The Power of Corporations
GRAPHIC: GLOBALIZATION: The Power of Corporations
Nigerians protesting
Here in Nigeria’s oil rich Niger Delta, the indigenous people of Ogoniland have been battling against environmental devastation they allege has been caused by Shell Oil. Dr. Owens Wiwa is an Ogoni activist whose brother, Ken Saro-Wiwa, a renowned writer and activist, was executed by the Nigerian government.
KEN SARO-WIWA: We are going to demand our rights peacefully, non-violently-and we shall win.
PROTESTERS: Shame on Shell! Drilling for oil! Shame on Shell! Killing for oil!
Owens Wiwa argues that there is a direct link between multinational corporations and human rights abuses.
OWENS WIWA: Ever since the death of my brother, there has been an increase in the amount of money been invested within the oil sector in Nigeria. There has also been an increase in a number of people who have been detained, tortured.
Ken Saro-Wiwa’s death prompted international condemnation of Nigeria’s military dictator, Major General Sani Abacha. Abacha took power in 1993 after democratic elections were annulled. He arrested his opponents, clamped down on dissent, and had hoped to get himself elected in a fraudulent transition to civilian government.
PROTESTERS: Abacha! Abacha! The world is watching you!
Abacha died suddenly from a heart attack in June l998. Upon his death, another General, Abdulsalam Abubakar,took over. He released some prisoners and pledged to hold democratic elections early in 1999. Nigerian officials did not respond to our requests for interviews or visas to visit the country.
SCENE with car and Nigerian Official:
Are you with the Nigerian embassy?
I am, but I don’t know anything about it.
Well, what about the situation in Nigeria, sir?
It's calm and quiet.
Inside Nigeria, many supporters of democracy still feel threatened. They blame transnational corporate interests as much as their own military government.
DAPO: Colonialism might be over in Africa but you know it was quickly a transition to some kind of a neo-colonial arrangement. And clearly the economic structures, and therefore the political relationships, are still controlled from outside. And that's why, you know, Africa is in such terrible shape.
Dapo Olorunyomi was a newspaper editor who crusaded against the Nigerian junta until his phone rang late one night.
DAPO: Someone said, "Get out if you want to be alive tomorrow." Since then I haven't been to the house. I don't know how it is. And for two years have been separated from the family. I mean I'm just lucky. Of course, I've been in and out of jail. I've been brutalized. My hands have been crushed. I use braces for most of my legs now. But, you know, a lot of people are in a worse state.
He had just been joined by his wife Ladi and their son Aramide, who had been smuggled out of Nigeria. Ladi and the child had been detained and terrorized.
LADI: I've been in detention three times. It's not an experience I like to think about too often because it was horrible. Of course, there are no beds, no mattresses, no nothing. You sleep wherever you can, on the floor, on the chair. And the place, the sanitary conditions are so horrible. It's bad, you know. I mean, they have big big rats like this. So you can't sleep.
The couple says that they are free today only because of support from human rights activists. They single out one woman for particular praise: American human rights lawyer Gay McDougall. She spent years crusading for economic sanctions against South Africa's apartheid regime. As a result of her efforts, she was chosen to be an election commissioner in 1994 and witnessed Nelson Mandela’s first democratic vote. McDougall is now working with Nigerians–some of whom are exiled in South Africa.
GAY MCDOUGALL: The emergence of extremely powerful multi-national corporations have a great impact on the quality of life and ultimately the rights of people in a country or territory-- the practices that these oil companies have in terms of the natural resources--air, land and water. As protests have arisen, these companies have turned to the military establishment in Nigeria to protect them.
Shell Oil is one of the largest corporations in the world. In Nigeria, it’s been accused of propping up a dictatorship, fouling the environment, and collaborating in the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Policy analyst and author John Cavanagh.
JOHN CAVANAGH: In many parts of the world, large corporations are operating in countries where basic fundamental human rights and worker rights are undermined, are not enforced, are violated. And so companies in a sense become complicit with governments, with dictators, with violators of those basic rights.
GAY MCDOUGALL: These oil companies are really financing the repression through taxes, and oil revenues, and royalties.
Shell denied such charges for years, but rarely granted on-camera interviews. Recently, however, Shell’s Alan Detheridge--who advises the company on Nigeria--talked with us at the oil giant's London headquarters.
