EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, June 18, 1996

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[English]

The Chairman: Order.

I'd like to say how important this hearing is. You will recall that we had our original hearing on this subject on December 18, and this is a follow-up of that meeting. Since we had our original hearing into the matters around Nigeria, the minister has attended several conferences of the Commonwealth, and this matter has been discussed in other fora as well. Therefore I think the object of this meeting is to allow members to be brought up to date, to hear from Shell International, and to hear from other witnesses as well, with a view to trying to understand what we should recommend to the Government of Canada in respect of our policy regarding Nigeria.

Members, just to inform you of the procedure this morning, we have with us the minister responsible for this dossier, the Honourable Christine Stewart.

Minister, thank you very much for coming.

We also have with us representatives of Shell Canada and Shell International, some of whom have travelled from London and from Nigeria, and we thank them very much for coming.

We have Chief Enahoro as well, and Dr. Akana and Kim Nossal.

That is a lot of witnesses.

What we propose to do procedurally is hear first from the minister, and then from Shell, and then we will open that to questioning. Then we can hear from the other groups. After that, perhaps we'll have a short break.

Hon. Christine Stewart (Secretary of State (Latin America and Africa)): Mr. Chairman, committee members, and guests, it's a pleasure to be here this morning.

I believe that my staff has presented you with a written statement, which I will ask you to table. I won't give that particular statement at this time, but I will try to give you a resumé of it.

Nigeria is a country issue with which Canada is very much concerned and engaged. We are engaged with Africa as a continent, as a region, and with Nigeria, a country on that continent with a population of 100 million, a very wealthy country in terms of its natural resource base, particularly minerals and hydrocarbons.

We know that Nigeria has a lot of influence on the continent, and we would wish that influence to be positive.

Canada's had a long relationship with Nigeria, principally through the Commonwealth, but we have also had an import-export trade relationship. It's one of our largest sources of imports, and we have had significant exports to Nigeria.

Unfortunately, democracy at this time just does not exist in the country of Nigeria. Three years ago last week Nigeria annulled elections that were being held, and the presumed winner of those elections, Chief Abiola, is languishing in jail at this time. The human rights situation in the country is deplorable and is not improving.

For these and other reasons, Canada is very concerned about the situation and is taking steps to try to change it and is seen internationally as taking a leadership role on this file.

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Despite our concerns, there hasn't been a lot of progress. We have tried to encourage a process of dialogue with Nigeria, believing that to be the best way to achieve change. So far, dialogue has been rejected by Nigeria, by General Abacha, who leads the state at the present time. But we continue to try to promote and make that dialogue take place.

Through our association with the Commonwealth, Canada is engaged in a very active program, because it's the one international forum that allows us to be actively engaged on this particular file. It was at the heads of government meeting in Auckland, New Zealand last November that Nigeria once again, for unfortunate reasons, hit the headlines when they executed Ken Saro-Wiwa and seven other Ogonis who were advocating for the interests of that group of people in Southern Nigeria.

The attitude of the regime at that time was totally confrontational and unacceptable, and for those reasons at that time the Commonwealth heads agreed to suspend Nigeria from the Commonwealth and set up a Commonwealth sub-group called the CMAG, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, of which Canada is a member.

There are eight foreign ministers from around the Commonwealth who are participants in that group. They include: Zimbabwe as the chair; New Zealand as the co-chair; South Africa; Ghana; Malaysia; Jamaica; Great Britain; and Canada.

We had our first meeting of this group just after I met with you last year, December 22, and we had our second meeting of the group in April of this year.

When we met for the first time last December, we discussed what possible actions we could take vis-à-vis Nigeria - not Nigeria alone. We included as our mandate Sierra Leone and the Gambia, other countries in Africa under military dictatorship, and other Commonwealth countries under military dictatorship, but our focus was Nigeria. We decided that to try to encourage dialogue we would ask Nigeria to welcome a group of five foreign ministers from this CMAG group to visit Nigeria. While we waited for that delegation to visit Nigeria, we asked the secretariat to study other measures that could be taken to try to persuade Nigeria to change its ways. Those measures would include economic measures, and it was decided at that time that in light of whatever progress or lack of progress existed, we would apply measures or sanctions incrementally.

We waited to try to get a positive reply from Nigeria. They refused to receive the Commonwealth group. Just before our publicly announced schedule of the second meeting, they did invite the chairman of the CMAG, Foreign Minister Mudenge of Zimbabwe, to visit Nigeria, but in the end he was not granted permission to speak to General Abacha.

At that second meeting of the CMAG group we came to a consensus to impose certain measures against Nigeria unless we heard from them within 30 days. But most of the measures that were listed at that time - and I will tell you what they were - did not have a significant impact on Canada because they were measures that, for the most part, we had been taking since 1993-94.

They included restrictions on members of the regime and their families. As you may recall, we: denied visas to members of the regime when they requested to attend the Commonwealth Games in Canada at Victoria in 1994; withdrew military attachés; ceased military training; put an embargo on the export of arms; denied education facilities to regime members and families; placed an immediate visa-based ban on all sporting contacts; and downgraded cultural links and diplomatic missions. Canada has withdrawn a high commissioner and has had a chargé d'affaires in charge of our high commission in Lagos for the last two years. Those were the measures we agreed to take.

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At our second meeting, besides waiting again for a period of thirty days for Nigeria to agree to meet with us, we wanted to have a review of further measures that could be taken at our next meeting, which will be taking place in London next week. Those measures would be incrementally seen to apply more pressure to Nigeria. They include economic measures, suggesting the banning of all direct air links, the freezing of financial assets on individual leaders and their families, a ban on new export credits and a ban on the export of support equipment for the oil industry.

Canada particularly has been focusing on oil exploration versus oil maintenance equipment. If we were to look at this issue incrementally, we would suggest a ban on the export of oil maintenance equipment versus oil exploration equipment, because this would have a more immediate and direct impact on the regime and it would affect the higher levels of society, not the average person.

Other measures include cessation of bilateral and multilateral economic aid, which Canada already does, and a ban on new investment and bank loans.

As I said, we will be meeting with our CMAG partners next week in London. Just at the end of the thirty-day period, Nigeria did agree to meet with the CMAG, not allowing the original group to go to Nigeria, but we will have a visit in London at our meeting by senior officials of Nigeria. Probably that mission will be led by Foreign Minister Ikimi, who has been known to have been very belligerent in the past. We hope that he may have changed his ways and that Nigeria might now see the need to start dialoguing.

We see it as important to talk with General Abacha and his regime, because in our opinion, at this moment in time there is not an opposition in Nigeria that has the capacity and the ability to take control and authority in the country. We want a democratic process to build. We want there to be elections, free and fair, in Nigeria again, but it will have to be a process. We believe - and we said this in Auckland last fall, in November - that this process should be complete within a two-year period.

In order to be more positive and allow that process to happen, Canada has put in place, and announced in Auckland last fall, a democratic development fund of $2.2 million. The funds are to be directed to groups and organizations in Nigeria that would be very involved and that need support in the development of a democratic process in that country. Some amount of funds is also available to Sierra Leone and to Gambia out of that. We have already started to expend those funds for the intended purposes.

Besides the work of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, the international community, in other fora, has been active on the Nigeria file. Last fall the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a very strong resolution against Nigeria, which Canada co-sponsored. We are very pleased about that.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting this spring passed a resolution that calls for two rapporteurs of the United Nations to visit Nigeria: a judicial rapporteur and a rapporteur to look at the process of executions. These two rapporteurs would visit the country together and make a report to the General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission. We would have preferred a general rapporteur. This didn't happen, but we think we can accomplish the same thing.

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The UN did have success in getting their own mission to visit Nigeria this spring, and as they were leaving Nigeria, they gave a departure statement that was quite harsh in its condemnation of the human rights situation and lack of democracy in the country. It took a lot of pressure from Canada and others to make the final report of that mission public, but we finally have it public now, although it appears to us to be quite toned down from the departure statement the mission made.

However, that report makes some recommendations that we think are important, requesting that there be international monitors in the field in Nigeria, a restoration of habeas corpus, a registration of political parties and compensation for the Ogoni executions.

When we go to London next week... I have been talking to other participants in that group. As I said, Canada is seen to take some leadership. We will be proposing that the Nigerians who are at the meeting once again agree to have a CMAG mission go to Nigeria. We feel it is extremely important to be meeting with the head of state there. Depending on the response to that meeting, we will decide what further measures should be taken, but certainly we will also recommend the same measures the UN report did.

I'll leave my comments at that for the moment. We are working to try to influence the international community in general. The CMAG itself has been tasked to make contact with the U.S., the G-7, the European Union and other members of the international community that we think can have an influence in Nigeria.

I welcome your questions.

The Chairman: Thank you, Minister. I understand you're able to stay until after this presentation by Shell.

Mrs. Stewart: Yes.

The Chairman: So we'll perhaps ask our questions after that.

Mrs. Stewart: Sure.

The Chairman: I'd like to welcome to the committee the representative of Shell Canada Limited, Mr. Blakely; from Shell International, Mr. Detheridge; and from Shell Petroleum of Nigeria, Mr. Achebe.

To introduce these gentlemen, I recall from conversations we have had that they have come partly in response to the advertisement that was put in Canadian newspapers about the situation in Nigeria, at the request of the committee.

My understanding is they are here to help us understand, from their perspective, the present situation in Nigeria, but they will not be addressing the issue of what is the appropriate response of the Government of Canada to issues in Nigeria. That is a matter obviously for the government and for this committee to consider. They are here to help us understand the situation in Nigeria from their perspective.

So with that understanding, I'd like to ask Mr. Blakely if he could begin by introducing those who've come with him.

We'll hear your statements and then we'll have a general round of questions of both the minister and you.

Thank you very much.

Mr. R.B. (Ron) Blakely (Vice-President, Human Resources and Public Affairs, Shell Canada Limited): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As you've stated, my name is Ron Blakely. I am the vice-president of human resources and public affairs for Shell Canada, located in Calgary. My comments will be brief and confined to introducing members from the Shell companies who have joined us today from Nigeria and the U.K.

When we were first invited to address this committee, given that Shell Canada has no investments, operations or trade with Nigeria, we felt the only means for credible dialogue would be to invite those from Shell Group companies who are most directly involved with Nigeria. I'm therefore very pleased today to introduce Mr. Emeke Achebe, who is the executive director of Shell Petroleum Development Company in Nigeria; and Mr. Alan Detheridge, who is the area coordinator for Shell International, based in London.

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Mr. Chairman, we welcome this opportunity to address you and provide you with Shell's input into the many complex issues in Nigeria. Mr. Detheridge will speak first.

Mr. Alan Detheridge (Area Coordinator, Anglophone Africa, Shell International Petroleum Company): Mr. Chairman, Shell has been in Nigeria for some 60 years now. We discovered oil in the Niger delta some 40 years ago and have been producing and exporting oil since that date.

We operate a joint venture that produces a million barrels of crude oil a day, nearly half of Nigeria's total. We have a 30% share in that joint venture. Our partners Elf and Agip have 10% and 5% respectively. The majority shareholder is the Nigerian government, which has 55% at this point.

As I'm sure you know, oil is a significant part of the Nigerian economy, providing 95% of Nigeria's export earnings and over 80% of the federally collected revenues.

Mr. Chairman, we're often asked how much money Shell makes from Nigeria. Let me answer that question. At the moment Nigerian crude oil sells for around $17 a barrel. Costs account for$4.50 a barrel, leaving $12.50 as net profit. Of that $12.50, the private shareholders - Elf, Agip and Shell - share $1, and that is fixed over a wide range of oil prices. The rest, over 92% of the profit, goes to the federal government in the form of taxes, royalty and its equity stake. As the oil price goes up, so does the government's revenue since the private partners' share is fixed.

Some, including the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, or MOSOP, have said that not enough of the government revenue from oil goes back to the Niger delta for development purposes. We would agree with that statement, and as we've outlined in our briefing notes to you, we have said so publicly. We've done what we can to encourage successive governments to address that issue.

Because we produce half of the country's oil, many people feel that we have the capability to influence the Nigerian government, if not to hold it ransom. I have to say that this capability is greatly exaggerated. There are some very practical limits to the extent of our influence.

For example, can we simply shut in our oil production? No. This would be a federal offence, with very unpleasant consequences for the individuals involved.

Others argue that we should withdraw from the country, and indeed that is our ultimate sanction. But what can we withdraw? The only thing we can withdraw is our 300 expatriates working in Nigeria and our share of the joint venture funding. Would that stop the oil from flowing? The answer is no. The 4,700 Nigerian staff who would be left in the country and in the company are perfectly capable of continuing production at the current rates for some time to come. It therefore follows that taking such an action would not impact the government revenues in the short term.

Although it's our position that we don't interfere with the domestic politics of the countries in which we operate, this does not mean we turn a blind eye to the condition of the communities amongst which we work. In this respect, as I mentioned earlier, we've made our views known and will continue to do so.

Mr. Chairman, one last point I'd like to make is on the issue of oil sanctions. The Shell position on that is quite straightforward. We believe that sanctions are a political instrument and are consequently a matter for governments and intergovernmental bodies. We therefore do not argue for or against sanctions. We would, of course, comply with the laws or treaties enacted by individual countries or groups of countries were these to be put in place.

