This photograph is from the book Curse of the Black Gold which documents the environmental and human wreckage of 50 years of oil exploitation in the Niger Delta. More pictures from the book were featured in a Mother Jones photo essay found here.

While the last several decades of oil extraction in Nigeria have been an unmitigated disaster from every angle, some good news has finally emerged. Royal Dutch Shell recently agreed to pay a settlement of $15 million to the Ogoni tribe for damages related to the death of Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. As the LAT put it:

"Oil production in Ogoniland started in the 1950s, and what followed is a now predictable pattern in many oil-producing countries: Corrupt government officials enriched themselves; the local population was marginalized politically, and their ancestral land suffered enormous environmental damage. Led by Saro-Wiwa, the Ogoni demanded an end to oil spills and to the clearing of mangrove forests to make way for Shell pipelines, as well as a share of oil revenues. The government responded by burning villages and raping and murdering residents, according to human rights groups. Saro-Wiwa was arrested, tried in secret and, along with eight other Ogoni leaders, hanged."

 The LAT doesn't mention that this colonial-style system of natural wealth extraction and the Nigerian government's repressive and violent response to peaceful activism also gave birth to the armed Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). Since 2006 MEND has attacked the machinery of oil extraction in dozens of incidents. The human cost of the conflict is in the thousands.

After more than ten years of litigation, the settlement creates a precedent for future cases involving corporations that exploit the natural and human resources of developing countries. What's unique about this particular case is the allegation that Shell was behind the government's decision to target Saro-Wiwa. The settlement means that the Ogoni claims will never be tested in court, but The Independent has obtained documents that clearly implicate Shell:

"In one document written in May 1993, the oil company wrote to the local governor asking for the "usual assistance" as the Ogoni expanded their campaign. There was a stand-off between the Ogoni and the US contractor Willbros, which was laying a pipeline. Nigerian military were called in, resulting in at least one death.

 Days later, Shell met the director general of the state security services to "reiterate our request for support from the army and police". In a confidential note Shell suggested: "We will have to encourage follow-through into real action preferably on an industry rather than just Shell basis". The Nigerian regime responded by sending in the Internal Security Task Force, a military unit led by Colonel Paul Okuntimo, a brutal soldier, widely condemned by human rights groups, whose men allegedly raped pregnant women and girls and who tortured at will. Okuntimo boasted of knowing more than 200 ways to kill a person."

 Corporate colonialism in 1993 looks a lot like the corporate colonialism of previous centuries. One can draw a straight line from the colonization of Nigeria and its administration by the repressive Royal Niger Company to oil companies' involvement in the Nigerian civil war to today's collusion between the government and Shell.

In Nigeria's long and bloody history of oil exploitation, this is a deserved victory. It won't stop the pumps or give Nigerians a share of the massive profits from their natural resources, but it does right one wrong for those who have been marginalized, silenced, and killed for so long.