AMY GOODMAN: You’re listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman.

Today marks the second anniversary of the execution of West African author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. As head of Nigeria’s MOSOP, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, he led a campaign against the ecological devastation that petroleum giant Shell was causing in his homeland, the oil-rich region of Nigeria called Ogoniland. The protests targeted the company’s abusive practices and even caused a partial shutdown of some of its facilities. But the Nigerian military regime, led by General Sani Abacha, launched a wave of fierce repression against the Ogoni, which led to the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other men on November 10th, 1995, in the yard of Port Harcourt prison.

Two-and-a-half years ago, Ken Saro-Wiwa came to Pacifica Radio station WBAI in New York. My co-host Bernard White and I interviewed Saro-Wiwa and another official of MOSOP, Ledum Mitee. This is an excerpt of that interview. It begins with Ken Saro-Wiwa.

KEN SARO-WIWA: Shell does not want to negotiate with the Ogoni people. Each time they’ve come under pressure from local people, their want has always been to run to the Nigerian government and to say to the Nigerian government, “Oil is 90% of your foreign exchange earning. If anything happens to oil, your economy will be destroyed. Therefore, you must go and deal with these people, these troublemakers.” And most times, the government will oblige them and visit local communities of poor, dispossessed people with a lot of violence.

And when these communities then protested and said, “Look. Look at the amount of violence that is being used against us, even though we are only protesting peacefully,” then the oil companies will come and say, “Well, there is no way we can determine how much violence a government decides to use against its own people.” So, basically, the local communities have no leverage with the oil companies at all.

AMY GOODMAN: Who is the government now of Nigeria?

KEN SARO-WIWA: There is a military government in power at this time. And indeed, military people have been in power in the country for a long time.

AMY GOODMAN: Because they suspended the results of the elections?

KEN SARO-WIWA: Yes, indeed. But for a long time now, Nigeria has been under military dictatorships. And the oil companies like military dictatorships, because basically they can cheat with these dictatorships. The dictatorships are brutal to people, and they can deny the rights of — human rights of individuals and of communities quite easily, without compunction.

AMY GOODMAN: Ken Saro-Wiwa, how does the oil companies — how do Shell and Chevron deal with you as the president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People?

KEN SARO-WIWA: Well, recently, when the protests started, Shell, they had a meeting. And the operatives of Shell in Nigeria and of those at The Hague in the Netherlands, and in London, held a meeting, and they decided that they would have to keep an eye on me, watch wherever I go to, follow me constantly, to ensure that I do not embarrass Shell. So, as far as I’m concerned, I’m a marked man, where Shell are concerned. And indeed, I have been in detention in Nigeria several times. My passport has been impounded. The last time around, in the middle of June, I was held for 31 days without charge. And eventually —

AMY GOODMAN: The Nigerian government held you.

KEN SARO-WIWA: The Nigerian government held me, shunted me from prison to prison. And it’s only international concern that allowed them to send me on bail. Early this year, on the 2nd of January, to be precise, I was placed under house arrest with my entire family for three days in order to stop a planned protest against Shell. Three hundred thousand Ogoni people were going to move to protest the devastation of the environment by Shell and the other multinational oil companies. And it was in the interest of these companies to ensure that I was not — that this demonstration did not hold. And all they did was simply send the military authorities to my house. They disconnected my telephones, confiscated the handsets. And I was held for three days without food.

LEDUM MITEE: In fact, even before then, not only himself, almost all the leaders of the movement have always been harassed. In fact, before he came, before his own ordeal, the recent ordeal he mentioned about, myself and his younger brother, Dr. Wiwa, were picked up about 2 a.m. and locked up in detention. We spent nine days, for no charge had been preferred for that. They just put us in, according to them, to make sure that the anniversary of the Ogoni people for the protest do not take place.

