Leader. The criteria for choosing leaders among the Indians. Leader Who is the leader of the tribe of ancient people

Probably, the adventure novels of Fenimore Cooper and films about the conquest of the Wild West became the reason that in our minds the expression "tribal leader" is strongly associated with the Indians of the American continent. However, the concept is much broader. Let's figure out together what it means.

Who is the leader?

To answer this question, it is necessary to return to the distant past of human civilization, at a time that historians call the primitive communal system. It was then, or rather, during the period of its decomposition, that leaders first appeared who took over the leadership of the life of the tribe in peacetime or wartime. Unlike the elders of the clan, the leaders were elected, so their personal qualities and authority played a paramount role.

With the complication of the hierarchical structure, the duties and functions of such leaders expanded, and the position itself turned from an elective into a hereditary one. Thus, the process of formation of the first state formations antiquity, led by descendants former leaders, whose power by that time had already acquired an authoritarian and sacred character.

Almost all peoples in their development have passed this stage. Indeed, the Scandinavians, Germans, Slavs and other ancient tribes had leaders. Some of them entered the annals of history, for example, the leader of the Huns - the ruthless Attila.

When the Europeans discovered America, the social structure of the local tribes was at a stage that the peoples of the Old World had long since passed. Who is the leader of the Indians? This is, first of all, a brave man, wise and possessing qualities that lead the scale of values ​​of this tribe.

Modern leaders

It would be wrong to think that leaders existed only among the ancient peoples. Today tribal communities of natives of Africa or America are also headed by leaders. However, this word has modern world and other meanings.

Leaderism as a type of relations in the state and politics received a special development in the 20th century. It is typical for countries with a totalitarian or authoritarian form of government, regardless of their dominant ideology. It is enough to remember Hitler, Trotsky, Mussolini, Mao Zedong to understand who the leader is in the modern view.

Documentary film

"Forgotten Leaders"- this is the name of a cycle of documentaries shot by the Star Media group of companies. The tapes tell about the most significant figures in the party leadership of the Soviet Union in the period from 1917 to the death of Stalin I.V. In total, seven films shot in the documentary genre were released. dramas that feature biographies of:

• Lavrenty Beria.
• Felix Dzerzhinsky.
• Viktor Abakumov.
• Seeds of Budyonny.
• Kliment Voroshilov.
• Andrey Zhdanov.

The creators of the Forgotten Leaders project set themselves the goal not so much to convey to the audience the well-known facts from the biography of the heroes, but to tell what each of them did for the state, being in the abyss of historical upheavals. The audience thinks they did it well.

So, summing up the topic "who is the leader", we repeat that this term is not a tribute to the past. On the contrary, it is actively used in modern society.

TRIBE LEADER

The Iju leader died on the battlefield and his followers sank into gloom, but in 1970, when the Biafran War ended, the torch of protest against the actions of the oil companies in the Niger Delta passed to the leaders of the Ogoni tribe, which the whole world would soon know about.

The territory inhabited by the members of this tribe was very modest in size compared to the vast areas occupied by many other tribes in Nigeria, and amounted to a little over 400 square miles with a population of about 500 thousand people. Ogoniland is located in the southeast of the Niger Delta, east of Port Harcourt, the capital of the River State and the largest city in the region. Since Shell began operations in Ogoniland, the company has managed to produce 634 million barrels of oil here, with a total value of about $30 billion. This is a huge amount from any point of view, but the long suffering of the Ogoni people did not turn into a material reward for them. On the contrary, much of their previously fertile land was contaminated with crude oil, depriving the locals of their last source of livelihood. Health care and education were still in their infancy, and only a lucky few were able to access basic services such as running water and electricity.

Although under the leadership of ever-changing civilian and military governments (out of the first forty years of Nigerian independence from Britain, the military was in power for thirty of them), the state's share in the distribution of income received from oil production rose from an initial 1.5% to 13%, The Ogoni remained on a financial starvation ration and could not even dream of gaining access to public services or undertaking development projects in the region. In short, neither government was going to abide by the profit-sharing arrangements. In fairness, it should be said that Shell, in turn, recognized these agreements, but, alas, did nothing to ensure that they were observed by all contracting parties. It was much more profitable for the company to be friends with the current this moment by the government, as only it could protect her assets during the civil unrest.

