MEND Nigeria-Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta-MEND-Official News Site -tracking News, Articles, Interviews and Opinions, related to MEND- from 1999 to Present

08/10/2007

opinion Lagos — The militants demanding a greater say in the use of their region's oil wealth have waged a fierce campaign against the government and foreign oil companies operating in Nigeria for some years now. However, it has taken a dangerous dimension since last year with hostage taking. This may have contributed to the death of Mike Hill, who never fully recovered from the kidnap of his daughter.

08/10/2007

opinion DR WAFULA OKUMU of the Institute for Security Studies interrogates the pros and cons of the envisaged Africa Command (AFRICOM). In this first instalment, he studies Africa's intransigent reaction to the projectUntil recently, Africa has not been strategically attractive to the U.S. This is partly because U.S. interests in Africa had not been clearly defined and it had no bureaucratic structure to manage those almost nonexistent interests.

08/08/2007

Warri — IN keeping with its recent promise to drop hostage taking as a means of actualising the Niger Delta struggle, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), led by Dr. Chris Ekiyor, yesterday, stormed the camp of a militant group that had been holding six Russian workers hostage for the past three months and secured their release after hours of dialouge.

08/03/2007

United States Congress (Washington, DC) document Washington, D.C. — Dr Wafula Okumu Head, African Security Analysis Programme, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, South Africa, testimony given to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, "Africa Command: Opportunity for Enhanced Engagement or the Militarization of U.S.-Africa Relations?" August 2, 2007:

08/01/2007

column Lagos — It is not funny at all when a man tells kidnappers that they can hold on to his mother as he could not afford the ransom demanded. Yet that is precisely what the Speaker of Bayelsa State House of Assembly, Hon. Werinipre Seibarugu, has done. He simply asked the hostage-takers holding her 70-year old mother to keep her, as he has no N50 million to give them.

08/01/2007

analysis Washington, DC — "Like its predecessor, anti-communism, the GWOT (Global War on Terrorism) is a timeless, borderless geopolitical strategy whose presumptions lead to defining all conflicts, insurrections and civil wars as terrorist threats, regardless of the facts on the ground." Lubeck, Watts, and Lipschutz in report from Center for International Policy.