Encouraging development in the Niger delta

A (relatively) small but important victory for human rights today in Nigeria. (Ken Saro-Wiwa, a hugely influential activist for environmental justice in the oil rich Niger delta, was also profiled in Sandy Cioffi’s new documentary, Sweet Crude.)

Shell pays out $15.5m over Saro-Wiwa killing

* Ed Pilkington in New York
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 June 2009 00.07 BST

The oil giant Shell has agreed to pay $15.5m (£9.6m) in settlement of a legal action in which it was accused of having ­collaborated in the execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Ogoni tribe of southern Nigeria.

The settlement, reached on the eve of the trial in a federal court in New York, was one of the largest payouts agreed by a ­multinational corporation charged with human rights violations.

The scale of the payment was being seen by experts in human rights law as a step towards international businesses being made accountable for their environmental and social actions.

Jennie Green, a lawyer with the Centre for Constitutional Rights who initiated the lawsuit in 1996, said: “This was one of the first cases to charge a multinational corporation with human rights violations, and this settlement confirms that multinational corporations can no longer act with the impunity they once enjoyed.”

The deal follows three weeks of ­intensive negotiation between the 10 plaintiffs, mainly drawn from relatives of the executed Ogoni nine, and Shell. The oil giant, and its Nigerian subsidiary Shell Petroleum Development Company, continue to dismiss all the claims made against them, saying they played no part in the violence that swept southern Nigeria in the 1990s.

The company said it was making the payment in recognition of the tragic turn of events in Ogoni land. “While we were prepared to go to court to clear our name, we believe the right way forward is to focus on the future for Ogoni people,” Malcolm Brinded, a Shell director, said.

The settlement marks the end of a 14-year personal journey for Ken Wiwa Jr, son of the executed leader.

Among the other plaintiffs was Karalolo Kogbara, who lost an arm after she was shot by Nigerian troops when she protested against the bulldozing of her village in 1993 to make way for a Shell pipeline.

Out of the $15.5m settlement, $5m will be used to set up a trust called Kiisi – meaning “progress” in the Ogoni Gokana language – to support educational and other initiatives in the Niger delta.

In the lawsuit, the families of the Ogoni nine alleged Shell conspired with the military government to capture and hang the men. Shell was also accused of a series of other alleged human rights violations, including working with the army to bring about killings and torture of Ogoni ­protesters.

The company was alleged to have provided the Nigerian army with vehicles, patrol boats and ammunition, and to have helped plan raids and terror campaigns against villages.

Supporters of the legal action said the fact that Shell had walked away from the trial suggested the company had been anxious about the evidence that would have been presented had it gone ahead. Stephen Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International, said Shell “knew the case was overwhelming against them, so they bought their way out of a trial”.

Among the documents lodged with the New York court was a 1994 letter from Shell in which it agreed to pay a unit of the Nigerian army for services rendered. The unit had retrieved one of the company’s fire trucks from the village of Korokoro – an action that according to reports at the time left one Ogoni man dead and two wounded. Shell wrote it was making the payment “as a show of gratitude and motivation for a sustained favourable disposition in future assignments”.

Shell’s involvement in the oil-rich Niger Delta extends back to 1958. It remains the largest oil business in Nigeria, owning some 90 oil fields across the country. The Ogoni people began non-violent agitation against Shell in the early 1990s under the leadership of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his organisation Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. Mosop complained that the oil giant was responsible for devastating the ecosystem of the delta.

Human rights experts believe the settlement will have a substantial impact on other multi-national corporations. Anthony DiCaprio, a lead lawyer representing the Ogoni side, predicted it would “encourage companies to seriously consider the social and environmental impact their operations may have on a community or face the possibility of a suit”.Shell reiterated its view that the executions of the Ogoni nine had been “tragic events”. It said that it had “attempted to persuade the government of the day to grant clemency”.

Important Sweet Crude update

This just in from Leslye Wood, producer of the documentary “Sweet Crude.” Leslye kept Seattle updated via Hot Splice when, in April 2008, Seattle-based filmmaker Sandy Cioffi and crew members Sean Porter, Tammi Sims and Cliff Worsham were picked up by the Nigerian military. and held in military prison for a week.