By 1970, the Ogoni leaders were so alarmed by the rapidly deteriorating condition of the oil-polluted lands and the extreme poverty of their tribesmen, while local resources were making other people fabulously rich, that they wrote a joint letter to the military governor of the River State, which, in part, said :

Could Your Excellency give his paternal attention and sympathetic consideration to the complaints of your people, whose suffering is a direct result of the discovery and exploitation of oil and gas fields in the region of our residence during the past decades.

The long letter was a request for a fairer share of the proceeds from the sale of oil pumped from the land on which the tribe lives to finance the needs of the tribe. In addition, it proposed that Shell be obliged to take immediate action to clean up the land from pollution and, taking into account the future of the region's environment, to eliminate the causes of this pollution. It was a plaintive cry from the heart, to which the military governor of the River State did not bother to answer. However, the elders of the tribe at that time did not yet know what impression their letter had made on young man, who served as a member of the River State Education Commission. His name was Ken Saro-Wiwa.

The Ogoni, although they were a small people in a region inhabited by huge tribes, never lacked courage and courage. These natural qualities their nature had already caused a lot of trouble for the British when, in 1914, they had to send a military mission to bring the tribe under their control. The events of that year acquired special significance for the country: it was then that Nigeria, being a colony, nevertheless received the makings of a sovereign nation.

According to the testimonies of people from the Ogoni tribe, Ken Saro-Wiwa was short and not distinguished by a strong figure, but he had excellent oratory skills combined with great intelligence. In addition, he was energized by the love of a growing number of followers who saw in this man a fiery fighter against a helpless government mired in corruption and an all-powerful business that, in the pursuit of profit, continued to rape the land of their ancestors, increasing the scale of pollution with impunity.

From Shell's point of view, Saro-Wiwa was a troublemaker, a man driven by a lust for political prestige who was not shy about exploiting the problems of the Ogoni for his own personal gain. In fact, he was a civil servant, but, in addition, he was also a writer, journalist and political activist who managed to attract everyone's attention to the problems of their country; ultimately it tragic fate reflected in the headlines of the world press.

Saro-Wiwa never doubted that the problems of his people began in 1914, when Nigeria fell into the close embrace of Britain. In his political biography"A Month and a Day: A Prisoner's Diary" (A Month and a Day: A Detention Diary) he formulated an indictment of the British administrative measures applied against the Ogoni tribe: "We were crushed by foreign administrative structures and driven into the internal colonialism of Nigeria."

Despite the fact that this comment looks like an ordinary African nationalist statement, it contains a completely fair condemnation of the practice of European colonists to divide and unite tribes for their administrative purposes. However, ignoring the fact that the troubles of the Ogoni began long before the arrival of the British sins against the truth. Even before the avalanche of imperialism washed over the shores West Africa, the outlawing of slavery led to clashes between the local population in the struggle for land suitable for cultivation. It was the scarcity of fertile land that forced the tribe to undertake a risky migration deep into the forests of the Delta. The main method of clearing the land relied on the old African practice of "burning"; as a result of its application, a thin layer of earth on which something could still be grown became unstable, and during the rainy season it was often simply washed away, revealing sandy soil, not suitable for growing crops.

This inefficient technology was used here in the 20th century, until the arrival in the country in the early 1950s. Shell employees. They greatly accelerated the degradation of local lands by building terminals, pumping stations, pipelines and factories that too often emitted poisonous substances, finally polluting local lands and streams. On top of the environmental woes, economic distress followed, as the local tribes were effectively excluded from participation in the division of the wealth extracted from their land.

The Ogoni, well aware that they were the victims of an ugly alliance between a corrupt government in distant Lagos and a multinational company shamelessly and unabashedly plundering their subsoil, were looking for a leader who could make sure that the protesting voice of their tribe was finally heard. . In Ken Saro-Wiwa, they saw just such a person, a leader who is ready to start a fight.

A campaign initiated by Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1990 on behalf of a hitherto unknown national minority, and brought by this small, weak-looking man (he was a little over 5 feet tall, provided that he was shod in boots) to the international level, reminiscent of the fight between David and Goliath.

However, he was able to attract such serious attention of the international community that within a few weeks after he founded the Movement for the Survuval of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), the presidents, prime ministers ministers, crowned heads of Europe and a myriad of organizations dedicated to the protection of the global environment.

But, despite the fact that the problems of fires were hotly discussed all over the world, nothing changed in Nigeria, and the representatives of the tribe still remained deprived of the distribution of profits brought by the oil pumped out and polluting their lands. Saro-Wiwa persevered in his struggle, and in 1990, the same year that MOSOP was founded, his book On the Dark Ground (On a Darklingplain) was published in the Nigerian capital, Lagos.

