1941-1995 KEN SARO-WIWA, Environmentalist / Human Rights Activist

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KEN SARO-WIWA,  Environmentalist / Human Rights Activist

(Photo courtesy of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People)

contributed to blackpast jun 19, 2009  by: CATHERINE ROTH

"Kenule, or Ken Beeson Saro-Wiwa,  was an environmental activist, author, and television producer. He was born in Bori, a small town in the Niger Delta. His father, Jim Wiwa, was a chief of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in the Delta region…. By the early 1990s, Wiwa shifted his focus from literature and television to issues of human rights and environmental preservation, particularly in his home region Ogoniland, the center of crude oil extraction by multinational corporations operating in Nigeria. He established and led the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) and relatedly, the campaigns against the Royal Dutch Shell Company, demanding that the company share the profits of oil extraction. In January 1993, Wiwa and the MOSOP lead a series of peaceful marches in which an estimated 300,000 Ogoni people participated. For the first time the marches drew significant international attention to the plight of the Ogoni."

(xHistory xPOC xBlack xAfrica xIndigneous xAdvocacy xHumanRights xEnvironmentalJustice)