Mend offers to lay down arms

News wires

Rebels from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) Niger Delta rebels pledged today to halt attacks on the oil industry if the Nigerian government would allow former US president Jimmy Carter to act as a mediator in the simmering conflict.

Mend, whose campaign of violence helped lift oil prices a new record on Tuesday, said that Carter had accepted its offer to mediate in the conflict "on the condition that the Nigerian government and any other relevant stake holder invites him".

The Carter Centre's Vice-President for Peace Programs, John Stremlau, said the former president would take such a request for all parties seriously but it was "woefully premature to suggest he will plunge himself into mediating this conflict".

Mend, whose campaign of violence has cut Nigeria's output by around a fifth, publicly approached Carter earlier this year to act as a negotiator.

"We are ready to call off all hostilities and hold a temporary ceasefire in honour of President Carter should the Nigerian government accept President Carter's initiative," Mend said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

"However, if as expected, the government fails to seize on this new opportunity for peace, our actions will continue to speak volumes beyond the Nigerian shores."

Carter failed in a previous attempt to mediate in the restive Delta in 1999, but is familiar to many senior members of the different militant factions.

The Carter Centre informed Mend yesterday it would consider mediating in the long-running insurgency only if all sides requested it.

"The absolute first condition (for mediation) is that the Nigerian government has to approach us," Stremlau told Reuters.

The bombing of a Shell flowstation in the southern Nigerian state of Bayelsa on Saturday - which caused little damage to oil infrastructure - marked Mend's fifth strike in just over a month and the attacks are expected to worsen as the trial of militant leader Henry Okah begins next month, analysts said.

Todat oil hit a new record high of $122 a barrel, lifted by fears of fresh militant strikes in Nigeria, supply concerns in Iran and a forecast from Goldman Sachs stating prices could hit $200 a barrel because of lagging supply growth.

Mend has accused Nigerian authorities of mistreating Okah, who was extradited from Angola in February, and denying him access to his lawyers.

"There is definitely a link to the Henry Okah trial in the resurgent violence," one security analyst in Nigeria told Reuters. "How it develops will depend on how they treat Okah and the final decision at the trial."

The militant group, which is split between a number of different factions, dismissed the stalled Niger Delta Summit organised by President Umaru Yar'Adua in an effort to bring peace to the delta. It said it would not attend a meeting later this year in the capital Abuja.

"The Niger Delta Summit is failing because the government is talking to the wrong people," said Rolake Akinola, senior analyst for West Africa at Control Risks. "It is a problem of Yar'Adua's leadership style."

06 May 2008 14:12 GMT  | last updated: 06 May 2008 17:21 GMT