With this book, Saro-Wiwa significantly expanded the boundaries of their struggle for the rights of the Ogoni against the government, which refuses to implement agreements providing for the tribe to receive at least some of the income from the export of oil produced on their land, and against Shell, which continues to cause irreparable damage to the lands on which they live his people. He challenged the Nigerian establishment, questioning the legitimacy of the principles of the creation of the country, its governance and raising the issue of connivance national leaders environmental damage caused to Nigeria by multinational companies.

This was a very effective challenge to the very essence of the processes of globalization, which resonated throughout the world. Addressing the complexities that accompanied the formation of the Nigerian state, which, in his opinion, determined the further mismanagement national issues and massive corruption that engulfed all levels of government (“Corruption in Nigeria is so widespread because it is one of the easiest things to do here”), Saro-Wiwa told his audience:

The existence of a country in the form of a federation, in which some ethnic groups are separated by administrative boundaries, while others are artificially united into a single administrative education, creates the prerequisites for future internal conflicts and wars.

But now, Saro Wiwa was especially outraged by the deprivation of the people of the fires of legal property rights and the destructive impact on their lands of all oil companies, and Shell in particular:

The unfair system of income distribution, the invariably discriminatory policies of the changing federal authorities and the insensitivity of the Nigerian elite to the needs of citizens have turned the Niger Delta and its environs into an ecological disaster zone and hardened its inhabitants ...

If Ken Saro-Wiwa's book alarmed the military and infuriated the Shell leadership, then after writing just one article, he had very serious enemies on the very high level authorities. This article written by him for a Nigerian newspaper Sunday Times in June 1990, accused the military governors of two states of the country of corruption, and as a result of pressure exerted on the owners of the newspaper, it was decided not to publish it. This decision angered Saro-Wiwa, but there was nothing he could do about it. In his latest article in Sunday Times, which he called "Premonitions of War in the Delta," he lashed out at his old enemy, the Shell Company, in a blunt manner, pouring out all his anger on her. The article appeared in the first edition, but at the official request was removed from the final version of the issue.

“The Ogoni people,” he wrote, “come face to face with the Shell company, which is pursuing a ruthless racist policy, developing and encouraging Nigerian ethnocentrism through its actions.” He then made an appeal to the military leaders of the country:

The amount of the fee paid to landowners for the right to develop oil on their territory, and income distribution schemes should be reviewed. Citizens living in the oil fields should be represented on the boards of directors of oil companies that explore on their lands, and national associations should own some share of the shares of oil companies operating on their territory. Finally, the inhabitants of the Niger Delta must be allowed to participate in the profitable sale of crude oil. Only in this way Can avoid the catastrophe that is brewing here.

Such a loud call ended with a plaintive cry: “Does anyone hear me?”

This was the last article that Saro-Wiwa was allowed to publish by outraged military officials and oil company executives, but further developments proved that people listen not only to their official leaders. Conservative ogoni leaders were ready to publicly announce that some action should be taken to calm the growing public unrest. This became a conspicuous support for the movement, to which Saro-Wiwa was now fully committed.

On August 26, 1990, local leaders met for a council in the village of Bori, the capital of Ogoniland. After a long discussion, with Ken Saro-Wiwa as the keynote speaker, the "Ogoni Bill of Rights" was proclaimed, further infuriating the country's military leaders in Lagos and alarming Shell executives in The Hague and London. The document adopted by the council could not leave these people indifferent: it contained such demands as the establishment of executive autonomy for Ogoniland, the implementation of direct political power, the automatic right to manage all natural resources and the immediate adoption of measures aimed at protecting human health and preventing further environmental degradation of the land.

Shell's worst fears soon came true. On October 30, the first public demonstration against the company took place in Delta. Shell, which was informed in advance of the intentions of the protesters, asked the River State police authorities to provide protection for the company's employees and equipment owned by Shell. Such an appeal could not be left without an immediate response, and a mobile police detachment was sent against the demonstrators. special purpose, bearing the menacing title "Kill and Go". As a result, the detachment killed 80 people and destroyed many houses. It was a punitive operation that attracted shocked worldwide attention, and the police actions were strongly condemned by London-based Amnesty International.

