Published: April 13 2009 03:00 | Last updated: April 13 2009 03:00
From Mr Richard D. North.
Sir, Doubtless Shell and its lawyers are well able to make their own defence against charges being levelled at their behaviour in the oil-bearing Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta and their alleged complicity in the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995 (Shell faces Saro-Wiwa death claim, April 4).
Still, it is worth pointing out that your reporters paint a dangerously simplistic picture when they write: Saro-Wiwa mobilised hundreds of thousands of Ogoni people to launch peaceful protests against environmental damage caused by oil companies in the Delta.
In 1996 I joined a party of journalists invited by Shell to visit Nigeria, and independently talked to as many people as possible in London, Lagos and Port Harcourt. I formed a strong impression that there had been violence from activists and authorities alike.
The Delta was a much more complicated scene than was generally reported in Europe or is implied in your pages. Contrary to suggestions that the deaths of Saro-Wiwa and the other activists marked a turning point that pushed the region into the violence rampant … today, it has older and deeper roots in ethnic and regional struggles as they met what has rightly been called the curse of oil.
Richard D. North
London SW1, UK
Editor, The Right Sites
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
