Nigeria Set for Oil Hostage Talks
20/02/2006| IslamWeb
The Nigerian government says it has assembled a team to negotiate the release of nine foreign oil workers seized by militants in the Niger Delta.
Three Americans, two Thais, two Egyptians, a Briton and Filipino were abducted on Saturday while laying a pipeline for Shell.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said it will decide the hostages' fate "in the coming days".
The group has threatened more attacks, including firing rockets at tankers.
Political agenda
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has set up a committee to negotiate for the hostages' release - but as yet no contact has been made, the BBC's Alex Last in Abuja reports.
He says usually in Nigeria hostages are released unharmed after some sort of deal, sometimes political but mostly financial.
But, our correspondent adds, more worryingly for the government this time the group has a political agenda of securing greater control of the oil wealth and unlike most previous kidnappings, this group has proved it is serious by staging well-organised attacks that have drastically cut Nigerian oil exports.
Shell has suspended loading from its Forcados export terminal, which was damaged in the series of pre-dawn attacks on Saturday, cutting Nigerian oil exports by about 15%.
The nine hostages were working for Willbros, a US engineering firm which is a Shell subcontractor, in the Forcados River, 50km (30 miles) west of the oil port city of Warri, when they were abducted.
Rocket threat
In an email to the Associated Press news agency on Sunday, the hostage-takers said they had not yet decided what to do with their captives.
"They are being moved around with our units and may likely only be killed in a crossfire," AP quoted the group as saying.
"We have not reached a decision on what to do with these individuals... The next few days will determine what steps we will take," the statement read.
The militants threatened to step up their attacks by firing rockets at international oil tankers.
"We'll use our rockets on the ships to stop them from taking our oil," Efie Alari, a self-declared commander of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, was quoted by AP as saying.
The rebels said they launched Saturday's attacks to avenge a series of helicopter strikes on local ethnic Ijaw villages.
The Nigerian military said it targeted barges being used by militants to smuggle stolen oil.
The group wants greater control of the oil wealth produced on their land.
Nigeria is Africa's leading oil exporter and the fifth-biggest source of US oil imports. But despite its oil wealth, many Nigerians live in abject poverty.
PHOTO CAPTION
An unidentified youth walks pass Agip contract workers working near a gas flare belonging to the Agip Oil company in Idu Ogba, Niger Delta area of Nigeria in this Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2006 file photo. (AP)