The following is reproduced from the fall 2000 edition of Amnesty
International's newsletter, amnesty now, pp.4-7.
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

                              No Longer Afraid

                   For Nigerian activist Sowore Omoyele,
                        democracy is worth the risk

                               By RON LAJOIE
                           amnesty now Fall 2000


                  AP/WIDE WORLD
                   Nigerian police beat arrestee in Lagos


     Before going to a demonstration, Sowore Omoyele always makes sure
     he has adequate provisions with him. He wears two pairs of pants
     and stashes an extra tube of toothpaste in one pocket, a bar of
     soap in another. A battle-scarred veteran of Nigeria's
     pro-democracy struggle and one of the country's most vociferous
     student activists, Sowore, now 29, has been detained eight times.
     Hard experience has taught him that these sundries and a change of
     clothes will come in handy.

     "My first and second time in jail were pretty difficult," says
     Sowore, a quietly affable young man with a full round face, a
     ready smile and almond eyes that only occasionally hint at the
     intensity beneath.

     "You never know when you will get out, and you don't know what the
     state can do to you," he adds almost casually. "But after those
     first two experiences, I just accepted it as a normal thing that
     goes with my work. Being an activist in Nigeria, I train myself to
     accept whatever comes, detention, even torture, as part of the
     business."

     Currently in the United States to undergo treatment for the
     torture he endured in detention, Sowore is using his time here to
     speak for Amnesty International on behalf of other torture
     survivors and to inform Americans about the struggle for democracy
     and justice in his homeland.

     "The media don't talk to people like me, so you can't blame those
     who don't have information," he asserts. "Quite honestly, I think
     the situation in Africa is grossly underreported in the U.S.A. But
     I think all of us who believe in pulling Africa out of the woods
     have a duty to enlighten people in this part of the world. There
     are well-intentioned people in the United States who, if they have
     adequate information, can put pressure on policymakers to
     encourage democracy in Nigeria."


        MATTHEW DOYLE
         Former student leader and torture survivor Sowore Omoyele


     Of oil and democracy

     President Clinton traveled to Nigeria in late August, bearing a
     $10 million aid package to help "bolster," according to the White
     House, the fledgling democracy there.

     In advance of his trip, Amnesty wrote to the President,
     specifically asking him to reaffirm U.S. diplomatic support for
     Nigeria's judicial Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights
     Violations -- and to remind Nigeria's new leaders of their
     commitment to a civil society.

     AI also urged Clinton to ensure that U.S. training of Nigeria's
     military and police emphasizes respect for the rule of law and
     human rights. The organization further called on the President to
     support an independent investigation into the alleged involvement
     of the U.S.-based oil giant, Chevron, in human rights violations
     committed by Nigerian security forces.

     During a 1998 African tour, Clinton had refused to visit Nigeria,
     demonstrating his disapproval of the regime of then-military
     dictator Sani Abacha, though the United States maintained an
     arms-length relationship with Abacha's government. In June 1998,
     retired General Olusegun Obasanjo -- a military dictator from 1976
     to '79 and a prisoner of conscience from 1995 to '98 -- won the
     presidency in an election that, though marked by irregularities,
     was broadly accepted as fair.

     AP/WIDE WORLD                                          But Sowore
       U.S. President Bill Clinton and Nigerian President   suggests       
          Olusegun Obasanjo walk together during their      Clinton's
                   August 26 meeting in Abuja               state visit      
                                                            this summer
     may have been premature. "I would have told him not to go to
     Nigeria yet," he affirms. "There is a misconception that Nigeria
     has democratized. But the man who won the election was the military
     president until 1979. In 1977, he promulgated the Land Use Decree,
     which robbed the Niger Delta people of their lands. In 1978, he
     ordered the military to kill student protesters.

     "Besides," contends Sowore, "I'm not sure Clinton's visit didn't
     have something to do with rising gas prices in the United States.
     I don't know what kind of support he can show a government that's
     not been able to give any form of dividend to Nigerians, a Senate
     that is corrupt or an administration that is flatfooted and cannot
     bring food to the table."

     Just weeks before the Clinton trip, Nigerian Senate President
     Chuba Okadigbo had been forced to resign after an investigation
     uncovered evidence of widespread corruption. That scandal erupted
     as social unrest continued to roil northern Nigeria, where
     jurisdictions in the largely Muslim region moved to institute
     Sharia or religious law, raising fears among the Christian
     minority.

