Dozens of British and American oil workers who have spent over more than two weeks as hostages on four offshore Nigerian oil rigs were last night helicoptered ashore after agreement was reached between their union, the rig owners, Transocean, and the Nigerian government.
The breakthrough in the talks came after two planeloads of mercenaries reportedly set off for Nigeria from Britain to rescue the oil workers.
According to Andrew Williams, UK director of military company Northbridge Services, two teams including former members of the Special Boat Service, Special Air Service and Royal Marines left yesterday morning for an undisclosed location.
Williams told Reuters that the contract had been issued by an ”independent company” acting on behalf of one of the governments involved. He declined to name the company or the government.
Joseph Akilanja, deputy president of the umbrella Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), said: ”It is over. Everybody is expected to be moving home from this evening, depending on logistics.”
Jake Molloy, of the Aberdeen-based Offshore Industry Liaison Committee, which represents some of the 35 trapped British workers, said: ”I have received an email from one of the workers saying that they had been told they are free to leave.”
The strikers, who claimed to have explosives, had prevented boats docking at the rigs and placed oil barrels to block helicopters. Besides the Britons the hostages included 17 Americans and more than 150 Nigerian nationals who refused to join the strike.
The talks were held at the initiative of Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo after Transocean appealed to him for help in resolving the dispute, said the company’s spokesman, Guy Cantwell.
The strikers, many from the volatile Ijaw ethnic group, the largest of the 11 groups in the Niger delta, were protesting at disciplinary action against five colleagues and a decision by managers to transport them in boats rather than helicopters. They feared they would be dismissed.
Yesterday, local analysts said the rapid escalation of a relatively simple labour dispute into an international crisis reflected the growing anarchy that threatens to plunge the oil-rich delta into uncontrollable violence, severely disrupting western oil supplies.
Oil companies now find it almost impossible to work on the mainland, and are increasingly looking to offshore operations to avoid extortion and damage to their property.
Shell and Chevron, the two largest western companies working in the delta, were forced to evacuate hundreds of people. Shell had to close many plants for its workers’ safety, shutting off more than 40% of its production at one point.
Kidnapping has become so common that the oil multinationals move personnel by helicopter and rarely go into villages. Ijaw youth frequently invade oil pumping stations, demanding money for their villages. The oil companies mostly pay without question, regarding their demands as an unofficial community tax.
Poverty on the delta is now extreme and communities are desperate for development and work, complaining that none of the billions of dollars earned from oil found under their land has reached them.
Many schools have no teachers or books, hospitals and health centres are ill-equipped to deal with malaria and other equatorial diseases that are rife, and many communities have no electricity. Unemployment is 80% or more in some places, sanitation is almost non-existent, housing is atrocious, and the death rate amongst children is very high.
Local people look to the oil multinationals for work. However, there are only a certain number of jobs and rivalry for them between the ethnic groups has increased tensions. – Guardian Unlimited Â