and all of Africa for the next 7 years. This is the African Black Giant, simply named OPL 245, Oil Prospecting licence 245.
The choice of a private company to operate OPL 245 was a major national issue. Since the field was ‘ultra-deep’, costs were a barrier to possible bidders. Only "oil giants" could apply for the concession, so only a fewer powerful corporations. Field buyers would gotta pay the Nigerian state at least $1.1 billion for obtaining the concession. erstwhile oil started to flow, the government would gain another billion from taxes. This could have transformed the full Nigerian economy.
During the 1990s, there were intensive treatments for access to OPL 245, with 2 competitors: Shell and Italian megaconcern Eni standing at the front of the race. The individual deciding to grant the concession was the Nigerian minister of the oil industry. In a country where people gag that their leaders are “professional frauds pretending to be politicians”, the oil manufacture like no another was fit for abuse. The Ministry of the Environment or the Ministry of Transport was satisfied with the acquisition of the conventional 10 percent, but the Ministry of Oil manufacture had the possible to bring its bosses to the heights of fabulous wealth. The intermediaries were already paid respective twelve million dollars, and the minister could number on hundreds of millions.
[...]
The inky sky of the dawn was tearing the bang of fire as Ken Saro-Wiwa and his young wife were dressing hastily in a tight bedroom of a home in the centre of Biafra where they lived with his parents. The crushing sound of mortar shells reached the Bonny River. national troops fired in the dark towards sleeping villages. Saro-Wiva moved boxes of shoes and clothing in the western style, which he wore as a PhD student in Ibadana, but alternatively chose a pair of brushed shorts and a T-shirt – the outfit that fishermen wore all day. We can imagine a silent radio from which the warm-up to the Igbs' songs flow, while the spouses make final preparations at the faint glow of the oil lamp, so as not to draw attention from observers with military binoculars. The waterways of the delta sank in the fog at this early hour, but Saro-Wiwa knew the area well. It was his household land. He knew the course of all the rivers and mite rivers, all fishing village cuddled to slippery shores, with fields of ignams and manioc on precious fertile soil. This was the land of the Ogoni people, which included Saro-Wiwa, a little-known microminority having small contact with the British, not mostly beyond the search for natural resources hidden in this area. White people traveled through the water roads here, looking for oil, and drilled so many holes around it, it looked like the heavens had opened and the monsoon had dropped cannonballs on the ground.
The most Nigerian oil concentrated in the land of Otail. However, since the Igbs dominated the area, the remainder of the country was convinced that the findings were made on the Igb lands. fewer have heard of the mediocre tribe of Ogon.
It was the Igbs who shouted loudest. The Igbs invented Biafra's statehood, and their politicians utilized oil for the sake of the Igbs. erstwhile the Igbs broke distant from the remainder of Nigeria, they took people from the Ogoni tribe with them, but Saro-Wiwa and his household wanted nothing to do with it.
Now he and his wife were breaking through the shackles to the boat. The river was narrow, the water was clear. There were mites and clams, healing herbs and mangroves with crabs hidden in their roots. Soon, however, they sailed among the oil stains forming a viscous wave around the boat. The shooting damaged the oil tube and now the liquid was pouring into the river. The origin of drinking water and food has been poisoned after respective years since Shell-BP made its first discovery.
Saro-Wiwa rowed down the river towards the front of the fight. Many villages were abandoned, but respective brave farmers remained to gather what they could from the fields. They mostly worked nights to keep their missiles out. The national government introduced the Biafra blockade, cutting it off from food supplies, fuel and drugs. People trapped in this trap were starving.
Sarah-Wiva's wife sat on the stern while he squeezed between fishing nets and keyed in the canal maze, heading towards where the shots were heard. If the guards from the national troops had any suspicion that he was a Biafra soldier, he would have been shot. However, Sarah-Wiwa's explanation that he is just a fisherman going out for the morning fishing seemed convincing to them and allowed him to go on. The spouses got out of the boat and climbed up the harborfront in Bonny. Being in a city controlled by national authorities, they could easy blend in. They sailed from the harbor to Lagos to wait out the war.
It was 2 and a half years before Saro-Wiwa returned home in January 1970. By that time, Biafra had been defeated and its population had been decimated. About a million people from the East lost their lives due to illness and war – more than the full number of casualties among the British in each of the planet wars.