In the face of such unwanted international scrutiny, the country's governing military council set up a commission to investigate these events, and it quickly concluded that the River State Police Special Squad had shown "disregard for the lives and property of citizens." The whole incident not only shocked Saro Wiwa, but also led him to the conclusion that the reaction of organizations such as Amnesty International carries considerable weight, and these public institutions can play an important role in drawing international attention to the problems of the Ogoni tribe. This was very relevant, given that in his homeland, Saro-Wiwa was completely deprived of the opportunity to publish his articles in the media. mass media, pressure official authorities denied him access to the radio stations of the country. As a result, the Nigerian human rights activist has had to resort to external help to provide information support for his campaign, as well as to publish speeches against the military elite, rich on the country's oil revenues, and the international commercial giant, Shell. He believed that Shell was not only involved in the corruption that plagued the Nigerian army, but also became one of its main culprits.

Saro-Wiwa wrote an addendum to the Ogoni Bill of Rights: "Without the intervention of the international community, the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the ethnic majority will continue their harmful policies until the representatives of the Ogoni tribe are completely destroyed."

Developing activity outside the country in the interests of his struggle, he established formal relations with environmental organization Greenpeace held talks with the Amnesty International secretariat in London, met in Geneva with representatives of the public organization UNPO, which protects the rights of national minorities. But, without a doubt, the most significant achievement of Saro-Wiwa should be considered to attract the attention of the Western press, radio and television. In the fall of 1992, as a result of well-organized publicity, a documentary was released on television, which clearly emphasized that the plight of the Ogoni was the result of the devastating activities of the oil companies (especially Shell), and indicated that the discussion of the current situation should be included in the international agenda .

The year 1992 was of particular importance for the ongoing protest campaign, in which in December of this year Saro-Wiwa sent a written ultimatum to the oil companies. It contained a requirement no later than 30 days to pay reparations for the environmental damage caused to Ogoniland, which was tentatively estimated at $4 billion. In addition, the companies had to pay an additional $6 billion in taxes and royalties for oil produced in the region. While this appeal received widespread publicity in Nigeria and beyond, it was ignored by both the oil companies and the country's military leaders.

But Saro-Wiwa's initiatives and his undaunted bravery aroused increasing sympathy among the conservative Ogoni leaders, even those who had previously treated his anti-government speeches with alarm and distrust.

One of these new supporters was an influential member of the Ogoni power elite, Dr. Garrick Letton. At a public meeting devoted to the problems of fire, which attracted the attention of hundreds of thousands of people, he delivered an accusatory speech. Addressing a meeting in January 1993, Letton said:

We have woken up to find our country devastated by agents of death who call themselves the oil companies. Our air and lands are completely polluted, our water is poisoned, and flora and fauna are virtually exterminated. We ask for the restoration of our nature and for the provision of basic necessities of life such as water, electricity, education. But above all, we ask that our right to self-determination be respected so that we can gain control over our natural resources and the state of the environment.

After a symbolic takeover of one of Shell's manufacturing sites by young supporters of Saro-Wiwa, he took the opportunity to declare that company persona non grata throughout the territory occupied by the Ogoni tribe. This outrageous declaration and takeover of the company's property provoked a backlash from senior Ogoni leaders, especially those whose conservative tendencies made them cautious. Many of them believed that the growing support that Saro-Wiwa's appeals received could lead to serious trouble.

Signs of contradictions within the movement began to appear more and more clearly. Indeed, within days of signing the Ogoni Bill of Rights, the six signatories sent a message of their total loyalty to the military governor of the River State and, more remarkably, to the representatives of Shell. To the dismay of Saro-Wiwa and his followers, these leaders gave assurances to both the governor and Shell that any protest demonstrations would not be repeated.

But this could no longer stop the further politicization of the problem. Journalists and television crews continued to arrive in the Delta, where Saro-Wiwa and his ever-growing supporters showed them vivid examples of oil pollution. Environmentalists who visited the region surveyed the local oil fields. In their reports, they confirmed the facts of extensive pollution of the territory caused by the actions of the oil companies, and the virtual complete destruction of most of the traditional livelihoods of the Ogoni: Agriculture and fishing. In addition, like their fellow sufferers living in the town of Port Arthur in faraway Texas, local residents complained to guests that the air they breathed was poisoned as a result of round-the-clock burning of toxic raw materials. They also pointed to examples of how oil leaking from oil pipelines in many cases flowed into local streams and rivers, killing everything living there.

Such serious international attention has caused alarm both among the highest ranks of the country's military government, and in the long and tangled corridors of Shell's power. The company now understood only too well that the situation was rapidly deteriorating, and it would have to be somehow responded to ... As a result, it offered its services to the ruling military junta in the country in organizing secret surveillance of Ken Saro-Wiwa, his main followers and the MOSOP organization. The military leaders in Lagos could not refuse such an offer, and, as the Shell leadership expected, they accepted it.