BERNARD WHITE: What was detention like? I mean, what did —

LEDUM MITEE: It was horrible. We were thrown into a place, into a room without beds, without carpets, the toilets not there. In fact, we were not fed until for about — out of the nine days, we were fed only about two days. And in fact, even the doctor was sick. He complained that he needed medical attention. No one bothered to talk to him. It was a very horrible experience we had.

AMY GOODMAN: And what does the Nigerian government say in explaining why they detained you?

LEDUM MITEE: Well, all they say is that “We don’t want the Ogoni people.” You see, they feel that we’ve got so much courage, I mean, for daring to have the courage to challenge the multinational and the government. Then, at least the leaders should be put away sometime.

AMY GOODMAN: So, there’s no pretense, then. They are saying it’s because of your leadership in the Ogoni people’s movement.

LEDUM MITEE: No, not at all. They actually say that. Because of the leadership of the Ogoni movement, that’s exactly what they are doing.

AMY GOODMAN: Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ledum Mitee, how come you have come to be head of the movement? What is your background?

KEN SARO-WIWA: I’m a writer. I’ve had — I started as an academic, a university teacher. Subsequently, during the Nigerian civil war, I found a place in — I had a place in government. And after that, I set up as a shopkeeper. And subsequently, I became a television producer. And I write novels and short stories and poems and television comedy and essays and everything else or poetry. But it was my literature that led me to the severe injustices which we’re suffering in Nigeria and which the Ogoni people have had to endure in the hands of the oil companies. When I put all that was happening under the cold stare of logic, I found that there was something immensely wrong, and I began to mobilize the Ogoni people to struggle for their environmental and human rights and against the military dictatorship and the cruelty, the environmental terrorism of the oil companies. So, I came to activism through literature. And I was able to form the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People and to involve virtually every Ogoni man, woman and child in this movement. They’ve become strong environmentalists.

AMY GOODMAN: Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ledum Mitee. Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ledum Mitee went back to Nigeria after the interview we did with them at Pacifica station WBAI in February of 1994. They were arrested, detained and then given a pseudo trial. Ledum Mitee was eventually found innocent. Ken Saro-Wiwa, along with eight other activists, were condemned to death, and they were executed two years ago today in Port Harcourt prison in Nigeria.

You are listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! Today in Nigeria, security agents are waging an intimidation campaign to block protests marking the anniversary of the execution that turned Nigeria into an international pariah. The Nigerian junta has deployed troops across the home region of Ken Saro-Wiwa, playwright and activist, hanged two years ago today. The junta also detained Saro-Wiwa’s nephew, activist Boniface Chenawari Wiwa [phon.], and sent agents to Saro-Wiwa’s 69-year-old mother several times in the past week to intimidate the family, this according to the opposition newspaper known as Punch. In the Niger Delta region, home to half a million Ogoni minority, troops were deployed over the weekend to block the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People from holding any events to mark the anniversary of Saro-Wiwa’s death. Abacha’s critics claim the nine were executed because of their anti-government activities and attempts to win compensation from international oil companies like Shell, whose operations damaged Ogoni croplands and fishing waters. The hangings galvanized international opposition to Abacha, prompting the Commonwealth, the 54-nation association of Britain and its former colonies, to suspend the country, and leading South African President Nelson Mandela to call for international sanctions on Nigerian oil.

We’re joined right now by Owens Wiwa. He’s an official with MOSOP, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, and he’s the brother of the late Ken Saro-Wiwa. He speaks to us from Canada.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

DR. OWENS WIWA: Good morning, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Why don’t we start with what is happening in Nigeria today? From this report from the opposition paper, Punch newspaper, we see that your nephew has been detained, that your mother is being harassed by Nigerian security agents.