As a winner, Gowon proved to be a settlement. There were no medals for national soldiers or requests for reparations, and erstwhile Biafra fighters embraced amnesty. He sought to unite the country, having announced a wide programme of "reconciliation, reconstruction and healing" from which most of the funds flowed to ruined cities and towns of the east region, where Ken Saro-Wiwa received a advanced state position. This social activist, and at the same time a poet, became the minister of the regional government in the state of Rivers, which included the Ogoni lands. However, it would be hard to find individual who would be little suitable for a career of compromise and quiet diplomacy. He hoped to make a counterweight from his offices in Port Harcourt for the uncontrolled activities of Shell-BP, which during the war continued to extract oil with the truncated crew, and now resumed work in full steam. However, Nigeria has become what scientists call a "retirement state", which is entirely dependent on pensions and taxes paid by abroad capital, in this case oil companies. Nigerian military leaders did not request to make their own economy. They didn't gotta deal with the electorate either. Besides, there was no electorate. Junta did not have an agreement with the public, only vague agreements with the large oil industry. This head-to-head and intoxicating mixture is intended to poison the country's leaders for the next 50 years.
The letter, which went to the desk in the air-conditioned Shell-BP office in Port Harcourt, was addressed to the regional director. He gave it to the lawyers right away.
It was March 1970, 3 months after the end of the civilian war, and already any of the Ogoni tribe had serious objections to how their lands were used. The letter contained not only 1 or 2 complaints against Shell-BP, but a detailed and evidence-based list of twenty-one cases.
At first, the company decided not to react. Shell-BP was a guest of the national government, whose tails didn't care much. If people want to complain, let them present their regrets to generals, not to abroad entrepreneurs. But there was something provocative about this letter. I could usage a small head training. Tails tried to talk in the legal style: a circumstantial language, numbered points and references, artificial kindness. Shell-BP has decided to show the author how actual lawyers are handling specified cases.
If the Tails believe that their roads are being destroyed under the weight of the equipment needed to operate oil, they must justify this – the advisors of the company replied. supply evidence that the losses were caused only by the transports carried out by the company. If they say their land is poisoned by oil spills, they request evidence again. Don't they sometimes "exaggerate" to extort a fresh origin of drinking water from the company, which would inevitably require costly drilling of wells? If Shell-BP paid besides low a price for land, why don't farmers themselves compose a complaint?
The tails were mostly illiterate. They had no thought about environmental legislation, nor about evidence, nor about the activities of multinational companies. erstwhile disaster struck them, they attributed it to God’s will. The floods, the diseases, the unfruitful, the oil spills, they were all treated the same. In specified cases 1 could only pray.
Two weeks after Shell-BP gave its answer, a disaster occurred in the very centre of Ogonia. It was on July 19, 1970, at an oil mine called Bomu II.
The origin exploded, throwing streams of fire and hot oil into the sky. 1 of the witnesses described “an ocean of oil [...] spilling rapidly like a large river during the flood and systematically absorbing everything in its path.” The machines were damaged. Oil flowed into the streams and poisoned the water. People were banned from entering their own farms so that they would not sometimes start a fire. Those who managed to scope their fields were knee-deep in oil. any have immersed themselves in black goose and have tried to pluck a rotting manioc and ignamy out of the ground. The biting black smoke wriggled over the ground, and people gathered in fumes to sing.
Shell's hellfire
We're burning in their radiance
He won't spare anyone the plague
The contempt of cursed Shell.
Oil came out of Bomu II for 3 weeks, and it polluted farmland and water 20 years later. The number of explosions and leaks grew rapidly. By the 1990 ’ s, respective 1000 specified accidents occurred, resulting in 2.5 million barrels of oil falling into the dirt and water. Ken Saro-Wiwa monitored the leaks through his offices in Port Hartcourt on busy Aggrey Street in the Old Township district. So far, he has abandoned his state position to deal with writing books and business, and spent most of his time with campaigning for his tribe. He was constantly rereading the first letter from Shell-BP, peculiarly bitter in 1 sentence. "There is no doubt, as the representatives of the company wrote, that the side benefits of the tail ... from the presence of Shell-BP far outweigh any inconvenience".
