To put this into perspective: if you or I get charged with a speeding ticket, we can do something that amounts to the same thing. You give the court $50 or $100 and you can get the violation cleansed from your record. In effect it's saying "Yes, I'm guilty, but take some of my money and let's pretend this whole sordid business never happened."2
Corporations do the same sort of thing: in exchange for avoiding the long, costly and embarrassing testimony of a trial, they can reach an out-of-court settlement. In this case a quarter-of-a-billion dollars.
This made me wonder…
Why would the Nigerian government agree to such a settlement?
As with almost every other Third World country whose resources are sought after by the Americans, Russians, Europeans or Chinese, the use of bribes to buy out administrative officials within the target country is nothing new; once bought they do what they can to facilitate resource extraction - including suppression of labor, health and environmental concerns and parties. Perhaps some of these same officials were part of the group that reached the agreement. Long story short: don't want to bite the hand that feeds you. Just slap it.
Also consider this: even if there had been a criminal conviction, because of a lack of effective mechanisms to enforce a conviction across international boundaries - especially when you're talking about the likes of the United States or, say, Israel - Nigeria's acceptance of the settlement offer was probably just a common sense decision: although the US is willing to bend over backwards to get its mitts on Julian Assange (and allows rendition of terror suspects to countries known to torture) you'd better believe it won't let one of its own be given up to the likes of Nigeria - or the ICC for that matter.
Why would Halliburton pay such a huge sum to avoid the trial of its former president - and former Vice-President of the United States?
Between 1994 and 2004, Halliburton is charged with paying $180 million in bribes to Nigerian officials to secure $6 billion in contracts for the Bonny Island liquefied natural gas facility. Hell…that's only $1 in bribes for every $33 of contract, shaving a mere 3% of the profit margin. 3
It may have helped that former President George H.W. Bush and former Secretary of State James Baker III interceded on Cheney's behalf. Why, you may wonder, would a former President and Secretary of State step forward to stop the prosecution (and, one would hope, the imprisonment) of the former corporate executive and Vice-President of the United States? Perhaps they are gay lovers and don't like the idea of Dick getting sodomized by a prison full of angry Nigerian Black men? Nawwww…it's probably nothing quite this personal and has a lot more to do with Nigeria's rank as the world's 11th largest oil producer. America would be like a whiny junkie if its oil supply was to be disrupted.4
What does such a settlement represent?
An out-of-court settlement isn't necessarily an admission of guilt, true: often the corporate defendant will crunch the cost-benefit numbers and offer a settlement even in the case of innocence. With an endless barrage of litigation targeted at the company, Halliburton may simply have wanted to avoid a further tarnishing of its image...though if you were already accused of assisting in the gang rape of a continent, pissing oil in the oceans, and ripping off taxpayers in one colossal con after another, what the hell would you care about further cementing your image in the Halls of Infamy? Maybe a better explanation is that to Halliburton the settlement amount is a paltry sum, and that a conviction here would have opened the door to convictions elsewhere. They can't kill all the witnesses to their crimes - not that I'm accusing them of murder, especially since it would be much easier to have paid-off officials do the dirtywork.
Of much greater concern is the lack of accountability on the environmental wreckage of the Niger River Delta by the oil and gas companies. During the months following the Deepwater Horizon blowout, Nigerians were perplexed at the severity of reaction against BP, since its Delta "has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates."5 Hence this represents once again the absence of justice in one of the most severe environmental catastrophes on the African continent.
Business as usual, it seems. Corporations (and their helmsmen) consistently get off the hook, no matter how egregious their crimes. As Dr. Sezneva remarked "In an era of increasing multi-national corporate control, we can expect more and more of this in years to come."
1 Nigeria to drop Dick Cheney charges after plea bargain
2 Sweden appeals UK granting bail for Julian Assange: This Very Bad Man's bail bond was set at a paltry $316,000!
3 Halliburton: Wikipedia reports, however, that the Halliburton subsidiary paid only a paltry $2.4 million - or a rate of return of $2500 for every $1 of bribes. Wikipedia
4 Oil Reserves in Nigeria: "Although Libya has more reserves, there were 36.2 billion barrels (5.76×10^9 m3) of proven oil reserves in Nigeria as of 2007, ranking the country as the largest oil producer in Africa and the 11th largest in the world, averaging 2.28 million barrels per day (362×10^3 m3/d) in 2006. At current rates this would be 43 years of supply if no new oil was found." Wikipedia
5 Far From Gulf, a Spill Scourge 5 Decades Old, June 16, 2010 the New York Times
Photos:
Photo montage and Bakersfield oil field photo: Mark Swindle | design-ia
Cheney photo: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/cheney-spokesperson-bp.php
Bush Sr photo: http://americanhistory.about.com/od/uspresidents/ig/Images-of-US-Presidents/George-H-W-Bush.htm
Bush Jr photo: http://connect.in.com/george-bush-jokes/photos-1-1-1-1256e192787a1693e8171e8bf300d845.html
James Baker photo: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JamesBaker.jpeg
Niger oil spill: Austin Ekeinde/Reuters http://brightnepenthe.blogspot.com/2010/06/scoping-problem-and-petroleum-industry.html
No comments:
Post a Comment