Almost a fifth of the oil imported by the U.S. comes from Africa, and in the decade to come this percentage will rise. The eastern part of Nigeria, from which Big Oil has pumped more than a trillion dollars worth of black gold since the 1960s, remains the poorest part of the country, and one of the most ravaged and polluted on earth. Thousands of gas flares have burned for decades, generating acid rains that have poisoned fisheries and crops. The land is crisscrossed by thousands of miles of leaking pipes and dotted with oil slicks. The air is unbreathable, cancers are endemic, there are no schools or hospitals and life expectancies are among the lowest on the African continent. Shell Oil is on trial in a New York courtroom, accused of hiring the Nigerian government to murder its own citizens for protesting the pollution of their environment and demanding a share of oil revenues be spent where the oil is extracted.
Need to know more? Check out http://shellguilty.com .
Rev. Keyanna Jones is an Atlanta based minister and an organizer with Community Movement Builders.
Samah Sisay is a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Cop City is an effort to ensure that state violence will bring the most draconian methods to bear against Black people. State violence is also being used proactively, in an effort to end opposition…
Remembering the anti-imperialist and Pan-Africanist politics of the late Ghanaian writer, Ama Ata Aidoo.
Many Somalis think that the United Arab Emirates is now as much or more in charge in Somalia than the Somali government.
