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Nigeria’s Boko Haram Problem

May 15, 2013 by Penelope Chester

via wikipedia

The Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria is casting a long shadow on the country, as President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, in the northeastern part of the country. Northern Nigeria has been the seat of a protracted insurgency led by Boko Haram, a local jihadist militant organization which finds its roots and its support in the same parts of Nigeria that it targets through attacks, kidnappings, bombings and targeted killings. Following another wave of attacks, which President Jonathan has said amount to a “declaration of war“, the sweeping powers given to the federal government are meant to give the Nigerian military greater authority and reach to target and root out Boko Haram militants.

Northeastern Nigeria has witnessed ongoing violence, perpetrated both by Boko Haram and the Nigerian military. Because of the grassroots, local nature of the Boko Haram movement, the Nigerian military has struggled to effectively deal with the threat posed by this group. Indeed, in its efforts to root out militants, the Nigerian military has been targeting civilian areas, and has been accused of indiscriminate, extrajudicial killings of individuals whose ties to Boko Haram were often ascertained “on flimsy or no evidence.” Adam Nossiter has been reporting on the ongoing conflict for the New York Times, noting that the “military’s harsh tactics, which it flatly denies, have reduced militant attacks in this insurgent stronghold, but at huge cost and with likely repercussions, officials and rights advocates contend.” Recently, the Nigerian government had pledged to negotiate with Boko Haram, but the recent brazen attacks by the group, compounded by the military’s ruthlessness in the northeastern region, have made it all but impossible to continue with the planned negotiations.

Boko Haram – which, according to some sources, literally means “Western education is sin” in Hausa – has been pursuing a violent, extremist agenda which the Nigerian government has a duty to quell. Over the course of the past few months, the group has been targeting public schools, burning or destroying 50 of Borno state’s 175 schools, according to IRIN. A few weeks ago, a raging battle between the Nigerian military and Boko Haram in Borno state left 2,000 homes burned and 180 dead.  “The Nigerian military has a duty to protect itself and the population from Boko Haram attacks, but the evidence indicates that it engaged more in destruction than in protection,” Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, noted in a recent report.

President Jonathan is faced with the complex task of rooting out a militant group that is deeply embedded within the local population, in a part of the country that is far removed from the central government and its authority. His predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo, had also declared a state of emergency for similar reasons in 2004 and 2006, replaced the democratically-elected governors of those states with appointed, former military leaders, yet failed to quell the unrest caused by Boko Haram. The increased tensions between the Nigerian authorities and Boko Haram will likely have the greatest impact on local populations, who find themselves caught in the middle of a protracted power struggle which shows no signs of abating.

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screen cap from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU00PN8G4Nw

This is What Ethnic Conflict Looks Like

by Mark Leon Goldberg

The New York Times posts the horrific account of a mass atrocity which took place in the Tartus province of Syria this month. The province as a whole is an Alawite stronghold, but the village of Baniyas is largely Sunni. The village had not seen much conflict in the two years until May 4th.

That’s when the systematic murder of families took place.

Government troops and supporting militias went house to house, killing entire families and smashing men’s heads with concrete blocks.

Antigovernment activists provided lists of 322 victims they said had been identified. Videos showed at least a dozen dead children. Hundreds more people are reported missing.

“How can we reach a point of national forgiveness?” said Ahmad Abu al-Khair, a well-known blogger from Bayda. He said that the attacks had begun there, and that 800 of about 6,000 residents were missing.

Multiple video images that residents said they had recorded in Bayda and Ras al-Nabeh — of small children lying where they died, some embracing one another or their parents — were so searing that even some government supporters rejected Syrian television’s official version of events, that the army had “crushed a number of terrorists.”…

Men in partial or full military dress went door to door, separating men — and boys 10 and older — from women and younger children.

Residents said some gunmen were from the National Defense Forces, the new framework for pro-government militias, mainly Alawites in the Baniyas area. They bludgeoned and shot men, shot or stabbed families to death and burned houses and bodies….

One video said to be from Bayda showed eight dead children on a bed. Two toddlers cuddled face to face; a baby rested on a dead woman’s shoulder.

Here is a horrid photo, purportedly from Baniyas, of several dead children.

Civilians — babies —  are being killed for no other reason than their ethnic affiliation.  This is what sectarian conflict looks like. What’s worse, the logic of the Syria civil war suggests that these kinds of atrocities will  come more frequently. As the war grinds to a stalemate, we can expect ethnicities to be purged from the provinces in which they are in the minority. Alawates will be driven from Sunni held territory; and Sunnis purged from Alawite territory.

This is ethnic cleansing. And it is well underway in Syria today.

