The class had just settled into watching a film when the 'police' burst into the room with flashlights and rope.

'C'mon, let's go!' they told the students. Confused, uncertain or annoyed, the class obeyed the green-shirted crew and was herded into the basement of Liberty Hall, where a ski-masked 'oil executive' told them their classroom had been seized for economic purposes.

A belated Halloween joke carried too far?

Not quite.

The 'police' were members of UD's Amnesty International chapter who 'forcibly relocated' three classes last Wednesday as part of a campaign to raise awareness about the plight of indigenous peoples being forced off their lands by multinational oil corporations.

'Our campus Amnesty group has tried to devote each month to a different area (of issues),' UD Amnesty International President and American studies/pre-law major Ben Schnier said.

With October being centered on the rights of indigenous peoples 'we wanted to do something to represent that.' The event was originally scheduled for Columbus Day, but was postponed because of mid-term break.

After each class was relocated, Amnesty members distributed information on indigenous people in Ecuador, Chad and Cameroon.

According to http://www.amnestyusa.org, Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, dumped more than 19 billion gallons of toxic wastewaters into Ecuador's Amazon region between 1972 and 1992. It is also responsible for 16.8 million gallons of crude oil spilling from the main pipeline into the forest. Besides harming the environment, the waste has contributed to higher cancer and miscarriage rates among the people living in the area.

Environmental and health issues are not the only problems.

'When these indigenous people attempt to organize, their leaders are faced with intimidation and violence,' Schnier said.

Such human rights abuse is occurring in Chad and Cameroon, where a 70-year oil pipeline project is being led by ExxonMobil and financed by the World Bank, according to the Amnesty Web site. The project allows oil companies to extract and transport oil across Chad and Cameroon in a 650-mile pipeline that cuts through fertile agricultural and bio-diverse regions.

Agreements between the corporations and the governments of Chad and Cameroon limit the countries' ability to redress human rights violations, such as the uninvestigated 1998 massacre of 200 people in the Doba oil region. Insufficient compensation by the oil companies is also an issue.

Junior history major and Amnesty member Katy Marcy thought the relocation effectively brought these points across.

'It's a good way to get noticed other than just 'Please sign our petition,'' Marcy said. 'I think it went well.'

Sophomore international studies major Jacquelin Zubko agreed, although she initially didn't understand what was happening.

'I was nothing but confused,' Zubko wrote in an email. 'By the end of the forced relocation it was clear, on a small level, how frustrating uprooting is. Following total strangers was weird enough, plus the added fact that we had no idea where we were going. Add a language barrier to this and I would call it a terrifying experience.'

A petition letter and additional information can be found on Amnesty's Web site at http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=11755.

In its next project, the UD chapter will be focusing on prisoner Kingh-kingh Liegh, a democracy advocate in Myanmar. For Schnier, seeking justice is part of being a UD student.

'I feel very strongly that human rights are worth protecting and particularly on a campus like UD that has a strong mission of building community,' Schnier said. 'It falls on us as UD students to take action.'