A Plea to the International Community: Don’t Forget the Ogoni http://intercontinentalcry.org/a-plea-to-the-international-community-dont-forget-the-ogoni/

Over the past 50 years, nearly 1.5 million tons of oil has been released into the delicate ecosystem of the Niger Delta in southeast Nigeria. All told, that works out to be about on 'Exxon Valdez' spill a year in the Niger Delta each and every year. But as daunting as that number is, it doesn't even begin to describe the hardships that the Ogoni people have endured ever since Shell discovered oil there in 1958.Nor is it enough to talk about the legacy of human rights abuses: the executions, the evictions and raids, the deliberate impoverishment of a people. In effect, the Ogoni have been forced to trade their food, their water, their land, their health and their basic human rights for a single gas generator.

It's enough to talk about how the Ogoni live. For instance, how an Ogoni fisherman walks waist deep in a polluted river; Or how a single mother uses the light from nearby flare stacks to see around her her at night; or how children play in fields of oil waste like it's any other day. They know they shouldn't do it, but it's been there all their lives. It's a part of them.Whatever needs to be said, it's better to know that the Ogoni haven't lost hope. They've been fighting for their land and rights since day one and they continue to do so.