DETHERIDGE: Raising human rights issues, particularly when you're the only company raising those issues, is a difficult and delicate task. It's one that has to be done step by step. We are learning as we go. So are we doing all that we can? Yes, I think for the moment we are because nobody else is saying and doing those things. Do we need to do more? Quite probably we do.
Not surprisingly, the company and its critics do not see eye to eye.
DAPO: If they really have any concern about human rights, the first thing is to define their relationship to the military. As far as we're concerned, they're still very good bedfellows.
Human rights activists accused Shell of paying one of Nigeria's most vicious security units to protect its interests. Earlier, Shell denied the charge, but not now.
DETHERIDGE: Yes, once we did call in the mobile police. We've never done so after that. And, yes, it is true, we paid field allowances once to that unit.
OWENS WIWA: I have letters, which Shell wrote to the Nigerian authorities requesting for armed protection on more than one occasion. And secondly, I've had the misfortune of being arrested and detained by Major Paul Okhontimo, who told me about the payments that Shell gives him-- and he did say it wasn't just once.
What role if any did Shell play in the trial and execution of its critic, Ken Sarowiwa?
DETHERIDGE: When the verdicts were announced, chairman of the Royal Dutch Shell Group wrote a personal letter to General Abacha pleading with him for clemency for Ken's life and for the others who'd been condemned with him. So we did what we thought was the right thing to do.
OWENS WIWA: Not exactly that way. He did send a fax to Abacha after the death sentence had been confirmed by the Provisional Ruling Council. I believe that the chairman of Shell had an ample time if he really wanted to save the life of innocent people like Ken to have actually gotten to Abacha directly. He did not do that. What he did was a public relations ploy so that they can tell the world, ‘Oh, we sent a letter on his way to the gallows,’ only it was too late.
Finally, did Shell say that Saro-Wiwa’s life could be spared -- if the campaign against Shell was called off?
WIWA: Over three meetings I had with Mr. Brunt Anderson, the head of Shell. And I told him about my desire for the freedom of my brother and our colleagues. And he said that it would be difficult to free him but not impossible, but we "have to show goodwill." So I asked him, "What is 'goodwill’?" And he said that we should stop the international campaign that was going on to save my brother and our other colleagues and the campaign against Shell's environmental practices in Nigeria
DETHERIDGE: It is simply not true. For a start we don't have that kind of influence with the Nigerian government. If we had that kind of influence then the letter from our chairman would have prevented those, would certainly have prevented the executions.
GAY MCDOUGALL: Shell and all of the other oil companies have the collective power. They could play positive roles. They have declined to do that. They have been called on to intercede with the regime with respect to political prisoners--to call on the regime to release political prisoners--they have largely declined to do that.
This is the heart of the difference. Critics believe that corporations have the clout and responsibility to press for human rights. Shell says it can’t -- and that even withdrawing won’t help.
DETHERIDGE: Those that argue that if Shell just withdrew from the country that would bring the regime to its knees, I'm afraid are mistaken because you have to ask yourself what can we withdraw. We can't withdraw the oil wells. We can't withdraw our pipelines, and our facilities. So it wouldn't have the result that people would hope that it would.
If corporations like Shell, can’t or won’t do more to pressure a military regime like Nigeria’s, who can? Should trade be limited when human rights are violated?
GAY MCDOUGALL: I certainly have been part of the voice in favor of sanctions, tougher sanctions in the U.S.
In the past, the idea of international economic sanctions against Nigeria, like the ones that helped topple apartheid, was raised by South African officials, but no action was taken.
MBEKI: I don't think the will is there, but we have to continue to engage the issue of doing whatever we can to insure that Nigeria does indeed become a democratic country--that all of the human rights and other issues are addressed.
BISHOP TUTU: It’s going to happen that ultimately, the oil companies there, for instance, will see that it's far, far better to be on the side of the people, to be on the side of justice, to be on the side of freedom, and not kowtow to the powerful. Who are powerful only for a moment, and then they become the flotsam and jetsam of history.
C. HUNTER-GAULT: From Africa, we turn to Asia, the epicenter of globalization’s first major crisis. Here the human rights debate focuses on the role of global institutions like the International Monetary Fund. Whose interests do they serve? Should agencies which already use their clout to impose economic privatization and cutbacks in social services also demand political reforms and adherence to human rights standards?
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