vivian shaw

Nnimmo Bassey interview at the Durban Summit //on Democracy Now!

“Africa, over the years, has been a major source for materials for energy—starting from human beings as energy sources, and moving on to items like palm oil and other energy crops. And right now, we have a major shift to land-grabbing in Africa for the production of bio-fuel and agro-fuels. Everything about Africa is about extracting resources to power industry, to make life comfortable for people outside of Africa. So African resources are not used by Africans, they’re not used for Africa, they’re not used to improve the situation on the continent.

And especially the fight for crude oil extraction, the fight for minerals like gold, like diamonds, all these have been done in a way that the African environment is severely degraded. And now, the oil companies are extracting with complete impunity, abusing human rights on the way, and of course, you know, by the addition of the war on fossil fuels, the industry gets away with murder. And you’ve seen what’s going on in Africa, the many conflicts: the conflict over diamonds, the conflict over gold, the many wars on the continent can always be traced to resources.”

- Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria and Chair of Friends of the Earth International