(Q) For Nnimmo: I’m here with the Coalition for Sustainable Africa, and we were discussing having a campaign about the pollution in the Niger Delta region and the emissions that are going on there, and not only the pollution and the destruction of the lives of the people living on the ground in those areas, who aren’t getting the income that they were meant to get. But also the contribution to global warming, and general pollution, and perhaps that would be a catalyst for the local action, and support of your community, getting the environmentalist movement globally involved. How can we help you?

(Q) Nnimmo, the moratorium on oil exploration, I assume that is final, not negotiable, right?

(Q) For Nnimmo: I’m asking my friend, my brother, in Uganda, where there is also a lot of oil exploration, how are we going to ensure we don’t follow the same model as Nigeria?

Secondly, how are the women in that region where their biggest work, how have they been affected?

(A) With regard to Uganda: Uganda is just coming into oil exploration and exploitation. So many African nations are coming into the league of oil exploitation. I can assure you that unless we start now to reject that, you are going to have the same situation that we are facing in Niger today. Niger has a lot of crude oil, but it does not have petrol. A lot of gas is flared every day, but there is no gas to cook with. All of the energy is not available for the common people, for the communities from where these things are being extracted or wasted away. The women have been greatly impacted by oil exploitation, exploration, and even use. Because we live very close to the land, where the oil is extracted, you hardly have social amenities. We have to rely on the creeks and the streams for portable water, and if the water is polluted by oil spills and wastewater and drilling mud, you can be sure that the people are drinking poison, and the women are really in the front line. They and the children are greatly impacted. There are all manners of diseases, with no hospitals to go to. You know if you are in Africa, sometimes people get sick and if you investigate into the source you begin to think about what might be possible. And in a certain sense, all corporations have created serious social dislocations, and created immense problems for the community. No wonder, the women began to take the matter into their hands. In 2002, the women occupied Chevron facilities for 14 days asking for dialogue. All of the actions we hear about is just people trying to get the corporations to sit down to talk. This has been resisted. And of course, this is sparking more and more actions. In this forum, we have a number of people from the Niger Delta and they are available to share the methods to use to mobilize and to resist exploitation. One of the key things that communities in Nigeria have done, has been to sit down together to investigate and draw up charters and bills, making their demands clearly known. In 1998, we had the Karma(?) declaration, which was a set of demands by the nation of Nigeria. We had the Oklaka (?) bill of rights of the Aki(?) nation. Because, at the time the states had been ruling on a divide and rule basis, just like the colonial masters did. People were made to think that they were fighting one another. After drawing up these various bills of rights, we have found that the demands are all the same. The enemies are all the same. And so the people are standing together to struggle for a common cause, and we believe that a victory will come jointly.

(Q) For Dale Wen:

My question is specifically to do with China. I think it is very good that we have someone from China civil society to talk, because so often you go to meetings where China is talked about as a problem, either our sending polluting artefacts like computers to China, or the worry of the growth of the Chinese economy. But there seems to be nothing that we can do to link up with Chinese civil society. Because people internationally are worried that Chinese companies are now coming to their countries. What hope is there within China for the growth of civil society to stop environmental problems and also what chances there are internationally to link up as well?

(A) First I will talk about the goals of the Chinese civil society and actually I will talk about the problems of the Chinese civil society. The current Chinese civil society is growing very quickly, especially in terms of environmental movement, but the problem is largely founded by the West, especially US and Europe. Lots of the environmental activists are coming from the middle class background and also they are getting their ideology from the western middle class, international NGOs as well. I find it very problematic because they are not addressing the root cause of the problems and sometimes they are just practicing environmental imperialism, just outsourcing the problems to the countryside, to the people who are much less voiceless. For example, in 2008 the Olympics are happening in Beijing. The environmental movement in China has played a pivotal role to help China to get this managed (?). Out of their own initiative, leading Chinese environmental groups worked with the government, basically to say they are going to green the Olympics. This helped China to get the vote. What’s happening is the polluting factories are being relocated to the poor countryside. The environmental movement is so centred on Beijing. The whole social movement is actually funded by the West. Yesterday I met several young activists from China. Some of my conversation with them was very disturbing. One question they asked me was, why is everyone here is against privatization? Their mindset has been so brainwashed by the West, they only see the government as the problem, and they think privatization of the market is a solution. On the other hand, there is a growing workers and peasant movement. The workers movements are much more confrontational. There is a movement called the rural reconstruction movement, which is basically trying to challenge the whole economic model of globalization. They are trying to promote a community based economy. This movement is much more interesting to watch than the official NGO sector. We need to engage with the Chinese NGO sector to make them learn the lessons we learn in the global social movement, instead of having the international NGOs trying to co-opt them.

