Escravos, July 13: Anunu Uwawah lets a small smile escape as she tells how she and a band of 150 village women shut down most of a multinational oil company's Nigeria operations for nearly a week. Uwawah said the women from the Ugborodo and Arutan communities commandeered a ChevronTexaco staff ferry to sneak into the company's Escravos pipeline terminal on Monday. The unarmed women have occupied the terminal ever since, stopping export cargoes and trapping about 700 workers, including Americans, Britons, Canadians and Nigerians, inside.

More talks were slated Saturday to free the terminal and its workers.

The peaceful protest by unarmed women is a departure in Nigeria, where disputes often are settled with machetes and guns. In the oil-rich Niger Delta, armed young men routinely resort to kidnapping and sabotage to pressure oil companies into giving them jobs, protection money or compensation for alleged environmental damage.
In this case, the women say they want the company to hire their sons and provide electricity for their villages, some of which are less than 100 yards (meters) from the massive terminal. Bureau Report