Somewhere in the Niger delta, a score of fit young men grasp colonial-era British rifles, Kalashnikovs and a couple of heavy machine guns. Gun posts face the water to guard the rudimentary military camp with its wooden barracks, cookhouse and the only generator for miles. An attack is unlikely to come from any other direction.One of the soldiers carries forward an old table and sets it down next to the river. The rest of the men fan out behind it as a short,stocky man in his forties sits down, leans across and introduces himself as General "I Am", the "general officer commanding the western flank of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta" (Mend).
The western flank, he explains, extends from the Chevron oil company's gas flare on the edge of the sea, past scores of villages and towns dotting the creeks and rivers that carve up the Nigerian coast, to a stronghold within striking distance of Warri, the main town in the area.
"This is our territory. The soldiers dare not come here now. They came and we defeated them," he says. "We are civilised people, educated people, and we do not want our children to be deprived as we have been deprived so other people can get rich from what is under our feet. The oil companies and government have had many years to treat us right. They have never done it. Now we are making them think."
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