Friday, May 12, 2006
Business As Usual
We wrote about the gross inequities in Africa's largest oil-producing state of Nigeria a short while back, and the desperate measures taken by impoverished inhabitants of the toxic delta to protect themselves from the likes of Shell and Chevron's death squads, so we won't elaborate on that on this grim occasion. In fact--out of respect for the hundreds of charred corpses of villagers killed today while stealing pipeline gasoline to sell on the black market--we're just going to refer you to the AP story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060512/ap_on_re_af/nigeria_pipeline_blast
What we thought about, though--as we read the report from Lagos, Nigeria--was our visit seven years ago to the southern Portuguese coastal resort town of the same name, where ancestors of those incinerated were auctioned off as slaves four hundred years ago in the now quaint plaza and fountain surrounded by cafes that were once the slave trade places of commerce.
What we thought about, though--as we read the report from Lagos, Nigeria--was our visit seven years ago to the southern Portuguese coastal resort town of the same name, where ancestors of those incinerated were auctioned off as slaves four hundred years ago in the now quaint plaza and fountain surrounded by cafes that were once the slave trade places of commerce.