DR. OWENS WIWA: It’s quite unfortunate. My mother has had so many harassments and arrests and intimidation so many times in this world. Most people have none. But she will go through this, and I hope that they will release my nephew also. However, since Thursday last week, the Ogoni people have been celebrating and preparing for this day, and a series of demonstrations have been held in remembrance of Ken in many villages, knowing fully well that by today, the whole place will be filled up more by the army. We also have some arrests of some student leaders who have been involved in organizing the people, especially their parents. Mr. Kobo, the mother and one of his brothers were arrested by the military. Arrests, detention, torture and even extrajudicial killing has been quite commonplace in Ogoni. This has been done by the military dictatorship in order to stop our protests, to stop our vision. But our vision is simple. We are still using the principles of nonviolence and the empowerment of the people to seek social justice by eliminating the poverty and the inequities, inequities brought about by the alliance of Shell and the Nigerian military. We hope to continue, and we want to make Ken proud that his vision is still alive.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us, Owens Wiwa, what happened two years ago, just before Ken was executed, when it came to this military tribunal that heard Ken Saro-Wiwa’s case, as well as the others, and if Shell actually played a role in this tribunal?

DR. OWENS WIWA: Well, there’s no doubt that Shell played a role. I was declared wanted, you know, for the unfortunate death of four of our chiefs. I immediately went underground, and I was in Lagos, the capital city, meeting up with some of the military friends I have and members of the diplomatic corps and even other power brokers in Nigeria. I also met with the head of Shell, because we had noticed in the tribunal itself the presence of a military officer, Lieutenant Colonel Okuntimo, whom we know have been having meetings with officials of Shell in Port Harcourt and have also told people that he’s been paid by Shell to do the things he’s been doing in Ogoni to, quote, “protect their equipment.” Apart from that, there was a Shell lawyer present on some occasions in the tribunal. And knowing the power of Shell, producing over 50% of the nation’s income, we did know that they have a role to play. So, I actually went to see the British ambassador, and that I wanted to see the head of Shell. And he arranged a meeting, and I saw the man. And he said, basically, over the meetings we have, that we should write a press statement saying that there was no environmental devastation in Ogoniland, call off the international protest that was going on to free Ken and eight of our colleagues, and then he is going to act.

AMY GOODMAN: Owens Wiwa, we’re going to find out more, what your response was when Shell said, “Call off the international protests, and then we’ll see what happens with Ken Saro-Wiwa.” But we do have to break. Owens Wiwa, the brother of Ken Saro-Wiwa, also an official in MOSOP, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. And when we come back, we’ll be joined by some other Nigerian activists talking about what’s happening on the ground in Nigeria and how people are organizing in this country today. And after that, we’ll talk about a leaked report on Nike. Stay with us here on Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now!

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, continuing our conversation with Owens Wiwa, brother of the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, executed two years ago today with eight other Ogoni activists in Nigeria as they were protesting what was happening to their homeland as a result of Shell Oil and other multinational oil companies and their drilling in the Ogoni region of Nigeria, the most populous country of Africa. Now Owens Wiwa is a master’s student at Johns Hopkins University, a master’s student in public health. He’s currently in Canada, again, also an official with the Movement for the Organization — Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People. When they said to you, when this Shell official said to you, Owens, that if you call off the protests, what? What would happen to Ken, who was at that time in prison?

DR. OWENS WIWA: If we call off the protest, they said, they are going to act and to say that Ken and the others are free. And I told them immediately that I cannot do that. I don’t have the power to do that. But, however, I’m going to write to Ken and others in prison, which I did. And, of course, Ken said that there’s no way we’re going to lie about the environmental devastation in Ogoniland or even to call off the protest, that if Shell do what they — I mean, do their work, there will be no protest. If there’s no environmental devastation, there will be no protest. If there’s no abuse of my rights, there will be no protest.

AMY GOODMAN: Earlier, you referred to the fact that Ken and the others were arrested on the pretext that there had been killings of four Ogoni chiefs and that they were responsible for galvanizing others to kill the Ogoni chiefs. I think it’s interesting to note in the interview we played with Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ledum Mitee that Ken was continually harassed and arrested by the Nigerian military authorities. That latest pretext, the killing of the Ogoni chiefs, was just one more reason to have him either house detained or put in prison.