But then something happened that the leaders of the fires were so afraid of. On April 30, 1993, while working on the ground to calculate the route of a new pipeline that Shell ruthlessly planned to lay through the gardens of the villagers of Biara, the company's workers were confronted by a violent crowd of demonstrators.

The company immediately appealed to the military with a request to restore public order. As a result of the subsequent confrontation, which lasted for three days, the locals were pacified. One person was shot dead by security forces and eleven others were seriously injured. This incident again exacerbated the issue of the presence of oil companies in the Niger Delta, and the leaders of the Ogoni again rushed to demonstrate their loyalty to the government and Shell leadership, again promising that such demonstrations would not be repeated in the future, and asked that appropriate measures be taken to pacify MOSOP and its supporters.

This request fit well with Shell's secret operation to monitor Ken Saro-Wiwa and his movements, the results of which were passed on to the country's military leaders. Their actions were now backed by the official ogoni leadership, who stated that "the lawless actions of some MOSOP-related elements are met with general anger and absolute disapproval." According to the newspaper Nigerian Tide, Ogoni chiefs, in their written appeal, gave the authorities assurances that they would support "any government action aimed at protecting the life and property of innocent civilians."

The incident in Biar revealed the existence of sharp contradictions between the traditional "fathers of the people" and the radicals, many of whom were very young and therefore regarded by influential circles as hotheads capable of unleashing violence. Besides, new life the leaders also received suspicions about the intelligentsia in the person of Saro-Wiwa.

All these fears received practical confirmation when, following their appeal to the military leaders of the country with a request to reason with MOSOP, their own houses were attacked by raging youth. As a result, many chiefs representing the older generation of the tribe, fearing for their lives, fled to the safer Port Harcourt.

Further consequences of the incident in the village of Biara, which was admittedly the starting point of the tragedy, brought Ken Saro-Wiwa to the scaffold.

In his absence (he went to Europe, where he tried to secure further support for his movement), the MOSOP executive board began negotiations with the government and Shell to resolve the issue of financial compensation for the family of the killed villager, the injured and all those whose homes were damaged during the incident. damage has been caused. Shell has pledged to pay a lump sum of 1 million naira (approximately £4,000) to the family of the slain and wounded, and will consider making compensation payments to residents whose land the company's pipeline will pass through. This proposal, however, would only take effect if the villagers approved the construction of the pipeline.

Upon learning of the negotiations, Saro-Wiwa sent home an urgent message stating that the agreement should not be signed until an expert opinion was received on the impact it would have on environment pipeline construction. While his message was in transit, the talks ended and the MOSOP participants returned from Port Harcourt to Biara. The unity of MOSOP has been dealt another blow. The announcement of the agreement was met with ardent hostility by the people of Biara, the details of which raised numerous objections, indicating that the amount of 1 million naira was a completely inadequate payment for the death, injury and destruction that the locals suffered. But the MOSOP negotiating group was not ready to return to the negotiating table with new demands: they believed, and not without reason, that the government and Shell would see this as a sign of weakness and further evidence of a lack of unity within the opposition.

The fears were not in vain, and the government, immediately taking advantage of the opportunity to develop its advantage, as well as the information that Shell agents provided him with the results of their surveillance of Saro Wiwa, increased personal pressure on this leader of the GCA, constantly detaining him at the Lagos airport, from where he made his flights abroad. One such incident occurred during his flight to Vienna, where he was going to take part in a conference on human rights under the auspices of the United Nations. In this case, his passport was simply taken away.

This happened in June 1993, on the eve of the presidential elections, through which the military leaders of the country wanted to legally keep power in their hands and improve their reputation in the eyes of the international community. Preventing Saro-Wiwa from participating in a conference organized by the UN was considered not the best move, so he was still allowed to leave the country. However, the very fact of the detention was a clear hint of what was to come in the near future, and new evidence, if they were still needed, that the government and, of course, Shell, intended to clip Saro Wiva's wings.

As a result, the presidential elections led not only to his arrest, but also to a complete disengagement within the MOSOP. The Executive Committee decided long before the elections to boycott them; such a resolution was proposed by Saro-Wiwa but met with fierce opposition within the movement. However, the resolution was adopted by a majority vote, and the elections held in the country on June 12 were ignored in the territory of Ogoniland. But this protest came at a cost to MOSOP and its founder...

