Editorials Opinion and Analysis
The Risk Premium
by Mimi Swartz
(Page 5 of 6)
Thirty-eight days after Russell had been kidnapped, the phone rang. Regina was tired, having taken Kaitlin to another competition that day. She asked her daughter to get the phone. Seconds later, she heard her scream: “Daddy!”
By the time he was released, Spell had almost given up hope that the moment would come. “I don’t want to die for a pipeline,” he had told himself. They were “high-value hostages”—that was the reason he, Oswalt, and Hudspith had been held back. None of the captors’ demands had been met, and MEND had rightly assessed that its only hope for money and influence lay with the U.S. and the British. Conditions at the camp had deteriorated. The captors had cut down on the food rations, and there was no toilet tissue. Spell worried that one of the guards might shoot Oswalt, who pelted them incessantly with questions. Spell had lost his temper with him the day Oswalt had asked one too many times when Spell thought they were going home. “Damn it, Cody, I don’t know!” he’d shouted. The guards were crueler. “Maybe next yee-ah” was one’s answer. “Maybe two.” Their bodies were rank from the dampness, the dirty clothes, and the polluted water they bathed in. Oswalt had followed his captors’ habit of shaving under his arms to reduce the smell.
Spell thought about Regina and the kids—whether Matthew was reading Harry Potter and Kaitlin was still coltish and irrepressible, like her mom. Little League, dance competitions, report cards, backyard barbecues, Regina’s broad, eager smile—the whole of his life drifted across his mind like the clouds overhead. He thought about his parents, his dad in particular, who had introduced him to offshore work and whose business he had left to work for Willbros. He also thought about the newspaper he’d been given by the General, in which MEND had warned of future attacks. Why had Shell pulled their workers out but Willbros hadn’t? What had possessed him to come back here, when he could have worked with his dad in peace for as long as he’d wanted?
With every passing day, the danger increased. The prisoners knew about their captors’ weapons and their plans, knew their faces, and Oswalt had even let slip that he knew one of the commanders’ names. A newspaper had published a story identifying one of the remaining kidnap victims as a security expert, and the guards wanted to know who it was. Neither Spell nor Oswalt betrayed Hudspith. By then Spell had learned from the Englishman that “I don’t know” was the best answer to any question. Another time, the militants allowed Oswalt to call home, hoping to intensify pressure on the Nigerian government and convince Shell to meet their demands. “Something needs to get done,” he told his family as his captors ordered, “or we’re fixin’ to be killed.” Meanwhile, the risk premium was at work; due to MEND, oil production from Nigeria had fallen by 20 to 25 percent, and the price worldwide had risen to more than $64 a barrel.
As the month of March drew to a close, Spell sensed a shift in the negotiations. He had seen Ijaw leaders meeting with his captors, and he’d caught sight of some white men entering camp as well. In a subsequent meeting that Spell assumed involved ransom payments, the General paid his fellow militants from a bulging manila envelope. He was a little short of the 50,000 nairas—about $400—due the last soldier in line but promised to pay him the next day. The kidnappers explained their progress: Nigerian leaders were out of the picture; the U.S. government was now dealing directly with MEND to secure the hostages’ release. The FBI, the CIA, the State Department, Ijaw Americans, and countless others were now involved, including Willbros’ insurance company. In addition, six U.S. government terrorist experts had flown in from Afghanistan to close the deal, while the Bush administration had threatened to increase U.S. naval presence in the Gulf of Guinea. The captors kept negotiating, but they also brought in mortars.
The tip-off that release was near came when the militants suddenly seemed concerned about what their captives thought of them. Like most revolutionaries, they understood the value of propaganda and didn’t want the wrong message released to the world. At a midnight ceremony, complete with Johnnie Walker Red Label and Heineken, the captors, dressed in tribal robes and discharging guns into the air, seemed genuinely sorry to say goodbye. They gave Oswalt, Hudspith, and Spell detailed answers to questions Nigerian military intelligence officers would ask and insisted the captives carry the word about MEND’s struggle to the outside world. By then, Spell had come to feel the strange ambivalence that hostages often develop. Despite the beatings and the death threats, he had a healthy respect for his captors. They were disciplined and resolute; he had never seen people so determined to fight for a cause. “If we were in the same circumstances as them,” Oswalt had asked him one day, “would you join MEND and fight like they do?” Spell thought a while before answering. “I certainly hope I would have the courage to,” he said.
As a final going-away gift, the captors offered a curse: If their prisoners ever spoke negatively about MEND, someone close to them would die soon after. The Ijaws had people everywhere, including Houston, they said. At last, in the darkness, a boat appeared to take them home.
They traveled upriver for about an hour and a half, the only sound the sputtering of the motorboat. Finally, they reached Warri, a city of about a million people, where many oil companies had offices, and were taken into a security debriefing. The intelligence officers asked the questions MEND had predicted, and Spell answered as he’d been told. How had Spell been treated? Well, very well. Did MEND have weapons? Yes. What kind? He didn’t know. Where was their camp? He didn’t know. How many men? He didn’t know. Spell wasn’t sure how free he really was. He was still deep in the delta, and MEND members clearly had security police contacts. He wasn’t taking any chances.
The next few hours consisted of a series of transfers that seemed to get Spell ever closer to American life without actually getting him closer to home. The security forces escorted the hostages to a large, darkened home for a meeting with an Ijaw chief, who sat in front of a red curtain in traditional red-and-white robes. He congratulated the men on their release and then handed them over to Delta State governor James Ibori—the official who was noteworthy for his Mercedes Maybach and London real estate—who told them how hard he had worked for their release. As night turned into day, Ibori passed the men on to FBI and State Department officials. At last, the Americans were in friendly hands. The FBI told Spell that reporters were waiting, hoping to interview him. Though the government officials urged discretion, they knew they had no claim on him. “It’s your story,” the agent said of Spell’s experience. “Say whatever you want.”
Spell said nothing; he was too eager to use the cell phone someone handed him to call home. He was in a daze as he was moved to a Shell compound, where, after a brief medical examination, a doctor gave him a clean bill of health and a fresh supply of his long-missing blood pressure medicine, along with a warning about the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Then, after breakfast and his first shower in weeks, he found himself flying to Lagos on a Shell jet packed with jubilant Willbros executives.
In Lagos, Willbros gave Spell $500 in travel money and a sheet of paper titled “Discussion Points for Russell.” He had to be careful when he spoke to the press. According to the list, he wasn’t supposed to mention the client, Shell (“They are very sensitive about the situation and want to have absolute control over any mention of the company on this deal”). Nor was Spell to mention Governor Ibori (“Not sure if he is in control”) or any empathy he might have developed for the militants (“Too touchy!”). He should say that Willbros was a “good company.” He should stay away from words like “bunkering, pollution, corruption, . . . Exxon, and Chevron.” Environmental issues were not to be discussed (“Way too sensitive of an issue for us to get caught up in; we do not know the facts”).
Basically, Russell Spell’s life-changing experience was off-the-record.
Cody Oswalt had been home for about six months before he sued Willbros and Shell. His September 2006 complaint alleged that Willbros was negligent for failing to provide a safe workplace and that Shell was negligent because it had advance knowledge of the attack and failed to protect its subcontractor by providing adequate security on the barge. (Spell later learned that Nigerian navy security boats, which had been hired to watch the barge, had disappeared the night before, as if warned or bribed to stay away.) Oswalt asked for $10 million in damages for, among other things, post-traumatic stress disorder, physical pain and suffering, and loss of future earning capacity. (The case was settled earlier this spring for an undisclosed amount.)
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