wfn.org | Ecumenical Official Defends Report Criticizing

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

23-September-1997 
97359 
 
    Ecumenical Official Defends Report Criticizing 
    Shell's Nigeria Operations 
 
    by Stephen Brown 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA--A senior official of the World Council of Churches has strongly 
defended a controversial report by the organization on human rights in 
Nigeria which criticized the operations of international petroleum 
companies in the country. 
 
    The report was particularly critical of the Nigerian subsidiary of 
Shell International, one of the world's biggest oil companies. Shell 
International has strongly criticized the report, published in January this 
year, describing it as "unhelpful and inaccurate." 
 
    However, the WCC's coordinator for international affairs, Dwain Epps, 
told a meeting of the WCC's Central Committee in Geneva September 12 that 
an "independent consultant" who had examined the WCC report and Shell's 
response to it had concluded that the differences between Shell and the WCC 
were "a question finally of perspective." The consultant had found that 
only "in one or two points" had the WCC made factual errors, Epps said. 
 
    Publication of the report -- "Ogoni: The Struggle Continues" -- 
followed a fact-finding mission to Nigeria by the WCC after the execution 
in November 1995 by the Nigerian authorities of nine political activists, 
including the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, a leading campaigner for the rights of 
the Ogoni people, who are the focus of the WCC report. 
 
    The report claimed that despite Nigeria's abundant natural resources, 
including massive oil and natural gas reserves, many of the inhabitants of 
Africa's most populous nation faced starvation and poverty. In oil-rich 
Ogoniland  inhabitants also faced the threat of rape, robbery, torture and 
murder, and widespread corruption and violation of human rights, according 
to the report. Shell's Nigerian subsidiary withdrew from Ogoniland in 1993 
but alleged pollution and environmental destruction caused by its past 
operations there were singled out for criticism in the WCC report. 
 
    Defending the report yesterday, Epps said the WCC had "sought to see 
these facts through the eyes of those who suffer and die as a result of the 
consequences of the actions both of the Nigerian government and of Shell 
and other oil companies." 
 
    "It is a difference between the question of whether profit is the end 
goal or whether it is the well-being of people which is essential," Epps 
said, although he stressed that he was not suggesting that Shell personnel 
had  "intentionally sought to hurt the Ogoni people." 
 
    A company "which wants to hold its head high in international news 
media and to be respected as a responsible corporation must look carefully 
at the way it does business," Epps said. 
 
    Publication of the report by the WCC early this year was followed by a 
vigorous rebuttal from Shell International and a series of meetings between 
officials of Shell and of the WCC. This week members of the Central 
Committee have received a thick dossier containing an exchange of papers 
between the WCC and Shell. "Dialogue is essential," Epps stressed. "It must 
happen." 
 
    He welcomed the fact that Shell had adopted new business principles and 
had added ethical standards "particularly in the area of human rights." 
 
    "The question is whether Shell will in fact apply those standards. We 
hope that they will." 
 
    Epps' comments came as a response to a debate at the Central Committee 
on the WCC report and on a series of recommendations which will be 
finalized next week. 
 
    After the debate, a WCC spokesperson declined to release to ENI a copy 
of the report by the independent consultant or to divulge his name. The 
spokesperson would say only that the consultant was "an experienced and 
responsible researcher with a record of scientific publications in serious 
journals" who had researched in particular "human rights in Nigeria and the 
role of the oil industry in that country." 
 
    During the Central Committee debate, Bishop John Neill of the Church of 
Ireland said that there was a danger in looking for scapegoats. "I feel 
that Shell feels that they are that scapegoat," he said, warning against 
"megaphone politics" and "making statements about Shell when we have not 
concluded our conversation with them." 
 
    Bishop Michael Stephen of the Methodist Church in Nigeria stressed that 
the Nigerian government was to blame "almost completely" for the situation 
in the country. "People suffering cannot differentiate between Shell and 
the Nigerian government," he said. 
 
    However, Bishop Melvin Talbert of the United Methodist Church, U.S.A., 
said he was concerned about the "lack of specificity" in the 
recommendations about Nigeria being considered by the Central Committee. 
"While we sit here and talk, sisters and brothers in the situation are 
dying." 
 
    The original WCC report suggested that the organization might call on 
its member churches and other ecumenical bodies to "divest their shares in 
Shell" as a "practical demonstration of solidarity with the Nigerian people 
as well as an option consistent with Christian ethics." However, in the 
series of recommendations currently being considered by the WCC's Central 
Committee, there is no mention of such action. 
 
    Questioned about the report at a press conference at the start of the 
Central Committee, the WCC's general secretary, Konrad Raiser, said that 
the "WCC had not followed up in every detail the recommendations in the 
report." The WCC had not followed up with "the deliberate focus on Shell" 
because the WCC was "not out on a confrontational attitude with Shell." 
 
    "Shell is only one factor," Raiser said. "The critical focus should be 
placed on the Nigerian government." 
 
    He also revealed that official representatives of Shell International 
had sought interviews with members of the Central Committee prior to the 
meeting. "To me it is obvious that Shell is recognizing that it is facing a 
problem in terms of its image and is prepared to accept and admit that 
mistakes have been made in policies and developments in Africa," he said.  

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