Nigeria: Fight for Oil Wealth Fuels Violence in Delta

[struggle4progress]

Government Must Combat Impunity; Oil Industry Should Ensure Transparency

In the oil-rich Niger Delta, the struggle among local leaders for oil revenue and government funds has fueled violent clashes between rival armed groups, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. An escalation in violence last year killed dozens of innocent people and disrupted oil production, pushing global crude futures over a record $50 a barrel.

The 22-page report, “Rivers and Blood: Guns, Oil and Power in Nigeria’s Rivers State,” based on a December fact-finding mission to the region, documents fighting between armed groups in the southeastern oil-producing state that escalated in late 2003 and continued throughout 2004. The clashes resulted in the indiscriminate killing of local people, displaced tens of thousands of villagers from their homes, and forced the oil industry to evacuate staff and scale back its production. <snip>

“The Nigerian authorities must end the culture of impunity fueling this deadly cycle of violence in the oil-rich Delta,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “And the oil industry needs to ensure the funding that it earmarks for local communities does not end up in the hands of those fueling this violence.” <snip>

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0502/S00156.htm