     And in July, a gas pipeline explosion and fire had killed hundreds
     near Oviri-Court in the oil producing Niger Delta, once again
     highlighting environmental degradation and security concerns in
     that impoverished area. The explosion was blamed on local poachers
     attempting to siphon off, literally, a small share of the huge
     profits generated by the multinational oil conglomerates that
     dominate the Delta.

     "We've had supposed democracy for one and a half years and people
     still can't eat," argues Sowore. "So who has benefited? There's no
     basic health care. We don't have running water. We don't have
     electricity, no basic education. Right now, Nigeria is a leaking
     basket. Shell and Chevron are among the biggest corporations in
     the world and they have benefited only a few people, the clique
     that runs the country."

     A stubborn foe

     Such blunt outspokenness has frequently landed Sowore in trouble
     with Nigeria's rulers and has cost him his health. But he is
     willing to accept that risk. His sense of right has deeply
     personal roots.

     As a 10-year-old boy, Sowore watched as a battalion of 300
     military police attacked and ransacked his village. During the
     raid the soldiers arrested his half-brothers and their mother, and
     raped his 17-year-old cousin.

     "I was in front of her and they did this. I saw it happen," he
     recalls. "That night I silently promised myself that when I grew
     up I was going to fight back." Nigeria's ruling clique had gained
     a resourceful and stubborn young foe.

     "Well, if stubbornness means standing against the authorities that
     occupy the political space illegally, I think I can describe
     myself as a stubborn person," Sowore acknowledges with a smile.
     "It is just a matter of not allowing the threats, the
     intimidation, the attempt on my life to stop me from carrying on
     with what I think is desirable for the good of my people. I am no
     longer afraid."

     The activist's public career began in 1989 when, as a freshman, he
     joined student demonstrations protesting an International Monetary
     Fund loan Of $120 million for Nigeria. Though supposedly earmarked
     for education, the loan nonetheless mandated a reduction in the
     number of universities in the country from 28 to 5.


          AP/WIDE WORLD
          Scavengers pan for oil at Adeje, Nigeria, the site of a
           July 9 pipeline fire that killed more than 250 people


     "It was not difficult to differentiate what was wrong and what was
     right in Nigeria," says Sowore. "It was a matter of taking sides."

     In 1992, when students mobilized against the Babangida regime, one
     of Africa's most notorious kleptocracies, Sowore led a column of
     2,000 students in protest. The peaceful demonstrators had marched
     about two miles when they ran into the police, who immediately
     opened fire. Seven students were killed outright. The police
     arrested and severely beat Sowore, herding him and 120 other
     students into a tiny detention room. Then they tossed in a
     tear-gas canister. Four hours later, when Sowore had regained
     consciousness, he was dragged to another room for interrogation.

     He later learned that the police had also visited his father's
     home in Ondo State to intimidate his family -- and that he and 47
     other student "ringleaders" had been expelled from school.

     The university would subsequently relent and permit the expelled
     students to return, but only after other students struck the
     campus to protest the expulsions. Based on the leadership skills
     Sowore displayed during the protest, he was elected Executive
     President of the University Students Union.

     "That was when I made my mark," he says with almost wistful pride.
     "The government knew I was a threat."

     Tortured in detention

     The next year was to prove a time of particular upheaval even for
     perpetually tormented Nigeria. In June 1993, the military
     government, now under Babangida's successor and close ally Abacha,
     nullified national presidential elections and imprisoned the
     winner and President-elect, Moshood Abiola.

     Immediately, the campuses ignited in protest. That July, Sowore
     led large anti-military rallies through the streets of Lagos. He
     was again arrested, beaten and warned not to engage in any further
     agitation. But in November, the impenitent student led another
     protest. This time the authorities aimed to show they meant
     business. Sowore was arrested, held incommunicado in solitary
     confinement for two weeks and tortured.

     But worse lay in store. In March 1994, a goon squad of toughs and
     student informers with links to the police attacked Sowore and 24
     other student activists.

     Beaten bloody, stabbed in the head, stripped and humiliated,
     Sowore was injected deep into the buttocks with an unknown
     substance. At the local hospital where he was taken, the staff was
     too intimidated to treat him, so he had to be spirited to the
     Lagos University Teaching Hospital. When the police came looking
     for him there five days later, he managed to escape. Forced to
     spend the next four months recuperating in hiding, Sowore learned
     that he had been declared a wanted man and again expelled from the
     university.

     Meanwhile, the police went to work on his known associates,
     hijacking a student union bus and torturing the occupants in order
     to discover Sowore's whereabouts. The students wouldn't give their
     leader up, and when the university reopened in July 1994, Sowore
     was there to take his final exams. Though the university would
     withhold his results for six months, eventually he was allowed to
     graduate.

