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Nigeria Kidnapping Raises Stakes for Militants

10 November 2010 03:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Nigeria: Kidnapping of foreign oil workers could signal renewed militancy in crude-rich region, APA reports quoting â€œABC Newsâ€.
The attack came under the cover of night, speedboats racing toward an oil platform off Nigeria’s coast, with masked militants firing assault rifles and kidnapping frightened foreign workers.
Such attacks became commonplace off the coast of Nigeria’s restive and oil-rich southern delta only a few years ago, quaking global oil prices. That coordinated violence faded away with a promised amnesty program and arrests of former leaders blamed for a recent car bombing â€” but the kidnapping of seven foreign rig workers could show that a major militant group may have returned to target Nigeria’s just-recovering oil industry.
An e-mail purportedly from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which began a campaign of pipeline bombings and high-profile kidnappings in 2006, claimed responsibility for the attack Monday on an oil platform 7 miles (11 kilometers) offshore operating for London-based Afren PLC. An Afren official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not been made public yet, said Tuesday that the hostages include two workers from the United States, one from Canada, two from France and two from Indonesia.
Two other workers suffered gunshot wounds during the attack, but are in stable condition at a medical clinic on land, the official said.
The militant group, known by the acronym MEND, customarily issued e-mailed communiques to foreign journalists working in the OPEC nation after its attacks. The public-relations strategy, as well as an arsenal of military-grade weapons, gained the group a feared reputation in a country vital to U.S. oil supplies.
But a recent government-sponsored amnesty program, promising cash payouts and a promise of job training, brought a number of militants out of the creeks of the Niger Delta, a region about the size of South Carolina. Many former MEND leaders took part, while an element of the shadowy group with ties to alleged gunrunner Henry Okah detonated car bombs in March outside of a newspaper-sponsored meeting to discuss about the amnesty.
The element also claimed responsibility for an Oct. 1 car bombing in the nation’s capital, Abuja, that killed at least 12 and injured dozens more. That attack led to the arrest of both Okah and his brother. Okah, long suspected of providing the rhetorical flourishes that distinguished MEND’s statements signed under the nom de guerre of Jomo Gbomo, now faces terrorism charges in South Africa for allegedly masterminding the bombing.
Now a new e-mail address purports to offer journalists MEND statements, these poorly worded and with a different format â€” suggesting a new person has adopted Jomo Gbomo’s identity.
"It would have to be one of their former lieutenants who knew how to take advantage of these communications to pick up where those guys left off," said Mark Schroeder, the director of sub-Saharan Africa analysis for the U.S. security think tank STRATFOR.
Or it could be someone taking advantage of the power behind the group’s name. Recent messages came from an e-mail account previously not associated with MEND and did not offer any details about the attack Monday, such as how many people were taken hostage.
"All the abducted expatriates are well and in our safe custody," an e-mail sent early Tuesday morning read.
Regardless, the seven workers kidnapped face days or even weeks of captivity at a rural village or base camp hidden within the maze of creeks and mangroves that form the Niger Delta. Hostages typically aren’t mistreated, merely held and fed until their negotiators reach out to company and government officials to come to terms on a dollar amount for a ransom. Oil workers went for sums upward of $165,000 before the amnesty program began and foreign oil firms confined their workers to concertina-wired fenced compounds under paramilitary unit guard to prevent kidnappings.
Meanwhile, three French workers and a Thai expatriate kidnapped Sept. 22 during an attack on an offshore rig operated by Addax Petroleum, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned oil producer Sinopec Group, remain missing. A purported MEND statement on Monday claimed the four had been "transferred to our custody," but offered no other details.
The kidnappings highlight the continued insecurity in the delta, where middle-class Nigerians live in fear of being held for ransom by criminal gangs or militants, who are sometimes one and the same. Such kidnappings will continue so long as "the merchants of violence" â€” politicians who often arm militants and gang members to secure their election â€” go unpunished, said Anyakwee Nsirimovu, a human rights activist in the delta.
"Those who kidnap are also imitating those who are in government who are kidnapping the resources of the people," Nsirimovu said. "As long as you have unending poverty in the midst of abundance ... you will continue to get people on the fringes."