truthaction.org

[Scott N]

This is the most fucked up thing I have ever seen. Coming from me, that means a lot.

It's enough to put you off religion forever.

From Joe Rogan's blog:

http://blog.joerogan.net/archives/559

Contains the video in question, a 50 minute documentary by the BBC. But as Rogan writes, "Don’t watch it if you don’t want to feel like shit."

I also came across a video of three adult "witches" being burned alive, but I won't torture you by posting the link.

Nigeria is the 12th largest oil producer in the world. Yet most people survive on a dollar a day. Oil contamination is causing massive environmental destruction and poverty. Over a million tons of oil have been spilled in the Niger Delta in the past 50 years.

But instead of blaming oil corporations like shell, or their corrupt government, many Nigerians are blaming their own children. For witchcraft.

[Disco_Destroyer]

Exactly to think Organised Christianity isn't still causing untold mayhem around the world is dumb. I've known for sometime witchhunts still go on in Africa
From BBC imbedded in an unrelated story. Due to trade restrictions Nigeria is not aloud to refine its own fuel, it is all shipped to Europe etc. where they have to buy it back at a premium.
Thats Globalisation, no wonder the Nigerians keep trying to take their oil back from scum like Royal Dutch Shell
Reading your post has just got to me so I doubt I'll pluck up the courage to watch the film
_________________
'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'

[snowflake]

that was pretty fucking hardcore dude. that wasn't obama's village was it?
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[President Ford]

fuck.

[snowflake]

wow. i saw this vid last night, and i was like, meh, but i could not stop thinking about it today. the part that stuck in my mind the most is the dude who's just sitting there, on fire, rocking back and forth waiting to die with his flesh melting. i just can't fucking believe this shit. this is humbling. and these are children???? how old do you think they are? fuck.....
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[Scott N]

From a few years ago...

Shell 'paid Nigerian military'

By Geoffrey Lean - Environment Correspondent

"RUTHLESS military operations" were proposed specifically to help Shell establish stability in its oil business in Nigeria, a confidential memorandum obtained by the Independent on Sunday reveals. It recommends "wasting vocal individuals"

The internal state security memorandum, which is marked "restricted" 12 times, says that regular financial "inputs" from oil companies had been discussed. A British environmentalist said yesterday that the author of the document had told him that his men had been paid by Shell to protect installations.



Others confidential indicate that Shell asked for armed "assistance" against local demonstrators. And a leading Nigerian yesterday accused the company of "militarising commerce in his country".

Shell admits asking for help from armed police but strenuously denies paying the military. It says that there have been instances where the Nigerian authorities have "gone too far" and insists that it "does not wish to operate behind military shields".

But the disclosure of the documents will greatly increase the international row that has followed the execution of the writer and environmentalist Ken SaroWlwa and eight fellow Ogoni activists last month, and will step up pressure on the multinational company to leave- Nigeria. '


Ken Saro-Wiwa

The memorandum, headed "Law and Order in Ogoni etc" and dated 12 May 1994, is to the Military Administrator of Rivers State from the Chairman of Internal Security, Major Paul Okuntimo. It notes: "Shell operations still impossible unless ruthless military operations are undertaken for smooth economic activities to commence." Under the heading "recommendations Major Ok untimo lists "wasting operations during MOSOP and other gatherings making constant military presence justifiable". (MOSOP IS the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, to which Ken Saro-Wiwa belonged.)

He goes on to recommend: "Wasting targets cutting across communities and leadership cadres especially vocal individuals and "wasting operations coupled with psychological tactics of displacement/wasting as noted above." Under the heading "financial implications (estimates/funding the memorandum lists "pressure on oil companies for prompt regular inputs as discussed". Major Okuntimo estimated that there would have lo be an "initial disbursement of 50 million naira as advanced allowances to officers and men, and for logistics to commence operations with immediate effect, as agreed".

Yesterday Nick Ashton-Jones, a British environmentalist, said that Major Okuntimo had told him and a Nigerian lawyer, Oronto Douglas, in June 1994 that he was carrying out his operations for Shell and that he was unhappy because the company had stopped paying his men. Mr Ashton-Jones, who says he was arrested by Okuntimo and beaten on his orders, said that the remark "had stuck in our minds because this was something that we had suspected".

He says that he has no real doubt that the company had been paying the major, but this remark is the only evidence he has for it.

Shell said yesterday that it was compelled by law to inform the authorities when there was a threat to oil installations and that : it only called in the police when its facilities or staff were at risk, It agreed there had been "instances where the response by the authorities has gone too far with tragic consequences", but added: "The level of response that a country's authorities carry out . . . has got to be a matter for those authorities." The company added: "We categorically refute that any form of input was ever provided to the military; neither would we do so if approached on such a matter."At the end of the day dialogue and cooperation and goodwill between people is the only way forward. "

[Scott N]

Breaking:

Shell in court over alleged role in Nigeria executions

Family of environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, hanged by his country's rulers in 1995, take oil giant to court in New York



[Unfortunately, as the article explains, No multinational has ever been found guilty of human rights abuses. Capitalism is generally incompatible with justice.]

The Observer, Sunday 5 April 2009

Ken Saro-Wiwa swore that one day Shell, the oil giant, would answer for his death in a court of law. Next month, 14 years after his execution, the Nigerian environmental activist's dying wish is to be fulfilled.