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With your permission I'll now hand over to my colleague, Emeke Achebe, who will conclude our presentation.

Mr. Emeke Achebe (Executive Director, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd.): Mr. Chairman, as you well know, my country, Nigeria, is large and complex, with some 100 million persons who speak some 250 different languages. Also, all has not been well with Nigeria politically, economically and socially for most of our 35 years of independence. We as a nation are currently seeking the right framework for addressing the challenges we face in the long term.

I'm here as a representative of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, SPDC, where I am an executive director.

In the current crisis in Nigeria several accusations have been made against Shell. The major one is that the company said little and did nothing to save Mr. Ken Saro-Wiwa and his co-defendants. The facts are totally contrary to these charges.

With regard to Mr. Saro-Wiwa, we publicly said that he had a right to freely hold his views despite his criticisms of Shell. During the trial we publicly and consistently stated that he had a right to a fair legal process and proper medical attention. Following the verdict of the tribunal, SPDC and Shell International publicly said that carrying out the death penalty would damage the process of reconciliation in Ogoniland. The Royal Dutch/Shell Group chairman also sent a personal letter to the head of state of Nigeria appealing for clemency on humanitarian grounds. Sadly, our efforts and the efforts of many other concerned individuals, governments and organizations were not successful.

Since the execution we have also called for a fair and speedy legal process for the other Ogonis who are still in detention, the Ogoni 19. What we did not do was threaten to hold the government to ransom. We cannot, and my colleague already discussed the limits to Shell's influence in Nigeria or indeed in any other country.

Another accusation against Shell in Nigeria is that we have devastated the environment. This is simply not the case. Whilst oil operation has an impact on the environment, it has not resulted in devastation. This is confirmed by a recent World Bank report quoted in the background note we earlier made available to you and other members of the committee. For the past five years we have spent about $100 million U.S. per year on replacing and improving production facilities to bring them to current international standards.

The company has also been accused of having done little to assist the communities in the oil-producing areas. Again, the facts dispel this accusation, as shown in the documents we have provided to you. We spend over $20 million U.S. a year on community development in Nigeria, focusing on health, agriculture, provision of potable water, roads, electricity and education.

We are committed to continuing to improve our environmental and community programs. We are talking to, and remain ready to talk with, those who can help bring about a peaceful resolution of the problems facing the people of the Niger delta. These include both local and international non-governmental organizations.

On May 8 we tabled an initiative for tackling the problems facing the Ogoni people where Shell can help, rather than resume our production operations. We propose to clean up the spills, whatever the cost of them; to restore existing community programs; to discuss new community projects; and to make facilities safe - provided that all factions in Ogoni fully agree and welcome us.

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We have been encouraged by the initial response.

In conclusion, I thank you for the opportunity to address you briefly on the complex issues that face my country and my company. I also invite you and members of the committee to visit our operations in Nigeria and to witness the situation for yourselves.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Achebe.

That concludes the minister's and Shell's comments, so I'm now prepared to allow questions. I understand that then the minister will be leaving.

You can tell me when you have to go, and then I will ask the other gentlemen to present, and then perhaps we can have a discussion between Shell and the others.

Since we have a short time with the minister here, we'd like to get on to questions with her right away.

[Translation]

Ms. Debien.

Ms. Debien (Laval East): Good morning, Ms. Stewart, and welcome to our committee. In your statement, you painted a rather bleak picture of what is happening in Nigeria. We already knew that. Despite all of the steps that have been taken since the Auckland meeting, since Nigeria's expulsion from the Commonwealth, and despite three meetings - you will be attending the meeting in London next week - and the timeframe which was set out after the first meeting in Auckland, nothing seems to have moved and nothing is going to move.

You say that the ministerial action group is hoping to meet with the president of Nigeria, but the meeting was refused in the past. In light of all of these attempts which seem to be more or less for nought, you still seem to have high hopes for the ministerial action group.

I think that we are at a point where we have to go a lot farther. Moreover, last time we met, you mentioned a drastic but definitive measure that could influence the government of Nigeria: an oil embargo.

I would like to know if the Canadian government is still defending that position within the ministerial action group.

[English]

Mrs. Stewart: Certainly an oil embargo is on the table as one of the measures that we believe ought to be implemented, but in an incremental fashion. As I said, we have a consensus in the Commonwealth that we will take measures against Nigeria in an incremental fashion.

In our opinion an oil embargo is the ultimate sanction against Nigeria, because it will have the most dramatic impact. But it will also have an impact affecting the whole of the society there.

We are putting forward sanctions against Nigeria that are targeted to the regime, those in power and their families, those who live in the upper echelons of society in Nigeria, trying not to incur negative impacts on the people themselves. That's why in the next set of measures that we would be recommending we recommend the stopping of the export of oil refinery equipment to Nigeria, knowing, as Shell has said, that others may be quite willing to provide that equipment. But it's making a statement for Canada at least, and we have to show leadership and hope that others will follow.

We've talked to our own oil companies in Canada, and three of the four Canadian companies that import oil from Nigeria have voluntarily ceased importing and have found other sources of oil in the world.

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So besides the things we are doing overtly, we continue to work on the side with whomever the partners might be to try to encourage measures that will have an impact.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Morrison.

Mr. Morrison (Swift Current - Maple Creek - Assiniboia): I have a brief question forMr. Achebe.

It's my understanding that because of the political situation, Shell has had no operations in the Ogoni for a couple of years now, that you are unable to work there. Is this true? If so, do you still have personnel in the area? What is happening to the maintenance of the existing lines? Are you having spills all over the place because you're not there? Could you describe the situation for me?

Mr. Achebe: It is indeed true that because of the deterioration of the situation in Ogoniland, where we felt that the personal safety of our staff was at risk, we had to withdraw all our staff and stop any presence of our staff in Ogoniland beginning in January 1993. Around May 1993 the last of the facilities, which were naturally left in automatic operation, came to a stop. Since then there has not been any oil production or indeed any oil operation activity in Ogoniland. No Shell personnel have been in Ogoniland since then.

There have been spillages since then because we left in a hurry and the facilities were not made safe. There has been tampering with the facilities leading to spillages. Unfortunately, that is true.

What we have done is to use Ogoni people, who have been working as local contractors to us, to try to clean up the spillages that have occurred. We cannot vouch for the quality of the work that has been done because we have not gone in there to look at it. That is the current situation.

The Chairman: Could we just clarify something Mr. Achebe said? In your statement you refer to an enforced withdrawal from Ogoni territory in early 1993. What do you mean by ``enforced''?

Mr. Achebe: We're trying to describe a situation where basically we were forced to withdraw our staff and cease operations because their personal safety could not be guaranteed any more. Our staff had been beaten up. Their cars were taken from them. In some cases their vehicles were set on fire. The law enforcement officers were not able to maintain a situation that -

The Chairman: So it was the general security conditions that enforced the withdrawal, not some authority or other or yourself.

Mr. Achebe: That is correct.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Assadourian (Don Valley North): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

My question is to the Shell Canada representative. On page 3 of this document, background information item 5 on Ken Saro-Wiwa, you say you deeply regret the situation of the execution of ten activists. The Government of Canada condemned this. Can you tell me what the difference between the words ``condemn'' and ``regret'' is to you in this case? Why don't you use the word ``condemn'' in front of national TV to let the media know where Shell Canada stands on the killing of innocent political activists in Nigeria?

Mr. Blakely: We have taken the situation in Nigeria very seriously, even though we did not -

Mr. Assadourian: That's why I'm asking the question. Why don't you condemn it?

Mr. Blakely: Perhaps it's semantics. We have chosen to learn about and understand this situation from the people who are more closely associated with events in Nigeria. Like many other Canadians, we learned much about this last November, and our first expression was regret for what had occurred. That has continued to be the position we have taken, as it has been the position of Shell International.

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Mr. Assadourian: In other words, Shell International is not prepared to condemn these killings on national TV today, not right now, after eight months of reviewing the situation.

Mr. Detheridge: We have used a variety of language to try to convey what we've felt about the tragic events that have occurred in Ogoni and elsewhere in the Niger delta. We have said we are appalled by the violence. We have condemned the violence by all sides. For some people this seems not to go far enough, and they have specifically asked us to condemn the trial of Ken Saro-Wiwa. I take it, sir, that is what you refer to.

Our position on that we have also made quite clear. It's not our business to condemn the legal process in a country. What we have said, though, is that we are disturbed and appalled by the comments others have made, the Nigerian Bar Association, the visiting QC from the UK,Michael Birnbaum, and others who are better qualified than we are to comment on those trials.

So I think we have made our views sufficiently known, sir.

Mr. Assadourian: Just to make a comparison with South Africa, do you think South Africa released Mandela from jail some odd years ago out of regret, or did it take stronger action by the west to make the point to the South African government that regret doesn't go far enough? Can we make a comparison to that situation there?

Mr. Detheridge: Unfortunately I don't know South Africa, and it's difficult for me to respond to a hypothetical question. All I would say is I think we have made our views known both publicly and privately, and we are one of the few companies operating in Nigeria, if not the only company operating in Nigeria, to have put those views on paper.

Mr. Assadourian: In other words, if you had your way, sir, Nelson Mandela would be in jail today.

Mr. Detheridge: No, I don't think that's what I said.

The Chairman: I've just been advised the minister must leave at 10 a.m. Therefore, members, if you have specific questions to address to the minister, it might be appropriate to do that. The gentlemen from Shell International will be staying with us throughout the morning, so we'll have the opportunity then to engage them in debate and discussion, and with the other gentlemen who have come. That's just for your advice.

Perhaps, Minister, I could exercise the chair's privilege of asking you a question. When we adopted our resolution in this committee on April 18, calling on the government to take a leadership role in seeking to obtain international agreement to an oil embargo, we specifically referred to the United States and the European Union in that resolution, because we recognize in this committee that Canadian actions by themselves, while maybe having merit, in order to be effective have to be done in international collaboration. You addressed that in your remarks to us, but I wonder if you could be somewhat more explicit in telling us where the European Union and the United States are coming from on these issues, particularly in respect to the list you gave us. Are they fully supportive at this time?

Mrs. Stewart: There are a variety of opinions. South Africa, at Auckland in New Zealand, was the first nation to speak out in support of a total oil embargo against Nigeria. At that time it was not accepted. There was a consensus that other measures should be applied - first was the suspension of Nigeria from the Commonwealth - but that there should be a method of applying sanctions incrementally, leading up to an oil embargo as the ultimate sanction against Nigeria.

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Since then there has been a growing sense of alarm, I would say worldwide, about the need to take action against Nigeria, not just for the situation in Nigeria itself, but also for the impact on neighbouring states to Nigeria.

The U.S. is relatively open to the situation, but, again, there has to be a broader international consensus. In the Commonwealth, the CMAG meetings are the best forum to date where we can work for some level of international consensus on measures to be taken.

It's an interesting forum. I have outlined the eight members there. At this time there is not a consensus in that group to apply an oil embargo. We in Canada are pressing for further economic measures to be taken against Nigeria. As I say, an oil embargo is on that list, but it is seen by us to be the ultimate economic sanction that can be taken against Nigeria.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Madam Debien.

[Translation]

Ms. Debien: My question or comment is for the representatives from Shell. I would like to start by saying that the committee found your refusal to appear before it when asked highly deplorable. We also deplored having to adopt a resolution for you to appear. Given your attitude, you will understand how put off I am personally with respect to your company.

You told us, and I would like to emphasize this point, that you had a very limited ability to influence the Nigerian government. You also told us, gentlemen, that you have been there for60 years. I cannot believe that over a 60 year period, you never had any public or private discussions with the Nigerian government on fiscal policy, labour laws, the environment, human rights and a host of other issues which were of interest to you.

After 60 years, you say that you do not have the ability to influence the Nigerian government and you are turning a blind eye to the violence and fraud that plague that country. I regret having to make this comment, which is also the consequence of your initial refusal which deeply annoyed us.

[English]

Mr. Blakely: Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, I could address what was perceived as a refusal to appear before the committee. I don't remember exactly all of the dates at the time - and perhaps the clerk might help to remind me - but my recollection is that this meeting was scheduled for December 14, last year.

I recall I was walking out the door to catch a plane to Toronto on the afternoon of December 7 when we were asked to appear before the committee. At that particular juncture, my reaction, as it was when I made my remarks today, was that this committee would be best served by bringing people to you who come from the international Nigerian company, who knew the situation in Nigeria.

I certainly could have come and appeared before you at that time. I would have been willing to, but you may have found it very frustrating because, frankly, my knowledge of the situation was extremely limited.

Subsequent to that occasion, there was a committee meeting scheduled in February. I think you all know Parliament was prorogued, and that committee meeting was subsequently cancelled.

In anticipation of that meeting occurring, I did have both these gentlemen prepared to come to Canada, and indeed they did still come to Canada to conduct some discussions with interested parties, notwithstanding the fact that the committee didn't convene at that time.

If I recall correctly, we tried to establish a further date in March. Again, we indicated our preparedness and willingness to be here in March. That meeting was similarly cancelled.

