Shell to Sea commemoration of Ken Saro Wiwa - Dublin , Lunchtime

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Thursday November 02, 2006 20:33 by Shell to Sea dublinshelltosea at gmail dot com 0871323369

Lunchtime Wreath laying at Shell Headquarters, 52 Lwr Leeson Street, Dublin 2

Activists and supporters will gather at lunchtime at the Headquarters of Shell Exploitation and Production Ireland Limited (SEPIL) to pay tribute to the memory Ken Saro Wiwa who together with Daniel Gbokoo,
Dr. Barinen Klobel, John Kpuinen, Baribor Bera, Saturday Dobee, Felix Nuate, Nordu Eawoh, and Paul Levura was executed by the Nigerian Govt. at the behest of Shell.

1.15PM 52 Lwr Leeson Street, Dublin 2

Arrested and held for months without charges, tortured while in detention, and sentenced to death by a “Special Military Tribunal” convened in violation of international law, these nine men were hanged for their peaceful efforts to defend the indigenous Ogoni people of Nigeria from abuses caused by the oil extraction activities of Shell.

In 1993 Shell had been forced to pull out of Ogoni land. A leaked company memo from that time stated that exploitation there was impossible "unless ruthless military operations are undertaken for smooth economic activities to commence." Later that year military force was used in a series of brutal attacks which left 750 Ogoni dead and 30,000 homeless. In May 1994 Saro-Wiwa was imprisoned by the military police on fabricated charges of murder – after a non-jury trial he and the eight other activists named above were sentenced to death.

In November 1995, to the horror of the world community - but with not even a mild protest from Shell - they were killed. Eleven years later, despite facts that connect Shell to the killings and to the continuing abuse of the Ogoni people, the company still denies culpability.

Please join Shell to Sea, Ogoni Solidarity Ireland, and other groups in marking the anniversary of what the then British Prime Minister called the "judicial murder" of Saro Wiwa and the Ogoni Eight.