Recently, a human rights organisation, Amnesty International, released another indicting report about human rights violations by the Nigerian military in the fight against Boko Haram. This time round, it is the top apparatchiks of the Nigerian armed forces that are at the centre of the alleged gross human rights abuse. The report, “Stars on their Shoulders, Blood on their hands: War Crimes Committed by the Nigerian military”, the military top brass are said to have committed grievous war crimes which Amnesty International has asked the Nigerian government and the United Nations to investigate.
According to the human rights organisation, “the Nigerian military, including senior military commanders, must be investigated for participating, sanctioning or failing to prevent the deaths of more than 8,000 people murdered, starved, suffocated, and tortured to death.” Amnesty had revealed that its latest report was “based on years of research and analysis of evidence-including leaked military reports and correspondence, as well as interviews with more than 400 victims, eyewitnesses and senior members of the Nigerian security forces.”
The organisation outlines a range of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity committed by the Nigerian military in the course of the fight against Boko Haram in the North-East of the country. The report reveals that, since March 2011, more than 7,000 young men and boys died in military detention and more than 1,200 people were unlawfully killed since February 2012. In the comprehensive report that has been a direct indictment on individual members of the Nigerian military, Amnesty International provides compelling evidence of the need for an investigation into the individual and command responsibilities of soldiers, and mid-level and senior-level military commanders.
The report documents the roles and possible criminal responsibilities of those along the chain of command – up to the Chief of Defence Staff and Chief of Army Staff – and names nine senior Nigerian military figures who should be investigated for command and individual responsibility for the crimes committed. The report laments that “this sickening evidence exposes how thousands of young men and boys have been arbitrarily arrested and deliberately killed or left to die in detention in the most horrific conditions. It provides strong grounds for investigations into the possible criminal responsibility of members of the military, including those at the highest levels.”
Amnesty International reports that while an urgent and impartial investigation of the alleged war crimes is vital, the report indicting the Nigerian generals is not just about the criminal responsibility of individuals. It is also about the responsibility of Nigeria’s leadership to act decisively to end the pervasive culture of impunity within the armed forces.”
The group also called on Nigeria to ensure prompt, independent and effective investigations of high-level military commanders for their potential command responsibility for crimes committed by their subordinates.
In response to Boko Haram’s attacks in the North-East, the report said that the Nigerian military has arrested at least 20,000 young men and boys since 2009, some as young as nine years old. In most cases, according to the report, the suspects were arbitrarily arrested, often based solely on the words of a single unidentified secret informant. Most of them were also reported to have been arrested in mass “screening” operations or “cordon-and-search” raids where security forces round up hundreds of men.
Given the scale of the offence said to have been committed, the AI indictment is a grievous one indeed. Characteristically, the Nigerian Army has responded to the allegations of human rights violations by its top military commanders. In its reply, the military high command accused the international human rights body of blackmail and witchhunt.
It must be noted that the latest report by Amnesty International is one in a series of reports released about human rights violations by Nigerian security forces. In the past, the organisation had reported how Nigeria’s security forces had routinely violated the human rights of citizens with impunity.
Amnesty International, had, for example, also once reported that in police stations across the country, Nigerians are arbitrarily detained or executed for crimes they knew nothing about. Reading through these reports, Nigerians who are familiar with the excesses of our law enforcement agencies know that the Amnesty report is an affirmation of what they already knew if we take into consideration their activities in places like Odi, Zaki Biam and recently in Jos where the Special Task Force was alleged to have decimated an entire village.
During the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration, the usual response to all reports was to regard them as attempts to blackmail his government. But at no time did his government attempt to investigate the alleged crimes. This response is not peculiar to the last administration alone. But the responses often fly in the face of evidence. It must also be noted, however, that it is not only Amnesty International that had indicted Nigeria, local human rights organisations, civil society groups and the National Human Rights Commission have had cause to question the security forces human rights records.
Notwithstanding the denial by the military, however, it is good to know that President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to launch an investigation into the allegations. But it should not end there. The President must ensure that the investigation is carried out and those who are found to have committed violations against innocent Nigerian citizens are punished. While one acknowledges the risk and danger involved in the fight against terror, the military have it as a duty that no Nigerian suffers injustice or is killed unjustly by soldiers. A situation where citizens are rounded up arbitrarily and labelled as terrorists cannot be acceptable. The Nigerian military must hold its men and women to high standards of military engagement in times of crisis. The indicted generals must explore international legal process to clear their names rather than the off-handed emotional accusations of “blackmail” and “witchhunt” levelled against Amnesty International. They must learn from the Serbia-Kosovo conflict where high ranking officers who took part in the genocide are still being hunted and brought to trial. It is not enough to cry witchhunt and blackmail in the face of overwhelming evidence. Such emotional outbursts will not save the officers when they are brought before a war crimes tribunal.
Already, Amnesty International has said it has shared the findings of the research and relevant evidence with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The organisation has also submitted to the ICC a list of names of military officers who should be investigated for their possible role in the crimes under international law and serious human rights violations. Hopefully, this will go a long way in checking the excesses of Nigerian soldiers during military engagements.
By Bayo Olupohunda
About
The Nigerian Blogger
This is a short description in the author block about the author. You edit it by entering text in the "Biographical Info" field in the user admin panel.
0 comments :
Post a Comment