CounterPunch
by Sofiri Peterside, Patterson Ogon, Michael Watts and Anna Zalik

11/10/05

There are a number of lessons to be learned from of the events of September 11th and the carnage in Iraq that followed. One is that oil politics is a violent, corrupt and authoritarian business. Another is that life in the oil states is often nasty, brutish and short. The life and memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian social activist, entrepreneur and acclaimed novelist is being celebrated this week, ten years to the day after he was hung by the Nigerian military tribunal on trumped up charges. Saro-Wiwa rose to international prominence precisely because he sought to expose, and to democratize, the sordid realities behind the quest for oil, money and power. But the tenth anniversary of his death also reminds us how little has changed in oil-rich Nigeria, indeed across the West African 'Gulf oil states'...

http://www.counterpunch.org/watts11102005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp