23 



Has there been any work done in the Netherlands, where Shell 

 seems to have their world headquarters? 



Mr. Mills. Yes, sir. There is quite a bit of work being done with 

 the environmental groups there. It is still quite an issue, I under- 

 stand, and I just spoke with Dr. Owens Wiwa. Last week, he was 

 in the Netherlands and had a record turn-out for a visit of his. So 

 it is still an issue and I believe it is still being talked about. 



As far as European organizations and sanctions, I just read today 

 that the British are still having a bit of a problem with it, pri- 

 marily because British Airways has such a lock on flights to Africa. 



Mr. Payne. Well, I certainly appreciate your support for the leg- 

 islation. We will continue to — and we are getting co-sponsors by the 

 day. I think we are going to have maybe over a hundred co-spon- 

 sors right now and an overwhelming majority, maybe 90-plus per- 

 cent, of the Congressional Black Caucus supports the legislation. 



There has been some question about whether it was unanimous. 

 We have three members that have taken another position. But the 

 other 35 or so strongly support it and we are hoping that our State 

 Department and Administration, I think they have been too tame. 

 I agree with you. I do not think they should have sent Mr. 

 Carrington, the Ambassador, back to Nigeria. There is a move afoot 

 to attempt to allow some Nigerian leaders to come in to discuss a 

 transition, but I strongly oppose that as they can just do it by let- 

 ting some people out of prison if they just want to show good faith. 



So I certainly appreciate the support and the fine work that both 

 of your organizations are doing and thank you. 



I give back the balance of my time. 



Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Payne. 



Just a quick question. What are you doing with international or- 

 ganizations or other countries, either within Africa or outside of Af- 

 rica, to solve what you would see as a regional problem affecting 

 the environmental concerns of an area? Other organizations, do you 

 have any kind of consortium to try to put international pressure, 

 either through organizations like the United Nations, et cetera, to 

 try to help force the issue to try to have these countries clean up 

 the problems tied to the environmental concerns? 



Mr. Wright. Well, we are two wings of the environmental move- 

 ment testifying here. AWF is not an activist organization. We are 

 really a technical assistance organization more than an activist 

 one. So we do participate in some consortiums. There is a group of 

 three international organizations working in the Rwanda/eastern 

 Zaire area. Mostly our concern is the gorillas in the rain forest and 

 park. But we are working with the U.N. agencies on the refugee 

 question. There are interactions concerning the environmental im- 

 plications of the refugee situation. But ours is not a political as 

 much as a technical role. We are not sort of a pressure group in 

 that sense. 



Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. OK 



Mr. MlLl^. We do network with environmental groups at U.N. 

 meetings and such. We are not looking to open up Sierra Club of- 

 fices abroad as much as we are looking to export some of our orga- 

 nizing techniques and work with some indigenous groups to help 

 them fight environmental problems in their countries like we have 

 done here. So we are working with groups. 