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We searched for mutual dates where I could bring these gentlemen to this committee from their respective countries. We literally looked at every week we could that might be available on your calendar. I think the clerk will verify this.

So I'm sorry if the impression has been left that we weren't being cooperative, that we refused to appear. This was simply not the case. We were unable to make the arrangements logistically at that time.

I think I would like to defer to my colleagues.

The Chairman: Perhaps Mr. Detheridge or Mr. Achebe could address Madam Debien's substantive question.

Mr. Detheridge: On the question of our influence, what I said in my introductory remarks, Madam, was that our influence had been greatly exaggerated. What I hope I did not claim was that we had no influence in that country. That simply would not be a true statement.

Indeed, with a number of people in the country, we have had discussions on a whole range of issues. We have made no secret that those have included the human rights situation in that country. We have made our views known both publicly and privately on what is going on in Nigeria. As I say, we are one of the few companies operating in Nigeria that have made our views known publicly.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Mills.

Mr. Mills (Red Deer): In looking at the suspension from the Commonwealth, that doesn't appear to have had...you indicated some effect, but not really any dramatic effect.

First, I wonder whether the actual removal from the Commonwealth would have more of an effect than a suspension. It would send a very definite message that it's unacceptable, therefore we are removing you. Obviously, there would be an opportunity to come back, but that would be when things improve.

Secondly, I wondered about the involvement of the EU in the whole issue, with the geographic concepts that we've been putting around about where our influence might be, as that is slightly more in their sphere of influence. I wonder what kind of will they might have. I'm particularly referring to Britain in terms of their seemingly not having so much will to take any action.

Mrs. Stewart: With regard to suspension, which we have done vis-à-vis Nigeria, and expulsion, if expulsion were to occur, officially that would have to be done by the heads of government meeting. That won't take place until 1997. The CMAG doesn't have the authority to do that, and besides which, in fact, there's a bit of concern.

We don't want to have Nigeria voluntarily expel itself, because then they don't have to listen to anything the CMAG has to say. They would feel absolutely no obligation or need to pay attention to the Commonwealth and come to dialogue with the Commonwealth. It would be left totally in the realm of either the OAU, the association of African states, or the United Nations. Right now, it's the CMAG that internationally takes the most consistent policy approaches towards Nigeria.

The EU have brought forward their own list of measures against Nigeria. They are very concerned. In general, the international community is becoming more and more concerned about the situation. We try to maintain our contacts in discussions through all of the different groupings, either multilaterally or bilaterally, to try to find the best method of drawing Nigeria to the table, which is what has to happen in order for the democratic process to be initiated there.

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Certainly, as you have indicated, there is definitely discrepancy in views held in the EU as to what should happen. These organizations work by consensus and have to in order for measures to be effective.

Stopping of direct air links as an economic measure will be very important for the EU to address, because it affects a number of carriers in the European community. The United States have already stopped their direct air links with Nigeria, for safety and security reasons and for maintenance and servicing of aircraft, so it's not an issue for them, but it is for the EU, and we'll be pressing them on that at the next CMAG.

Mr. Chairman, there was one other thing I knew I was forgetting. When we meet next week in London with Foreign Minister Ikimi, besides requesting him to encourage a meeting in Nigeria with General Abacha on behalf of representatives of the CMAG, we will also be asking for the immediate release of Abiola, Obasanjo, and other political detainees as a sign that they are prepared to address human rights and democracy issues in their country.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Iftody, you're next. Did you have a question for the minister or for Shell? If it's for Shell, perhaps you could stand down and let somebody ask a question of the minister, because she shortly has to leave.

Mr. Iftody (Provencher): It's primarily directed towards Shell.

The Chairman: Mr. Flis, was your question for the minister?

Mr. Flis (Parkdale - High Park): I have one for the minister and one for Shell, so if I could get the one to the minister done, the Shell one can wait.

When human rights issues were raised in China, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Trade and the Minister of Foreign Affairs said very clearly that the best way to handle human rights violations is through engagement, not isolation. In the process you described this morning, are we not going the route of isolation? Isn't this an inconsistency in our foreign policy?

Mrs. Stewart: No, I think quite the reverse. We're trying to bring measures against Nigeria that will have the effect of forcing Nigeria to dialogue and to the table to negotiate a resolution of the problems there to help them through the process of building democracy and greater respect for human rights.

As I said, our intent in bringing forward measures is to bring them to the table. The change has to occur in the context of the regime that is there right now, because there isn't an alternative at this moment that is sufficiently organized to simply replace the current regime. If the current regime is replaced, it's not going to be any different from the current regime.

So we have to bring that regime to the table, and we're taking measures incrementally to try to draw them to the table and negotiate. We have also put in place this democratic development fund, which will try to help them to develop the necessary infrastructure for democracy.

I was in Gambia last week as part of a Commonwealth delegation, it being another one of the country focus issues for us. They have a military dictatorship. They did welcome a CMAG delegation to the country. The leader there agreed to meet with us. We listened to his explanation of problems he had, for example, problems with the judiciary. He just doesn't have the resources to have a good legal system in the country. He's having trouble with the media. We talked with the media on things we can do to help in that area.

We listened to his explanation of problems, and we are offering to bring support to the state to overcome those problems and develop a good infrastructure for democracy. We hope that will be an example to Nigeria of what this group wants to accomplish in Nigeria.

Mr. Flis: [Inaudible - Editor]...to the fullest extent.

Mrs. Stewart: Yes.

Mr. Flis: Thank you.

Mrs. Stewart: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity and look forward to hearing your recommendations.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Minister, for appearing this morning. I'm sorry you have to leave, but we understand you have other obligations. Thank you for coming.

Now, members, with your permission, I would ask our other presenters if they would be good enough to speak to us and then we can generally ask questions, both of the other witnesses and Shell together. We might have an opportunity to have an exchange of views that way.

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Chief Enahoro is with us. Perhaps, Chief Enahoro, you would be good enough to sit in the middle where the minister was sitting before. We'll promote you to minister for the moment. You may regard this as a demotion. Don't respond.

We also have Dr. Akano. We have Mr. Nossal, who is from McMaster University.

If we could just have the three of you make your remarks in that order, we'll then go back to questions.

Perhaps while we're settling down, members, you might have noticed that we received a written brief from Irving Oil, which has been circulated to you.

I've been asked to announce that for those who are here in the audience who want to follow this issue, it will be broadcast on CPAC starting at 10:30 this evening.

Chief Enahoro, thank you very much for coming, sir.

Chief Anthony Enahoro (Commander, Federal Republic of Nigeria; Chair, National Democratic Coalition, Washington, D.C.): Mr. Chairman and hon. members, I'm personally delighted to be here this morning to exchange views with you on the situation in my country.

I'd like to repeat my sincere gratitude to the Canadian government for its assistance in ensuring my personal safety and facilitating my departure from Nigeria. I can assure you that but for that prompt humanitarian assistance, I might well have passed before now into the history of our troubled times in my country.

I have no doubt from what I've heard this morning and from what I've read that you are familiar with developments in Nigeria over the years. I'm aware of the role and importance of your Parliament and the impact of your committee's hearings in the shaping of Canadian foreign policy.

As far back as August 1993, in a statement entitled ``Democracy Is Not Negotiable'', our group issued a country-wide statement in Nigeria to the effect that:

Nigeria has lived through eight long years of crimes against the nation, violations of human rights, a reign of terror against the press, emasculation of the courts, corruption of the political system, social disintegration, mismanagement of the economy, felonious squandermania, and injudicious foreign adventures costing life and money. We wish to warn the nation that the nightmare is not yet over.

That was three years ago.

Since that statement was issued we've lived through another three years of that nightmare. It's in the fervent hope that Canada can and will assist us to bring the nightmare to an end that I have been visiting Canada and that I'm here this morning.

This is, of course, not my first visit here. On the eve of our own independence, when we were considering alternative arrangements, governmental systems and structures, I came here and spent some time to have a close look at your parliamentary system and famous RCMP. In a book entitled Fugitive Offender, which I wrote some years later, I said:

In Canada I did not feel a total stranger for, notwithstanding what critics may say, there is something in the Commonwealth ideal, and the Canadians are by repute very Commonwealth-minded. One expects, in a Commonwealth country, at least a comprehensible language, a system of government and justice -

- more or less like our own, as it then was -

- helpful and courteous policemen that are slow to anger, immunity from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, and complete acceptance, within the limits of laws similar to those of one's own country. Host and guest know that they will understand each other, that they will not want for conversation subjects and that no extraordinary effort will be required to make the guest feel welcome.

Canada did not disappoint me. ... Every facility was accorded me to study the famous Mounties and the Canadian constitution at work. The Canadians were in fact so hospitable and helpful that I overstayed by a day...

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I'm trying to give the background to our intense interest in Canadian participation in the solution of our problems.

I again visited Canada during our civil war and was received with equal warmth, in spite of the sharp divergences of opinion that then existed here at that time. And then, barely four weeks ago, I was here to express my gratitude to the Canadian government.

Since then, as you may have learned, another political assassination has occurred in Nigeria. This time it was the wife of Chief Abiola, the winner of the 1993 presidential election, who, as you know, is being been held in detention by the military junta. Mrs. Abiola was an outspoken critic of the military junta and had consistently campaigned for the release of her husband and for his rightful installation as president. So our nightmare continues.

I'm here today, therefore, not only to compliment you and Canada and thank you for the firm position Canada has taken on the Nigerian crisis - I surely knew that it rested on solid idealism and moral foundations - but also to plead with you for continued and increased support for the cause of democracy and stability in Nigeria.

Before we discuss the specific assistance that Canada can and should render to us in our struggle for democracy, it is well to recall that the UN Secretary General recently sent a fact-finding mission to Nigeria to report on the killing of nine Ogoni leaders by the military junta and to report on the junta's transition program. Some of us in Nigeria did ask ourselves why the military junta preferred a UN mission, which was arranged at the special meeting between General Abacha and Boutros Boutros-Ghali. We asked ourselves why they preferred that to a Commonwealth mission.

The answer seemed obvious to us: the Commonwealth is an organization of democratic states, and a Commonwealth mission would obviously have held the junta to stricter accountability, based on the Harare Declaration and on longstanding Commonwealth ideals. The United Nations is not an organization of democratic states, and in the particular circumstances of the day, to put it broadly, a UN mission, composed as it was with regard to its membership and the countries from which they came, could be counted upon to be, let us say, more responsive to wider influences. However, these and other reservations notwithstanding, we and other pro-democracy elements gave the mission every cooperation.

You probably read the UN report, so I won't bore you, but it's just as well to recount what they found on the ground according to their own reports. They found that the junta had abolished habeas corpus; the junta habitually disobeyed court decisions, orders and judgments; there was harassment of the media by the junta, including detention of journalists without trial, closure of newspapers and radio stations for criticism of the junta or for publishing material critical to or even distasteful to the junta; there was seizure of control of the labour unions and professional associations; there was abolition of due process and the right of appeal; and there was widespread detention of citizens without charge and without trial.

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As of now, there are roughly 140 persons with political backgrounds who are in detention without trial, and some have been in detention for over two years.

In the case of the Ogoni leaders, there was no preliminary investigation as is required by law. The Ogoni leaders were denied access to counsel for a long period of time and were held in inhuman conditions.

The junta was actively involved in all phases of the trials. Defence counsel were harassed by the junta. The composition of the tribunal did not conform to standards of impartiality and independence set out in human rights laws.

Confirmation of the sentence of death by the junta was not legal or valid and, worst of all, the period allowed for appeal had not expired when the Ogoni leaders were summarily executed on the orders of the junta.

These are UN findings; they are not merely our accusations now.

You may be aware that we made these claims persistently, and other pro-democracy activists did, but the junta always claimed that these fascistic violations were false.

Given these findings and taking into account our initial reservations, your guess is as good as mine, and perhaps more charitable than mine, as to why the UN mission's recommendations did not match these very serious findings.

For example, the report made no recommendations in respect of the persons responsible for the unlawful execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni leaders. The report made no recommendations, in fact no mention, of the June 12, 1993 presidential election and the winner of that election, yet this is the event that precipitated the present crisis. The report made no recommendations on the so-called elections, which were merely a selection process. There were no recommendations in respect of assassinations and attempted assassinations.

Perhaps more relevant still to your consideration of these matters, the UN team stated categorically before they left for New York, in the presence of a high official of our organization, in fact to him, that the examination of the question of sanctions did not form part of their terms of reference.

They took no evidence on the matter in Nigeria. Unaccountably, their report there recommended that sanctions are not appropriate to the Nigerian situation.

Be that as it may, our own reaction to the UN team's report is that the execution of the Ogoni leaders - it doesn't matter how long it will take us - will be treated as a crime against humanity. Some day the culprits of this will be brought to trial to answer for their crime.

Environmental damage, depopulation, and impoverishment of the Ogonis should be addressed by international action. It can't be a private matter between Shell and the Ogonis. The issues are far wider than that.

We hope that international action can help to impose what we would regard as civilized standards of operations and behaviour not only on Shell but also on all other oil companies operating in Nigeria.