Aggressive-minded youth again went to radical measures, which was so feared by many conservative members and leaders of the movement. Roadblocks were set up on the way to the polling stations, where citizens wishing to participate in the elections were detained and subjected to threats of physical violence. Once again, the conservative Ogoni leaders, who tried to encourage the population to participate in the elections, faced threats from more radical members of the movement, especially its youth wing. The actions of the conservatives, according to Saro-Wiwa and his supporters, were dictated by the desire to "bow before the organizers of the elections, which should be considered as a provocation and a direct challenge to the existence of MOSOP."

All this contributed to the development of instability in the situation, which, in turn, led to a further escalation of violence and the spread of unrest among local residents. At the same time, the military leaders of the country were very determined and took drastic measures, among which was the decision to arrest Ken Saro-Wiwa ten days after the polls closed. It caused public protests throughout Ogoniland and split the MOSOP into two opposing factions.

The rapidly deteriorating situation posed a very definite threat to public order and became the subject of heated debate between the divided opponents and supporters of Saro-Wiwa, the latter of whom claimed that those who supported participation in the elections were Shell mercenaries. As a result, the country's military leaders sent security forces to Bori, where the MOSOP founder's home and support center was located.

The world of Ken Saro-Wiwa began to crumble. The movement to which he devoted so much time and energy was weakening with the departure of every senior member of MOSOP. Some of them argued that Saro-Wiwa should be held personally responsible for the violent actions carried out on behalf of the organization, and especially for the physical intimidation used by its youth wing. All this signaled a power struggle within MOSOP, but the worst was yet to come...

Just two months after Saro-Wiwa's arrest, his fears that the massive looting natural resources Fireland, accompanied by the destructive actions of Shell, causing so much grief to the locals, will sooner or later lead to violence in the Niger Delta, have come true. It was these fears that he so eloquently expressed in Lagos at a reception dedicated to the release of his book On the Gloomy Ground.

Even now, 11 years later, it is still unknown who were the people who carried out the barbaric attack on the Ogoni settlement. However, there are numerous testimonies claiming that they arrived in Ogoniland along the Andoni River in landing boats very similar to those used by the security forces during their attack on Bori - native village Saro-Wiwa - just two months earlier. This time, the attackers targeted the coastal village of Kaa, where they brought death and destruction.

This was not the first time the Ogoni people had been attacked by unknown armed gangs. A similar attack happened just a month earlier, in July, when about 100 civilians were killed. The fact that in both incidents the attackers were armed with modern weapons, including mortars and hand grenades, suggests that these men were members of the country's security forces. The military government attributed both attacks to tribal conflict, which was vehemently denied, both by the directly abused Ogoni people and by other tribes living in the region.

Throughout 1994, the government continued to blame the conflict on the Ogoni and used the situation to justify police and military incursions into tribal territory. All this indicated that at the highest level of power, and not only the military, a political decision had been made to ignite inter-tribal conflict, which would justify the use of force to restore law and order in the region, the responsibility for which could be attributed to the fires. A clear sign of this decision was that before the security forces began to conduct military operations in the territory of Ogoni, all military personnel - natives of this region were transferred to other duty stations. This was done so that during the sweeps in their homeland, these soldiers would not turn their weapons against their commanders. There is no doubt that Ken Saro-Wiwa and the members of MOSOP were the true targets of these operations to restore the rule of law.

It is almost certain that Shell, which was seriously hampered by the situation in Ogoniland, told the government that the company needed security guarantees to continue its work in the region. Shell's decision to cease operations in the rebellious region until law and order is fully restored serves as confirmation of this. The authorities were very concerned about this development, and on May 12, 1994, the military governor of the River State, Lieutenant Colonel Daud Musa Koma, received an official order that put everything in its place. This order specifically stated: "Shell's activities in the region are not possible without a ruthless military operation to provide the company with favorable working conditions." The same order demanded increased surveillance of the Ogoni leaders and illegal visits to the region by activists from foreign environmental and human rights organizations. Further instructions followed, from which it followed that appeals to oil companies for financial support for these operational activities would be supported. It was about financing, the fact of which Shell at first vigorously denied, but later was nevertheless forced to confirm.

