Thursday, July 23, 2015
US ARMS TIED ON ARMS SALES TO NIGERIA
After a four-day official visit in the U.S, President Muhammadu
Buhari will be returning to Nigeria today with
no pledge of concrete military assistance
against Boko Haram terrorists from his hosts.
The US government told the Nigerian leader
that its arms are tied by an American law, the
Leahy Act, which prevents it from selling
arms to countries with human rights abuse
records.
President Buhari, who is returning home
displeased, told the US government that the
refusal by America to arm Nigerian troops
because of “so-called human rights violations”
and “unproven allegations,” would only help
Boko Haram.
A global human rights watch group, Amnesty
International, had recently accused the
Nigerian military under former President
Goodluck Jonathan of gross human rights
abuses in the prosecution of the war on
terrorists.
The Nigerian military forces had denied the
allegation which President Buhari pledged to
investigate.
Buhari “departs with little practical military
assistance in his battle against the Islamist
militants who have turned the northeast of
his country into a bloody war zone,” the
Associated Press (AP) reported on Wednesday.
The US government has vowed to help Nigeria
defeat the insurgency but it is prohibited
under law from sending weapons to countries
that fail to tackle human rights abuses.
“Regretably, the blanket application of the
Leahy Law by the United States on the
grounds of unproven allegations of human
rights violations levelled against our forces
has denied us access to appropriate strategic
weapons to prosecute the war,” Buhari said.
Addressing an audience of policy-makers,
activists and academics in Washington, Buhari
complained that Nigerian forces had been left
“largely impotent” in the face of Boko
Haram’s campaign of kidnapping and
bombings.
“They do not possess the appropriate weapons
and technology which we could have had if
the so-called human rights violations had not
been an obstacle,” he said.
“Unwittingly, and I dare say unintentionally,
the application of the Leahy Law Amendment
by the United States government has aided
and abetted the Boko Haram terrorists.”
He appealed to both the White House and the
US Congress to find a way around the law —
introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy in 1997
— and to supply Nigerian troops with high-
tech weapons under a deal “with minimal
strings.”
Since 2009, Boko Haram has been trying to
establish an Islamist breakaway state in a
conflict that has seen 15,000 people killed and
1.5 million displaced.
The group’s brutality and in particular the
mass kidnapping and enslavement of
schoolgirls has shocked world opinion.
In June, rights watchdog Amnesty
International said there was sufficient
evidence to launch an investigation into
senior Nigerian officers for war crimes.
In a 133-page report, the group blamed the
army for the extrajudicial execution of 1,200
people and the torture or arbitrary detention
of thousands more.
Buhari insists that the charges are not proven,
but he has replaced his senior military
commanders and has promised to investigate
the allegations.
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