     It wasn't long after Sowore graduated that the Nigerian
     dictatorship, out of the sort of bureaucratic incompetence that
     knows no ideology, handed the young agitator his biggest platform.
     In Nigeria, all students are expected to complete a year of
     national service upon graduation. Someone, somewhere decided that
     one of the nation's most famous dissidents would look good on
     television.

     "I don't know who made the mistake but somehow I ended up doing my
     service on TV," he laughs. "They said, `You are a little bit smart
     and we have this program we'd love you to handle,' and I said that
     was fine with me.

     "Most of the time I went on the air live. It was like they forgot
     who I was. The program [entitled Kaleidoscope] was becoming very
     interesting. I was producing every week for six months when the
     State Security Agency came looking for me. They said, `What are
     you doing on TV? You are a security risk, your name is posted at
     the airport!' But I was very calm. I said it's not as if I broke
     into the studio. But after that I was not on TV anymore."

     In the wake of the official blunder, Sowore was ordered to report
     to the state security offices once a week.

     Deadly serious business

     While Sowore was completing his national service, the government
     executed Nigeria's best known dissident, environmental activist
     Ken Saro-Wiwa, causing an international outcry. Human rights
     activism in Nigeria was indeed a deadly serious business.

     Six months later, Sowore was approached by men who simply asked
     him to accompany them to their office. "I knew exactly what it was
     and I couldn't resist them," he says. Again, he endured six days
     incommunicado detention shackled to the ground in a tiny cell.
     Sowore was finally released after a journalist learned of his
     abduction, but he was not permitted to work.

     Instead, he concentrated on student organizing. He also had time
     to put his broadcast experience to use, co-producing a documentary
     on Nigeria's oil dictatorship with the U.S.-based Pacifica radio
     network. He would be arrested again in 1996 and twice in 1998. One
     day in captivity, Sowore was brought into the office of a military
     official who told him to stay away from oil issues or, like his
     hero Ken Saro-Wiwa, he would be killed.

     Despite that threat, Sowore traveled to Brussels in January 1999
     to attend a conference on alleviating poverty in Nigeria, then to
     The Hague where he spoke to the Dutch Government about Royal Dutch
     Shell's activities in his country. The next month, Sowore arrived
     in the United States to attend a conference sponsored by the
     Center for Global Peace at American University in Washington, DC.
     He then checked into the Bellevue-NYU Program for Torture
     Survivors, located in New York City, to receive treatment for the
     lasting effects Of the unknown injection he received in 1994.

     During his U.S. stay, Sowore has visited at least 20 cities,
     helping to lay the groundwork for Amnesty's Campaign to Stop
     Torture,[1] which is set for worldwide launch at press time. This
     fall, he is working with AIUSA's Human Rights Education Program to
     help teach students about the reality of torture in the world
     today.

     "Torture is the most potent force in the hands of those who wish
     to maintain power," he offers. "It allows them to silence dissent.
     I think I owe the public a duty to talk about my experience
     because the more we expose them, the weaker they become."

     Ultimately, vows Sowore, he will return to Nigeria.

     "Change will not come to Nigeria on a platter of gold," he
     insists. "If you want justice, you have to fight for it."

     Footnotes

       1. There are a number of processes one can join.

          The following are available from Amnesty International USA:
             o Fast Action Stops Torture (FAST) is a new rapid response
               network dedicated to using the Internet to stop torture.
               Join FAST and Take Action!.
             o Take Action Against the Torture of Children - The
               dependency and vulnerability of children should render
               them immune from the atrocities adults inflict on one
               another, yet violence against children is endemic.

          And worldwide, there is Amnesty International's Campaign
          Against Torture

          Manifesto:
          Torture  is abhorrent.  Torture  is illegal.  Yet Torture  is
          inflicted on  men, women  and children in well  over half the
          countries of the world. Despite the universal condemnation of
          torture,  it  is  still   used  to  extract  confessions,  to
          interrogate, to  punish or to intimidate.  In Police stations
          and  prison cells,  on city  streets and in  remote villages,
          torturers  continue  to  inflict  physical agony  and  mental
          anguish. Their cruelty kills, or leaves scars on the body and
          mind that last a lifetime.

          The victims  of torture are not just  the people in the hands
          of the  torturers. Friends, families and  the wider community
          all suffer.  Torture even  damages and distorts  the hopes of
          future generations.