We say that special criminal tribunals, particularly those of a political nature, should be abolished and criminal trials should be returned to the jurisdiction of normal courts.

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Our junta in Nigeria has offered to reconsider these essential laws so that once in every three months a detainee's case can be examined or re-examined, in other words, for successive periods of three months instead of indefinitely. In my case, I was four and a half months in detention and nobody looked at my case. I was never told what I did. But they are gracious enough now to say they'll only detain for three months successively, without access, of course, to courts, relatives, lawyers, or doctors.

The junta's transition program, for which the UN report has asked support, we say quite clearly is unacceptable. Contrary to the recommendation in the UN team's report calling for support for that program, the position, quite simply, is that the junta has no mandate to devise and operate a transitional program. At best, they may claim that they have the mandate of the gun, which is brutal and undemocratic.

Our position remains, quite simply, that there has been an election, it was supervised internationally, declared free and fair, the winner of that election is alive, and we think there should be a government of reconciliation and national unity headed by that person, who is the only person who has the mandate in Nigeria today.

We also do not have a mandate. The minister claimed that perhaps the opposition in Nigeria is not in a position to take over. We do not seek to take over. We have not asked to take over. We say somebody has been elected and he should set up a government.

If we set up to occupy the position of government ourselves, not under mandate to do so, we'd be hardly better than the junta. We could only seek to be the government if the person properly elected to that position is not available for any reason.

May I add that after 30 years of continuous military rule, give or take the odd year or two, we are no longer minded to settle for regimes assembled by the military and greased by our money. We owe no loyalty to the military. We owe loyalty to our country. Our commitment is to the people and to the people's will, which has been expressed in an election.

We plead that our sanctions should be upheld and broadened. The recommendation of the UN team against sanctions runs counter to ongoing sanctions by the European Union, Canada and the United States, the suspension of Nigeria from the Commonwealth, and other actions by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. It's our view that there should be sterner sanctions, particularly an oil embargo to reinforce these sanctions, to create an environment for the early termination of military rule.

Obviously, there will be some difficulties, perhaps a certain degree of lack of unanimity. We've suggested that there might be an escrow account established for oil receipts not subject to the oil embargo, for the purpose of debt repayment, servicing our debt repayments, and expenditures similar to those allowed for under the UN-Iraqi formula. I think it should be possible for the Commonwealth to work this out.

Anti-sanction elements claim that sanctions would hurt the common man in Nigeria. That's false reasoning. Our revenues do not at present benefit the common man in Nigeria. There's a complete breakdown of social services. The lack of communication has never been as bad as it is now since independence. In many states free primary education has been abolished. Many secondary institutions have been closed down. Unemployment, particularly of graduates and the educated citizenry, is at its highest level ever. There's mass emigration of the educated and young people to the United States, to Canada, to the whole of Europe. The red-light districts of European cities are full of young Nigerian girls. The Romans, the Italians, are complaining. Sanctions couldn't possibly make the situation much worse.

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One welcome effect of sanctions would be to deprive the junta of oil revenues with which they undermine democracy in the rest of west Africa and equip and maintain a military establishment whose main function is to hold the people down. It would be a positive contribution to the restoration of democracy in Nigeria and the political sanitization of west Africa if the military junta is deprived of these oil revenues.

Besides, it has been established by the junta itself that General Abacha's predecessor, General Babangida, could not account for $12.5 billion U.S. of excess oil revenue from the Gulf War till now. In what way has the common man in Nigeria benefited from that windfall?

Comprehensive sanctions are one of the peaceful means by which military dictatorship can be brought to an end in Nigeria. We who are calling for broader sanctions are ourselves Nigerians. We don't want to impose hardships on our people. But those in Nigeria who are not supportive of sanctions in our judgment are mainly the beneficiaries of the misrule, dictatorship, and corruption in Nigeria.

Of course sanctions may have some domestic impacts in the Canadian context. But ideals do not always coincide with immediate commercial advantage. That is one of the lessons of history and, if I may say so, of Canada's ready commitment in two world wars. Sometimes peoples and nations must rise above considerations of the pennies and cents of the marketplace in order to find their soul, to uphold their ideals and their vision of humanity's future, in order to be their brother's keeper. We believe this is what Canada is now called on to do.

By reason of Nigeria's resources, population, and geographical location, continued military dictatorship in Nigeria is a threat to democracy and a threat to stability in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, Gambia, where the minister has just been, suffered its first military dictatorship ever when Nigeria took over the training of their armed forces. Also, Nigeria's involvement in Liberia, which originated from the desire of Nigeria's former dictator General Babangida to prop up the regime of Sergeant Doe in Liberia, rested mainly on the fact that insurgents were organized and led by civilian leadership. This created a fear amongst Africa's military dictators that this would pose a threat to military regimes in west and central Africa.

Given all the foregoing, what do we recommend Canada should do to expedite the installation of democratic structures in Nigeria? We recommend - we appeal to you for - the following: comprehensive sanctions, including an oil embargo; creation of an escrow account for oil proceeds not subject to the embargo, to be operated internationally for the purpose of servicing debt repayments and other expenditures under a formula comparable to the UN Iraqi arrangements; thirdly, the introduction in your Parliament, if we may be impertinent enough to suggest it, of a bill perhaps comparable to Senator Nancy Kassebaum's Nigeria sanction bill in the U.S. Senate, a bill that would codify current sanctions, impose new unilateral sanctions, provide multilateral sanctions, and specify future actions.

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It is simply not true that until or unless you have a consensus you can't make a start. Sometimes the situation requires leadership - leadership from the front. In the Commonwealth it's quite clear that this is the position in which Canada now finds itself.

We plead for dramatic support for Nigeria and for democracy forces to enable them to contribute the people's quota to democratization.

For example, I announced at a public meeting in London last weekend that we have decided to summon a conference of all Nigerian groups abroad and some leaders from Nigeria. This congress of free Nigerians will establish a broadly based parliament in exile, one of whose tasks will be to produce a people's constitution for Nigeria with the assistance of eminent international constitutional lawyers.

We hope that Canada will be in a position to assist us to achieve this end.

The Chairman: Chief Enahoro, I want to ask you -

Chief Enahoro: I'm just about to finish.

The Chairman: I know that the members are anxious to ask you questions. We have two more presenters and -

Chief Enahoro: I was just going to finish. I make my apologies for keeping you.

The Chairman: On the contrary. Everybody's very interested. It's been a superb presentation.

Chief Enahoro: Finally, Canada should continue to be the torch-bearer of positive action by the Commonwealth, to uphold the principles of Harare and restore democracy in Nigeria.

Mr. Chairman, I give you my warm thanks and the deep appreciation of our organization and of our people for your support so far - for Canada's support so far - and for your attention this morning. I apologize for taking up so much of your time.

The Chairman: Please don't misunderstand my interruption. It was only to make sure that the members would have an opportunity to ask questions. We want to give you an opportunity, through questioning, to elucidate some of the points you have brought up.

I'd like now to ask Professor Akano if he could briefly address us and then make himself available for questions as well.

Professor Akano, I'd like to thank you very much for stepping in on such short notice on behalf of Professor Ihonvbere, who did appear before the committee before and whom we had reinvited but who unfortunately indicated to us this morning that he had a family emergency and was unable to come.

Professor Usman Akano (Department of Physics, University of Western Ontario): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure for me to be here and to present the brief prepared by Julius, whom you know. He has been here before.

Chief Anthony Enahoro, for many of us, the younger generation of Nigeria abroad and those in Nigeria, has always been an inspiration.

At age 31, Chief Enahoro proposed the motion that eventually led to Nigeria's independence. Many of us Nigerians wish that at 31 we could be blessed with the opportunity to achieve a similar feat. Unfortunately, we are not.

In spite of that, we have dedicated ourselves to the struggle to see that Nigeria will not become a footnote in history.

You all have the brief by Julius, so I will not take you through everything. I will try to highlight a few matters. Basically, I will look at two issues: the crisis in Ogoniland and the role that Shell and the Government of Nigeria have played and what we consider to be the best way forward in order to unravel the crisis within Nigeria.

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I will start by saying it is time for new rules to be set, to define what military adventurists should expect when they seize power, dismantle democratic institutions, execute innocent citizens and asphyxiate popular community organizations.

It is also time to establish a minimum threshold that transnational corporations, for example, such as Shell, or SDT as it is called in Nigeria...the standards they must adopt in their relations with irresponsible governments. Profit alone is not enough. It is not more important to make profit than to waste lives. It is not important that profit motives supersede the saving of lives of thousands of innocent women, children and men.

I have listened to Shell officials. Many of you have read some of their briefs. I have read many of the publications they have sent to Canadian households, and certain issues run deep in those briefs. A lot of it is denial, denial and denial. No, the Ogoni environment is not devastated. No...there is pollution but very little pollution and even that little pollution is caused by sabotage. No, we have no influence on the Government of Nigeria. We cannot influence policy; therefore we do not inject ourselves into political discourse. Denial, denial, denial.

The evidence is obvious to anybody who cares to look. Shell has been involved in Ogoniland, as you've heard this morning, for the past 60 years. Nothing has been done as far as the environmental degradation that has occurred. Nothing has been done until about the early 1980s, say about 10 or15 years ago. Until then nothing was done.

Shell will claim all the environmental problems in Ogoniland are due to overpopulation, overfishing, industrialization. These are problems that are common to every part of Nigeria. It's not limited to Ogoniland, so why is it that the rest of Nigeria is not as devastated as Ogoniland? The only factor that is present in Ogoniland that is not present outside of the Niger delta is in fact the oil operation. If Shell is furious about accepting responsibility and about making positive changes for the future, it must first accept that it has caused untold hardship to the people, not only in Ogoniland but in the entire delta region of Nigeria.

All of us in Nigeria, either abroad or at home, know that Shell could not have done this, for instance, in Canada. In fact, it could not have done it in many other places. Therefore, we assert that the entire responsibility for what has happened in Ogoniland and in the Niger delta in general is not only the fault of Shell, but the primary responsibility is due to the Government of Nigeria. But Shell has taken undue advantage of that.

I will just read this paragraph.

The primary responsibility for the crisis in Ogoniland squarely lies on the shoulders of the Nigerian government since political independence. The Abacha junta in particular bears the immediate responsibility for being insensitive to the new demands of the Ogoni people, for escalating the crisis, for encouraging the insane and murderous activities of Colonel Dauda Komo, the governor of Rivers state, and Paul Akuntimo, and for taking positions that encouraged Justice Ibrahim Ndahi Auta and the Civil Disturbances Special Tribunal to seek the maximum punishment to satisfy a regime and a leader that saw a hunger for blood.

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It is the lack of legitimacy, hegemony, viable policies, and a sense of mission within the government as well as its pathological fixation on oil rents as a source of wealth that made it insensitive to the demands of the people of the Niger delta and other minorities. So the Government of Nigeria has made it very easy for multinational corporations like Shell to do what they do.

Shell Petroleum, the SPDC, has effectively exploited these contradictions and weaknesses to advance its interests in Nigeria at the expense of the Nigerian people. Because the state has been run by elements steeped in waste and corruption, supported by political elites with only a tenuous relationship to productive activities, and plagued by tensions, contradictions and negative coalitions, the powerful oil transnational has had no problem manipulating the Nigerian state, and it has done so very well.

You are all aware, as Shell itself has admitted publicly, that it has imported arms into Nigeria. That has been admitted publicly by Shell itself. In its defence it says that it imported arms only to support the police services in Nigeria because they do not have enough arms at their disposal. Of course, that claim has been denounced by former Chief of Defence Staff in Nigeria, retired General Akinrinade, who said the Nigerian armed forces and the Nigerian police have enough arms and they don't need any multinational company to import arms for them, for the armed forces or for the police.

Just think about it for a minute. Think of a multinational corporation in Canada actually importing arms into this country and giving them to some security forces to protect its property. It cannot be done. It is not possible. The only way Shell has been able to do that in Nigeria is simply because the government within Nigeria itself lacks any legitimacy. It is what you refer to as the privatization of the state.

The Nigerian state today is no more than another multinational, a partner with corporations like Shell and others that are interested purely in the profit they can make.

You've heard about Shell. Shell has also denied that obvious involvement in Ogoni. I won't take you through that. You all have the brief.

The other theme that runs through Shell's advertisement in newspapers across the country, in fact across the world, is its involvement in the Ogoni crisis, that it will not play any part because essentially this is a political discussion between the Ogonis and the Government of Nigeria.

Can Shell actually convince us that in 35 or more years of oil exploration in Ogoniland it has behaved responsibly and created no cause for community agitation? It was Shell that precipitated the current violent phase of the crisis when its contractor, the American company, Wilbros Limited, tried on April 28, 1993 to install an oil pipeline to connect the Bomu oilfields. Wilbros embarked on a large-scale destruction of farms, crops and farmland without any clearance from the community or any compensation to the poor owners. This resulted in resistance from a community that was not consulted, felt abused and marginalized. Shell called for support, as usual, from where? From the army, which opened fire on defenceless villagers on April 30, 1993. It is known in Ogoniland as ``bloody Friday''. So how can Shell tell us it is not involved, it is not part of the problem in Ogoniland?

