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TRANSCRIPT OF `A TESTIMONY'
 
BY DR. OWENS WIWA (Brother of Ken Saro Wiwa)
 
Steering Commitee Member of the Movement for the Survival of the
Ogoni People (MOSOP) 
 
PREPARED BY GREENPEACE ON BEHALF OF THE MOVEMENT FOR THE SURVIVAL
OF THE OGONI PEOPLE
 
VIDEO DURATION: 23 MINS 18 SECS
------------------------------- 
 
FIRST MEETING WITH BRIAN ANDERSON
 
I first met Brian Anderson the chairman and managing director of
Shell Nigeria on the Queens birthday party 1995 in Lagos, and he 
promises to my wife to help, to see that Ken gets adequate
medical attention, he says he will see what he can do and we
leave at the end of the party and I write of my encounter to Ken
send it through my wife who leaves this day to see Ken and
through this letter we are very happy to learn that Ken has been
taken to the hospital the military hospital for the first time
after being in detention for about 11 months.
 
SECOND MEETING WITH BRIAN ANDERSON
 
Well I asked him if he would use his influence to stop the trial
announced so that Ken can get can get out of the illegal
detention and so that negotiation can start between Shell and the
Ogoni people. And he says that's difficult, but not impossible
but that the international campaign is hurting Shell and the
Nigerian government and if we can stop the campaign that he might
be able to do something.
 
So I tell him that I don't have the power to do that, but however
I will pass the information to Ken,  and he also at that time
said I should try and get into the press - to get a press release
and get him a copy, you know mentioning the fact that there is
no environmental devastation in Ogoniland and I just say how
can I do that, you mean I tell the world that what we've been
saying ever since 1990 is a lie, there is no way I will do that. 
And that happened at our second meeting.
 
THIRD MEETING WITH BRIAN ANDERSON
 
I wrote to Ken and Ken replied back with a letter to Brian
Anderson where he gives him two scenarios. The first one - Ken
gets killed and becomes a martyr or they [Shell] did the right
thing, use their influence with the Nigerian government and get
him out of their illegal detention and stop the charade of the
tribunal. And when that happens the lobby with the writers will
stop, the lobby by the human rights groups will stop and that
remains the environmental campaigners and when the environmental
lobby sees that he is now discussing with Shell they will lower
or stop their campaign.
 
Mr Brian Anderson tells me that he will no longer be available
for further discussion as he'll be travelling frequently but that
I should continue the discussion with Mr Achebe.  Mr Achebe 
stresses the importance of continuous dialogue and after a week
I phone Achebe and I'm told he's in Germany I phone again a
second time and I'm told he's in Abucja and I phone again and I'm
told he's in Port Harcourt holding meetings with other Ogoni
people and I phone another time and he's not in the office and
all this time I'm leaving my number and my messages and I don't
get any reply so I now switch back to phone Anderson both in his
office and in his house.  Now I phoned the first time in his
house and they tell me he's at a cocktail party I phone another
time and he's having lunch and I ask whether I can phone after
lunch I don't get any answer, but I still phone and still he's
not available and I phone another time and I hear he's not around
you know and then I sort if get the message and I write back to
Ken that it appears that I'm being avoided and Ken writes back
- that I shouldn't bother as it appears a decision has been made.
 
  
DEVASTATION OF OGONILAND
 
Ogoni environment is devastated. I got involved in Ogoniland
after coming back to Ogoni after my University medical school and
then the first thing that struck me is that the trees around my
father's house the oranges and the guavas are no longer there the
ones there are not producing any fruit and they sort of shrunken.
Then I go to the hospital and the spectrum of diseases I see
there is quite different from the ones I was taught at school or
the ones I saw in other places I'd worked in Nigeria. A lot of
respiratory diseases - high incidence of asthma, cancer,
bronchitis and I'm quite surprised and also some bizarre skin
diseases and a high level of miscarriages which is quite
different from other areas in Nigeria that are not producing oil.
And the land Ogoni is a small place  about 404 square miles 12
miles by 32 and large expanse of land that nothing grows on
because of the oil spillages that have happened because of oil
blow outs gas flares all over Ogoniland. You don't know when it
is night it's always glowing. With the noise from the flow
stations - it's very deafening and the people speak rather they
shout the way of talking because they have to get across to the
other person. And the pipe line gas and oil pipelines cris-
crossing the whole place on the surface of the ground passing in
front of houses at the back of houses on farm land unprotected. 
 
 
SHELL CLAIM SABOTAGE BY OGONI
 
Shell claims that the environmental devastation in Ogoniland is
due to sabotage of the installations by Ogoni people, as far as
I know no Ogoni person no MOSOP activist has ever been convicted
of sabotage of oil installations. The Ogoni people would be the
last people on earth to go near the Shell installations because
they know that if anything goes wrong on the pipelines or on the
installations it is their land which they hold precious that will
be spoiled - that will be devastated it is their streams from
which they fish and drink water that will be polluted because
their is no piped on water in Ogoniland it's only the water from
the streams so no Ogoni person will go near any Shell
installation for sabotage because that would lead to spillage and
we understand spillages and devastated land more than any people
in this world.
 
