The payout is small by American standards but it is still encouraging news for human rights. The process was slow but it's amazing to think it even came to this point. The Independent:
The company, which has run lucrative oil-exploitation operations in Nigeria since the 1950s, was facing a potentially difficult trial arising from the lawsuit filed by Mr Saro-Wiwa Jr and the relatives of five other civilians hanged by the then government in 1995.
The suit accused Shell, its Nigerian subsidiary and a former head of operations of colluding with the authorities to thwart Ogoni tribesmen trying to expose alleged human rights and environmental abuses by the company. It asserted that the multi-national supplied the authorities with weapons and asked police to shoot protesting villagers.
Shell said last night it had settled to begin a "process of reconciliation" in the area of southern Nigeria where its operations and the Ogonis coincide. "This gesture also acknowledges that, even though Shell had no part in the violence that took place, the plaintiffs and others have suffered," Malcolm Brinded, Shell's head of exploration and production, added in a statement.
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