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The other mistake that Shell makes - I hope it is a mistake and not deliberate - is that they look at the problem in Ogoniland as if it is purely an Ogoniland problem. In fact, this problem is general. Whatever happens in Ogoniland, you can extend it to the entire Nigeria delta area where oil is mined in Nigeria. It is simply because the Ogonis are the most organized and the most vociferous in their demands. Every other community, all 20 different groups in the Nigeria delta, are making the same kind of demand on Shell because of environmental degradation, because of lack of compensation for use and abuse of land, destruction of property and so on and so forth.

Despite the fact that other communities in the Niger delta area other than Ogoni are relatively quiet, it is a mistake for Shell to assume that maybe things are okay. I will not bore you with all the details. You've got it there. I'll go straight to the end.

Chief Enahoro spoke very eloquently about sanctions and the argument, as my friend here knows, that says sanctions actually would not work. In fact, many of these people have never found a case in which sanctions work. Even when you raise the question of South Africa, they say it worked for a different reason. If there is a country for which a case for effective sanctions could be made, I don't believe there's a country other than Nigeria.

I will just review. You are familiar with Nossal's argument. The same thing was made here sometime last year, so I won't bother to read it to you. The argument is simply that sanctions will not work in Nigeria for many reasons. Unfortunately, though academically sound, Nossal's postulation further captured the reality on the ground in Nigeria. He seemed to trivialize the severity of the Nigerian crisis and its implications for Africa. It overexaggerated the strength of the Nigerian state and understated the power of the international community and the resolve of Nigeria's opposition movement. It compares Nigeria with nations like Libya - three million people versus 100 million people in Nigeria, a clear ideology versus no ideology in Nigeria; or South Africa, ruled by a white minority with money, technology and strong support from western nations; and even Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea, nations with clear ideological platforms that facilitated a national project, an identity, and an ability to mediate the effect of sanctions.

As well, Nossal is wrong in asserting that sanctions hurt only the poor. In comparative terms, yes, but overall it embarrasses the government and the elite. It restricts their movement and the ability to enjoy the perquisites of power, strengthens the opposition groups, deprives the government of resources to repress the society, and further legitimizes dictatorships that otherwise would not have considered disengagement from power.

True, if a regime is relatively popular, has resources and enjoys policy effectiveness and the support of powerful nations in the global system, it might receive or withstand the impact of sanctions. If it is comparatively self-reliant, does not depend almost exclusively on a single export for foreign exchange and has a strong industrial technology base, it might withstand the impact of sanctions. This is not the case with Nigeria.

As you heard the Shell representatives present, between 80% and 90% of all the foreign earnings are from oil. It is essentially a single commodity economy; therefore, if you cut off that revenue you essentially cut off all the foreign exchange that is needed to bribe all elements within society to make the military happy. There is no ideological underpinning to depress any regime in Nigeria. The only thing that is underpinning it is the money that is realized from oil exports.

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I have listened to the minister. We seem to be saying we need consensus. We don't see a strong opportunity for opposition on the ground to actually take over. We want to encourage more discussions with General Abacha. Some of the members of the committee already put that to the minister.

What has been the result of all the discussions that have been going on since the Commonwealth meeting in Auckland? How has General Abacha moved, even a little bit, in the kind of direction that you and I actually want him to go? As far as I'm concerned, all the discussions we've had have not made any positive impact on him. Therefore, this committee must go beyond recommending secondary-level responses to the Nigerian regime. It will not work. Everybody knows what needs to be done. The time for talking and thinking and negotiating is over. A decent Canadian society such as ours must stand firm and say enough is enough.

A week ago, the wife of the winner of the 1993 presidential election was murdered in cold blood. This was preceded by the murder of Chief Alfred Rewane. In other words, since the suspension from the Commonwealth, it has been one escalation after another. There has not been a retreat on the part of this government. Essentially, what he is saying is that the steps the international community has taken so far have not made any impression on his regime.

I urge this committee to go beyond... My apologies to you; I'm not suggesting that you have taken the easy road, because I do appreciate all the recommendations you have put forward. But the time has come when this committee has to call a spade a spade. This is the only solution we see that will move Nigeria forward, and your recommendation must reflect this kind of view.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Professor Akano, and again, thank you for filling in for Professor Ihonvbere on such short notice. We appreciate that very much.

Professor Nossal, you've already been introduced by Professor Akano, who has set you up to knock you down, if I may put it that way. Perhaps you've been totally persuaded by his argument and would just like to accede to it, in which case we can move to questions, or you might have some observations you'd like to make to the committee on the appropriateness of sanctions in this case. Then I'd like to open it up to questions generally, to all the members of the panel.

Thank you very much for coming.

Professor Kim Nossal (McMaster University): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As a former academic, I wonder if you've ever met an academic who would be willing to pass without comment.

The Chairman: Of course, politicians are never noted to do that either. Don't worry; you're in, if not friendly company, at least understanding company.

Prof. Nossal: We're just a little more verbose.

Let me begin by saying that I very much appreciate the opportunity to participate in this discussion. In fact, I didn't get an opportunity to present my brief when you last met in December. Unfortunately, a snowstorm interrupted my travels to Ottawa. I do thank you for inviting me here again.

I should preface all of my remarks today by noting that I appear before you not as an expert on Nigeria or Nigerian politics, but as a student of international sanctions. Therefore, indeed, it is quite possible that I may miss the implications of what is going on on the ground in Nigeria.

In my brief to the committee on the issue of Canadian sanctions towards Nigeria in December, I put forward an argument why the Canadian government should avoid the politics of the grand gesture in seeking to advance the cause of democracy in Nigeria. I argued that there was instead a case for embracing less spectacular, more modest, and I think more constructive policies, policies of the kind that the minister, Mrs. Stewart, outlined this morning.

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In particular, my brief last December urged that this committee resist the temptation to embrace the option of economic sanctions against Nigeria. Obviously - I was most persuasive in my written brief - the economic sanctions option was simply too attractive, for this committee of course decided to recommend to the Canadian government that it seek multilateral support for an oil embargo, a call that the new Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade warmly embraced after his appointment in January.

I am here today to urge members of the committee to rethink that position. I know you reaffirmed your December decision in April, and indeed, reading the transcripts of the December meeting, I know there's considerable enthusiasm for the sanctions option among members of this committee. However, as you well know, I thought the enthusiasm was ill-advised in December, and nothing in the past six months, even the escalation of the crisis that everyone around the table this morning has referred to, has prompted me to change my mind.

I come to such a conclusion from my studies of sanctions, which have convinced me that this instrument of statecraft is generally a poor tool. Even though sanctions look so inviting and so attractive to policy-makers like yourselves, let me reiterate four of the various points I made in my brief in December.

First, sanctions indeed have a very poor track record as far as securing political change in regimes is concerned. This may be academically correct, as my colleague here has said, but the reality is that all but one of the success stories, if they can be called this, are to be found only in political communities where there was a well-established electoral procedure for removing governments.

In the long history of economic sanctions throughout the twentieth century there are only four clear cases where economic sanctions have indeed produced political change: in Israel in 1956; in Finland in 1958-59; in New Zealand and the sanctions that France threatened in 1985; and, of course, in South Africa. Indeed when I look at this record I think it can be argued that those governments that bent to the pressures of economic sanctions bent under the prospect of electoral retaliation.

What of those countries where the regime holds onto power through terror, coercion, corruption, or co-optation? These are not regimes that bend to peaceful, domestic pressures, yet the theory of sanctions, the theory that moves so much enthusiasm for sanctions, depends upon essentially liberal democratic assumptions about the ability to use economic pressure on the governed to squeeze its governors.

I know well the standard response: this time it's going to be different; this time we're going to design the sanctions package just right so we'll squeeze the right way; this time the objective conditions are just right.

My colleague here says if there's ever a country where the objective conditions allow it to be squeezed, it's Nigeria. I heard that same argument about Iraq in 1990-91. This time, it is argued, the regime is weak. This time, it is argued, the international community, the correlation of international forces, will be on our side.

In short, enthusiasts of sanctions live in hope. By contrast, students of sanctions, like myself, have heard this mantra of hope too many times to be anything but depressed about how little sanctions enthusiasts have learned from history.

My second point is that one of the reasons one can be depressed is that if sanctions have a poor track record of changing the behaviour of regimes, they have a very good track record of doing damage to national economies and, in the process, to people's lives.

Sanctions do work. They do hurt. They cause deprivation, shortages, and disruptions. They distort the economic lives of communities. They encourage black markets, gangsterism and corruption that tends to go with black markets. Sanctions produce large-scale unemployment, longer-term underemployment, and all the social and familial dysfunctions that accompany such dislocation.

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While it has been suggested here today that these effects won't happen in Nigeria because the situation is already so bad, I would urge members of the committee simply to look at the recent sanctions against Haiti, Serbia or Iraq, or the longer-lived sanctions against Vietnam, Cuba or North Korea to see how well sanctions work - how well sanctions help to destroy people's lives.

My third point is that although sanctions are targeted at an entire national community, they affect groups within that community very differently.

First of all, it should be noted that sanctions are an essentially gendered tool of statecraft, gendered in the sense that they affect women more than men. My scholarship is generally not informed by feminist analysis, but one doesn't have to be a feminist to observe that sanctions are tools of statecraft that tend to be advocated by men and invoked by governments dominated by men against governments dominated by men.

However, whenever we have discussions of sanctions, there's usually very little explicit recognition that having to cope with the disruption and destruction caused by sanctions tends to fall, in the vast majority of national economies, disproportionately on the shoulders of women and their children - something, interestingly, that is increasingly recognized by both the United Nations and UNICEF.

Likewise, governors and rich elites in countries hit by sanctions are always going to fare better in times of deprivation than the governed. For the rich in any society, sanctions inevitably merely do little more than challenge their ingenuity to find imaginative ways around the games governments play with one another. From my observation, at least, rarely are sanctions more than a trifling annoyance for the rich.

Likewise, government elites, for their part, generally don't worry either, for they control access to goods and resources. Let's face it: generals never have to stand in line for cooking oil. They never have to worry about medical attention for their children or where their family's next meal is going to come from. The governors of a sanctioned country will always manage to ensure that the armed forces are fed, clothed, sheltered and entertained first, with the governed left to fend for themselves.

My fourth and final point is that sanctions tend to have very indiscriminate effects, no matter how hard one tries to focus them to make them smart, surgical sanctions. For example, sanctions invoked by the Canadian government will invariably hurt Canadians as much as or more than the governors of Nigeria. Indeed, if you look at the sanctions embraced by Metro Toronto against Shell Canada in December 1995, they demonstrate this rather nicely.

But it's not only domestic Canadian groups that get sideswiped. Essentially, sanctions targeted in Nigeria, as the minister has acknowledged, will invariably hurt Nigeria's neighbours, either directly or indirectly.

In sum, when I look at sanctions as a policy option, particularly against a non-democratic regime, I don't see much to recommend them. On the contrary. Sanctions might appear attractive, particularly if one is looking for something that will give the appearance of doing something in the face of the kind of tragedy we've seen since 1993. But when I see what sanctions actually do and what they don't do, I wonder, to be blunt, why sanctions continue to be the first thing people reach for to respond to wrongdoing in international affairs.

Because of that, I urge you to rethink your advocacy of sanctions as an appropriate tool of Canadian statecraft, if not in the Nigerian case - because after all, you seem to have made up your mind in this particular instance - then perhaps in future cases where your first impulse is to reach for the sanctions option.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you, Professor Nossal.

[Translation]

Mr. Paré.

Mr. Paré (Louis-Hébert): Unfortunately, I was not here at the beginning. I have a rather general question.

The Chairman: I can come back to you later on, if you want.

Mr. Paré: No, that's okay.

When we undertook our Canadian foreign policy review, we agreed, and the government took the same stand, to retain the notion that security could no longer be limited to what we considered to be a logical thing in the past, that is a question of defence.

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During the foreign policy review - and the witnesses we heard at that time were our inspiration - we agreed that because we now live in an interdependent world, the notion of security should cover environmental issues, human rights issues, ethnic wars, refugees and movements of populations.

In this respect, it is quite clear that the present situation in Nigeria concerns the notion of security. In fact, security in the country, in the region and ultimately throughout the world is at stake, because we are dealing with an extremely important country with more than 100 million inhabitants where the situation might completely destabilize that region of Africa and have repercussions throughout the world. Sooner or later, the people in that country who can no longer tolerate seeing their basic human rights violated will become a horde of refugees knocking on the doors of a number of countries in the world. Consequently, the situation in Nigeria concerns Canadians and all people throughout the world.

My question is as follows: Can the representatives from Shell Canada and Shell International accept our ideas on the notion of security as well as the idea that by pursuing their economic and commercial activities in Nigeria, they are allowing an illegitimate regime to remain in place and that for this reason Shell's commercial and oil activities in Nigeria represent a threat to world security?

I will conclude with a very short pointed question: Is it true that Shell provides the police with weapons in the region to protect its facilities?

[English]

Mr. Detheridge: Thank you, Mr. Paré. You asked a very detailed question about the notion of security covering environmental issues, human rights issues, movements of populations, and so on. Certainly I would argue it is important for Nigeria to have effective environmental policies. I think that is now the case, after, I would say, a lot of lobbying by the oil industry and Shell in particular. Nigeria now has environmental standards based on U.S. federal Environmental Protection Agency standards.

