U.S. mocks Nigerian military, doubts capacity to #BringBackOurGirls
Category: Boko Haram News
While the United States explores more ways to help rescue the
missing girls, it is faced with growing concerns about the Nigerian
authorities.
Senior United States military and civilian officials have questioned
the capacity of the Nigerian military-even with foreign assistance- to
rescue more than 250 schoolgirls abducted over a month ago in Chibok,
Borno State, in an unusually frank assessment that may shape the outcome
of an international effort to release the missing students.
One official said the Nigerian security forces have so diminished in
capability that they are currently “afraid to even engage” Boko Haram,
the terrorist group responsible for the abductions, and the deaths of
more than 5,000 Nigerians.
We’re now looking at a military force that’s, quite frankly, becoming
afraid to even engage,” said Alice Friend, the Pentagon’s principal
director for African affairs. “The Nigerian military has the same
challenges with corruption that every other institution in Nigeria does.
Much of the funding that goes to the Nigerian military is skimmed off
the top, if you will.”
Ms. Friend was testifying before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Thursday.
Other senior officials including Chuck Hagel, Defence Secretary;
Robert Jackson, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs;
and Earl Gast, United States Agency for International Development
Assistant Administrator for Africa, also testified before the committee.
The officials gave a troubling evaluation of the Nigerian
government’s tactics against Boko Haram, and the military’s refusal to
up its games and improve on its human rights record in the fight against
a five-year brutal insurgency launched by the sect.
President Goodluck Jonathan has been widely condemned for his
handling of the Boko Haram crisis, and his slow response to the group’s
abduction of the girls from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State.
Mr. Jonathan this week rejected an offer by Boko Haram’s Abubakar
Shekau to swap the missing schoolgirls with detained Boko Haram
fighters. Other top officials, however, have signalled the government
may be willing to negotiate with the extremists.
While the abduction of the more than 250 girls appears to be
temporarily losing the steam that set off an international campaign for
action using the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, the matter is gaining more
attention within the U.S. government with calls for more action.
All 20 female U.S. senators have raised call for action against the abduction.
The female senators gathered for a private dinner with Secretary of
State John Kerry, at which, according to the New York Times, they pushed
to have the United Nations designate Boko Haram as a terrorist
organization on its Qaeda sanctions list; to provide surveillance assets
to try to locate the missing girls; to consider assistance to the
Nigerian government by providing a team of Special Forces to locate and
rescue the girls; and to coordinate the search for the girls on an
international front.
The U.S. military is said to consider any option of being asked to
send in Special Forces to locate and rescue the schoolgirls “risky”.
Currently, the United States is leading an international effort
including the United Kingdom, France, Israel and China, to help free the
schoolgirls.
The assistance comes in the form of intelligence support,
surveillance and hostage negotiation. The actual effort on the ground to
find and retrieve the missing girls to safety, is left in the hands of
the Nigerian military, scorned for corruption, poor equipment and human
rights issues.
Those concerns have fuelled frustration among the foreign partners offering assistance.
Asked whether Nigerian forces were capable of rescuing the hostages,
U.S. Defence Secretary, Chuck Hagel, said in an interview with CBS
television Friday that it remains “an open question.”
“We just don’t know enough yet to be able to assess what we will
recommend to the Nigerians, where they need to go, what they need to do,
to get those girls back,” Mr. Hagel said.
The officials who addressed the U.S senators Thursday echoed that
frustration, accusing the Nigerian government of ignoring their advice
in the past years to seek new methods against Boko Haram.
“We have been urging Nigeria to reform its approach to Boko Haram,”
said Mr. Jackson. “From our own difficult experiences in Afghanistan and
Iraq, we know that turning the tide of an insurgency requires more than
force. The state must demonstrate to its citizens that it can protect
them and offer them opportunity. When soldiers destroy towns, kill
civilians and detain innocent people with impunity, mistrust takes
root.”
They said the Nigerian authorities had been persuaded by the Pentagon
to adopt a more holistic approach to fighting Boko Haram, for instance,
to build programmes to counter Improvised Explosive Devices, IEDs, and
build improved understanding between the Nigerian military and the
public, in part to help generate tips on suspected terrorists.
On Human Rights, a report by the United States State Department in
2013 showed that of 1,377 Nigerian soldiers vetted in 2012 to receive
training, 211 were rejected or suspended because of human rights
concerns.
“We have struggled a great deal in the past to locate units we can
deal with,” Ms. Friend said. “One unit of rangers has finally been found
and is currently undergoing training.”
Source: Premium Times
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