01/25 US:Shell Reception at Art Gallery Disrupted

[the.greenbase@green2.greenpeace.org]

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Original-TO:      World Press (Green2:Green2:Gnl:INET)
Original-Cc:      The Greenbase (Green2:Green2:Gnl:Main)
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                    GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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>> GREENPEACE DISRUPTS SHELL RECEPTION AT ART GALLERY
Activists Climb Building And Hang Modern Work Of Art To Protest 
Shell Oil's Support of Nigerian Military Government 
 
WASHINGTON, January 24, 1996 (GP) Greenpeace activists today
interrupted a Shell Oil dinner reception at the Phillips
Collection art gallery, and added their own work of art to the
museum, unfurling on the outside of the building a 7 x 14 foot
rendition of Edvard Munch's expressionistic "The Scream" with a
modern message: "Stop Shell In Nigeria."  While environmental,
human rights, labor and Nigerian activists were demonstrating
outside the gallery, two Greenpeace activists climbed over the
side of the gallery's roof two stories up and descended several
feet to display the large painting.  
 
"We are here today to tell Shell to clean up its act and not
simply its corporate image," said Greenpeace's Steve Kretzmann
in Washington. "As we have learned from dealing with South
Africa in the 1980s, the best way to change an oppressive regime
is for corporations to pull out and stop the flow of money. We
must boycott Nigerian oil and get Shell out of Nigeria."
 
Greenpeace is part of the International Roundtable on Nigeria,
a broad coalition of human rights, environmental, labor, and
religious organizations calling for an immediate oil
embargo against Nigeria to isolate the brutal dictatorship of
Sani Abacha. Shell's collusion with the Nigerian regime in last
November's execution of nine Nigerian activists, including
Nobel-prize nominated writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, has spurred
worldwide condemnation of Shell, and driven South African
President Nelson Mandela to spearhead the call for an oil
embargo. 
 
Dr. Owens Wiwa, brother of Ken Saro-Wiwa, arrived in the United
States January 24.  He will be travelling to New York,
Washington, Toronto, and San Francisco to document human rights
and environmental abuses in his Ogoni homeland at the hands of
the Nigerian government and international oil companies. 
According to Dr. Wiwa, Shell offered to negotiate Ken Saro-
Wiwa's release from a Nigerian prison if international protests
were called off. 
 
Oil accounts for over 90% of Nigeria's exports and 80% of
government revenues, and Shell produces fully half of Nigeria's
total oil output. Sadly, many local communities have suffered
environmental damage from Shell's drilling and production
activities. Of the 110 countries in which Shell operates, nearly
40% of the company's oil spills and leakages occurred in
Nigeria. 
 
CONTACT: Steve Kretzmann, cell phone on-site, 202.714.6981
            Deborah Rephan, 202.319.2492

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