Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria’s Oil Dictatorship

Here is a transcript of the Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria’s Oil Dictatorship. Yea, I know, it’s from those execrable liberals at Democracy Now!, but this is a great documentary.

The demands of the villagers were hardly unusual and neither were the actions they took. Barge occupations at off-shore sites, roadblocks at on-shore facilities, taking tugboats hostage, they are all part of an increasingly angry resistance movement in the Niger delta. Communities are fed up with providing fuel that powers the wealthiest countries in the world, while being left powerless themselves. In fact, just a few months earlier another community in the area with grievances against Chevron had occupied its offshore facility as well. What was different this time was Chevron’s response.

At this point the work on board the barge had been stopped for almost 4 days which meant Chevron was losing money. But villagers say they thought they were still waiting for Chevron’s final response to their demands when helicopters descended on the platform.

Parrere is one of the youth leaders who occupied Chevron’s facility.

PARRERE:“We just saw three helicopters coming. We were looking at all these helicopters thinking that probably people inside these helicopters might have been Chevron reps who are actually coming to dialogue with us here. But I was at the top of the platform looking at the helicopters when they were about to land. They were about to land when we heard shooting of teargasses and guns.”

Larry Bowoto , another of the activists on board describes what he saw.

Larry Bowoto: “about three chopper helicopters came there early in the morning even everybody’s sleeping when we see that the helicopter landed with soldier men. Q: with soldier men? A: with soldier men. Before we discover we hear the sound of gunshot, the next thing they shot two of our guys.

This is how corporations behave when the laws are not an issue.