Dear WSNers, I have received the following terrifying message and
want to suggest that some interested people may try to find out what
really happened to Claude Ake, and make the case public. Interested?
__________________________________
Bernd Hamm
Jean Monnet Professor of European Studies
Director, Center for European Studies
University of Trier, D 54286 Trier, Germany
Tel. +49-651-201.27.27, Fax 201.39.30
e-mail hamm@uni-trier.de
Absendedatum: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 09:33:41 -0600
An: hamm@uni-trier.de, William Rees <wrees@unixg.ubc.ca>
Von: Mathis Wackernagel <mathiswa@edg.net.mx> Betreff:
sad news
Dear Bernd and Bill:
I have just come back from an international Friends of the Earth
Conference meeting in Uruguay, where I met Uche Onyeagucha, a young
human rights lawyer from Nigeria who was also on the defense team of
Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian writer-activist who was eventually hanged
together with 8 other activists by the Nigerian government (probably
with Shell as an accomplice) a little over two years ago.
Uche told me that Claude Ake, our Nigerian friend who took part in the
Dessau-meeting in 1992 died one year ago in an air crash. Claude Ake
was getting increasingly vocal against the Nigerian dictatorship and
Shell's opportunistic environmental and social violence.
Activists in Nigeria believe that Claude Ake's plane (a local
connector flight) was either planted with a bomb or attacked. What a
loss ... not only for Nigeria.
I remember Claude and his sharp analysis very clearly from the time we
met him in Dessau. Certainly, he belonged to the most outstanding
scholars I have met.
Scary, very sad ... and perhaps more common than we want to believe in
a large part of the world where power differentials, which are growing
with globalization, encourage continued feudal exploitation and
repression.
Sorry for the sad news.
Mathis
______________________________________________________________________
__
Mathis Wackernagel, Ph.D.
Centre for Sustainability Studies / Centro de Estudios para la
Sustentabilidad Universidad Anahuac de Xalapa Apartado Postal 653
91000 Xalapa, Ver. MEXICO
tel.: (++52) 28 14-96-11
fax: (++52) 28 19-04-53 (or 19-15-15)
e-mail in Mexico: mathiswa@edg.net.mx
e-mail while travelling: mathiswa@compuserve.com