The issue of human rights is obviously a concern to this committee. It's a concern to Shell and I think to all other companies operating in that country.

To come to your specific question, do we feel we're allowing an illegitimate regime to continue? I have to say, as I outlined in my introductory remarks, even were we to withdraw from the country, I'm afraid the regime would not fall as a result. The oil would continue to flow, and I believe the revenues would continue to flow, unless effective sanctions were put in place. So I don't think we are permitting an illegitimate regime to continue.

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With respect to the issue of arms - the professor raised that issue - there are indeed such accusations that we are arming the military for the suppression of the troublesome communities.

As you know, Nigeria is a very violent place. It was violent fifteen years ago and it is violent now. Part of my unfortunate duties in London is to arrange for the bodies of shot and injured people, our staff members, to come home to be buried or to be treated. People have been shot and people have been killed as the result of just general crime. We've had 600 incidents in the last two years, 10% of which involved the use of arms.

As I said, the situation was difficult fifteen years ago, and fifteen years ago we did not import but we did pay for the purchase of one hundred handguns to protect our staff. Those are assigned to the police assigned to Shell and are used exclusively for that purpose. There are strict controls over those guns. They have only been fired once apart from target practice in the fifteen years that they have been deployed, and they have never been used against communities.

Are we the only company to do that in Nigeria? No. All of the other major oil companies operating in Nigeria, as well as other companies apart from the oil companies, have weapons to protect their staff. In most cases they have more sophisticated weapons. We have 107 handguns to protect nearly 5,000 staff, and 20% of those guns are now unserviceable, fifteen-year-old handguns. I'm afraid that other companies have semi-automatic weapons and pump-action shotguns and other such devices in rather larger numbers to protect their staff, which, to be frank, is one of the reasons why our staff is targeted.

It is a situation that concerns us greatly. It's not something that we take lightly. We are very concerned for the security for our staff in Nigeria.

That is the story on the guns.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Iftody.

Mr. Iftody: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Having sat here for the past couple of hours listening to this presentation, I'm getting increasingly angry, sir, with your information, with the responses that you're giving. You're telling this committee that now you have your own sort of secret police force, paid for by Shell, to guard these facilities. I just find the whole situation absolutely deplorable. For Shell Canada to be participating in this - being 80% owned by this international company - is very disturbing indeed.

As for the recent events in Nigeria, I must say that the presentations made here certainly do not present me, sir, with any kind of comfort at all that your company is going to do anything constructive to remedy this situation or to work with the Canadian government in any way at all to ensure that these deplorable actions cease.

For example, a recent report by the ex-chairman of the World Bank says that much of the corruption in developing countries is the direct result of corrupt multinationals. This is not coming from somebody who has a particular position to defend, but from someone who I think is making a very studied observation about some of the difficulties we're facing.

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For you to sit in front of this committee and make these kinds of defences I find to be absolutely unacceptable.

Shell Canada, as well, is implicated in this whole process, and neither of you can come in front of this committee and wash your hands and say that you have no role to play, that you have no responsibility in what's happened there, that the underpinnings of your economic infrastructure and oil rigs in that country, in those communities, in no way aid or abet the Nigerian government in what they're doing. I do not buy that argument.

As a committee member - I won't speak for everyone here - I feel insulted by this rather lame presentation to say that there is nothing you can do.

I think that you have violated even elementary standards of a code of international conduct for business, and Shell Canada, as well, thereby has implicated Canadians in this rather sad saga that continues to be played out - most recently with the murder of the elected member's wife. I'm sorry; I don't have the name in front of me here. But I am deeply troubled and angered by this.

Let me conclude, and then you can respond to these comments.

I have a small Hutterite community in my riding that has established basically a Christian community mission in Nigeria. They called me the other day and said, ``We've sent aid to Nigeria, about $150,000 worth of product, vitamins and small garden tractors, what have you. It was seized at the port by corrupt officials demanding another $25,000 Canadian before they would release it to this community'' - which I've shared with this committee - ``or else they were going to tear it apart on the docks and give it to the respective officers.''

I'm not going to speak for your country, but I don't believe that Canadians are prepared to accept this kind of practice - and Canadian business people involved in Nigeria or, by implication, with Shell Canada from Calgary.

Notwithstanding the very articulate interventions of the gentleman here about sanctions, I believe that the Canadian government ought to be working with your country for a systematic withdrawal of some of your activities in Nigeria, to send a very deliberate message about the seriousness with which we view these incidents.

Juxtaposed, sir, against your own sort of military police with handguns or machine-guns warding off the local community people who have objections to your activities in that community, I find it indefensible.

Mr. Detheridge: Perhaps I could start by saying that I understand a lot of the anger you feel, particularly your story about the Hutterite community who have tried to send aid to that troubled country. Nobody likes the corruption that goes on in Nigeria, and indeed those of us who travel to Nigeria and those of us who live in Nigeria experience attempts at that every day, at least on a small scale.

We take a very strong stand on corruption. We do not tolerate it. We do not tolerate the payment of bribes. That is an instant dismissal offence in Shell.

My last job before this one was as the group chief internal auditor, and part of my job was going around investigating any reports of corruption, particularly at high levels. I can tell you that we don't sack people just at low levels; we sack them at high levels as well, and I've been personally responsible for that.

To turn to your feelings about our use of, as you termed it, a secret police force, it's not a secret police force. As I said, other companies operating in Nigeria do exactly the same. I'm afraid it's the way you have to work to protect your staff. We do nothing different, apart from perhaps under-arming those staff, from what other companies do in the same situation.

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You talk about the World Bank. Yes, it does say that a significant proportion of corruption in the world is due to corrupt multinational companies. We are not a corrupt multinational company. For example, one of the things we do in Nigeria, although we don't have to, is to ensure that our books are audited by international firms of auditors so that it's clear and transparent exactly what has gone on. And we do not pay bribes in Nigeria.

Turning to the more positive aspects, I think that those of us with interests in Nigeria, both commercial interests and other interests, do have to look at how we can cooperate. We won't be able to cooperate over the full spectrum of issues that need to be put right in Nigeria. But one thing that I believe - and we've talked to Minister Stewart about this and hopefully will talk to her again - is that there is the possibility for companies operating in Nigeria and governments to work together in certain areas.

I'll give you one example of that, which was suggested to us on a visit before and we have since worked on it. Because governments around the world are cutting back their funding to non-governmental organizations, perhaps it's sensible to look to companies such as Shell, and other companies like us, to divert some of our funding for community projects through non-governmental organizations operating in Nigeria and other such trouble places. We are actively pursuing that. Democracy, in my humble view, will not flower in Nigeria unless there are strong non-governmental organizations there. That's just one example of cooperation that can be done. There must be others.

I quite agree with you, sir, that all of us with interests in Nigeria need not hurl accusations against each other; we need to work together.

The Chairman: Mr. Martin.

Mr. Martin (Esquimalt - Juan de Fuca): I would like to thank each and every one of you for coming to the committee today. I know some of you have come from a very long way away indeed.

For the committee's knowledge, Mr. Blakely, Mr. Achebe and Mr. Detheridge did come to meet many of us some months ago on their own volition. They came to our offices to give their side of the story.

I agree with Professor Akano that the time for talk is over and the time for action has to take place. Minor punitive actions are not going to make any effective change in the leadership. If things are going to change in Nigeria, more effective measures will have to be taken. If Nigeria blows up in civil conflict, the cost to all of us - the international community and the private sector - is indeed going to be enormous. We all have a vested interest in trying to make sure this is resolved in a peaceful fashion.

I would argue that one of the most effective ways we could effect change is to hit the people involved as directly as we can. I would take issue with Professor Nossal in saying that smart interventions can be made, particularly affecting the regime involved and the advisers. As General Abacha becomes increasingly more isolated in his enclave, getting to him is going to be more difficult and getting the message across is going to be more difficult. Perhaps hitting him in his own pocketbook and in his advisers' pocketbooks will give a very clear message to him that their behaviour is totally unacceptable. That's why I hope that Canada will take initiatives to freeze the personal assets of General Abacha and his regime.

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Also, there is an opportunity perhaps here for Shell. The government is receiving $11.50 per barrel in profits. You have an ideal opportunity that many of us do not have to engage in diplomatic initiatives or act as a go-between with the international community and General Abacha and his advisers, if that's possible.

Here's my first question. Is Shell engaging in diplomatic initiatives or trying to act as some kind of go-between with the international community and General Abacha and his advisers?

The second question is something we did deal with before when you visited the last time. It's an environmental issue on gas flaring. It has been estimated that the gas flaring that takes place in Nigeria represents more than half of all the contributions to global warming. I would like to know if you can give us an update on what's been taking place on gas flaring. Also, are you doing any environmental impact studies on your activities in Ogoniland?

Mr. Detheridge: Thank you, Mr. Martin. Is Shell engaging in diplomatic initiatives? Well, we're not a government or a quasi-governmental body, but we've made no secret of the fact that when and wherever possible, we make our views known. You can rest assured that attending such committee meetings as this, feeling the pulse and tone of the meeting and the very legitimate concerns that have been raised...that when and wherever possible we make those views known to all levels of the government.

To turn to your question on gas flaring, indeed, Nigeria flares two million standard cubic feet of gas a day. Our joint venture is responsible for flaring half of that. The contribution to global warming is a little overstated, I have to say, but nevertheless, by any measure, it is a significant environmental problem. It is a world-scale problem because of global warming, as you say. More importantly, for the people who live next to the flares - we have 100 of them scattered over 30,000 square kilometres in the delta - it is a nightmare for them. I wouldn't like to live close to them. I'm sure most of the members of this committee wouldn't want that either.

What are we doing about it? Unfortunately, gas is produced in solution with the oil in the delta. There isn't much you can do about it, other than shut in the oil, which is economically perhaps not the best thing to do.

In other countries, you can reinject the gas. Technically, that's not possible in Nigeria in most of the reservoirs. In other countries, you have developed local markets close by, as you do here both in Canada and in the States. Nigeria doesn't have such a market.

That is why we have pressed for a liquefied natural gas project. That has now gone ahead. It is not a moneymaking venture, I might add. It won't pay dividends for its partners until 2007. As a return on investment, we would get more money putting it into a local building society or bank, but it does cut the flaring, or will cut the flaring, when it goes on stream.

Initially, it will cut our flaring by 20%, and then up to 40% to 45%. We are looking for other opportunities to expand that plant and other uses for the gas to transform it into usable products that can be sold overseas. Our intention is to cease gas flaring in Nigeria by the year 2008 or 2009.

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The Chairman: Ms Beaumier.

Ms Beaumier (Brampton): Thank you.

I'm wondering why Shell would not be suing some of these newspapers. You talk about perception and you talk about truth. The Sunday Times and The Guardian Weekly claim to have documentation of some of these accusations you were denying. I would think that would be worth launching a lawsuit.

The picture you paint is much different from what we've read about and what we've heard about from human rights activists who have been silenced forever.

I would like to comment on several reportedly confirmed links between Shell and the Abacha regime. One is about the late Ken Saro-Wiwa. He met with Brian Anderson. It was reported he was offered a deal such that if he backed off on attacking Shell in the Ogoni region Shell would intervene in saving his life. That has been denied by Shell, but I would really wonder. Since there was a meeting, I doubt Brian Anderson was there to issue last rites.

An article published late year in The Sunday Times revealed the contents of documents. One is that Shell officials issued payments to Lieutenant Colonel Paul Okuntimo, who was responsible for crushing civil unrest in Ogoniland in opposition to Shell's presence. His methods included murder, rape, and torture. I suppose his methods were ``regrettable''. It has resulted in Shell providing vehicles for the military operations and rewarding Okuntimo personally. This is claimed documentation by these newspapers.

I have another one here from Jay Udofia, then Shell general manager east, to the state governor, making a request for ``the usual assistance''. Does that include rape, murder, and torture, I'm wondering?

Shell has admitted to importing arms into Nigeria to arm police to protect its oil installations, which is totally different from a hundred handguns. It has also admitted that the arms remain the property of the police once they're imported. I'd like to know where these arms are coming from, which countries you're bringing them in from.

We have pages and pages of documentation. If these are lies and creating a false perception in the world, why is Shell not suing these reporters and these newspapers?

Mr. Detheridge: Perhaps I can take part of your question and pass over to my colleagues for the others.

It's not our policy to sue newspapers. It simply doesn't help the situation. What we do is encourage newspapers, and in fact NGOs and anybody else, to come to Nigeria, as my colleague has said, to see the situation for yourselves and talk to the people yourselves.

The arms question I dealt with. There is only one instance on which we have paid for arms. That was fifteen years ago. I believe the arms that came then came from Italy. It was when there was a civilian regime in Nigeria. There have been no imports or purchases or funding of any form of arms after that date.

Perhaps I could pass over to my colleague to cover the rest of your questions.

Mr. Achebe: I'll address one or two other points raised by the member of the committee.

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The discussion Brian Anderson had was with Dr. Owens-Wiwa, who is the younger brother of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Ken was in detention at that time.