DR. OWENS WIWA: Well, that is true. Actually, the first time Ken got arrested or detained ever in his life was only after the massive protest in 1993, where 300,000 people came out from Ogoni to demonstrate against the environmental double standards of Shell. And after that, there has been [inaudible] going on. Now, arresting somebody and framing the person for murder is not new that much in Ogoni, when it’s — when we’re talking about oil. We also have one professor, Chiwa [phon.], who is from another oil-bearing community in the Niger Delta, that was actually detained for over three months, and the charge on his head was murder. And he was put in such a way — I met him in detention in 1994 also, when I was also detained for murder, which I did not commit. I mean, I’m a physician, and I was going to look at people that have been shot to take them in my ambulance to my clinic. But I was held by the military and put in that time for three weeks for murder. I was only saved because Ken came back and then raised such a lot of noise in the press, and also because Amnesty International also issued an urgent alert on my behalf, and because I went with a journalist who also reported what happened. If Ken had been with a journalist that day, and if pressure had really come as strong as we wanted, it’s possible that he would have been with us today. But the military dictatorship wanted to do anything. Shell wanted to do anything that will remove Ken and some other Ogoni people from the scene.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Owens Wiwa, brother of Ken Saro-Wiwa, official in MOSOP, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People.

We’re also joined by Goodluck Diigbo, who is a former confidant of Ken Saro-Wiwa and a head of the youth arm of MOSOP. Welcome to Democracy Now!

GOODLUCK DIIGBO: Thank you and good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: Goodluck, good morning. Can you tell us about the day that you were driving in the car with Ken in Nigeria? The military official stopped you and said you could not go into Ogoniland.

GOODLUCK DIIGBO: Yeah, that was a preplanned effort by the military to implicate us in what was already planned ahead, because that was the same day that four elders or chiefs of Ogoni were murdered. We were on a peaceful trip to hold peaceful rallies in Ogoni to educate our people about the constitutional conference that was to take place in Nigeria at that time. And we did not know that the military already had planned some other strategies to blackmail us. And I think that was the day that the four chiefs were eventually killed. Ken and myself and his driver and the Ogoni that were in the car with us were turned back from Ogoni. We were told we cannot hold any peaceful rally in Ogoni and that we should get out of Ogoni, not just returning to our homes in Ogoni. In fact, Ken wanted to visit the mother on that day, and he was told that he cannot visit the mother, and that if he wants to, that they would accompany him to visit the mother. So we were turned back from Ogoni that day, and we returned to Port Harcourt. And on getting to Port Harcourt, we actually went to the newspaper, a newspaper called Sun Ray, and we narrated the story to a team of editorial staff at that newspaper house. And at that point, a question was raised as to whether Ken has informed the military administrator of what was — what has happened. And right in that newspaper house, Ken made a call to the military administrator’s office. And the wife received the call and told us that the administrator has been very —

AMY GOODMAN: Who received the call?

GOODLUCK DIIGBO: The wife of the administrator answered the call and told us that the administrator has been very anxious to see Ken. And, OK, Ken left a message and said let him call him back. The administrator did not call Ken back. When Ken and I and others learned of the incident, we got this information about the killing from the newspaper house that we went for a discussion earlier in the day. And we went back to that same newspaper, only to discover that the news was brought to the newspaper house by an Ogoni judge. And we traced the Ogoni judge to his house, and we were later told he has gone to the commissioner of police office.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, you’re talking about the news of the killing of the four Ogoni chiefs.

GOODLUCK DIIGBO: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And you were all at the newspaper office doing interviews.

GOODLUCK DIIGBO: Yes, I’m giving you this background because I think it’s necessary for us to understand that Ken was not involved, and that when the news came to us, we did everything humanly possible to find out the source of that news, and even went straight to the administrator’s house — I mean, to the government house that evening, and the administrator, whom the wife told us was anxious to see Ken, refused to see Ken. And so, I’m saying this to let the world understand that this was a cover-up by the administrator. And it did not take him 24 hours to announce that Ken was responsible for the killing of the four elders. There was no investigation. There was no an arrest of others in the community. It was focused directly on — so I think it was an attempt to blackmail Ken and to ensure that he was eliminated. And again, my own organization, the National Youth Council of Ogoni People, was alleged to have been responsible for the killing and that the instruction was passed on to the organization by Ken. And I want to say that this was also done because the National Youth Council of Ogoni People — 

AMY GOODMAN: NYCOP —

GOODLUCK DIIGBO: NYCOP.

