Our Oil, Our Life.

by Eze Eluchie

One more reason why we are where we are and the rest of the world are where they are: As a result of an oil spill at Chevron facility in Brazil, the Brazilian Government has halted all Chevron prospecting and crude lifting operations in Brazil. In addition to criminal and civil suits filed against British Petroleum by the United States Government over the 2010 Gulf oil spill, a U.S. District Court awarded well over U.S.$7 Billion in damages in partial settlement to some persons affected by the same spill – this figure is bound to rise astronomically as the total impact of damages gets assessed.

 

Faced with much larger oil spills and the worst environmental destruction in human history, what do the kleptocrats manning the Nigerian government do?

 

Our goons deploy Nigerian troops and security operatives to shoot, kill and terrorize locals who dare express disapproval for the inhumane activities of oil prospecting activities in Nigeria and intent on rubbing the injury in, award national honors to officials of multinational oil firms - a 'keep-up-the-destructive-work' kind of award. With millions of barrels of crude routinely being spilled all over the Niger Delta region, destroying our ecosystem, further pauperizing the locals in the areas in question.

 

Large-Scale Corruption is a Crime Against Humanity

by Eze Eluchie

TEXT OF PETITION TO CHIEF PROSECUTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT TO INVESTIGATE, PROSECUTE AND SEEK THE PUNISHMENT OF CORRUPTION AS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.

The Chief Prosecutor

 International Criminal Court (ICC)

LARGE-SCALE CORRUPTION IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY AND OUGHT TO BE INVESTIGATED AND PROSECUTED AS SUCH BY THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF PROSECUTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT.

The efforts of your Office, in investigating and prosecuting of ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’, are laudable, as it serves to check excesses and punish misdeeds by authorities of States whose conduct tend to diminish humanity, increase human suffering and thwart efforts at human and societal advancement.

It is however a source of worry and concern that in the discharge of your duties as explicitly expressed in Article 15 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (The Statute), your Office has inadvertently or otherwise, omitted investigations into and or prosecutions for a crime that in most cases, founds and gives rise to a plethora of violent crimes which your Office has focused its enormous powers on – ‘large-scale corruption and corrupt practices’.

Definition and characteristics of ‘crime against humanity’:

Article 5 (b) of The Statute stipulates ‘crimes against humanity’ as one of the four categories of crimes your Office and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction over.

Article 7 of The Statute goes ahead to list a series of items which “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack”, constitute ‘crimes against humanity’, these acts include:

(a) “Murder;

(b) Extermination;

(c) Enslavement;

(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

(f) Torture;

(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;

(j) The crime of apartheid”;

Of critical importance however is Article 7 (k) of The Statute, which whilst recognizing the acts listed in Article 7 (a) – (j) above as being non-conclusive, further lists as a ‘crime against humanity’,

“Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health”.