Events developed rapidly, and soon a denouement followed for Ken Saro-Wiwa. Just a few days after receiving the order, Lieutenant-Colonel Como took very effective measures to create unbearable conditions for the activities of MOSOP. Saro-Wiwa, who had only recently been released from custody, went to a meeting in Ogoniland, but on the way his car was stopped by security forces. He was ordered to turn around and return home. Saro-Wiwa could only obey. However, he did not know that not far from where he was going, another meeting took place, in which those Ogoni leaders who did not share the views of the radical members of MOSOP and Saro-Wiwa himself took part. Those gathered included long-time Saro-Wiwa political opponent Edward Kobani and his brother Mohammed, Samuel Oraj, a former member of the River State Special Commission, his brother Theophilus Oraj, and another conservative activist, Albert Badi, who also constantly spoke out against radical action. But this meeting became known to members of the youth wing of MOSOP, who arrived at the venue of the meeting of their opponents and demanded that they come out to the angry crowd. It is no longer possible to establish the exact sequence of events, it is only known that four of the men died as a result of the attack.

The next day, May 22, 1994, Ken Saro-Wiwa was again arrested. At a press conference on the same day, according to the American Human Rights Organization, Lieutenant Colonel Como made it very clear who he blamed for these murders, and added that he had ordered the arrest of everyone who was involved in the attack: "The MOSOP leadership that was part of this game should be arrested."

The military leaders of the country have long been waiting for such a suitable occasion to carry out truly brutal reprisals. In the two months following the assassination of the four leaders, some 60 villages were attacked and approximately 50 people were killed. Human rights reports about these attacks abounded in gory details:

Squads rushed into towns and villages, firing at random as the villagers took to their heels to take cover in the nearby woods. Soldiers and mobile police stormed the buildings, breaking down doors and windows. The villagers who crossed their path, including children and the elderly, were severely beaten, they were required to pay certain "contributions" (bribes), some were immediately shot. Many women were raped. Before leaving the settlements, the soldiers collected all the money and food they could find.

It took eight long months before Saro-Wiwa was formally charged, during which time he was unable to see his lawyers. But the worst events were still ahead.

The country's military government decreed that the Ogoni leader should not be brought before a civil court, but before a special tribunal with the right to impose a death sentence that could not be appealed. Saro-Wiwa was finally formally charged on January 28, 1995, and only after that was he allowed to consult his lawyers. These meetings were often attended by Colonel Paul Okuntimo, Commander of Special Forces in the River State, a man prone to violence and intimidation.

Saro-Wiwa and other MOSOP leaders who were arrested claimed that they were beaten by guards during their detention and that they were kept chained up most of the time, not to mention poor food and denial of medical care. The behavior of the tribunal, composed of two judges and an army officer, was so inconsistent and so little like a fair trial that the defenders of Saro-Wiwa were horrified. The well-known human rights lawyer Gani Fohinmi, who led the lawyers' group, was so outraged by the way the trial had been conducted for six months that he resigned in protest. Indeed, some of the prosecution's witnesses later testified under oath that they had received rewards from officials for perjury against Saro-Wiwa. In fact, no reliable evidence that Saro-Wiwa is involved in the murders of his opponents.

In his court report titled "Ogoni: The Fight Continues" (Ogoni: The Struggle Continues) World Council of Churches immortalized for posterity last words Saro-Wivas addressed to the tribunal: “I have no doubts about the final success of the work I started, no matter what trials and misfortunes I and those who go with me will have to go through. Neither imprisonment nor death can prevent our final victory."

The manner in which this tribunal was organized and conducted caused condemnation throughout the world. In June 1995, an eminent jurist, a member of the Royal Guild of Lawyers, Michael Bernbaum, passed his verdict on this court. “I believe that the violations of fundamental human rights that I have identified are so serious that any verdict handed down by this tribunal must certainly be considered biased and unfair.”

When the tribunal announced its verdict on October 31, finding Ken Saro-Wiwa guilty and sentencing him to death by hanging, Bernbaum was no less categorical:

The judgment of the tribunal is not simply wrong, illogical or erroneous. He is dishonorable and disgraceful. Time after time, the Tribunal has accepted evidence that no experienced lawyer could take seriously. I believe that the tribunal first pronounced its verdict, and only then summed up the evidence base for it.

Others, however, were not so sure of this. The former president of MOSOP, Dr. Garrick Letton, told the tribunal:

Saro-Wiwa must be judged for his misdeeds. An ordinary liar, a person who uses the suffering of his people to achieve his own selfish desires and ambitions. A person who is ready to go to eliminate people objectionable to him. A man who should not get away with complicity in the murder of four prominent Ogoni leaders.

