Britons Among Those Seized By Oil Rebels

Militants have released eight foreign oil workers they kidnapped last week from an offshore oil rig in Nigeria. The rig's owner says six Britons, a Canadian and a US national were seized by armed men in the Niger Delta. No-one admitted responsibility. Workers sent out a distress call, saying it was under attack from between 20 and 30 men in speedboats.

The upsurge of attacks on foreign oil interests has cut Nigeria's oil production by 25 per cent - a key factor in the high world price of crude oil. Rebels responded ruthlessly to plans announced by President Olusegun Obasanjo to 'improve' their troubled region by killing at least two people with a car bomb in Port Harcourt last month. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) also renewed its threat to continue armed attacks on oil installations.

MEND said the offer of thousands more jobs and a new motorway did not address their demands for more local control of oil wealth and demilitarisation. Mend have kidnapped foreign oil workers and warned them to leave the Delta. In a statement, Mend said the government was trying to remedy 50 years of injustice with the promise of menial jobs.

"We do not need any further mismanagement of the fast diminishing resources of our land by the award of bogus contracts intended to channel the wealth of the Niger Delta back to the hands of those who have looted ... all these years," it said.
Earlier, Mr Obasanjo told officials from the troubled states that new jobs would be created in the military, police and the state oil company.
Announcing the new jobs and a $1.8bn (£1bn) motorway project, President Obasanjo told state representatives at a council designed to speed development in the region that the meeting was "a wonderful opportunity for a new beginning".

Grievances A statement from Mend sent to Reuters restated a warning to oil companies operating in the Niger Delta "and more especially workers for such companies, to leave while they can. Our halt in attacks was more of a tactical suspension which has come to its end," it said.

"At a time of our choosing we will resume attacks with greater devastation and no compassion on those who choose to disregard our warnings."

Armed rebels launched a wave of daring attacks across Nigeria's troubled Niger delta, blowing up oil installations and seizing nine foreign workers including a Briton in February. All of the hostages have now been released.

The attacks and kidnapping followed a warning by a Nigerian militant commander that he had declared "total war" on all foreign oil interests in the oil-rich southern part of the West African country. Major-General Godswill Tamuno, the head of The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), emailed news media in February to warn that oil companies and their employees should "get out" of the region or face the consequences.

Militants claimed those kidnapped included three Americans, two Egyptians, two Thais, one Briton and one Filipino. They identified each by name, but officials of those countries either could not be reached for comment or could not provide confirmation.

In an email to the Associated Press, the militant MEND claimed responsibility for the attacks and abductions, saying they were a response to military helicopter assaults in the area this week. The militants threatened more attacks would follow on "a grander scale."

The foreigners were seized before dawn from a barge belonging to the US company Wilbros, which was working on a contract to lay pipelines for Royal Dutch Shell, a Wilbros official said on condition of anonymity. More than 40 militants overpowered military guards before fleeing.

MEND has recently blown up two oil pipelines, held four foreign oil workers hostage and sabotaged two major oilfields.The group wants greater control of the oil wealth produced on their land.

The alert came as militants and the army exchanged fire after a government helicopter gunship attacked barges allegedly used by smugglers to transport stolen crude oil. Western journalists say the militants provide security for the smugglers. Nigeria is Africa's leading oil exporter and the fifth-biggest source of US oil imports, but despite its oil wealth, most of the population live in abject poverty.

It is the first time MEND's leader, Major-General Tamuno, has spoken publicly of his group's aims. He refused to be interviewed in person or to disclose his whereabouts. But he told the BBC's Abdullahi Kaura Abubakar that his group had launched their campaign, called "dark February", to ensure that all foreign oil interests left.

He said that they had had enough of the exploitation of their resources and wanted to take total control of the area to get their fair share of the wealth.The movement brings together a variety of local Ijaw groups that had been operating in the Niger Delta before.

They enjoy considerable local support and it is difficult to pinpoint exactly who is a member. Mend's leaders tend to like to be faceless and they usually send statements to the media by email.

Royal Dutch Shell, one of the hugely-profitable oil multi-nationals operating in the Niger Delta, said that security measures were being taken to secure their staff and property, but would not give details. Nigeria's oil industry has been badly affected by a spate of sabotage attacks and the kidnapping of Westerners working for Shell. The terror-struck company temporarily evacuated workers from four of its oil production platforms in the country's southern Niger Delta after audacious armed attack by militants in January.

All four flow stations in the area were shut because of the sabotaging of the nearby Trans-Ramos pipeline. Four foreign oil workers held hostage for nearly three weeks were later freed.

The four were seized in an armed raid by militants demanding more control over Nigeria's vast oil resources for local residents. MEND had also been demanding the release of two ethnic Ijaw leaders currently in jail and $1m in compensation for local communities affected by oil spills.

MEND has also carried out several attacks on oil interests in the region. Generally kidnappings there have been settled with a cash payment, though the oil companies and government deny paying ransoms. The group, however, denied that the release of hostages meant they were softening their goal "to destroy the oil export capability of the Nigerian government".

"We will shortly carry out significant attacks aimed at ensuring our February target of a 30 per cent of Nigeria's export capacity," they said in an e-mail to Reuters news agency. [1]

Militants also attacked and set fire to Shell's Trans Ramos crude oil pipeline in January. The company immediately shut down four flowstations feeding the pipeline, leading to a total loss of 106,000 barrels a day of production

Resentment at exploitation of the people by multi-nationals, coupled with Western-fuelled corruption in government, has triggered killings, sabotage, kidnappings and massive oil theft in Nigeria.

Royal Dutch Shell, who have been guilty of massive environmental pollution in Nigeria, have resumed production from the offshore oilfield, restoring 120,000 barrels a day after a two-day closure prompted by the kidnappings. The loadings of tankers from the oil field located 15 miles off the coast of the southern Niger Delta were uninterrupted.

But the company said it took them another three to four days to repair a 100,000 barrel-a-day pipeline feeding its Forcados export terminal bombed on the same day, and declared a "force majeure" on exports to release it from contractual commitments.

Violence against the oil sector is frequent in the Niger Delta, where an estimated 20 million people live in poverty alongside a multi-billion-dollar industry. Armed militants attacked the Opobo Channel crude pipeline also belonging to Shell in December. The incident led to the loss of 180,000 barrels a day of oil production for more than two weeks and sent shock wave through the international markets as oil prices rose by 62 cents to $64.56 a barrel.

Billionaire fat cat Nigerian businessman loot the country in cohoots with Western governments keen to get their hands on its rich natural resources. The same governments then hypocritically slam Nigeria in public for being one of the most corrupt nations on earth.

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