Cambridge vigil for Elorm Dade, climate and anti-colonial activist
A vigil took place outside Guildhall last night for Elorm Dade, a 23-year-old climate and anti-colonial activist, who was killed in a road incident in Accra, Ghana. ‘’ “”
Elorm was hit by a lorry while on a bicycle on October 24 and died at the scene. “Given the context, friends and family consider his death to be suspicious and are calling for a full and independent investigation,” a speaker at the vigil said.
A statement read out at the event said: “Elorm was a fearless activist with the XR Affinity All-Afrikan Network – XRAAAN – resisting the extractivist and exploitative policies of the governments of Ghana and the UK, which are devastating lands and communities across Afrika and elsewhere. It is understood he was killed while gathering testimony in support of Global Majority Vs WeAreWitness campaign, which runs in parallel to the legal action brought against the UK government by The Global Majority vs The UK Government. This runs in parallel to the legal action brought by three young British activists in collaboration with Plan B the Stop The Maangamizi campaign. The legal action alleges that the UK government is violating its obligations to safeguard the rights to life and to family life by failing to take practical and effective measures, domestically and internationally, to limit warming to 1.5˚C, in accordance with the Paris Agreement.”
The vigil began at 7pm. The names of other activists who died trying to protect the Earth were written out and displayed at the candlelit shrine, with the main placard reading: ‘Vigil for Ken Saro-Wiwa, Elorm Koku Dade & all Earth defenders.’
These two deceased Africans are perhaps the first environmental activist to be killed and the most recent. A writer and member of the Ogoni people whose land had endured oil being extracted since the 1950s, Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged 26 years ago on November 10 by the Nigerian military government. His main ‘crime’ was to have co-founded a non-violent campaign called MOSOP – the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People – in 1990.
MOSOP described how oil production had devastated the region’s environment, while bringing no benefit to its 500,000 people. Saro-Wiwa said that the operations of the multinational petroleum industry, especially the Royal Dutch Shell company, had turned what was once an area of unspoilt natural beauty into a mechanical black moonscape. The campaign against environmental degradation of the land and the water of Ogoniland resulted in Saro-Wiwa being arrested and imprisoned for several months without trial by the Nigerian military government in 1992. He was arrested again in 1994 and tried by a special military tribunal for allegedly masterminding the gruesome murder of Ogoni chiefs by a mob. In 1995, after he was hanged by the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha, Nigeria was outlawed by the Commonwealth for three years and the international outcry almost resulted in a US/UK naval-led oil embargo.
By 2021, such deaths are in danger of being normalised. Although the death of Elorm Dade has not yet been fully investigated, his passing highlights the dangers faced by environmental activists, with Global Witness reporting an average four deaths per year for the last three years. Indigenous people are disproportionately killed for their environmental activism, making up 40 per cent of deaths worldwide. Two-thirds are in South America. The Philippines is the most dangerous country in Asia. The mining, agribusiness and logging sectors are the most dangerous for activists and indigenous people alike.
Outside Guildhall, attendees lit candles, sang and read tributes to Elorm. One speaker said: “It is understood he was killed while gathering testimony in support of the We Are Witness campaign. Given the context, friends and family consider the death to be suspicious and are calling for a full and independent investigation.
“The family’s suspicions derive in part from the context of increasing persecution of environmental activists in Ghana and around the world. Kafui Yao Dade, elder brother of Elorm Koku Dade, on behalf of the family, said: ‘Elorm was one of the most passionately Mother Earth loving, energetically daring and beautifully promising flowering buds in our family now painfully nipped in the bud. We of his family and indigenous Ewe community of the Gbetowo, alongside his XRAAAN Colleagues and wider circles of friends, including those Youth Eagle Riders of the Gasosusu Cycling Team of Sustainable Transport campaigners he founded and led, demand nothing less than true Justice for the heinous crime of his tragic killing in suspicious circumstances. For this reason, we as his family, on behalf of our indigenous Gbetowo Nation in and beyond Ghana, welcome this very consoling, morale boosting and determination strengthening international community support for our Elorm Justice Quest from Plan B, Stop the Maangamizi Campaign and the Global Majority Versus Campaign.”
The UK government has said that the Plan B legal action is “totally without merit”. It added: “The Secretary of State and HM Treasury will resist any claim that Plan B or others seek to bring, and will seek their costs of so responding. The basic allegation that Government has no plan or strategy to deal with climate change is completely without foundation.”
This week a new study by the University of Melbourne stated that, even with the pledges being made at COP26 factored in, the Earth is heading for a catastrophic 2.4C increase in global temperature above pre-industrial levels.