AMY GOODMAN: — which is a part of MOSOP.

GOODLUCK DIIGBO: NYCOP. I’m very proud to say that NYCOP had been at the forefront of the struggle. And because this is an organization of more than 100,000 people, if the military had been able to crush that organization, I think the struggle would have been, to an extent, aborted, because the youth were actually at the forefront of the struggle. So, Ken was not responsible. Those men that were killed were a great loss to the Ogoni people. And we are still insisting that the international community can still do something about it. There could be an international tribunal to investigate what happened to those four men, because to deny people of their right to life is something that is not acceptable under international law. Why must it be ignored?

AMY GOODMAN: We should also say that there are still 19 other Ogoni activists who remain in prison, and lest anyone think that the killings and the torture have stopped. We’re also joined in the studio by a man we’ll call Asterisk. He is a Nigerian, does not want to be identified. He was picked up by the Nigerian military last year and tortured. Can you tell us about your circumstance?

ASTERISK: Well, let me start by saying that elimination by the Nigerian government is just the last stage of what they do to opposition. It starts with — they start with arrest, detention and torture. I was picked up in January last year. And I will tell you that torture for me was a fate worse than death at the hands of the military. I was put in the trunk of a car by presidential bodyguards and —

AMY GOODMAN: Bodyguards of Sani Abacha?

ASTERISK: Yes. You still have them in Lagos, even though the government has moved to Abuja. I don’t know what presidential bodyguards are doing in a city like Lagos. And they took us, they took me, in particular, to their facility where they detain people. And they handcuffed me and hung me up from a wall. I was hanging by my hands, and they put tear gas in my eyes. It’s some kind of stimulant that is meant to make you cry. And when they were done with that, they lay me on the floor and used poles to beat me. Of course, by this time, they had stripped me naked. They used wooden poles to, like, really, you know, bash my head. And that was just the beginning. It was the introduction. Later on, one of the guys asked me, you know, “Have you been beaten?” I said, “Yes.” He looked at the blood on my hands, and he said, “You haven’t been beaten.” And I was wondering what worse could come. And that was just a welcome dose for me. The next few days, the next weeks, were just torture, unlimited.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did they pick you up?

ASTERISK: Now, the the son of the head of state had died in a plane crash.

AMY GOODMAN: Sani Abacha’s son.

ASTERISK: Sani Abacha’s son, who was jetting around in the presidential jet and crashed. And some of us had done the analysis, and we had said that Ken Saro-Wiwa’s body, after he was hung, was bathed with acid, you know, and really burnt, and that the same thing had happened to General Sani Abacha’s son, that his son’s body was now recovered from the plane. And so we felt that it was God who was saying, “Hey, listen, you did this to Ken. Now God has done this to you.” And the guards were just really very mad. They went on an arresting spree. They arrested lots of people. And in my case, I was one of those that they picked up and locked and took away in the trunk of a car. And I’ll tell you, it’s a horrifying experience.

AMY GOODMAN: How long were you held for?

ASTERISK: I was held for a total of eight months.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you get out?

ASTERISK: How did I get out of the country?

AMY GOODMAN: How did you get out of prison and the country?

ASTERISK: Oh, well, now, I am aware that the Commonwealth was planning to visit Nigeria and see political detainees and all that. And so, the government wanted to clear out its stables before the Commonwealth came and —

AMY GOODMAN: To investigate.

ASTERISK: Yes, to investigate. So they released a few of the bad cases.

AMY GOODMAN: So you got out of prison. And how did you get out of the country?