          Amnesty  International  and  other  organisations  have  been
          campaigning against torture for  almost 40 years. Take a Step
          to Stamp  Out Torture and One Click  To Stamp Out Torture are
          boosts  to  the continuing  work  against  torture. They  are
          global  campaigns, launched  simultaneously  in more  than 60
          countries. They utilise Amnesty International's experience in
          gaining media  coverage, in publications and  in lobbying, as
          well  as mobilising  the  million individual  members Amnesty
          International has worldwide.

          torture - the big picture
          In preparation for the campaign, AI conducted a survey of its
          research files on 195  countries and territories covering the
          period  1997 to  mid-2000. It  revealed that AI  has received
          reports  of  torture  and  ill-treatment inflicted  by  state
          agents  in over  150 countries  since 1997.  In more  than 70
          torture  or ill-treatment  by state officials  was widespread
          and in over 80 countries people reportedly died as a result.

          The  world  has changed  immeasurably  since  AI first  began
          denouncing  torture at  the  height of  the Cold  War  in the
          1960s, but torture continues  and is not confined to military
          dictatorships or  authoritarian regimes; torture is inflicted
          in democratic  states too.  It is also clear  that victims of
          torture are criminal suspects as well as political prisoners,
          the disadvantaged  as well as the  dissident, people targeted
          because of their identity  as well as their beliefs. They are
          women as well as men, children as well as adults.

          AI's  survey  strongly  suggests  that common  criminals  and
          criminal suspects are the most frequent victims of torture by
          state agents  today. They  have reportedly been  subjected to
          torture or  ill-treatment in  over 130 countries  since 1997.
          Torture  and   ill-treatment  were  reportedly  used  against
          political  prisoners in  over  70 countries  during the  same
          period,  and  against non-violent  demonstrators  in over  60
          countries.

          AI's campaign  looks at torture by  police, in the context of
          criminal investigations  or the maintenance  of public order;
          torture  and ill-treatment  in prisons;  judicial punishments
          amounting  to torture;  and  torture in  armed conflict.  The
          campaign also looks at other forms of violence in the home or
          the   community    which   may   constitute   torture   under
          international standards,  even though they  are not committed
          by state officials.

          Methods of Torture
          The  survey showed  that beating  is by  far the  most common
          method of  torture and  ill-treatment by state  agents today,
          reported in over 150 countries. People are beaten with fists,
          sticks,  gun-butts,  makeshift  whips,  iron pipes,  baseball
          bats,  electric   flex.  Victims   suffer  bruises,  internal
          bleeding, broken bones, lost  teeth, ruptured organs and some
          die.

          Rape and sexual abuse  of prisoners is also widespread. Other
          common methods of  torture and ill-treatment include electric
          shocks (reported  in more  than 40 countries),  suspension of
          the body  (more than  40 countries), beating on  the soles of
          the feet (more than  30 countries), suffocation (more than 30
          countries),  mock execution  or  death threat  (more than  50
          countries) and  prolonged solitary confinement  (more than 50
          countries).

          Other  methods  include  submersion  in  water,  stubbing  of
          cigarettes on  the body, being tied to the  back of a car and
          being  dragged  behind  it,  sleep  deprivation  and  sensory
          deprivation.

          Cruel, inhuman or degrading instruments of restraint cited in
          AI's report include leg irons and electro-shock stun belts.

          Is torture illegal?
          The prohibition of torture  in international law is absolute.
          "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or
          degrading  treatment or  punishment", says  Article 5  of the
          Universal Declaration of Human Rights; similar phrases appear
          in many other international human rights texts.

          No  government may  use  a state  of  war, a  threat of  war,
          internal political instability  or any other public emergency
          to justify torture. Under  the Geneva Conventions, torture is
          illegal in  both internal and  international armed conflicts.
          Torture and ill-treatment are  also illegal under the laws of
          virtually all countries, although many laws are inadequate.

          One  form of  torture  and ill-treatment  which is  permitted
          under  national law  in some  countries is  judicial corporal
          punishment.  According  to  AI's  survey,  judicial  corporal
          punishments  are  provided by  national  law in  at least  31
          countries today.

          The most common forms of judicial corporal punishment include
          amputation and  flogging. Some  forms such as  amputation and
          branding  are deliberately  designed to  permanently mutilate
          the human body. However, all of these punishments can cause a
          range of long-term or permanent injuries.

          Since 1997  judicial amputations have been  carried out in at
          least  seven  countries  (Afghanistan,  Iran, Iraq,  Nigeria,
          Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Sudan) and judicial floggings in 14
          countries.