In a New York federal court, Shell and one of its senior executives are to face charges that in the early 1990s in Nigeria they were complicit in human rights abuses, including summary execution and torture.

The Anglo-Dutch company, if found liable, could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of pounds in damages. No multinational has ever been found guilty of human rights abuses, although two previous cases saw major claims settled outside court.

Saro-Wiwa became famous as a campaigner on behalf of the Ogoni people, leading peaceful protests against the environmental damage caused by oil companies in the Niger Delta. There was worldwide condemnation when, along with eight other activists, he was hanged by the Nigerian military government in 1995 after being charged with incitement to murder after the death of four Ogoni elders. Many of the prosecution witnesses later admitted that they had been bribed to give evidence against Saro-Wiwa, who was a respected television writer and businessman.

Lawyers in New York will allege that Shell actively subsidised a campaign of terror by security forces in the Niger Delta and attempted to influence the trial that led to Saro-Wiwa's execution. The lawsuit alleges that the company attempted to bribe two witnesses in his trial to testify against him. Members of Saro-Wiwa's family will take the stand for the first time to give their version of events, among them his brother Owens, who will allege that Brian Anderson, managing director of Shell's Nigerian subsidiary, told him: "It would not be impossible to get charges dropped if protests were called off." Anderson is fighting the action.

Witnesses who were shot by military police in the Niger Delta principally to protect the building of Shell's oil pipeline will allege that Shell, by paying the police to protect its interests, was complicit in acts of violence.

Speaking to the Observer from Abuja, Nigeria, Saro-Wiwa's son, Ken Wiwa, said: "For 14 years we have lived with the memory of a father, an uncle, a brother, a son executed for a crime he didn't commit. We have daily reminders. It's painful to live with a monstrous injustice. To wake up one day to finally get our day in court is tremendously satisfying.

"After the injustice of the original crime against my father, having to watch legal arguments [by Shell] using the highest-paid lawyers in the world is sickening. You can't describe how painful that is to go through.

"Part of the reason for the original protest was the way Shell behaved. Ogoni people made their living farming and fishing, but Shell was using open waste pits and oil pipelines criss-crossed the land. These polluting activities were put on top of a delicate ecosystem. It destroyed people's ability to sustain themselves. That's the impact of Shell and, when people tried to protest, they were brutally repressed."

In a statement, Shell this weekend described the executions of the Ogoni 9 as "tragic events carried out by the Nigerian government in power at the time".

"Shell attempted to persuade that government to grant clemency; to our deep regret, that appeal - and the appeals of many others - went unheard, and we were shocked and saddened when we heard the news. Shell in no way encouraged or advocated any act of violence against them or their fellow Ogonis. We believe that the evidence will show clearly that Shell was not responsible for these tragic events. The allegations made in the complaints against Royal Dutch/Shell concerning the 1995 executions of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight fellow Ogonis are false and without merit."

US lawyers have finally won permission to bring the case to court under the alien tort statute, which gives non-US citizens the right to file claims in American courts for international human rights violations. The court case had been set for 27 April, though last night the date was moved to 26 May.

Today the oil-producing Niger Delta region is riven by intense violence and corruption. The Ogoni 9 trial is seen as a way of coming to terms with the past and building a non-violent future.

"We need to know the truth," said Ken Wiwa last night. "We need to have people account for their role in the executions and the displacement of the Ogoni people, many of whom feel traumatised. It will be a relief. It will enable people to face the future. That's the most important thing. Let's account for the past, so we can move forward."

Lawyers representing Saro-Wiwa's family have not sought specific damages should Shell be found liable, but legal experts say the oil giant could face fines running into hundreds of millions of pounds.

Jenny Green, a senior lawyer at the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, who has played a pivotal role in ensuring the Saro-Wiwa case made it to court, said: "Mosop [the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People] was formed to stand up to multinationals and the dictatorship that acted hand-in-hand. This is a significant moment, because it says you can't act with impunity."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/05/shell-saro-wiwa-execution-charges[/img]

[Diane]

Does anyone here post in the JREF forum?

If so, please post about the witchhunts in some relevant sub-forum there, and please suggest that some skeptics' organization do something to raise public awareness on this issue and perhaps raise some money to help victims.

Because the organized skeptical community opposes superstition, and because witchhunts are one of the most harmful forms of superstition imaginable, hopefully this topic would be right up their alley, and it would be something they could work on that would be genuinely beneficial.
_________________
Diane

New York City Activist

[Scott N]

[Diane]

[Scott N]

Weird, link is suddenly dead. Here's another for Linebaugh's must-read piece -- which I think is vitally important to understand the issue of torture historically. Not just for Witch-hunts but for "insurgent" hunts" and "communist" hunts and "Injun hunts" and so on and so forth. Keep in mind that this work predates Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine", and encompasses a much broader time period.

http://www.counterpunch.org/linebaugh11272004.html

[Scott N]

I've posted links to this essay -- and more importantly the book on which it is based -- at least a dozen times, but no one has ever bothered to respond.

I can only assume that readers did not find Linebaugh's opening paragraphs compelling enough to read the whole discourse.

It's worth reading. Trust me on this.

Here are a few selections from his essay, which hopefully will lead to some people reading the book.

As painful as it is to acknowledge, torture is not a function of mere superstition, or the CIA, or the Federal Reserve, or the "Jews", or good intentions gone awry; torture is functional in the sense that it is an instrument of terrorism, and is therefore useful to states and other powerful entities.