EVIDENCE THAT SHELL ARE INVOLVED WITH MILITARY
 
I drive down to the village of Korokor-tai when I get there I
meet another young man on the ground in a pool of blood at the
feet of his mother and I'm told that he was shot by Major
[Okuntino??] who had come there in the Shell bus accompanied by
Shell executives and they had come to the village, said they were
coming to look for Shell trucks. In my clinic in Bori Ogoniland
I see the police constable coming to my clinic to tell me that
all Ogoni people in the police in Ogoni land have been
transferred out and I'm scared and he shows me the posting order
transferring them and immediately I get to my car because that's
frightening and go to visit my brother in hospital and I tell him
what I've just heard and give him the police posting order and
he immediately writes on it telling the world about what is
happening and he's afraid that the first episode of genocide is
being planned against the people, the Ogoni people.
 
I see foreign journalists in Bori and I ask what's happening they
said they heard that there's shooting a journalist from the
Guardian of London and one from the Independent.  And I take them
to the village Kaa where most of my patients come from and we
arrive there and it's like a small atomic bomb has been placed
on the village I mean dropped on the village, everything the
market is completely destroyed, the school the houses even the
trees are on the ground and it is very very frightening and we
do know this time there were police, I mean a military presence
in Ogoniland. They were stationed not too far from my clinic so
I go back to the army and ask them what has happened, and we go
back there and they see the place and one of the officials says
that he hasn't seen this sort of thing even while he was serving
in Liberia that no destruction has ever been to this level and
in that particular incident 35 people are killed and it continues
like that another 7 Ogoni villages are all destroyed and a total
of about one thousand people are killed in these raids by people
using sophisticated weapons on unarmed villages and my patients
tell me that the soldiers arrived across Andoni river with Shell
boats  and while all this is going on we notice the presence of
Shell helicopters hovering around and we're actually very very
worried.
 
 
DETENTION OF OWENS WIWA
 
On the 26th December 1993 on Boxing day I'm in my house with my
wife who's pregnant and her sister as well come to spend
Christmas with us and a captain in the Nigerian army Captain
Tunde Odina comes in and has a beer in my house and eats the food
my wife has prepared and at the end of it he tells me to take a
holiday, to leave Ogoniland go to Lagos or somewhere.
 
At about 5 O'clock another Major comes in he calls himself Major
Akintola of the Army Intelligence Unit at the Brigade in Bori
camp and he tells me that the governor of the state Lieutenant
Colonel Komo wants to see me and Barika Idamkue because at this
time Barika Idamkue is the secretary of the Ogoni Relief and
Rehabilitation Committee and I'm the coordinator so I mean we go
there happily thinking that the Governor wants to give some
relief to the people so at the end of the conversation I tell him
that I was told by a captain, Captain Tunde Odina that I was to
be arrested.  So the Governor tells me that is not true that is
just one of the rumours that we hear and keep telling people and
there's nothing like that so I go back to my house have dinner
with my family and go to bed.
 
At about 2am the same captain who had come to my house you know
to eat and drink comes in shouting, breaking my door and asks
where is Dr Wiwa, I say well I'm here and then the other soldiers
climb the fence and generally make noise and then I ask what is
the matter and he tells me you are, by the order of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria you are under arrest.  So I go back to my
room change into my clothes and go into the 504 military vehicle
and the other soldiers enter squeeze me in and they take me
straight to the country home of Mr Ledum Mitee the Deputy
president of MOSOP and repeat the same sort of thing they did in
my house and bring the guy into the car and then the soldiers are
coming inside too with their guns reeking of alcohol and
marijuana and generally threatening us you know, and took us
straight to the Air force base in Port Harcourt and later to the
house of the government reservation division in Port Harcourt.
 
And we stayed there until the 4th of January at about 5 O'clock
or so Major Okuntimo comes in to meet us and to discuss.  We ask
him why we are detained he doesn't tell us anything, all he says
is he's following his orders and then curiously asks us that
since MOSOP is big it's powerful that we should join forces with
him you know to see that one Mr Lawson-Jack senior executive of
Shell in Port Harcourt is removed and we tell him that we don't
do things like that.  We talk about ideas and how to change
corporate behaviour in terms of the environmental devastation of
Ogoniland we are not in for removing individuals and all that and
he insist and so we ask him why, why do you want the man off? 
and then he explains that the man has been undercutting him in
his payments that he was also receiving from Shell.
 
And after our discussion he tells us that we are released and on
getting out I meet my mother-in-law and I ask about my wife and
she answers that they are fine, I say what do you mean they are
fine?  I only have one wife, so she says they are fine that you
have a child I said a child ?, she said yes, a son, I said yes
how do I know it's a son I said I dreamt you know but then my
wife is not due but I rushed down to the hospital that she's
supposed to have delivered and I go in there and see her very
happy and beside her there's, there's a young kid you know all
red and cries when he sees me and I go and pick up my son and I
feel very happy and I decide to forget and forgive my detention
because that has brought me a son and asked my wife how
everything happens and she tells me that after they are taking
me away after some hours when daylight was coming she decides to
come and look for me.  And at this time there are many roadblocks
manned by the army in Ogoniland and she is stopped in one of the
roadblocks and she comes out, she is asked to come out of the
car, she comes out and they ask her who she is and she tells the
person that she's my wife and they say Oh that trouble maker so
they ask her to identify herself further , she says she's a
housewife and housewives don't carry ID cards. So they
search her and they decide to search her person and she doesn't
like that and the army man tell her to go into the stream, the
stream is polluted covered with oil, my wife doesn't know how to
swim.  She protests, she gets the gun, they put up the gun
pushing her from the back and she is pushed into the pond, into
the stream but because of her hydrophobia she comes out and then
the man aims the nozzle of the gun at her pregnant abdomen and
then contractions start to come on and that process leads her to
the hospital and my baby comes out born on January 4th Ogoni day
and that's how I get my child.

Dr Owens Wiwa
December 1 1995