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Top of the Morning: State of Emergency Declared in Nigeria

by Mark Leon Goldberg

Top stories from DAWNS Digest

State of Emergency Declared in Nigeria

President Goodluck Jonathan has declared a state of emergency in three northern states amid a rising Boko Haram insurgency. Key question: can the Nigerian military fight this battle without violating human rights of  civilians in those states? “‘What we are facing is not just militancy or criminality, but a rebellion, an insurgency by terrorists groups who pose a very serious threat to national unity and territorial integrity,’ he said. Jonathan said attacks have amounted to a ‘declaration of war’ against Nigeria and ordered the military to deploy more troops to stop the insurgency using ‘all necessary actions.’ Extraordinary measures, he said, include authorizing soldiers to seize any building or area they believe to be associated with militants.  The military will also conduct searches and arrest people found with illegal weapons.” (Voice of America http://bit.ly/10onpMl)

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Map of the Day: Cyclone Mahasen

May 14, 2013 by Mark Leon Goldberg

Bangladesh is on the verge of yet another disaster. Myanmar too. The very regions of these two countries that may be hardest hit are also the ones least equipped to deal with a major natural disaster.

Cyclone Mahasen is bearing down on eastern Bangladesh and Myanmar. 8.2 million people are potentially in the path of the storm.

Even a moderate cyclone can spell disaster for Bangladesh, where much of the country is low lying and vulnerable to floods and storm surges. A bad rainstorm sometimes wipes out whole villages.

The trajectory of this cyclone is particularly worrisome. Cox’s Bazar is province of Bangladesh that buttresses Myanmar’s restive Rakhine state.  Many thousands of ethnic Rohingya refugees from Rakhine have fled ethnic violence and discrimination in Myanmar to refugee camps and informal settlements across the border in Cox’s Bazar. The Bangladeshi government does not much like this influx, and keeps conditions there fairly  miserable so as to deter refugee flows. Last year, three respected international NGOs were expelled from the region.

In all, there are about 400,000 stateless Rohinyga living in Cox’s Bazar. These men, women and children have fled violence and discrimination in Myanmar, and now live informal settlements in Bangladesh. Government services don’t reach this population; and neither does much international humanitarian aid.

A massive humanitarian crisis could befall this regions should a cyclone hit. And there is  little chance that authorities in Dhaka would respond with appropriate urgency; nor would authorities make things  easy for NGOs who want to provide emergency relief. After all, they’d rather these people just go away.

If the path of this storm stays true, expect a major, major human rights catastrophe in the region.

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Top of the Morning: Bangladeshi Garment Factories Shuttered Amid Unrest

by Mark Leon Goldberg

Top stories from DAWNS Digest

Bangladeshi Garment Factories Shut Down Amid Unrest

The consequences of the factory fire are still reverberating. “One report said as many as 300 factories had closed in the Ashulia industrial area near Dhaka. ‘Owners decided to close their factories on safety grounds after workers went on a rampage almost every day after the collapse of Rana Plaza,’ Mohammad Atiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said on Monday. Workers in 80% of the factories in Ashulia staged a walkout demanding a salary increase, as well as the execution of the owner of the Rana Plaza, local police chief Badrul Ala said.” (BBC http://bbc.in/16vG90B)

Guess How Many People Were Displaced by Natural Disasters in 2012?

A massive number, at least compared to previous years. “‘In 2012, we saw twice as many people being displaced by natural disasters as compared to the year before. So that was 32.4 million who were newly displaced in 2012. And this is by rapid onset disasters, such as floods, storms, wildfires and earthquakes,’ said Clare Spurrell, chief spokesperson for the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.” (Voice of America http://bit.ly/16vGsc2)

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image credit http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39391&Cr=peacekeeping&Cr1#.UZEs_yvFRFM

Could UN Peacekeepers Be Involved in a Syria Ceasefire?

May 13, 2013 by Mark Leon Goldberg

For the first time in a long while, there’s some diplomatic momentum on Syria. The USA, Great Britain and Russia are on board to hold a summit on Syria in the coming weeks, and Ban Ki Moon is on his way to Russia for consultations.

As the death toll nears 80,000, there will be much riding on this meeting.  If there is to be a political solution that does not involve the disintegration of the Syrian state into separate ethnic enclaves, there will need to be some force that guarantees the security of the people. That responsibility traditionally falls to the state, but to much of the population, that option is off the table,

This naturally leads to one solution: UN Peacekeepers. In some respects, this is precisely the kind of job for which UN Peacekeeping was designed. Warring factions agree to some sort of peace or ceasefire, but need an outside guarantor as elements of a larger political settlement (like elections, justice and security sector reform, etc) fall into place. UN Peacekeepers provide the breathing room and, crucially, the security that enables long term political peace processesto take hold. 

That’s the theory, at least. And its worked well in several countries recovering from conflict bloodier and longer lasting than Syria (Think: Sierra Leone, Liberia,  Cote D’Ivoire). It very well may be the case that the UN is called upon to undertake this kind of work, should a political solution to the conflict ever take hold. The viability of a peacekeeping mission for Syria has already been contemplated in some quarters in the US government

The key metric of success is whether or not countries would be willing to volunteer their troops for this kind of mission, and whether the Security Council backs the mission with the appropriate political and financial resources.  If that’s the case, then there’s no reason that UN Peacekeeping should not be considered part of the solution for Syria. 

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