Leslye says:

The news from the Delta continues to be dire. It’s reported that the attacks have now spread to other states. The military is still denying free access in and out of the region, so it’s hard to get reliable casualty and refugee numbers. We do know that Oporoza, the village where much of Sweet Crude was filmed, was at least partially burned by the military.

And from her press release:

The film’s timeliness increased exponentially when the Nigerian military began bombing and burning civilian villages May 15 in an offensive they say is targeting militants. Much of Sweet Crude was filmed in one of these villages, Oporoza, where many buildings and homes were razed by the military. Senators Russ Feingold and John Kerry issued statements about the crisis on May 22. A letter signed by 15 concerned organizations, including Sweet Crude, was sent to the International Criminal Court May 19.

The SIFF screenings coincide with a landmark court case begun this week in New York – a suit against Shell Oil for complicity in the 1998 execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other environmental activists in the Niger Delta.

“We made Sweet Crude to show the complexity of this place and the humanity of people typically represented to the world in highly sensationalized media coverage,” says Cioffi. “The situation is becoming more critical every day. This is a movie about issues unfolding as we speak; we hope it will communicate the urgency and inspire action. There’s an opportunity in this moment for our government and the international community to pay attention and press for political solutions that could avert war.”

On her fourth and last trip in April 2008, Cioffi, three members of her film crew and their Nigerian colleague who is featured in the film were detained by the Nigerian government in an attempt to suppress the story and held in military prison for a week. Their footage was confiscated. An international effort, including a letter signed by 14 U.S. lawmakers spearheaded by Senator Maria Cantwell, was mounted to secure their release.

Despite this setback, Cioffi went on to finish the film, which premiered in early April 2009 at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, NC to a standing ovation. A review from the New Raleigh includes this: “One film to really seek out is Sweet Crude, which covers the struggle by indigenous peoples in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region… Cioffi skillfully portrays a people with their backs against the wall… Cioffi’s film succeeds, not only because she humanizes the members of these oft-maligned resistance groups, but because she makes their approach seem like the only logical and available option. Sweet Crude was, hands down, the most fresh and interesting documentary I saw at Full Frame…”

Sweet Crude tells the largely unknown story behind today’s increasingly urgent headlines from a volatile region where people are desperate and unrest is growing. Fifty years of crude oil extraction has enriched the oil companies and Nigerian government, but left the residents impoverished in a decimated environment. After decades of nonviolent protest and unfulfilled promises, a growing militancy is kidnapping oil workers and sabotaging pipelines in an effort to be heard. Set against a stunning backdrop of Niger Delta footage, the film gives voice to the region’s complicated mix of stakeholders and invites the audience to learn the deeper story.

Currently more than 10 percent of U.S. oil comes from the Niger Delta, expected to grow to 25 percent by 2015. Ongoing destabilization of the region has cut its total oil exports by a quarter.

To learn more about Sweet Crude, visit http://www.sweetcrudemovie.com
To learn more about the current military attacks, visit http://www.sweetcrudemovie.com/attacks

The film plays SIFF June 3, 7:00pm at the Egyptian Theater; June 7, 1:30 pm at the Kirkland Performance Center; and June 13, 1:30 pm at the Egyptian. Director Sandy Cioffi will be there for a Q&A, as will many of the Seattle based production crew.

More information about the situation in the Niger Delta can be found here: http://www.sweetcrudemovie.com/attacks

Sandy Cioffi and Sweet Crude in the NY Times

Did you catch this article in the Sunday Times about Seattle-based director Sandy Cioffi?

January 18, 2009
Film
Two Shots at One Target: Oil Polluters
By JOHN ANDERSON

TWO movies. Same subject. Almost identical titles. Made independently by two filmmakers who have known each other since 1982. Yet two very different films (and filmmakers).

How could that be?

“Crude,” by Joe Berlinger (“Brother’s Keeper”), and “Sweet Crude,” by Sandy Cioffi, are new documentaries about the despoiling of the third world by multinational oil companies (Ecuador in “Crude,” Nigeria in “Sweet Crude”). Focusing on similar subjects isn’t that odd in the nonfiction film world; there have been two recent movies about jumping rope and three just last year about beauty contests in prisons. But the Berlinger-Cioffi coincidences border on the uncanny. Both directors graduated from Colgate University in the early 1980s, took the first film course offered at the college and left their decidedly non-cinema-centric school to pursue careers in documentaries.

