Following is a portion of the editorial from yesterday's _Toronto Globe
and Mail_ on this subject:
http://www.globeandmail.ca/Editorial/Editorial.html
[The Globe and Mail - Canada's National Newspaper]
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Editorial
Friday, November 3, 1995
Sentence of death
KEN Saro-Wiwa is one of Nigeria's most accomplished writers, the author of
some 20 novels, plays and other works, the creator of the country's
best-known television series and the recipient of a raft of literary and
human-rights awards. He is also, since Tuesday, a condemned man. After a
trial denounced by governments and rights groups around the world, a special
tribunal sentenced Saro-Wiwa to death for the murder of four politicians in
the Ogoniland region of Nigeria in May of 1994.
The charge is almost certainly false. Saro-Wiwa had infuriated Nigeria's
military government by campaigning for minority rights on behalf of the
Ogoni, one of 20 ethnic groups inhabiting the oil-rich Niger delta. As
leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, he had called
for an end to oil pollution in the delta and a $10-billion compensation
payment to the 500,000 Ogonis. The campaign, sometimes marked by sabotage of
oil operations, put his movement head to head with the government, which
receives most of its revenue from oil.
It is unclear whether Saro-Wiwa is right to say that the Shell oil company
has ravaged the environment of Ogoniland, though the Ogonis have plainly not
benefited much from the oil boom. It is unclear whether he is right to whip
up ethnic sentiment in a country as ethnically fragile as Nigeria, which was
torn by civil war when Biafra tried to secede in the 1960s. What is clear is
that Saro-Wiwa has been railroaded for political reasons.
The writer was held for nine months without access to a lawyer before being
brought before a court, and he says he was tortured during that period. The
tribunal that tried him was hand-picked by his foes in the military
government. There is evidence that important prosecution witnesses were
bribed to testify against him. And he has no right of appeal now that he has
been condemned, though the regime may yet commute his sentence. As Saro-Wiwa
put it, "I was found guilty even before I was tried."
Nor is his case an isolated incident. Critics say the government has killed
hundreds of Ogonis, jailed most of their leaders and razed many of their
villages. Its record in the rest of the country is similarly brutal. Since
seizing power in November of 1993 after an annulled presidential election,
the military dictator General Sani Abacha has imprisoned a host of
opponents. He refuses to hold a new election for at least three years.
What to do? The best instrument for outside pressure may be the
Commonwealth, which meets in Auckland next week. At its conference in Harare
in 1991, the Commonwealth countries, prodded by Canada, agreed to work
together for democracy in member nations. More recently, a blue-ribbon
Commonwealth panel called for sanctions to push Nigeria toward democratic
change. The Auckland meeting is a golden opportunity to put the principles
of Harare into practice and show Gen. Abacha that he cannot go on jailing
and abusing his opponents with impunity, much less sentence innocent men to
death.
Copyright ) 1995
The Globe and Mail .
Canada's National Newspaper .
--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,cdp}!gnosys!gst