Johann Hari: "Our cry for cheap oil is crude and deadly" - The Independent

Outside the trimmed greens of golf courses, lined by cyclone fences and armed guards the natives wait, watch and resist. This is one of the most harrowing commentaries ever written and every "oil - addicted" American should read it: [excerpt] "Peaceful protests had been swelling in popularity since the early 1990s – so the movement's leaders were seized. The head of the local Internal Security Task Force, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Okuntimo, made clear why, in a 1994 memo that was later leaked: "Shell operations are still impossible unless ruthless military operations are undertaken," he wrote, including "wasting targets ... especially vocal individuals." (Shell claims the memo is fake, and if it is real they find it "abhorrent".) One of the arrested leaders, the playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa, said: "This is it – they are going to execute us. For Shell." In his final plea before he was hanged, he asked: "Why should the people on oil-bearing land be tortured?" ..." Read more Johann Hari