But Mr. Berlinger and Ms. Cioffi represent two sides of the documentary coin. For some practitioners the medium is cinema based in reality. For others it is a tool to promote social and political change. Like many first-rate nonfiction filmmakers, Errol Morris being a prime example, Mr. Berlinger, 47, has used commercial work to bankroll his artistic agenda. For Ms. Cioffi, 46, a tenured professor of film and video at Seattle Central Community College, film has been more about politics than about making a living (although she’d like that to change). Her experience in Nigeria became a personal journey reflected on film.

Originally intending to make a movie about the building of a library in the Niger Delta, she became involved in the political struggle there, making efforts to get the message of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta into the global conversation. In the process, she was arrested by the Nigerian military.

“I’ve always been a believer in the idea that if you simply put a light on in a corner it changes the situation,” said Ms. Cioffi, who in 1998 was part of team recording the aftermath of the Good Friday peace accord and became firmly convinced that the presence of cameras affected the course of Northern Irish history.

Mr. Berlinger, in contrast, has made a film aiming at journalistic objectivity, a return to the vérité world he and Bruce Sinofsky (his sometime artistic partner and co-director) explored in the 1992 documentary “Brother’s Keeper,” about a family of hermit brothers, the death of one and the murder trial of another.

While chronicling three years in what is now a 13-year battle against Texaco (now ChevronTexaco), filed by 30,000 indigenous Ecuadoreans whose way of life has been decimated by water pollution, Mr. Berlinger said he was moved by the poverty and degradation he saw but determined that “Crude” not be agitprop, or even activist. The film includes interviews and arguments from the accused polluters. “Some people will come away thinking the oil companies are right,” he said.

“As a storyteller, I want to present arguments and then let people dig a little deeper. But if it felt like plaintiffs’ propaganda, it would be ghettoized. I’d be preaching to the converted and not to a wider, more critical audience.”

Mr. Berlinger’s career trajectory, which began in advertising and was followed by a tenure with the documentary-making Maysles brothers, has included the 2004 rock documentary “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster,” made with Mr. Sinofsky. For the last eight years he has had a deal with Radical Media, a commercial-making concern in Manhattan and his base of operations for producing the Sundance Channel series “Iconoclasts” and the Emmy-winning History Channel series “10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America.”

“I don’t want to overstate the case, but for a documentarian I’m doing O.K.,” he said. But since “Metallica,” “I was drifting from my roots, and this was a story I wanted to tell — not caring about money, not caring about cost, not caring about the reception. Just wanting to make a film. That’s what this Ecuador project was.”

Ms. Cioffi, on the other hand, has investors (“investors is a loose word; they’re really donors”) and raised $10,000 through the sale of silk-screen versions of the text messages she and her crew managed to send while under arrest in Nigeria. Her film is not just low-budget, she said; “it’s low low-budget.”

What Mr. Berlinger and Ms. Cioffi do share is a desire for a slot at the Sundance Film Festival, now under way. His “Crude” got in; her “Sweet Crude” did not. With the limited number of slots at this Park City, Utah, festival, there was little likelihood that two films on such a similar topic would accepted, however dissimilar their styles. It’s a yearly problem for the festival, which each year receives about 1,000 documentary submissions from the United States and about 700 from overseas, according to Caroline Libresco, a Sundance senior programmer.

Ms. Cioffi and Mr. Berlinger understand the value of this festival. “One of the reasons Sundance could have been incredible is that when you get in, all of a sudden there’s coverage for your topic,” Ms. Cioffi said. “My concern is that the Niger Delta is such a huge untold story that if I get out with the film fast enough, I can help define the conversation.”

But Mr. Berlinger, who with “Crude” is having his fourth film at Sundance, knows a place in the festival can help only so much. “Are people going to really want to see a Spanish-language subtitled documentary about people dying of cancer because of the destruction of the Amazon?” he asked facetiously. “I’m not sure.” Which is why he’s fully prepared to undertake the same self-distribution tactics he and Mr. Sinofsky employed with “Brother’s Keeper,” and that Ms. Cioffi uses with all her documentaries: a grass-roots marketing strategy that will, again, get Mr. Berlinger back to his roots.

