Where Vultures Feast

On 22 February 1895, a naval force laid siege to Brass, the chief city of the Ijo people of Nembe in Nigeria's Niger Delta. After severe fighting, the city was razed. More than two thousand people perished in the attack. A hundred years later, the world was shocked by the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa--writer, political activist, and leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. Again the people of Nembe were locked in a grim life--and--death struggle to safeguard their livelihood from two forces: a series of corrupt and repressive Nigerian governments and the giant multinational Royal Dutch Shell. Ike Okonta and Oronto Douglas pre-sent a devastating case against the world's largest oil company, demonstrating how (in contrast to Shell's public profile) irresponsible practices have degraded agricultural land and left a people destitute. The plunder of the Niger Delta has turned full circle as crude oil has taken the place of palm oil, but the dramatis personae remain the same: a powerful multinational company bent on extracting the last drop of blood from the richly endowed Niger Delta, and a courageous people determined to resist.

ISBN 1859844731   DEWEY edition DC21 ISBN13 9781859844731 (What's this?)   Pages 270 Publisher Verso Books   Volumes 1 Imprint Verso Books   Weight (grammes) 455 Format Paperback   Published in London Publication date 18 Sep 2003   Height (mm) 204 Non-book description book   Width (mm) 152 Writer of introduction George Monbiot   Spine width (mm) 19 Library of Congress HD9577.N53   Academic level Tertiary education, General DEWEY 338.272809669

		Acknowledgments
		Foreword
		Introduction		1
1		A People and Their Environment		5
2		Soldiers, Gangsters, and Oil		21
3		Colossus on the Niger		43
4		A Dying Land		61
5		Where Vultures Feast		96
6		Ambush in the Night		116
7		A Game for Spin Doctors		157
8		Healing the Wound		190
		Epilogue		207
App		Justice on Trial		211
		Notes and References		229
		Index		261

"Okonta and Douglas provide a vivid and relentless account of human tragedy since oil was discovered in the Niger Delta in 1956." --Card Hand, Associate Professor of Sociology, Valdosta State University "This passionate book should be read by all those interested in the links between oil and oppression. The authors, both from Nigeria's oil producing Niger Delta, bring equal depth of knowledge and outrage at the injustices wrought against their homeland by Nigeria's governments - colonial, military and civilian - and by the oil companies, first among them Shell" --Bronwen Manby, Deputy Director of the African Division, Human Rights Watch

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