Don Enss
I must admit to
being humbled and ashamed when I read about what General Sani Abacha and how
under his leadership “thousands of Delta residents were tortured and killed and
dozens of Ogoni village were razed.” All because they peacefully protested
Shell’s extracting large amounts of oil from the Nigerian Delta, making
billions of dollars, and giving the people nothing. (I would guess that any
money Shell paid went into the pockets of Gen. Abacha and his cohorts). Abacha's regime lasted from 1993 to
1998, and when I read that he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1998, I was
happy for the people and for the families and friends who had been tortured by
his regime that he would no longer be able to oversee those actions. One can
only hope that his replacement would not continue those brutal and repressive
policies.
I was humbled because I admire
their conviction and willingness to sacrifice everything including their life
for a just cause. I was ashamed because I don’t know if I would have the
courage to continue the struggle if peaceful protest were met with the brutally
that their protest was. I don’t know how
they were able to fight on especially after the hung Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight
others because of their protest, but they did and we can learn a lot from them
and as I read the rest of the chapter and saw so many other communities struggling
against the power of the large oil and gas corporations, I was heartened to
believe that there is still a chance that we can win the battle against global climate change.
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