Human Rights Groups, Compromise To Terror

If Nigeria finally decays and disintegrates due to terrorism, part of the autopsy must indict Human Rights Groups and the press. Indeed, civilization has diminishing returns because it contains a seed of its own destruction. Human rights are the unofficial religion and contested agency of doublespeak. Human Rights Groups which at one time promoted this modern civilization now act as catalyst for its destruction. In containing terror, Nigeria is paying the price of Human Rights and press rascality. But for the sake of space, this epic will focus on how human rights groups have compromised war on terror.

In many ways, the Human Rights groups must be held accountable for the atrocities Boko Haram has committed in the country. But for Human Rights Groups, Boko Haram would have been a history. When the human rights group led by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International advertised what they called extra-judicial killing of the then leader of Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, they betrayed their sympathy for Boko Haram members and painted a picture that the war to rout the sect was suppression of legitimate voice seeking recognition in a democratic government and constituted human rights violations. They indicted government for massive neglect of the north in terms of education and provision of basic infrastructures. The propaganda gave a boost to the insurgency and made the then Bornu State governor, Modu Ali Sherrif, their archenemy. The sect has insisted severally that their slain leader must be accounted for.

To keen watchers of history, it was not surprising when the Directorate of State security Services’ revelation meant that the horrific April 14, 2014, Nyanya bomb blast was preventable save for the intervention of the human rights group.  According to information, the mastermind, Aminu Ogwuche, a deserter of Nigerian Army had once been arrested on suspicion of terror related body language but was released following pressure from human rights groups and the father of the suspect.

Since the Interpol issued red alert for the search and arrest of the mastermind of the horrific Nyanya bomb blast, Aminu Ogwuche, my hatred towards Human rights groups is not hidden. The pain of those families that lost their father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, caregiver, friend, etc has been my pain.

A revelation of this nature queries the relevance of these organizations masquerading as watchdogs. Have human rights groups been of any help to Nigeria? Where has Nigeria benefitted from the group when government atrocities that ought to be their major concern are left in pursuant of paltry issues like homosexual and abortion campaigns? Has the so called Amnesty or Transparency International or International Monetary Fund by their periodic ranking effected any change in Nigeria? Do we need their ranking to know we are poor or rich? When IMF reveals growth in our economy, do we feel the growth ourselves? Poverty and riches are not hidden. If a man needs three square meals and cannot afford one, he knows he is poor. I believe that these groups are not necessary. They did not stop Nigeria from killing Biafrans nor did they prevent Abacha from hanging Saro Wiwa.

History is awash with atrocities committed by Human Rights groups. A review of human rights doublespeak in Africa particularly Central Africa must begin at least in 1990 when the first international war was launched. On 28th September 1990, 4000 Ugandan soldiers and officers including former army commander and Ugandan Defence Minister, Fred Rwigyema, left their barracks fully equipped with weapons and vehicles. They travelled hundreds of kilometers from Uganda to the Rwanda border and attacked few Rwanda border guards posted there on October 1. They advanced some 70 kilometers into Rwanda and by October 4, the invading soldiers were within 70 kilometers of the Rwanda capital, Kigali. These troops, though, a mainstay of the Uganda army became known as Rwandan Patriotic Front, the RPF. The atrocities that ensued led to Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Now, that RPF has won victory, tongues are loosened on how that success was achieved. The world has now known from RPF leaders that the RPF had operated a fifth column clandestinely in Rwanda. In fact, at the time of the invasion it had 36 clandestine cells that were working mostly with Human Rights organizations. These human rights organisations, under the pretence of protecting human rights prior to the invasion harboured the agents of the invading army and made the invasion a success.

The hypocrisy is that when the Ugandan troops invaded Rwanda in 1990 and the Rwandan government took action to protect its sovereignty by arresting people suspected of working with the invaders, the human rights activists in Rwanda with their powerful offices in the western countries roundly denounced the brutal arrests, but kept strange silence about the invasion. Was it normal, in search of justice, to condemn one side in a war for its human rights violations and not even question the morality of the aggressors, those who violated the principles of all the rights charters ever drafted? The human rights thought it was right; so they arrested the homeowners for arms possession and exonerated the invaders.

In a recent memory, we get a shocker from America’s war on terror and how Human Rights groups worked to frustrate it.  Perhaps the most shocking is the case of nine human rights lawyers hired to represent and advocate on behalf of terrorists. One of them is Jennifer Daskal, formerly of Human Rights Watch, who in 2006 campaigned for the UN Human Rights Committee to condemn the United States for its actions in the ‘so-called war on terror’. Daskal had also argued for the closing of Guantanamo and releasing those terrorists America cannot try in civilian courts despite acknowledging that ‘these men may…join the battlefield to fight U.S. soldiers and our allies another day’.

These nine lawyers were among the over 400 members of the so-called “Gitmo Bar” who volunteered to represent terrorist detainees at Guantanamo as human rights activism. Most of the terrorist defended by these lawyers were alien enemy combatant challenging their detention, not defendants in criminal trial, and thus they have no legal right to representation. Nevertheless, the Gitmor Bar volunteered its services to the terrorists. All these lawyers would undoubtedly deny having sympathy for al Qaeda, but the actions of some of them went far beyond simply challenging a detention policy they thought was unjust and infringement against human right.

The most outrageous example was derailed in August 2009 in the Washington Post which reported that lawyers representing Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the other 9/11 conspirators worked a pro-human rights organisation called the ‘John Adams Project’ to provide photographs of CIA officers to their clients in an attempt to identify those officers who had interrogated them when they were captured overseas. These activists are apparently unconcerned by the potential threat to America CIA officers and their families from being identified by name to al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists.

It was even revealed that some of these lawyers provided their terrorist clients with extremely inflammatory anti-American literature for them to share with other inmates. One of these was an 18-page colour brochure from Amnesty Internal accusing America and her allies of “anti-Arab, anti-Islamic, and other racist abuse”. Another document was the transcript of a speech comparing America military physicians at Guantanamo to the Nazi doctors of the concentration camps. One lawyer was even caught drawing a map of the detention camp for his client, including the location of guard towers; others posted photos of Guantanamo security badges on the internet.

Is America’s experience not playing out in Nigeria? How can one explain the fact that Human Rights are interested in what government does and not what the insurgents do. Are the insurgents absolved from any violations because they are outlaws? Since the deployment of soldiers to the north-east, the human rights groups have been compiling alleged killings of civilians by Nigeria soldiers as if civilian casualties are avoidable in war on terror. Since the kidnap of Chibok school girls, the group has maintained dignified silence without relaying pictures of how those kids were evacuated in traumatizing experience. But any day the army gathers morale to storm Sambisa in search of the heartless insurgents; the same human rights groups will publish videos of extra-judicial killings of insurgents by soldiers.

As for the Abuja bomb blast, Nigeria government should charge all the human rights groups as well as the father and godfathers of Aminu Ogwuche to court for conspiracy and wanton killing of innocent Nigerians. For the future, I suggest that Nigeria does away with these groups if war on terror must be won. Groups who advocate legalization of abortion and gay marriage are anti-life and lack moral integrity to be a guide to counter terror. Only an anti-lifer can support terrorism.