ASTERISK: Now, I would want to say that for the sake of many others who want to flee, I wouldn’t want to disclose my route.

AMY GOODMAN: And that is a man who we will not identify further than to say he was tortured in Nigeria in this past year. Dr. Owens Wiwa, what about today, and particularly U.S. policy? We did a show about a month ago with Hafsat Abiola, the daughter of Moshood Abiola, the elected president of Nigeria, who remains in jail now for a number of years since the election, and also the daughter of Kudirat Abiola, who was gunned down on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, two years ago, her mother. She was on the show with Wole Soyinka, Nigerian Nobel laureate, and she was in New York because the New York City Council was considering passing legislation that would change the name of the street on which the Nigerian U.N. Mission sits to Kudirat Abiola Way. It ultimately was changed just two weeks ago. The City Council voted almost unanimously to change the street, despite the fierce opposition of the Nigerian government. And among those who testified was the former ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, who has since come back to this country. It’s not clear if the reason he left Nigeria is because he became a thorn in the side of the Nigerian government and the Clinton administration, which is backing off serious sanctions against Nigeria, simply wanted him out. What is your view on that, and your view, in general, on U.S. policy towards Nigeria?

DR. OWENS WIWA: Well, specifically, if I can start from Ogoni, we are grateful for the humanitarian gestures by the administration in accepting some few dozens of Ogoni refugees and their family. But there has been no political — nothing done politically, you know, in order to say that the situation of human rights abuse or democratization in Nigeria go the right way. We see a lack of a clear-cut policy by this administration to help the people of Nigeria to achieve democracy, because we know about the oil interests, the American oil firms who are prospecting for oil in Nigeria. We also know that the United States alone takes more than 50% of the Nigerian oil that is coming. So, in effect, they are helping to sustain the military dictatorship of Abacha and the human rights abuses that go with it.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think there’s a chance Clinton would call for sanctions, oil sanctions, against Nigeria?

DR. OWENS WIWA: We have been calling for sanctions. We continue to call for sanctions, because that is one of the most effective ways of saying that Abacha does not get the weapons to get to buy the weapons of repression. But we are happy that the Americans and the people of New York have been able to effect the change of the street naming where the Nigerian Embassy is. That will show the Nigerian military that what they are doing is not acceptable to the ordinary Americans. If only the Clinton administration would take the view of most Americans as I have been opportune to meet, we will be happy.

What Carrington did while he was in Nigeria was very helpful to the pro-democracy groups. We met him several times when Ken was in detention, and he did make some statements, which we thought would change the views of the Abacha regime. But we were also pointing out that the only thing that the — that affect the military is the oil money. They do not really care about any other thing. It is the oil. And we are happy about those who are boycotting Shell, who are not buying from Shell. And today especially, as all the way from India to Finland, Johannesburg, Republic of Benin, Ghana, and here in Canada and many places in the United States, there are demonstrations going around. And I’m sure that Ken would have been proud, and that the struggle has continued, even grown, as more organizations, you know, are committed to seeing that victory is done for the Ogoni people. And we remember him. We remember the over 2,000 Ogoni people who have been killed, and especially the Ogoni 20, who languish in jail today, who are sick, are not allowed visitors. And we do not know what the military dictatorship want to do with them. We have pleaded with Abacha, with Shell, not to allow these 20 to die, because they are innocent. They are as innocent as I am today.

AMY GOODMAN: On that note, we do have to wrap up, on this second anniversary of the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists in Nigeria. The phone number of the movement for the organization — the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, Owens Wiwa?

DR. OWENS WIWA: Yes, here in Toronto, it’s 416-966-0910. In the U.S., you can call 773-643-5310.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m going to just — I’m going to give that number in the United States one more time: 773-643-5310. Thank you very much for joining us, Owens Wiwa, speaking to us from Canada, as well as Goodluck Diigbo, who is head of the youth arm of MOSOP, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, and Asterisk, who joined us, telling his own story this year in Nigeria. You’re listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! We’ll be back on Nike in a minute.