Sweet Crude filmmakers supporting Andrew Berends

I have just spoken with Sandi Cioffi, director of Sweet Curde, who has been working for the release of Andrew Berends, the New York filmmaker detained in Nigeria.  They have been in contact with Aaron Soffin, Andrew’s colleague who is coordinating the support for him.   The press release from Aaron’s production company follows:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT
Aaron Soffin, Storyteller Productions
Phone: 917.887.4063 / 212.712.2781
Email: soffin@gmail.com
American documentary filmmaker detained in Port Harcourt, Nigeria
NEW YORK, September 2, 2008 – Andrew Berends, an established, award-winning
American filmmaker and journalist from New York, was detained Sunday August 31st by
the Nigerian military along with his translator, Samuel George, and Joe Bussio, the
manager of a local bar. Andrew entered Nigeria legally in April 2008 to complete a
documentary film.
Andrew was held in custody without food, sleep, or representation, and with limited
water for 36 hours. He was questioned by the army, the police, and the State Security
Services in Port Harcourt. He was then temporarily released, with an order to the SSS
office at 9AM Tuesday morning. The State Security Services has confiscated his
passport and personal property. Andrew’s translator, Samuel George, remained in
custody over night.
The US State Department is aware of the situation, and an attorney has been retained
on Andrewʼs behalf. We, Andrew’s friends, family, and colleagues, are deeply
concerned that he has been held without cause and are calling for his safe treatment
and immediate release.

Discussion on journalists and the Niger Delta

Now that the Seattle film crew is safely back from the Niger Delta, they have put together a forum on what happened, and the larger issues of journalists in danger.    On Monday at Kane Hall, they’ll tackle questions about the need for journalists to be in areas of conflict, and how the can be protected.  Do make an effort to go.

Welcome Home Party for Sweet Crude crew

With the crew of Sweet Crude home safe from their detainment in Nigeria, it is most certainly time to celebrate. Join the filmmakers at Hooverville this Sunday.

Here are the details:

Sunday, April 27th, 7ish pm*
Hooverville
1721 1st Ave S
(between Holgate St & Massachusetts St)
Seattle, WA 98134
(206) 264-2428
http://www.hoovervillebar.com

*Please note there is a Mariners game scheduled for 1pm that day; however, traffic should be cleared up by the evening.

Letter from detained filmmaker Sean Porter

Sean Porter and the rest of the Sweet Crude crew are safe and back on the ground in Seattle.  Here’s a letter Sean sent out this afternoon, summarizing his experience being detained in Nigeria.

I’d usually apologize for sending any sort of mass email, but I can’t fathom how many people where here for me, Laurie and my family over the last week.

I don’t really know how to begin; or end, for that matter.  I do know I am grateful beyond words for the response, care, hard work and relentlessness of you all.  I do know, in all honesty, it was the intense and immediate reaction from everyone involved here in the states, all within a matter of hours, which fully determined the fate of me and the rest of the crew.  Had we not had Senators, the US Ambassador and everyone else flooding the State Department and the Nigerian government I would absolutely still be held there right now.

I know Laurie has been in touch with everyone, and kept everyone in the loop, so I’ll try to keep this brief.  I came home to almost 100 square feet of photos, emails and notes from hundreds of people who had contacted her and I can’t remember another time feeling so overwhelmed with gratitude.  To think that in some of the darkest hours, days into my detainment in a Nigerian secret service jail, when asked by the US consular to fill in a list of 3 people they should contact on my behalf, I struggled to find 3 names.  Something terrible and despairing happens to a mind stripped of free will, even if just for just a few days, something I’ll never be able to fully understand.  I can’t possibly imagine how it destroys the minds of those in far worse situations all over the world, every day.  It is an experience I hope to keep close to me.

Needless to say I am doing OK, healthy, a little exhausted.  The whole experience is far more anti-climatic than the press and television wish it was.  We we’re very much frogs in a pot of warming water – no guns firing or anything – everything happened painfully slow and gradual and before we knew it we were half way across the country from where we started, stripped of all our possessions and locked away.  In the end the intensity was all far more psychological than physical, and I’m sure it will take a while to fully decompress.