I had the privilege of sitting in on one of those meetings, and I read a letter Ken had written to his brother, which he gave to us to look at. In his own handwriting - if it was his own handwriting, as was declared by his brother - Ken was laying out the options that were open to Shell: if Shell did not actively persuade the Nigerian government to release him and take other actions that the Ogonis were demanding, the whole world was going to rise against Shell and we would be out of business in Nigeria. So, in effect, it was Mr. Saro-Wiwa himself who was trading, if anyone can be said to be trading. The evidence of that is on the Internet, placed there by Dr. Owens-Wiwa himself, as his own account of the discussion between him and Mr. Brian Anderson.

The article in The Sunday Times, which was referred to, involved the interviews with Mr. Brian Anderson, who is our managing director. We wrote back to The Sunday Times denying the allegations that were made as far as corruption and other things were involved. The Sunday Times failed to publish our letter rebutting those allegations.

We also stated that we had a tape recording of that interview and were prepared to make it available to The Sunday Times. The problem with going to court, of course, is that the matter can stay in court for 10 to 15 years or more. It doesn't help the situation we are in. We're addressing a very fundamental and very serious situation. We are as keen as everybody else to find a solution.

The letter of Mr. Udofia, who was our divisional manager in Port Harcourt, asked for the usual assistance. The usual relationship we have is that if our operations are shut down by any community, we engage in dialogue with the community to get to the bottom of the issue. Most of the issues are resolved at the community level.

When this does not happen, our first recourse is to go to the state governor or the state administrator to seek his input into the dialogue process. Usually the state administrator will nominate a member of his cabinet from the area where the problem is, to help bring about dialogue and intervene to resolve the situation. That is what would have been referred to as the ``usual assistance''.

The importation of arms into Nigeria has a distinct connotation. It indicates maybe an intention to subvert. As said by my colleague here, the arms that were acquired 15 years ago were paid for locally; they were not imported. Shell has not been involved with any importation of arms from anywhere around the world.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Mr. Achebe, I don't wish to prolong your testimony here before us on this issue, but since there's clearly such a distinct and complete difference between what you're telling us and the facts Madam Beaumier has been informed of by her own research, I wonder if you would be good enough to furnish us with the evidence you've been referring to and table it with the committee, so the committee members can refer to it on their own and verify the facts you've been referring to. That would be very helpful.

We're not conducting a trial here -

Mr. Achebe: I understand that.

The Chairman: - and you're not on trial. I'm not suggesting that. On the other hand, we have a very limited period of time, and obviously these are very serious issues. I don't like to say it's a credibility issue, but when it becomes one, if you can help us by furnishing further evidence, I think that would be very helpful to the committee.

Mr. Achebe: It will be our pleasure to do that, sir.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. English.

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Mr. English (Kitchener): I thank all of the witnesses for coming today.

Just to follow along on Madame Beaumier's question, I've been looking through the material too and have been looking at some of the headlines in the press. ``Shell Admits Importing Guns for Nigerian Police'' - that's from The Observer. We have heard about stories in The Sunday Times, The Guardian - all great newspapers of the world. In The Ottawa Citizen, ``Shell Canada under Fire for Ties to Nigerian Regime'' describes how the annual meeting of Shell Canada in Calgary was disrupted. Their own shareholders raised the issue.

Christopher Young, the distinguished journalist, writes in a column in Calgary that President Wilson of Shell Canada called the situation an unfortunate issue, as though his audience should feel sorry for the company. Hearts may bleed, but not for Royal Dutch Shell.

You've given us some material. We have some here, some of it from Shell Canada. On the second page you talk about community investment. You give $2.5 million to non-profit organizations. You give money for a community service fund. You donate computers to elementary schools. You have a $4-million environmental fund. You've adopted a sustainable development policy.

We were given, as well, some documents describing community and environment in Nigeria.

Mr. Blakely's job is in public affairs.

You've flown here from London, and we appreciate that.

The thing that puzzles me about this whole testimony this morning is that you began with the comment that you get $1 per barrel of oil. The Nigerian government gets $11.50. If the price of oil goes up, as it has been doing recently, you stay at $1. Your company may not be corrupt, but you're dealing with a very corrupt regime, which Transparency International has rated as the most corrupt machine in the world. So in some ways you're working with a very corrupt government, quite apart from everything else.

In terms of the situation of Shell Canada and Royal Dutch Shell International, you take great pride in your very well-known symbol. It is known. It's on our gas stations. I would imagine that quite a few people here drive by the Shell station and go to Petro-Canada or Gulf because of this.

I can't understand why you stay there. Why are you continuing to stay and work in Nigeria? You said that you'd do better by putting money into local building societies, which you probably would if those figures are correct. What puzzles me is why you continue to stay there when there's a tremendous cost to a company that spends hundreds of millions of dollars on trying to maintain the reputation of a symbol that is very well known internationally.

Mr. Detheridge: Indeed, sir, you're right to say that we would wish those headlines to be otherwise.

There has been a campaign, and we do our best to address the accusations made by those campaigners.

Why do we stay in Nigeria? I think one of the key decisions in our staying in Nigeria is, first, can we stay in Nigeria and keep to our business principles? That's the first test. Do we have to make corrupt payments? If we have to do that, then we leave the country. To this date, we can stay in Nigeria by that test.

Given, as you say, the difficulties that we have experienced...

Indeed, I would have to say, before anybody accuses us of trying to belittle the impact of the oil industry on the Niger delta or to belittle other effects of our staying in Nigeria, that we don't do that. We wouldn't be spending the sort of money that we are spending over the period of years that we have been doing so if there was nothing to do. Clearly, there is a lot to do in Nigeria.

Why do we stay? Because we think we do a better job than perhaps some other companies.

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Why do all the other companies stay in Nigeria? Why do Elf, Agip, Mobil, Texaco and Chevron stay there? I think, for us, the key part of why we stay is that Shell SPDC is a Nigerian company. The overwhelming majority of its stock is Nigerian. We would prefer to stay in Nigeria and hopefully work to make Nigeria a better place, rather than cutting and running. It wouldn't feel good to me to cut and run, and I don't think it would feel very good to our staff in Nigeria.

Mr. English: But you said before that if you did leave it would continue to operate.

Mr. Detheridge: Yes.

Mr. English: And you said before that $11.50 goes to the Nigerian government, but you've also said the Nigerian government is corrupt. By paying the $11.50 to the Nigerian government, aren't you in some way contributing to the corruption of that government?

Mr. Detheridge: I don't think I said the Nigerian government is corrupt, but many have said that, and I don't think any of us here would dispute that. I think what we're saying is that we pay our royalties and our taxes just as we would in Canada, in the U.K., in the U.S., and anywhere else in the world, but there are other oil companies operating there who produce more than we do, collectively added together, doing the same thing.

Is that a matter for the oil companies or is it a matter for the world community and the people of Nigeria? I think it's for the people of Nigeria to decide on what they want to have done with the royalties and taxes paid by the oil industry and by others.

Mr. English: But how can the people of Nigeria decide on the situation -

The Chairman: I'm sorry.

Mr. English: Okay.

The Chairman: Madame Debien.

[Translation]

Ms. Debien: I would like to start by addressing Mr. Enahoro. During our meetings, the assassination of Ms. Kudirat Abiola was often mentioned. I would like to personally extend my sincere condolences to all of the democratic groups and movements in Nigeria, as did our Minister of Foreign Affairs a short time ago.

In addition, I would like to ask you a question regarding your opinion on strict sanctions including an embargo, but I think that you and Mr. Akano have already answered that quite well.

I would like to ask you for some information. Recently and a few months ago, the newspapers were full of reports on what I would not dare call wars, but rather serious skirmishes among the various communities or ethnic groups in Nigeria. Could you update us on this matter?

[English]

Chief Enahoro: As I said earlier, we are planning a conference of all representatives of all ethnic groups. Most Nigerian communities outside of Nigeria have their ethnic societies here and in the U.S. and all over. Because representatives are not free to host such meetings at home, we are calling a world conference of free Nigerians - that's what we call it - with the ethnic groups and the national associations.

This was one of the requests put to General Abacha, which he refused to implement. We are now taking it upon ourselves to do it outside Nigeria as a means of laying a sound foundation for decisions as to how we're going to live together.

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Since 1963, when the last freely negotiated constitution in Nigeria was torn up by the military, we've had three constitutions - or four, actually, counting the new one - all drawn up by the military on their Mount Olympus, all taking no account of the feelings of these ethnic groups and ethnic societies. We believe there will never be stability in Nigeria until we come to terms with that.

I do not have to refer to your own experience here. You cannot discount the desires and the aspirations of these ethnic groups. Until we can sit together and decide whether we even want to live together - I hope we will - and then decide on what basis, we won't solve the political problems that even lead partially to the problems of Shell. That has some political aspects, and until they are resolved it doesn't matter what governments try to do at the top. We'll have our instability and our problems for many years to come.

I don't know if that answers the question. To try to give you a historical account and a background would take quite some time.

The Chairman: Thank you, Chief. It was very helpful.

Monsieur LeBlanc.

Mr. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands - Canso): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to obtain some information that has been missing from the testimony that the representatives from Shell have provided on this issue, particularly on the issue of oil and an oil embargo. To me, that seems to be the sticking point in terms of increasing pressure on the regime in Nigeria.

We seem to be fairly unanimous around the table that increased sanctions... First of all, we all condemn the regime. We all deplore the atrocities that are taking place, the violation of human rights and the violation of democratic freedoms in Nigeria. As an international community, led to a certain degree by Canada, we seek to do something about it.

We want to do something about it. We have considered a number of sanctions. We have applied some sanctions internationally and are considering other sanctions. An oil embargo seems to be one of the more attractive sanctions that I suspect we would apply internationally if we thought it would be effective. But some who are here, like the witnesses from Shell and Mr. Nossal, are arguing that the sanctions would not be effective.

I would like to ask a question of fact that would help me in my judgment about the effectiveness of the sanction of an oil embargo. It has to do with what happens to the oil that's produced in Nigeria by Shell, by the national petroleum company of Nigeria, which provides the revenue for the Government of Nigeria. Could the representatives from Shell give the committee a very brief lesson on distribution and marketing of the supplies of oil that are produced from Nigeria and tell us what would happen if that flow stopped?

My second question relates somewhat to Mr. English's question, and it is for our Nigerian witnesses. Considering the answer to the first question, what is your advice to the committee in its recommendation to the government regarding the application now of an oil embargo from your standpoint as Nigerian citizens?

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Mr. Detheridge: Perhaps I could start, Mr. Chairman, and then pass over to the others.

We have not come here to argue against sanctions. That is not our role, and we have not sought to do so with this committee, or indeed any other committee or hearing that Shell goes to, either in public or in private.

In terms of where the oil goes, roughly 45%, I believe, goes to the United States; some 2%, as you probably are aware from the Irving Oil submission, comes to Canada; roughly 40% of Nigerian oil goes to Europe; and the rest goes to various other places.

What would happen if that stopped? That is something of a hypothetical question, but the first question you have to raise is, how can you stop it? It would require some significant cooperation to stop that, perhaps to the extent of mounting a naval blockade. What would happen if it stopped? That really is a matter for speculation.

Mr. LeBlanc: Could I reformulate that question?

Mr. Detheridge: Sure, yes.

Mr. LeBlanc: What I wanted to know was more along the lines of, if the oil did not go to those markets, what alternatives exist for it? Is it a particular type of oil that is necessary or is it a generic oil? That's the kind of question I need to ask. If we stopped buying it, where would Nigeria sell it?

Mr. Detheridge: I beg your pardon for misunderstanding the question.

Yes, Nigerian oil does have certain specific properties. It's very useful. It's a very light crude oil, very much sought after by older refineries, which do not have the upgrading capacity that more modern refineries have. There are other light oils available. North Sea crude, for example, would be one of them, and that would be the type of replacement.

The problem is, if let's say Canada and the U.S. imposed a sanction against Nigeria crude oil, then what you may see is North Sea crude coming over to Canada and the U.S. and more Nigerian crude going into Europe. That's why I say you have to sort of cooperate on this.

If you were to somehow stop it totally, then removing two million barrels of light oil from the market certainly would have an impact, at least in the short term on prices, I would guess. But I think to go beyond that is simply a matter of speculation.

Mr. LeBlanc: If they stopped buying it, would Nigeria sell that oil somewhere else?

Mr. Detheridge: That's a question you'd have to ask the Nigerians. Oil is a very fungible product. At the right price it sells, which is why I say if you want to impose an embargo and you want to make it effective, then you have to take some pretty tough measures.

The Chairman: Chief Enahoro.

Chief Enahoro: Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure that we have all paid sufficient attention to our suggestion of an escrow account. We recognize that there will be increased activity by sanction busters; there will be claims that humanitarian needs in Nigeria must be attended to. That's why we suggest that there be an oil embargo plus an internationally monitored escrow account, on the Iraqi model, which allows for authorized expenditure on drugs and whatever else.

But we can't impose sanctions and sit back and expect it to operate itself. There would have to be direct intervention to follow it up; otherwise we'll run into the kinds of difficulties our colleague has spoken of.

