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600 million barrels of crude oil during the past forty years. 



Since 1958, Royal Dutch Shell has extracted some $30 billion worth of oil from 

 the lands of the Ogoni people. While royalties from these sales fill the coffers of the 

 Nigerian military, the rich farmland of Ogoni has been laid waste by oil spills and the 

 venting of toxic gases. Meanwhile, the Ogoni lack miming water, electricity, adequate 

 schools or healthcare. 



Even though Nigeria accounts for some 14 percent of Shell's production, between 

 1982 and 1992, nearly 40 percent of the company's oil spills have occurred there. Shell's 

 high-pressure pipelines were constructed above ground through villages and crisscross 

 over land that was once used for agricultural purposes, rendering it economically useless. 

 Many pipelines pass within a few feet of Ogoni homes. In one case a Shell 

 subcontractor destroyed a village hospital to make way for pipelines. Six years later all 

 that remains is the framework of a new hospital the community was promised. 



In Nigeria there are few or no requirements to conduct environmental impact 

 studies, recycle oil waste or lay subterranean oil pipes instead of cheaper above ground 

 pipes. Waste oil is haphazardly buried in makeshift pits - only to bubble again to the 

 surface during the tainy season. Madam Chairman, you asked that I address the issue of 

 property rights in my testimony. Well in 1978, the military declared all land in Nigeria 

 the property of the federal governments. This had the effect of freeing the oil 

 companies from having to negotiate with locals who property included vast oil reserves. 



According to the World Wide Fund for Nature in the U.K, 76 percent of the 

 natural gas pumped up with crude in Nigeria is burned off, compared with .6 percent in 

 the United States. A World Wildlife Fund study also revealed that gas flares in Nigeria 

 emit 34 million tons of carbon dioxide" and 12 million tons of methane, making 

 petroleum operations in Nigeria one of the world's largest contributors to global 

 warming. Gas flaring in Ogoni villages has destroyed wildlife, plant life, poisoned the air 

 and water, and left residents half-deaf and prone to respiratory diseases. According to 

 the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the nearly four 

 decades of oil extraction in the Niger Delta, home to coastal rain forest and mangrove 

 habitat ~ has left it the most endangered river delta in the world. ^ 



In May, many of the claims of environmentalists against Shell were vindicated. 

 Bopp van Dessel, Shell's former head of environmental studies revealed in a British 

 television interview that the company broke its own rules and international standards and 

 failed to respond to his warnings. "Wherever I went I could see that Shell were not 

 operating their facilities properly," Van Dessel said. "They were not meeting their own 

 standards, they were not meeting international standards. Any Shell site that I saw was 

 polluted. Any terminal that I saw was polluted." 



It was in response to this exploitation, that in 1990 Ken Saro-Wiwa and other 