I am sorry I haven’t even conceptualized getting back to the phone calls and emails, but if I miss one I just wanted to make sure you all know I am so honored to have you all so close.  The sense of community I came home to was incredible and inspiring and has undoubtedly changed me.

Thank you all, and I look forward to seeing many of you again very soon.  And please forward this to anyone you might have contacted on my or Laurie’s behalf–

gratefully,
Sean

Released, and now heading home

After a 7-hour “processing” by the Nigerian government, the SWEET CRUDE documentary team is on it’s way home today.  As part of the arrangement they had to leave their footage in Nigeria, but production will go on using footage from previous trips to the area.

Film Crew Released!

THIS JUST IN!!!

NIGERIAN AUTHORITIES
RELEASE AMERICAN FILM CREW
FROM CUSTODY

Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell’s office has just received word that the four Americans and one Nigerian citizen who have been held in custody since Saturday by Nigerian authorities have been released to American Embassy personnel in Abuja.

The U.S. Ambassador in Abuja, Nigeria told Cantwell’s office that the Seattle-based filmmakers were picked up by a van from the detention center and taken to a hotel where they will spend the next two nights before “final processing” by Nigerian authorities.

The film crew had been issued a visa to return to Nigeria to complete a documentary about the impact of oil production on the Niger Delta. They were taken into custody on April 12th at a military checkpoint before being transferred to Nigerian State Security.  Authorities claimed the film crew was violating laws by traveling in a restricted area. Attorneys for the Americans insisted that no laws were broken.

The families of director Sandi Cioffi, producer Tammi Simms, and photographers Sean Porter and Cliff Worsham are awaiting telephone calls from them to confirm their safe release.

CONTACT

Leslye Wood, Press Secretary, Sweet Crude Movie

Phone: 206.282.0880 / 206.915.4339

Email: media@sweetcrudemovie.com

Louise Rafkin

Phone: 510.928.3612

Email: louise@louiserafkin.com

Letter to president of Nigeria

Thanks to all who contacted their representatives.  Fourteen members of the US Congress have called for the release of the four filmmakers being detained in Nigeria. Here is the press release and link to a PDF of the letter, addressed to the president of Nigeria.

CONTACT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Leslye Wood, Press Secretary, Sweet Crude Movie

U.S. Lawmakers Call on Nigerian President to Release Detained Filmmakers

SEATTLE, April 15, 2008 – Fourteen members of the United States Congress today called on the President of Nigeria to release the four American filmmakers being held since April 12th.

U.S. lawmakers say they are “deeply concerned that these individuals have been held for so long without any apparent cause.” The members of Congress call for the immediate release of the group and urge President Yar’Adua to “ensure their full protection during their entire time in Nigeria.”

Signatories to the letter are U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell, Russ Feingold, John Kerry, Max Baucus, Patty Murray, Jon Tester, Mary Landrieu and Sherrod Brown; and U.S. Representatives Jim McDermott, Rick Larsen, Norm Dicks, Adam Smith, Brian Baird and Jay Inslee.

The four Americans, along with a Nigerian citizen, were taken into custody by the Nigerian military April 12th, while traveling by boat in the Niger Delta. The filmmakers had been issued a visa by the Nigerian government granting them permission to return to Nigeria to complete their documentary, Sweet Crude. The film crew has been actively documenting the impact of oil production on the Niger Delta since 2005 and was known to authorities.

Nigerian officials claim the group is being “detained for investigation” yet no charges have been filed at this time.

Director Sandy Cioffi, along with producer Tammi Sims and photojournalists Cliff Worsham and Sean Porter entered the country legally on April 5th. They were accompanied by Joel Bisina, a Nigerian being held in custody with them. Bisina is the founder of a Warri-based NGO, Niger Delta Professionals for Development.

No communication from the group has been received since Saturday April 12th, 8:30 am PDT. Family, friends and colleagues are making a plea for their safe and immediate release.

Attachment: Letter from United State Congress to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua

nigeria-letter-04-15-082