Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta

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The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta ("MEND") is a militant indigenous people's movement dedicated to armed struggle against what they claim to be the exploitation and oppression of the people of Niger Delta and the degradation of their natural environment by foreign multinational corporations involved in the extraction of oil in their homeland. MEND has been linked to attacks on foreign owned petroleum companies in Nigeria.

MEND's stated goals are to localize control of Nigeria's oil and to secure reparations from the national government for pollution caused by the oil industry. In an interview with one of the group's leaders, who used the alias Major-General Godswill Tamuno, the BBC reported that MEND "was fighting for "total control" of the Niger Delta's oil wealth, saying local people had not gained from the riches under the ground and the region's creeks and swamps." [1]

Additionally MEND has called for President Olusegun Obasanjo to free two jailed ethnic Ijaw leaders — Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who is jailed and charged with treason, and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor of Bayelsa State charged with corruption.

In a January 2006 email MEND warned the oil industry, "It must be clear that the Nigerian government cannot protect your workers or assets. Leave our land while you can or die in it", They further stated, "Our aim is to totally destroy the capacity of the Nigerian government to export oil."[2] The militants have bombed two pipelines, triggering an international increase in the cost of oil. Recently MEND kidnapped four foreign oil workers, who are from Bulgaria, Britain, Honduras, and Patrick Landry of Texas, United States.

1 Constituency and Organization
2 Origins and Context
3 Tactics
4 Time Line of Activities
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Constituency and Organization

MEND is closely connected with Asari's Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, a rebel group with similar aims. MEND reportedly seeks "a union of all relevant militant groups in the Niger Delta. "[3]

The identity of MEND is somewhat confusing since its leaders like to remain faceless[4] and its cause has been taken up by completely unrelated groups inspired by the original MEND, one of which is claiming responsibility for some of the violence that has occurred. However, the original members of MEND, who are recognized as MEND by the United States government and Chevron security, are claiming that some of what’s occurring is by counterfeiters.[5]

There is some speculation that MEND may have evolved an "open source" approach to conducting warfare[6], similar to the decentralized communal development process now prevalent in the software industry, which would make it extremely quick and innovative and move new technologies and tactics rapidly from cell to cell without the direction of a vulnerable leadership hierarchy.[7]

[edit] Origins and Context

For the roughly fifty years since Nigeria was emancipated from British colonial rule, oil has been produced in Nigeria. Throughout this period corporate politics has intersected with successive illegal dictatorships. Under these dictatorships the Nigerian government has signed laws that appropriated oil resources and placed these under the control of multinational oil companies, such as Chevron Corporation, and most notably, Shell.

From the point of view of MEND and its supporters, the people of the Niger Delta have suffered an unprecedented degradation of their environment due to unchecked pollution produced by the oil industry. As a result of this policy of dispossessing people from their lands in favor of foreign oil interests, within a single generation, many now have no ability to fish or farm. Thus, the vast majority of people living in the Niger Delta have found themselves in a situation where their government and international oil companies own all the oil under their feet, while the revenues of which are rarely seen by the people who are suffering from the consequences of it.

Over the last twenty years various political movements and activists have emerged in opposition to the perceived injustices perpetrated upon the people of the Niger Delta by the government and the oil companies. Most often these were non violent, Ken Saro-Wiwa being the most famous activist. Saro-Wiwa was an Ogoni activist who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995 on what many believe to be deliberately false charges with the aim of silencing his vocal opposition to the oil interests in Nigeria. In Saro-Wiwa's footsteps came others who, instead of believing in nonviolent activism, began to believe in more violent response as a means to resist what they considered to be the enslavement of their people. Militants in the delta enjoy widespread support among the regions approximately 20 million people most of whom remain rooted in poverty despite the enormous wealth generated in the oil-rich region.[8]

[edit] Tactics

MEND's attacks are substantially more sophisticated than previous militant groups in the Niger Delta, which "were typically either riots and/or protests or bunkering gone awry." MEND's recent tactics have included:

Swarm-based maneuvers: Guerrillas are using speed boats in the Niger Delta's swamps to quickly attack targets in succession. Multiple, highly maneuverable units have kept the government and Shell's defensive systems off-balance defending the sprawling network.

Radically improved firepower and combat training: allowing guerrillas to overpower a combination of Shell's Western-trained private military guards and elite Nigerian units in several engagements. (One of Shell's private military operators was captured as a hostage.)

Effective use of system disruption: Targets have been systematically and accurately selected to completely shut down production and delay and/or halt repairs, and the guerrillas are making effective use of Shell's hostages to coerce both the government and the company.[9]

[edit] Time Line of Activities

Nine officials for the Italian petrol company Eni SpA were killed when armed members of MEND attacked Eni SpA's security forces in Port Harcourt. [10] MEND militants briefly occupied and robbed a bank near the Eni SpA base, leaving at about 3:30 p.m, about an hour after they showed up.

A company official stated, "Eni has temporarily evacuated staff and contractors from the area of the base affected by the incident and the situation is currently under control."

MEND issued a statement regarding the oil workers: "Be assured therefore that the hostages in return, will remain our guests... [the hostages] are in good health and have adapted fairly well to the conditions under which the people of the Niger Delta have been kept."

On May 10, 2006, an executive with the United States-based oil company, Baker Hughes, was shot and killed in the southeastern city of Port Harcourt. At the time of the shooting, it was not immediately known if MEND had any involvement or not. Witnesses say the attacker appeared to be specifically targeting the American executive. [11]

On June 2, 2006 a Norwegian rig offshore Nigeria was attacked and 16 crew members were kidnapped. According to the news agency Reuter, MEND has not taken responsibility for this attack. [12] (Norwegian)

On August 20, 2006, 10 MEND members were killed by the Nigerian military. The members were working on releasing a Royal Dutch Shell hostage. In an email to REUTERS, MEND stated "Our response to Sunday's killings will come at our time, but for certain it will not go unpunished."[13]

On October 2, 2006 10 Nigerian soldiers were killed off the shore of the Niger Delta in their patrol boat by a MEND mortar shell. Earlier that day a Nigerian/Royal Dutch Shell convoy were attacked on in the Port Harcourt region resulting to some wounded.