The WP has an article on the current rebellion in Nigerian oil country. If you read the CIA factbook entry on Nigeria you can't help but to agree with the rebels. Nigeria used to be a net exporter of food, but the oil industry has polluted their land so badly that now they have to import from other nations. The rights to Nigeria's oil reserves were sold to multinationals by rotten dictators who sold out their people for personal profit. Nationalization seems to be the bare minimum of fair. If you ask me, Shell should be paying the people of Nigeria reparations for profiting from repressive regimes corruption (and for bribing the current Democratic regime to hold onto their supplies).

Good news though is that the hostages the rebels took seem pretty happy. It's bizarre:

The militants allowed one of the American hostages to speak to the journalists. Despite the weaponry arrayed around him, Macon Hawkins, 68, of Kosciusko, Tex., appeared to be in good spirits and said he and the other hostages were safe. But he urged President Bush and the United Nations to help resolve the increasingly violent standoff between the Nigerian government and the people of this restive area.

"They get nothing out of the oil, and they produce all of the oil," Hawkins said of the Niger Delta residents. "They're tired of it, so they're going to fight, and they're going to fight until death."

He added, "Tell President Bush we want to get this thing settled."

Hawkins joked with the journalists about the group's conditions in captivity, which include air-conditioned rooms to sleep in and noodles for meals. He said he had been provided with medicine to control his diabetes and that the other eight hostages were being treated so well they were getting "fat and sassy."