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Could I say a word or two about my colleague's presentation?

The Chairman: Chief Enahoro, we are in a difficult situation. It is now 12 p.m., which is the end of our session. I was going to ask if our panellists would be willing to stay a few extra minutes so we could conclude, but I have several other members who want to ask questions as well. Mr. Mills has been waiting patiently for an opportunity to pose a question, as has Mr. Dupuy. I wonder if they could each pose a short question and then maybe in a final comment everybody could address those. Would that be a satisfactory way of doing it?

Mr. Mills, do you have a short question you could pose?

Mr. Mills: I'll keep it as brief as I can.

I must apologize for being away; I had to reply to the minister's statement earlier about security. Of the important points that I've heard since I've come back, one is the important statement that if we hope democracy is going to work somewhere, we need cooperation. Cooperation has to take place between not only the governments but also the corporations and the NGOs in an area. I think that becomes most important. Certainly calling companies ``international pirates'' or needing military police is not a way to foster that cooperation.

I have travelled to areas where security is a real concern and can certainly understand why you would want to protect your staff, and of course it's necessary. I think of our trip to Haiti just recently where we had armed guards around us. The only comment of the person taking care of us was, ``Don't let one of them get shot because they cost $600,000 for a by-election, whereas one of our soldiers isn't as expensive.''

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chairman: Let's hope that's not the view of our electors, Mr. Mills.

Mr. Mills: But that's the sort of security thing that you do face, and you can understand, to start attacking the company... Remember, the shareholders of these companies are people with pensions, are Canadians, are many of the baby boomers who are a part of our system.

Ultimately, of course, we all abhor the corruption, the human rights abuses that we have seen. But I think it's the cooperative effort that is going to work. Certainly in listening to the chief speak I hear a reasonable man who is prepared to look at all sides of the issue and thus work towards a resolution.

Finally, I see Canada as being in a position to provide the leadership role that possibly the UN cannot. I wonder what your opinion would be. Do you feel Canada can show more leadership to promote that cooperation?

The Chairman: Chief Enahoro, I was going to pass to Mr. Dupuy, and then we'll deal with all responses to all issues at the same time.

Mr. Dupuy.

[Translation]

Mr. Dupuy (Laval-Ouest): My comment and question are for the representatives from Shell.

Alas, from time to time in international life, some governments appear to be and actually are committing criminal acts on a large scale with respect to their people. I think that you are aware of the sentiment of everyone around this table that the government of Nigeria is involved in criminal activity.

You are associated with this government, and you are suffering the consequences. This association is very damaging to your international reputation. This morning, you have heard remarks which range from condemnation, not only of the government but also of Shell, to criticism when anyone sympathizes with your corporation.

I am surprised that your reaction is so weak, given that your international reputation is at stake, and that all you're saying is that you are powerless, that you're on the sidelines, that you're doing business and no more. I do not think that you will ever be able to regain your international reputation with that kind of argument.

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Would it not be better to be frank and say: If an embargo is brought into force, we will cooperate and we will stop exporting oil from Nigeria? That would be a very clear stand.

I will conclude by saying that I do not agree with Professor Nossal. Condemnation cannot be on an ad hominem basis, and some international economic constraints work, where as others do not. That is never the only instrument used. It is used in conjunction with political instruments. I believe that economic sanctions are part of the arsenal used by governments, including the United Nations.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Dupuy.

[English]

As we go across, you might want to make a very short concluding statement as well as dealing with the issues raised by Mr. Mills and Mr. Dupuy. I'll start with Shell and Chief Enahoro, and then Professor Akano or Mr. Nossal to conclude.

Mr. Blakely: In the questions a few references have been made to Shell Canada. I would like to convey to the committee members that we in Shell Canada have taken this issue very seriously since it has emerged. I have spent a considerable amount of my own personal time coming to understand this situation. I've referred to having hosted our visitors to this country once already. That is something we're prepared to continue doing to promote that dialogue with the Canadian government, which we think can be a cooperative way forward. I will give Minister Stewart credit for being willing to engage in that dialogue with us, and we will continue to do that.

As a representative of Shell Canada, I think I represent a Canadian voice in our discussions in the broader Shell context about the issues being dealt with, about the way forward. I have become convinced that the solution to Nigeria's future is not a solution in which Shell withdraws, but a solution in which it stays and continues to work within the framework of the community for positive change, going forward. I intend to keep my colleagues accountable to that action in the future.

Mr. Achebe: I'll come in here, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mills did talk about cooperation. I think that in all the statements we made, in our submission and particularly in my own part, we did stress that we are doing our part to talk to many of what we consider stakeholders in Nigeria, of which we are one - the communities themselves and the government, to the extent that we can talk to the government, in the areas where we feel we have a duty to talk to them about matters affecting our business. This includes the matters that affect the communities in the oil-producing areas, which we consider part of our business. We do make representations to government, openly and in private and so on.

As far as cooperation is concerned, yes, we think that is a way forward. As a company we accept that we have a role to play and we are prepared to play it.

On the reference to armed guards, I don't think it's worth flogging that issue. There are many Nigerians here, and I think we all appreciate in Nigeria the way things have deteriorated, the quality of life. We may not fathom all the reasons. It may be strange in Canada that private businesses like ours and other private businesses in Nigeria - the banks, the manufacturing companies - all maintain security. The only ones allowed to carry arms are the Nigerian police, and that is why we and other companies use them.

You mentioned Haiti. It is instructive to mention that the embassies in Nigeria also feel the same pressure that the rest of the community feels, and they use guards also. In their case they are allowed to use armed guards from their own countries. I live very close to the U.S. embassy residence and I feel reasonably protected because the American marines are there and are armed.

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The question of corruption was raised earlier and was directed at us at Shell. I think corruption is a fundamental problem in Nigeria. I'll speak for Shell. If other sectors in the country operated with the principles of probity that Shell in Nigeria tries to operate with, we'd probably have fewer problems in the country as far as corruption is concerned. The rule of government is important because the government collects the bulk of the revenue, so maybe you can accept that it starts there. But corruption pervades life in Nigeria - and I say it here with my fellow countrymen present - in politics, in economics, in business and even in social life. They demand bribes at the ports, the customs officers. All of those go through it.

The oil company has a role to play. We are trying to play our own role by staying and keeping to our principles, and I think it will be useful that others do too.

The Chairman: Mr. Achebe, I don't want to cut you off, but we are seriously running over our time and I want to give everybody an opportunity.

Mr. Detheridge.

Mr. Detheridge: I'll just say two things. Concerning Canada and leadership, I think you are displaying leadership in this committee and through your elected representatives, and that is welcome.

On the embargo, the issue raised by Mr. Dupuy, I did say in my opening statement, and I stick by this, that we would of course comply with laws or treaties enacted by individual countries or groups of countries were these to be put in place. So the answer to your question is yes. If an embargo was put in place we would abide by international laws and treaties. Our position is quite clear.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Chief Enahoro.

Chief Enahoro: Mr. Chairman, there can be no doubt about the very important position Canada occupies today. I don't think any other country has quite that advantageous a position, certainly not the United Kingdom for various reasons. On this continent you are in the Americas. You are in the Commonwealth. You have high principles that we admire. I don't think any other country could possibly exercise the influence on the Nigerian situation today that you can.

As far as we are concerned, if Canada felt free and able to sponsor a conference of all parties and was able to bring it about, I can commit from our side that we would be there. If you thought you could bring Shell and the political groups - and if it cared, the Nigerian government - we could deal with the aspects of our crisis concerning them. I could give my word that the Ogoni leadership would attend.

As to the wider issues, with the situation in Nigeria today I don't know what influence Canada can possibly have with General Abacha. The dilemma in which we find ourselves is that there is nothing he could put together that could possibly last. It would be merely a foundation for other coups in the future. I speak from the advantage of 40 or 50 years of involvement in these processes and in all the crises of my time. There's nothing this regime can put together, except in consultation with the pro-democracy forces, that would survive him by even a year or two. We'll find ourselves back here, begging for your support in getting down to the nitty-gritty, discussing the nitty-gritty of our problems.

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I think our friend, from his very deep study of embargoes all over the world, got lost in the process. From the general to the particulars, I think he had a problem concentrating on the particulars. Whatever the experience may be in the rest of the world, we do say the Nigerian situation is peculiar. Before oil we had what? Three or four crops. An agricultural country - that's all we were.

There isn't another culture there today now. Everybody lives on oil. Everybody survives on oil: the bands, the businesses - whatever it is. If you shut off that tap, you are creating a situation the world probably has not confronted in any other country I know of.

Besides, what we are saying is that with the help of the international community we can do both things. We can have sanctions and yet create a system by which you do not bring untold hardship to the people.

I think you ought to look at both formulas together. Look at what we've evolved from... Well, one is the professor's...but we've had a look at these things ourselves, reaching our conclusions on the effect sanctions would have in Nigeria.

Finally, may I say people like ourselves, or myself, are increasingly being looked on by the younger ones as fuddy-duddies whose methods have failed. We talk. We give speeches. We attend public meetings. We promote trade unions. We go on street marches. But those are methods of the past; they won't work and they can't work. If we don't succeed, we are going to see a situation in that part of the world that will not be expected, obviously, but which is going to involve all of you. It won't be confined to our place there.

The younger ones are getting very restive. When I got out of Nigeria myself, a conference of younger elements was going on in the U.S., with younger Nigerians from all parts of the world. They were prepared to define their own methods of struggle. It wasn't a definition I would readily subscribe to, but that's the kind of thing we are facing if yourselves and ourselves, and the methods we are applying, fail. There would be quite a cataclysm in that part of west Africa.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Chief Enahoro.

Dr. Akano, did you wish to add something?

Prof. Akano: I have one or two points, especially on Mr. Mills' observations.

Certainly if Shell wanted, it could be a force for good in Nigeria. When I think about their role I'm a bit perplexed, because I don't understand it. They must understand Nigeria will not be ruled by dictators in perpetuity. One day that country will change. Therefore they need to align themselves with the forces for progress and for positive change in Nigeria instead of aligning themselves so closely with the dictatorship.

You have heard everything they have had to say today. This is the frustration I have. In order for you to take them very seriously about what one can expect in the future, these people have to be very candid with you. The representative of Shell International, in part of his submission, said Nigeria now has very strong environmental standards, standards that rival what they have in the United States. I don't know what he's talking about.

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Mr. Achebe himself acknowledges that the environmental standards in Nigeria are below the standards in Holland. This, according to him, is because ``Nigeria is not Europe. We're working in a fundamentally different environment.'' That's what Mr. Achebe said in January this year.

The Shell representative today told us Nigeria has environmental standards that you can compare to U.S. standards. We have to be candid with ourselves. It's only then we can begin to rely on the goodwill and the corporate citizen trying to be a good citizen of that part of the world. I don't see that in anything I've heard today, and you haven't heard anything to that effect either.

Therefore I think it will be a mistake to expect that Shell is going to go back either within Nigeria or its international wing and begin to make the changes that are necessary. I think it's left for this committee to decide that within the context of Canadian society, within what Canada believes as a society, these are the kinds of things we expect international corporations like Shell to do wherever they operate. This is what Canadian society expects our government will assume as policy towards a repressive regime, as we have in Nigeria today.

I submit to you that there is nothing sacrosanct in trying to find consensus with the United States, Europe, and so on, in order to establish that standard of probity you expect everyone to live by. Canada must take the lead and set the tone. If we have to do it all alone, yes, we should go ahead and do that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Professor.

Professor Nossal.

Prof. Nossal: This is a 30-second urging of members of the committee to do a bit of reflection as they consider what has been said about an oil embargo; that is, simply reflect on the case of Iraq, where in 1990-91 the most comprehensive, leak-proof sanctions were put on Iraq. We've seen what has happened over the last six years and how far ahead Iraq is in the promotion of democracy in that country.

The likelihood that oil sanctions against Nigeria would be comparably leak-proof leads me to be very pessimistic about the likelihood that this particular economic sanction would be an effective one, regardless of what I have had to say about the appropriateness of using that sanction.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

On behalf of all the committee members, I want to thank all of you for your thoughtful presentations and testimony before us this morning.

I think I can speak on behalf of all of us when I say we've been profoundly touched by the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa and others who really died defending their homeland against environmental and economic degradation and political abuse of rights, the retention of Mr. Abiola and others, the death of Mrs. Abiola... The list is too long to recite, but they're imprinted indelibly on the minds of the members of this committee and I think all members of Parliament.

What we are trying to do today is search for the most effective way to ensure that these abuses of civil rights and this condition will come to an end.

Mr. LeBlanc is working on a motion, which I think he will be in position to put before us later on. I don't think now is the appropriate time to do it, but we will make sure that before this committee rises at the end of this session we will have dealt with it so that we can pursue the resolution we adopted in April and see what modifications we should make to it.

Thank you all for coming from far and near and giving this issue the attention it more than merits. I'm sorry we didn't have longer to deal with it.

I would like to remind the members of the committee that we have another issue to deal with this morning. We have Mr. Walter McLean, who has been very good to wait in order to make his presentation about the United Nations. I'd ask you to stay for that.

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We'll adjourn this portion of the meeting.

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