It seemed that the full Niger Delta was flowing into oil. Farm communities abandoned their fields and migrated to cities specified as Port Harcourt, in the hope of gaining wealth due to favourable conditions. What began as a promising but uncertain side of the economy has now become her stunning success. The oil boom of the 1970s caused prices to emergence by 400 percent in just a fewer months. Nigeria as a rookie in this business was overwhelmed. All another sectors of its economy were crushed by an oil roller. shortly oil accounted for 90 percent of home exports. Billions of dollars contributed to the national budget. Junta took from what she liked, and utilizing state funds, bribed opponents and rewarded supporters. She provided them with work with immense salaries, bonuses, palaces, construction contracts, everything possible. An era of Nigerian clientism was coming.
[...]
Behind the scenes, the military will hold control of oil contracts, which in 1993 allowed Nigeria to take sixth position in the planet in terms of mining volumes. 1 survey showed that in the fresh period of Babangida's reign with his crew in six years he pumped out $12.2 billion. Trucks were taken to the homes of supporters and influential traders of the banknote packages. Paying favors with a suitcase of dollars wasn't uncommon. Nigeria's power elite ran a private economy in which the amounts in the simplest transactions rounded to a million, while the remainder of the citizens had to suffice $300 a year.
"Relax – he was going to tell Babangida to his chalip. You may never get the highest position, but you're the 1 pulling the strings. Oil money will be under your control.” Abach was not convinced.
The most popular tv sitcom of that period portrayed the communicative of a petty fraud called Mr. B, a resident of Lagos who dreams of becoming a rich man but does not actually do any work. The intrigue focuses on Mr. B's ludicrous plans, how to extort money from people and convince friends that the millionaire position is at hand. Basi and Company It is the intended satire of the Nigerian political elite, aiming at fast enrichment, in peculiar by insolent theft of oil money. The show was broadcast for 5 years as a fixed point of the show on Friday nights, and Nigerians wore T-shirts with the imprint of Mr. B's favourite saying: "Wanting to be a millionaire, think like a millionaire." The name of the author and maker was remembered not only by tv viewers, but besides by military junta. It was Ken Saro-Wiva.
Saro-Wiwa has been working hard to build his literary career in the last decade, creating novels, poesy and critical press articles. During the period he wrote scripts for television, he besides became the voice of the Ogoni tribe.
His engagement in this substance grew with the expanding dominance of Shell-BP in the Niger Delta. Sarah-Wiwa awakened the sense of cultural identity of his tribe. Paradoxically, the presence of Shell-BP strengthened the community of indigenous residents.
It was late 1990 erstwhile Saro-Wiwa in his pastel home Port Harcourt sat behind a desk and wrote a list of basic rights for the recently formed force group called the Movement for the endurance of the People (MOSOP). The paper was formulated in the kind of the English declaration of rights, created in the 17th century after the glorious revolution. It defined the rights and freedoms of the people to defend them from abuse of their own government. The people of Saro-Wiva, however, lived in a sense under double authority. The military junta has mostly assigned its competence to Shell-BP, and it was from his dishonesty that he wanted to defend himself from Saro-Wiwa. As he wrote, the oil company made $30 billion in oil from the land of Ogoni, and from this sum Ogoni received nothing. He sent a copy of the message of rights to General Babangida.
On a tv show he made adequate money to send his children to private schools in England. As they returned home on vacation, he was moved to see how tender they were, and he hardened them persistently for 2 weeks. His educational program included staying with aunts and uncles, without electricity, moving water and television. The children reportedly lay up late to avoid household chores, and later lurk in sticky heat and pray that they would yet be given peace. Sometimes he drove them around the oil fields and the outraged pointed to bright orange flames while the children were sitting in the back seat, inactive besides tiny to realize what was going on, and more curious in uncovering a bottle of real ice cold Coke. The household lived in a modest home with 3 bedrooms and a palm tree in the back. It was arranged in the unrepentant kind of the 1970s, with the feres of various colors. The tiny cabinet of Saro-Wiva on the level was covered with bookshelfs, and between them there were manuscripts and a dry odor of tube tobacco. It was that summertime that the children sensed a change in their father. His life was completely dominated by the fighting of the Ogini people and informing the planet of oil spills that have now happened all week. They heard her get mad, talking on the telephone in her office, or she's laughing at any gag she made up to make her case public.
We can imagine him snorting his tube and smiling widely erstwhile in December 1993 he put a request letter on the device for oil companies, which is both ridiculous and rational. Ridiculous, due to the fact that on the 1 hand, you can't number on companies to step down and on the other, rational, due to the fact that so bold, that it will origin a storm in the world's media. Sarah-Wiwa demanded $4 billion in compensation to the people Fires and another 6 billion for pensions and licenses, which Shell, Chevron and Nigerian Treasury oil company should pay in the course of 30 days. And if oil companies refuse, what then? That was the problem. They all held cards in their hands, and Sarah-Wiwa had nothing.
