More on Saro-Wiwe: Shell will not return

Reuter, 1 November 1995

LAGOS, Nov 1 (Reuter) - Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell said on Wednesday it did not plan to return to Nigeria's troubled Ogoniland after a court sentenced nine activists from the area for murder.

WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuter) - Amnesty International USA called on President Bill Clinton to condemn the death sentences handed down by a Nigerian court to minority rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and three other campaigners.

The verdict on Ken Saro-Wiwa is an outrage and should be immediately condemned by the United States as a travesty of justice, said Curt Goering, deputy executive director of the Washington-based human rights group.

Goering said the Clinton administration should view the verdict as a red flag demanding action, and warned that a growing human rights crisis in Nigeria could ignite violent regional instability.

A White House spokeswoman said she could not immediately comment on Amnesty International's call.

A special tribunal in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, on Tuesday sentenced Saro-Wiwa, 53, and three other campaigners of his Movement for the Survival of Ogoni Peoples (MOSOP) to hang for the murder in May 1994 of four moderate leaders in Ogoniland.

Goering said in a statement that the charges against Saro-Wiwa were politically motivated, because of his non-violent campaign for compensation for the pollution of Ogoni land and water in the Niger Delta by oil production.

If Saro-Wiwa is executed, the already volatile Rivers State could explode in violence, Goering said, adding that it would destabilise West and Central Africa.

Amnesty International USA has already received reports of heavy troop movement in the Ogoni area, he added.