My cow-orker Cindy Cohn is not only EFF's Legal Director, she's also counsel for one of the survivors of a small village in Nigeria that was attacked by a government death squad that Chevron hired to clear the way for oil exploration. Chevron's now being sued in a US court in a case that has gone farther than anyone dared hope it would — maybe all the way to a guilty verdict.
The bodies of the dead Nigerian villagers had not yet grown cold when the Nigerian navy captain presented Chevron with a bill: 15,000 naira, or $165 for responding to "attacks from Opia village against security agents."
Within 24 hours Chevron paid up. It would be years before the San Ramon-based energy company would acknowledge the role it played in the destruction of Opia and another small village called Ikenyan in Nigeria's oil-rich delta in January 1999.
