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2,483 Lives Lost to Odi Armed Invasion

Vanguard (Lagos)
NEWS
November 20, 2002
Posted to the web November 20, 2002

AN Environmental rights group, Environmental Rights Action Friends of the Earth
(ERA) has alleged that the military invasion of Odi in Bayelsa State claimed
2,483 casualties comprising of 1,023 females and 1,460 males. In an extract
from a report entitled "Blanket of Silence: Images of the Odi Genocide. ERA in
a statement signed by Doifie Ola wondered that despite President Olusegun
Obasanjo's acknowledgment, while on a visit to Odi, that the soldiers went
beyond their brief, the president as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces has
failed to offer apology or even order compensation to the community. The NGO
faulted official claims that the invading soldiers were in Odi to arrest a band
of lawless elements accused of killing law enforcement officers.
"The world now knows that the killing of the policemen was never the reason for
the onslaught on Odi. "The idea was to contain the agitation of the peoples of
the Niger Delta for resource and environmental control, political autonomy and
a democratic federal Nigeria. Obasanjo and the social forces he represents
perceive this agitation as a major threat to the status quo. They therefore
want to conquer the Niger Delta by force of arms, the easier way to sustain the
rape on the people and their resources".
ERA quoted Nigeria's Minister of Defence General Theophilus Danjuma as telling
the Economic Committee of West African States (ECOWAS) ministerial conference
on November 25, 1999 that: "This Operation HAKURI II, was initiated with the
mandate of protecting lives and property-particularly oil platforms, flow
stations, operating rig terminals and pipelines, refineries and power
installations in the Niger Delta".
Odi is an oil community with three capped oil wells controlled by Shell
Petroleum Development Company Ltd. A blanket of Silence contains ERA reports
from Odi, testaments from the local people and the sick graffiti which
Nigerians soldiers left on Odi, the statement said. The group gave five reasons
for the human rights record of the Obasanjo regime in the Niger Delta;
lto draw attention to the human rights record of the Obasanjo regime in the
Niger Delta;
lto highlight the sorry fact that oil, not human security, motivated the attack
on the oil-bearing community of Odi;
lto support the legitimate demands of the Odi people for reparations;
lto campaign for an independent inquiry into the Odi massacre and the
punishment of all those responsible for the genocide attack
lto contribute to our active history.
The group recommended that the Federal Government set up:
lAn independent judicial commission of inquiry to look into the immediate and
remote causes that led to the invasion, destruction, killings and maiming in
Odi.
l Identify persons, groups, concerns or entities who took part, encouraged,
instigated, approved or perfected the invasion of Odi and have them prosecuted.
l Provide relief, succour, rehabilitate and rebuild Odi town.
lCompensate all those who have suffered one way or the other in the Odi
invasion.
l Apologise to the Odi people for this unwarranted assault on their communal
sanctity.
* Cause to be published a detail report of the independent judicial commission
of inquiry.
It also recommended that the international community should set up
international war crime tribunal to try and punish all those who in one way of
the other perpetrated the atrocity in Odi.

   

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