| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Oronto Douglas Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Page 3 of 6
You're now a lawyer. You've come back; you see all that you just described. You start off as a lawyer, and one of your first cases is to be part of the team that defends Ken Saro-Wiwa. Tell us a little about him, what he stood for, and what happened to him.
I was actually a junior counsel in that case. I was called into the case by the senior counsel, who felt that I would be useful because I was from the area, and I knew Ken from 1989, while I was a student union leader. I had gone to see him in his office to profile him on what he's been doing.
He was a writer and playwright.
A writer, a playwright, an activist, an environmentalist, a public commentator, a businessman. I met him. He told us that his vision is for the younger ones to be able not to go through what he and the elders are going through, and that he is currently trying to design a program that will help to bring change. A year later, he started up the movement for the survival of the Ogoni people -- that was in 1990 -- essentially aimed at mobilizing the Ogoni people. The Ogoni people are 500,000 people, a very small ethnic minority in the Niger Delta, who over the years have been marginalized, like all other ethnic nationalities in the region. The Ijaws, the Ogoni, the Isokos, the Urhobos, and all the other ethnic nationalities have been subjected to all sorts of discrimination and the exploitation of the land. Ken Saro-Wiwa decided to change all that, first starting with the Ogoni people. But, unfortunately, the government, the military dictatorship at that time, in collaboration with the oil industry, decided that he has to be stopped before he goes beyond Ogoni. And there was a kangaroo court set up. He was brought before that kangaroo military court ...
And charged with?
Charged with murder. A very fake charge, a charge that cannot be sustained in any court, any court that is manned by persons of justice. He was charged, and we had to go there to defend him. Unfortunately, the military dictatorship had made up its mind, the oil company was convinced that the best way to resolve the Ogoni issue was to stop the leadership. So Saro-Wiwa, along with eight others, was hanged on the 10th of November, 1995.
How did that verdict affect you and your movement?
It actually triggered us into taking in cognizance that the struggle is not over. That, in fact, it is just beginning. It fired a lot of us, who believe that we've got to do much more than we are doing now. We've got to internalize the issue. We have got to reach out to people of conscience around the world. We have got to organize. We have got to mobilize. We have got to act in a way so that generations yet unborn do not have to come out and face what we are facing now. So it was a major trigger that helped us to realize that the battle for environment protection, social justice, equity, and peaceful coexistence around the world, especially in our community in relationship with others, is a major work, and we've got to move on.
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