Word: mende
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...when three speedboats packed with gun-toting men attacked a Nigerian navy boat and a vessel leased by Shell. No one was killed. But the attackers, who said they were part of a new group called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (mend), kidnapped four foreign contractors. Since then the group, which numbers just a few hundred people, according to a local human-rights campaigner and militant members, has kidnapped at least eight more foreign oil workers and attacked several oil installations, killing some 14 Nigerian soldiers posted to guard them. In the past month, militants have...
...procured" the murder of four Ogoni elders, and in 1995 hanged him, to international condemnation. Despite the return to democracy and government promises to improve the lives of Delta dwellers, little has changed. Today in Oporoza - the traditional center of the Gbaramatu kingdom in whose backwaters, locals say, mend has its bases - villagers gather in a meeting hall and list their grievances. "Poverty is the major problem we are facing here," says Odiki Miebi, a local chief. True, some of the houses in the village are built of brick and concrete - much more substantial dwellings than the flimsy reed huts...
...latest wave of attacks, though, is different. The government dismisses mend and similar groups as the same criminal gangs responsible for bunkering and past attacks - and there is undoubtedly some crossover of membership. The region is awash with unemployed men; weapons are easy to find, either left over from the 2003 election or smuggled in by boat from neighboring countries. But the latest attacks appear to have been driven more by frustration and an ideology of armed resistance than by thoughts of criminal gain. While it is "very difficult to draw a line between the criminals and the so-called...
...poll could prove bloody. Human-rights lawyer Nsirimovu says opposition groups have realized "that AK-47s are a necessary ingredient in elections in the Niger Delta," and will try to arm their own supporters in an attempt to counter ruling-party intimidation. "Then things will get really ugly." mend, too, is looking toward the election. A militant from the group who spoke with Time on condition of anonymity said that it would fight efforts by supporters of Obasanjo to change the constitution to allow the President to run for a third term - moves that last week looked as if they...
...banking scandal in 2003 that triggered an economic nosedive that wiped out 20% of GDP (imagine $2.8 trillion disappearing in the U.S.) and plunged an additional 1 million Dominicans into poverty. Since retaking the top job 20 months ago, Fernández has put the country back on the mend, restoring macroeconomic stability and business confidence. Last year's growth soared 9.2%, with single-digit inflation, down from...