On November 8, Nigeria's military leaders confirmed through their Interim Council that the death sentence would be carried out. The international community has raised its voice in protest. The Nigerian government was threatened with sanctions, but it was all in vain. On the morning of November 10, 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa was put in chains and taken with eight other members of the movement to Port Harcourt Prison, where they were hanged.

The execution of the sentence caused a wave of protests around the world. In distant Auckland, New Zealand, on the very day of the execution, a meeting of the Commonwealth of Nations Conference was held. Nigeria's membership in this organization was immediately suspended. Governments in the Western world, where the most angry demonstrations have taken place, have imposed sanctions on Nigeria's military administration, including arms sales bans and restrictions on freedom of movement for the junta's key leaders. However, the sanction that could cause maximum damage to this regime - the oil embargo, of course, was not applied.

Throughout the Ogoni territory, the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his comrades raised a new wave of speeches. Once again, as Saro-Wiwa had foreseen, the Delta experienced a new round of violence bordering on civil war when another rebellion broke out here, this time among the Iju tribe, the most numerous in the region, spread with the speed and ferocity of forest fire.

Although Shell tried to use a method widely used among corporations operating in third world countries and occasionally facing national crises, a way to convince public opinion that the arrest, torture, and subsequent judicial murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa was an internal Nigerian matter, the company was visibly appalled and deeply troubled by the turmoil immediately following the execution. Shell's own estimate is that violence in the Delta has doubled over the next two years. The vulnerable position in which the company found itself played into the hands of its opponents. They became louder and louder and blamed Shell for polluting the country and ecological devastation, and for the fact that the locals do not receive any income from the sale of oil, which, they sincerely believed, was theirs by right.

The development of the situation clearly indicated that Shell must answer for its actions. However, her answer was that the financing of the regions of the country is the prerogative of the government, and that it alone is responsible for ensuring that the revenues from the extraction and sale of oil are directed to where oil production is directly carried out. With regard to oil leaks from pipelines, Shell said that they were built with all possible technical precautions to prevent such leaks, but even when they did occur, company workers immediately made every effort to eliminate the causes of the accident as quickly as possible. Thus, Shell representatives concluded that critics greatly exaggerated the scale of the problem. The company then went even further.

On November 14, 1995, just four days after Saro-Wiwa's execution, Shell Nigeria's manager Brian Anderson issued a worldwide press release stating, in part:

We completely reject the accusations against us of having a devastating impact on Ogoniland or the Niger Delta. In fact, the situation was too dramatic. The total area of ​​land that we have acquired for the construction of our oil facilities, pipelines and roads is only 0.3% of the area of ​​the entire Niger Delta. In Ogoniland, we purchased only 0.7% of the land area. These very small numbers reflect the scope of our activities in this region.

Clearly influenced by the belief that offense is the best defense, this tactic was re-used in 1998 when Shell issued an "Environmental Brief" in London, the main idea of ​​which was to put the blame for everything that happened in the Niger Delta on local residents. This document pointed to the "rapid population growth of the region, not supported by agricultural, forestry and industrial resources." Given the company's demands to be constantly prepared to deal with pipeline leaks, Shell accused local residents of being primarily responsible for the land pollution caused by raw materials leaking from the pipes.

Later that year, the company's London headquarters issued another summary entitled "Oil Spots", which developed the idea that pollution in the Niger Delta in general and in Ogoniland in particular was a direct result of local vandalism:

Sabotage remains a significant problem, despite the widespread understanding that no compensation is paid in such cases. Sabotage is usually motivated by a desire to demand large sums of compensation from the company and/or to create conditions for hiring temporary local workers to carry out clean-up activities.

This defensive tactic was based on some grain of truth: vandalism was indeed a problem for a long time. Yet the company's claims tried to ignore the fact that official warnings about social and political implications pollution caused by oil companies in the Delta were first published twelve years earlier.

Indeed, Greenpeace Amsterdam titled one of its bulletins published in 1994 as follows: "The environmental and social impact of Shell's actions on Nigeria." It pointed out that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which, in cooperation with Shell, was extracting oil in Ogoniland, had shown concern as early as 1983. NNPC inspectors wrote in their report at that time:

Since the emergence of the oil industry in Nigeria more than 25 years ago, the Nigerian government has shown no concern and has not taken any effective action, leaving it up to the oil operators to deal with the environmental problems that accompany the oil production process. We have witnessed the slow poisoning of the waters of this country, as well as the destruction of vegetation and arable land, by oil slicks resulting from these works.