We got a little excited when we heard that Kumi Naidoo, the Executive Director of Greenpeace International, was coming to speak in Oxford at the Amnesty series of lectures on the topic, Green Rights are Human Rights.
We had a stall outside the lecture hall and were thrilled to hear that Kumi would like to meet the local volunteers down the pub afterwards.
His talk was fascinating but the Q&A session afterwards was hijacked slightly by the Chagossian issue. As I understand it, a marine reserve was set up around the Chagos Archipelago with the inhabitants being evicted to make way for an American military base. Greenpeace supported the marine reserve and this angered the Chagossians but Kumi was at pains to point out that Greenpeace at the time, argued against their rights abuse and are now still working to get them back to Chagos.
Kumi did indeed join us down the pub afterwards, telling some great stories about Africa, his time studying in Oxford and the Cairn rig arrest. But he was also very interested in us and what we got up to.
I'm happy to report that Kumi comes across as a very charming, engaging and inspirational man.
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