20/10/93
Dear Sr. Majella,[1]
Thanks for your note. I’m really quite happy to have EC [European Commission] help pass through the Catholic Church.[2] You’ve all been so supportive and MOSOP will be right glad to have such friends or supervisors. Please do not have any doubts whatsoever on that score. We are so swamped with responsibilities that having some of it off our necks is sheer relief. I’ll tell UNPO [Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization][3]about the Brussels connection. They will be able to drum up support from other European countries.
4.30 on Sunday is okay—more so as my last rally is at Bori at about that time.
I’m in Lagos until Friday morning. If there is anything to discuss with me, ring on [telephone number provided]. The other tel. no. is dead.
Regards,
Ken.
- McCarron was working as a lecturer at the University of Lagos when asked by the Vatican to act as an observer for the Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN). Her activities with the AEFJN led her to make Saro-Wiwa’s acquaintance and when the university personnel were on strike, McCarron often spent time at his business office in Lagos to learn from him about the Ogoni situation. The AEFJN describe themselves as “a Faith-based International Network present in Africa and in Europe, established in 1988. [They] promotes economic justice between the European Union and sub-Saharan Africa so that the poor of Africa may look toward a better future”. ↵
- When Ogoni villages were destroyed in September 1993, McCarron made a successful application for EC humanitarian aid to provide village relief. It was an EC requirement that a European non-governmental organisation would co-operate with a local non-governmental organization to manage and deliver the funds. McCarron contacted Niall Tobin in Trócaire, an Irish non-governmental development agency, to secure their support. ↵
- An international democratic and non-violent organization dedicated to promoting the rights of populations who are not represented at major international fora, such as the UN. Its membership includes indigenous peoples, minority populations and the populations of unrecognized or occupied territories. ↵