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Mend snubs peace summit call


News wires

Nigerian militant group the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) has ruled out attending next month's peace summit called by the government.

Mend, which has spearheaded a violent campaign against Nigeria's oil industry has helped push world oil prices to record highs, said the summit was "bound to fail".

"Mend has made its position very clear that it will not be a part of the jamboree called a summit. Unlike other groups that go back and forth to be appeased with bribes, Mend has people with integrity," the group said in an email sent to Reuters.

President Umaru Yar'Adua said on Friday that the long-awaited summit would take place next month.

The violence in the creeks of the Niger Delta has cut the country's production by a fifth since early 2006.

The group has said it is fighting for a fairer distribution of wealth in the region, claiming that five decades of oil extraction by foreign companies has polluted land and water, leaving villagers impoverished while corrupt local politicians and criminal gangs enrich themselves with a lucrative trade in stolen crude.

President Umaru Yar'Adua's one-year old administration has repeatedly promised to address the underlying causes of the unrest, but also warned it will not tolerate the presence of armed militants and criminal gangs in the delta.

"As long as there are militant camps in the creeks and as long as there is a cartel that is carrying out bunkering of crude petroleum in the Niger Delta, you can never reach peace," Yar'Adua said in a televised interview last month.

He said on Friday that the long-awaited summit would take place in July. Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, a native of the delta, will organise the summit.

Jonathan's office said on Thursday that top United Nations official Ibrahim Gambari, a Nigerian who is a special adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, would lead a steering committee to prepare the summit.

Gambari was Nigeria's envoy to the UN in 1995 when writer and Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others were hanged by the then-military government of General Sani Abacha after leading protests against international oil companies.

Mend rejected Gambari's involvement in the proposed summit, saying he had defended Abacha's actions against international condemnation at the time of Saro-Wiwa's execution.

"Ibrahim Gambari's utterances during the trial and after the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa have come back to haunt him," Mend said.

"Here is a man who defended the despot, Sani Abacha, and the judicial murder only to expect a warm embrace from the Niger Delta people. He is not welcome and we do not consider him credible," the email said.

Mend also repeated that factional leader Henry Okah - on trial in the central city of Jos for treason and gun-running, and facing the death penalty if convicted-- must be released so he could take part in any peace process.


Tuesday, 17 June, 2008, 10:39 GMT  | last updated: Tuesday, 17 June, 2008, 11:20 GMT

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