(Q) My question is particularly about Shell. I am from Ireland, and I am wondering if you can shed any light on how Shell managed to get countries to subvert their police forces, to protect them as a company, and to give Shell so much power that they have never given to private companies before. How does Shell have this influence?

(A) So, how does Shell manage to subvert the state and state instruments? That is a loaded question. The situation in Northern Ireland is very interesting. Because we have been saying that oil companies are evil. That is why, if you remove the S from Shell, you have hell. They are so devious, and so powerful, more powerful than many states, and because they are so powerful, they more or less have politicians at their beck and call. It doesn’t matter whether it is the North or South. Corporations are ruling the world today. The war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the pumping of Somalia, they are not looking for Al Qaeda, they are looking for how to control the oil resources. From the white house to the black house, the oil corporations are ruling the world today. This is why the people have to rise up to regain our sovereignty; we have to make our power count. We must not give up. We have to persist, and show that people take over power because power belongs to the people.

(Q) For Nnimmo. In Canada, we’re thinking more and more about the activities of the big oil companies contributing to global warming, and developing the heavy tar sands at the province of Alberta, and even now talking about developing nuclear energy to develop that oil and the heavy tar sands. We are very aware of the struggle made in Nigeria against Shell and the other oil companies. I wonder what you think about the proposal that’s being put forward in some circles in Canada that civil society tried to intervene by cutting off the oil and gas supplies to the US (most of our oil and gas goes to the US to fuel that society, that war, the profits of those companies. There are 13 pipelines from Canada to the US.) I am wondering what people from Nigeria would think about that kind of solidarity action, not just for Canadian benefit, but for the benefit of the people in the Niger Delta, and all of the countries trying to shut down the oil industry.

(A) I think the first and last questions were on international solidarity, and that’s the way it should be, because these patterns will be worn through solidarity actions. I agree that if the civil society in Canada can get the oil pipe lines and the gas lines to the US shut off, that would be a great boost to our struggle for a clean and safe environment and world. If you look at the map at oil and gas in Africa, Africa is almost the United States of Pipelines. There is a plan to start a pipeline from the Niger Delta to Algeria on the way to Europe. There are many other actions that can be taken in solidarity with the people. One source is litigation. They make a lot of impact. There are some cases going on in the US against Shell, against Chevron. They don’t like to be interrogated; they don’t like to answer questions because they have behaved like overlords for so long. So let’s find avenues to put them in the dock. In the landmark gas flaring cases in Nigeria against Shell and other corporations, they never bothered to appear in court until the countries(?) insisted that the leaders of shell should come in person. That’s when they begun to take the case seriously. We need to create more spaces to bring them into public play, because they cannot be allowed to carry the corporate mask on their faces. We have to find those who work behind the mask, bring them out in public, shame them, and get them to clean up the mess.

GW: I want to make a linkage to oil exploration and the problems that also lend to mining exploration in mineral rich countries in the salt region. Mining requires high energy demand. The companies need high electricity, oil and gas for their operations. There is a coherent agenda between the oil and mining companies to ensure that there is always a source of energy available. If we don’t have enough energy in Ghana, as long as Niger has it, then we are likely to tease the absent government to ensure that their is a possibility that there is a standing oil from Nigeria or Ghana (????)

Its an agenda we need to fight from all fronts and unite between mineral mining campaigners and oil campaigners. It is very key to our success.

Dale Wen: I just want to add one thing about Shell and the Chinese environmental NGOs. Two of the artists, and probably the most famous environmental Chinese NGOs, Friends of Nature and Beijing Global Village both accept money from Shell. They display Shell’s symbol and post it on their website in virtually everything they do. The NGOs from the South need to be more engaged with Chinese NGOs and tell them what’s wrong with that. Tell them that it is very wrong to do such things for money.

Nicola’s brief summery:

I want to say two things that really struck me. First, that within a generation, we’ve seen an incredible transformation, but in both directions. We had an example in Cuba, where because of the political situation, it was possible to have a real transformation in the production system, and in the way the agriculture system works and the use of chemicals and so on. Dale has also given an example of how within a generation, within her lifetime there has been a total transformation in the whole production system in her society, but in the other direction. I think that from many of the other examples of the community based struggles, we hear that the community still has a very strong memory of how to manage their own resources. We still are perhaps within some context of being able to turn the themes around, because there is still the memory of how to manage resources in a way which is sustainable which is under the control of the communities, rather than the corporations.

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The speeches from Regaining Control of the Commons: WSF 2007 are provided for information and educational purposes. The transcription has been undertaken on a volunteer basis. Due to resource limitations we are unable to provide a complete transcription. We apologise for the breaks in the text.

Disclaimer: The view in this and the other articles do not (neccessarily) represent the position or views of Friends of the Earth Australia nor Friends of the Earth International.