He woke up early in a humid morning on January 3, 1993, and set off for a town on the Otail lands to talk to the crowd. As he approached the fork of the roads, he felt that a wave of vegetation was flowing down the hillside. Palm leaves, mango branches, ferns, held advanced in their hands, swayed to the rhythm of drums and low tribal sounds of song. Underneath that green, the boys blew whistles, the men pounded oil barrels, the women in the ancient wooden masks spinning in circles. To the fields running, to the fields dancing, all fell to the road before Saro-Viwa. “Who will save us from trouble?” they chanted. "Ken and MOSOP will save us from trouble".
Saro-Wiva's warrior speech that day became the defining event of the movement. He could barely halt the tears from seeing the crowds react. 3 100 1000 men arrived, 1 3rd of the Ogoni people. The twigs and shoots were the thought of Sara-Wiva and were to symbolize a peaceful protest.
Soon a group of women from the village of Biafra appeared against Nigerian soldiers. 1 of Shell's contractors, Willbros, began to unwittingly dig crops under the pipeline, rip up freshly planted plants, and dig deep ditches into the soil. From Nigerian authorities he demanded armed protection – this kind of partnership became a common phenomenon – and then bribery and intimidation paved his way from village to village. Women waved branches in the air and chanted slogans calling for work to be discontinued. The soldiers started shooting blindly. It's almost a miracle that only eleven people were injured. 1 female had a bullet ripped through her hand that had to be amputated. The crowd, however, did not depart or disintegrate, but thickened. The next day, 1 of the demonstrators was killed. More people came to replace him. Then abruptly and unexpectedly the drilling equipment was switched to automatic operation. Shell's staff with computers under their armpits loaded into minibuses and withdrew to Port Harcourt.
The oil company has left Ogoni land. This happened in April 1993, just 2 months before the planned presidential election. The military junta was furious.
Not only was she not certain who would win the election, and in addition, MOSOP drove Shell distant and the stream of her income was threatened. General Babangida feared an extension of the protest, an outbreak in the east of another Biafra-style conflict. He so immediately ordered the introduction of the infamous Decree No 29 — of treason and crimes against State security. He predicted the death punishment for anyone who "speaked words", hung a flag or published material that could have contributed to violence, especially by urging people to claim cultural autonomy. The broad, generalized wording of the decree was intended to destruct all protesters against the oil fields from the campaign. Shell utilized this chance and wrote to the government in which he accused Sarah-Wiva of “emotional and disproportionate to the circumstances of the attacks [...] to exert force on the Nigerian government”. The oil company mixed Nigerian politics and took a strong position on the side of the military dictatorship. In the same document, she went even further, accusing Sarah-Wiva of pursuing “political self-determination”, urging secession. Under these conditions, it was tantamount to asking the Shell authorities to have her allies in the junta dispose of the rebel.
[...]
Sarah-Viwa and his 8 alleged associates were sentenced to death for killings.
Saro-Wiwa sat on a long wooden bench, waiting for him to prepare a fresh cell. Just arrived at the prison, Lieutenant Colonel Komo, the recipient of a confidential study on "destruction". He has been very busy lately, had to fly to Abuja to study to General Abacha on the result of the trial and return with the essential document. It couldn't have happened without Abach's signature. Nothing like this has happened since independence, and state officials have been very keen to see it happen in accordance with regulations.
The name Sara-Wiva was called from behind the closed door. He got up from a wooden bench and walked inside. Nigerian law provided for 30 days for appeal, although the trial was pending before the peculiar Court outside the average legal structure, but only 10 days have elapsed since the judgment. There were protests in the world. The British Community, the United States, the European Union and any African leaders called on General Abacha not to execute the sentence. Everyone, including Sarah-Wiwa, believed there was inactive time.
When he entered the door, he saw a priest with a Bible. Next to him were safety officers, a state cameraman, 1 of the judges ruling on the case and Lieutenant Colonel Komo. The gallows were rapidly set up during the night, the carpenters according to their own judgement determined the tallness of the drop and the kind of blocks to the rope.
It took 5 attempts to hang Ken Saro-Wiva.
