Now at last it's time for Shell to atone for my father's death

This week, a US court will hear a case that I and nine other plaintiffs filed against Royal Dutch Shell for its part in human rights violations committed against some Ogoni families and individuals in Nigeria in 1995. For some, the case is already being cast as a bookmark in the struggle for corporate accountability, but to me and the other nine plaintiffs it is all that and more.

Fourteen years ago, Ken Saro-Wiwa predicted that Shell would one day have to account for its actions in Nigeria. "I repeat," he wrote in what would have been his final statement to the military tribunal that was to order his execution, "that I and my colleagues are not the only ones on trial. Shell is here on trial... the company has, indeed, ducked this particular trial, but its day will surely come ... there is no doubt in my mind that the ecological war that the company has waged in the delta will be called to question sooner than later and the crimes of that war be duly punished. The crime of the company's dirty wars against the Ogoni people will also be punished."

My father was prevented from making his final statement to the court and he and eight of his colleagues were tried and executed for their alleged role in the harrowing murders of four Ogoni chiefs including his brother-in-law. The murders divided my family and set Ogoni against Ogoni, providing a convenient excuse for the military regime to arrest my father, detain and torture scores of innocent men and send in a military taskforce whose leader publicly vowed to "sanitise" Ogoni so that Shell could drill oil in my community.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/24/ken-saro-wiwa-shell

"I am not interested in retributive justice but a justice that is creative, a justice that enables all stakeholders in this affair to account for and learn lessons from the past so that we can all move forward within a constructive and sustainable framework. We have to remain committed to building the kind of world that ensures that people who live on natural resource-bearing areas are not treated as collateral damage in a senseless race for profit."

by the energy giants.

I hope justice is served, but I have my doubts that Shell will atone for its sins.

:kick: