WORLD: Syrian diplomats around the world expelled

PARIS (AP) — Governments around the world expelled Syrian ambassadors and diplomats Tuesday, an unusual, coordinated blow to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime following a gruesome massacre that the United Nations said involved close-range shootings of scores of children and parents in their homes. The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and the Netherlands took action Tuesday against Syrian diplomats. Britain's foreign secretary said the countries involved in Tuesday's expulsions would also push for tougher sanctions against Syria. The moves came after the killings Friday in Houla, a collection of farming villages in Syria's Homs province — one of the deadliest single events in a 15-month-old uprising against Assad that has killed thousands.


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BIAFRA: On The 45th Anniversary Of The First Shot

May 30, 1969: In New York, at United Nations building, American David Mayrock burned himself to death carrying a placard on which he wrote: "Stop Genocide, Save Nine Million Biafrans," on Biafra's second Independence Anniversary. Prior to Mayrock, on March 30, 1969, a French woman in Paris, France, burns herself to death near the Nigerian Embassy in protest against Yakubu Gowon's-led genocidal campaign against the Igbo nation. May they continue to rest in peace and may their death not be in vain!

UN-Backed Court at The Hague: Charles Taylor

This Monday, Aug. 11, 2003 file photo shows former Liberian president Charles Taylor, center, flanked by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, left, and President Joachim Chissano of Mozambique, right, as Taylor arrived into exile at Abuja international airport, Nigeria. On Thursday April 26, 2012, judges at an international war crimes passed judgment on warlord-turned-Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is accused of sponsoring rebels responsible for untold atrocities, including abetting murder, rape and the forced enlistment of child soldiers during Sierra Leone's brutal civil war in return for so-called blood diamonds. Taylor had been on trial at the UN-backed court in The Hague for almost five years. The historic verdicts at the Special Court for Sierra Leone will mark the first time an international tribunal has reached judgment in the trial of a former head of state since judges in Nuremberg convicted Karl Doenitz, a naval officer who briefly led Germany after Adolf Hitler's suicide. This week the United Nation Special court in The Hague, Netherlands convicted Taylor of war crimes against humanity and would serve 80-years in prison. Image: George Osodi/AP

America's Quest For Africa

By Brian Beyer, Antiwar

Africa has been thrusted into the spotlight yet again thanks to the Libyan intervention. Due to the power vacuum in Libya, weapon depots have been looted dry and weapons of all sorts from Libya have been turning up on the black market. Fear of Islamists taking charge in Tripoli has been exacerbated by near hysteria over al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Africa seems to be engulfed in crisis–nothing new here.

Terrorism of any kind, no matter how irrelevant to the US or its interests is now seen as a greater threat than the Red Scare. The United States, of course, must and will act. Or so says AFRICOM commander General Carter Ham. General Ham considers al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, terrorist groups with mostly domestic grievances, to be very similar to AQIM, a group with a distinctly international flavor.

“Each of those three independently, I think, presents a significant threat not only in the nations in which they primarily operate but regionally and … to the United States,” Ham told defense reporters on Wednesday. “Those three organizations have very explicitly and publicly voiced an intent to target Westerners and the U.S. specifically.”

Ham’s assessment of Boko Haram and al-Shabaab’s targets is extremely misguided. Al-Shabaab has only once attacked outside of Somalia, which was in Uganda in response to the country’s peacekeeping operations in Somalia. As Jeremy Scahill noted, American policy was counterproductive in that it radicalized many Somalis:

Rather than working with the Somali government to address what Somalia experts considered a relatively minor threat, the United States turned to warlords like Qanyare, and went down a path that would lead to an almost unthinkable rise in the influence and power of Al Qaeda and the Shabab.

Additionally, Boko Haram attacked its first international target just three weeks ago, the UN mission in Abuja. Even this attack, though directed at Westerners and a western organization–Boko Haram’s ideology stems from complete opposition to western education–was within Nigerian borders. While the precision, efficacy, and hardware used in the bombing was certainly characteristic of al-Qaeda, the links between the two organizations is still very difficult to connect. Despite the lack of hard evidence, Ham is ready to act:

“The Africans are better at addressing this [terrorism] than we are. In some cases they need some assistance and where we can provide that, we seek to do so,” he said, citing the example of Mali, where the United States has provided training and equipment to help them counter AQIM.

The effort in Mali was done under the guise of the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI), an effort to combat terrorism and secure borders in Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad, signed into law by the Bush administration in November 2002. In reality, the initiative focused on training and equipping American compliant armies as “[k]ey aspects of the training include basic marksmanship, planning, communications, land navigation, patrolling and medical care. This foreign internal defense training, officials said, will help the countries involved better protect their own borders and regions.” The PSI was a relatively small effort of $7 million, but laid the essential framework of which a much larger and more important counterterrorism initiative would be based: the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP).

The TSCTP was established during the Bush administration as a 5 year, $500 million project and is now under the authority of the fledgling AFRICOM, which is a mere 4 years old and is currently headed by General Carter Ham (the Department of Defense, USAID, the FBI, and Department of the Treasury also assist in the effort, as does the African Union and the Union of West African States). The goals of TSCTP are not surprising considering how terrorism of all kinds, even that unrelated to the United States, is looked upon in a paranoid fashion:

The Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP) is a multi-faceted, multi-year U.S. Government (USG) program aimed at defeating terrorist organizations by:

• strengthening regional counterterrorism capabilities,

• enhancing and institutionalizing cooperation among the region’s security forces,

• promoting democratic governance,

• discrediting terrorist ideology, and

• reinforcing bilateral military ties with the United States.

As this laundry list of objectives indicates, it appears that the US is approaching terrorism in Africa from many different perspectives. Mirroring America’s foreign policy, however, the TSCTP places too much emphasis on hard rather than soft power. An American diplomat from Senegal explains:

The current TSCTP program focuses too much on military and security assistance… [W]e believe that in Senegal the bulk of our TSCTP activities should be these &soft8 programs rather than military ones… In Senegal, the objective is to prevent terrorist attacks. We are not at the stage yet where we need to find, fix and destroy terrorists.

The diplomat’s assessment is spot on: what sense does it make to approach terrorism militarily when the threat of terrorism against the United States by African groups is next to nonexistent? It’s also worth questioning why America even cares one iota about terrorism in Senegal or Burkina Faso. Neither country has ever experienced a terrorist attack, nor is either predisposed to terrorism.

The military component of the program is very troublesome. Known as “Operation Enduring Freedom Trans Sahara” (OEF-TS), this little known military initiative is said to reinforce bilateral military ties among its ten members: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Morocco, Tunisia, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal.

Given the past actions of the US, which has shown complete willingness to exert control over militaries and security agencies all over the globe, this is hardly surprising.

OEF-TS explicitly states that its role is advisory, emphasis mine: “OEF-TS fosters collaboration and communication among participating countries. Furthermore, OEF-TS strengthens counterterrorism and border security, promotes democratic governance,reinforces bilateral military ties, and enhances development and institution building.”

Likewise, the TSCTP site makes clear that the US is participating from the sidelines, “The overall goals are to enhance the indigenous capacities of governments in the Pan-Sahel…to confront the challenge posed by terrorist organizations in the region.”

Recent events, however, have called into question American dedication to taking a backseat role, especially with the hysterical calls of danger coming from General Ham.

The recent bombing in of the UN mission in Abuja, Nigeria by Boko Haram saw heavy handed American involvement. The FBI was promptly on the ground assisting in operations, though many Nigerians balked at this and declared that they had not only run roughshod over Nigerian investigators, but had completely taken over the investigation. There is no better way to “foster collaboration and communication” than to hijack an investigation.

For all the talk of encouraging cooperation and respect among allies in order to eradicate terrorism, American calls for good faith seem to be, more than anything, a disguise for commanding around foreign countries. Cables obtained by Wikileaks show that the US continues to use one of the oldest tricks in the book for those not fully cooperating with the TSCTP: the power of the purse and well monied insiders.

The American friendly Ben Ali regime, when compared to other members of the TSCTP, was not doing all that well.

We will want to emphasize to Grira that while we value our relationship with Tunisia, shrinking resources will be prioritized for those countries that are willing to work with the U.S., particularly in regional security efforts such as the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Program (TSCTP) and NATO’s Operation Active Endeavor. Tunisia’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) will drop from $15 million in FY-2010 to $4.9 million in FY-2011.

Congress was also unimpressed with Tunisia’s performance as a partner in counterterrorism, and “would need to see concrete benefits coming from the assistance… [and] a willingness to increase engagement…” in order to receive more funding. But perhaps what irked the United States the most, and really threw a wrench in the gears of the military component of TSCTP, Operation Enduring Freedom Trans-Sahara (OEF-TS), was the lack of a status of force agreement between the US and Tunisia.

As they stood up to depart, the DCMA told the Defense Minister that the U.S. was still interested in establishing a SOFA [status of force agreement] for U.S. military forces in Tunisia and that Congress considers a SOFA very important in judging the strength of a relationship. Grira said that he was aware of the issue, but that the Tunisians were waiting for the U.S. to respond to their proposal for text changes.

The US, yet again, was more focused on responding to terrorism rather than preventing it.

The policy of leading from behind has also seemed to have been abandoned in Mauritania. The government of Mauritania unveiled a plan called “Social and Economic Aspects of the National Strategy Against Terror.” Rather than supplementing the strategy already established, the TSCTP “parallels the GIRM’s [Government of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania] SNLT [Strategie Nationale de Lutte contre le Terrorisme], but goes a step further.” In little Mauritania, American policy has supplanted that of the host country. Leading from behind? Hardly.

The man responsible for Mauritania and America’s close “cooperation” is “Ministry of Economy and Finance Director for Cooperation Mohedyne Sidi Baba, who has been the Mission’s primary counterpart on USAID’s Trans Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership.” Baba’s is indebted to and very comfortable with the financial organizations of all kinds:

Mohedyne Ould Sidi Baba has been a vital player in building Mauritania’s relations with the IMF, World Bank and donors. His tireless work was instrumental to Mauritania’s consideration for the MCC [Millennium Challenge Corporation] and re-establishing confidence with the IMF.

Baba, in other words, has shown so much willingness to act on the behalf of the United States because they keep the money flowing to poverty stricken Mauritania.

The recent establishment of AFRICOM, TSCTP and OEF-TS were created in the aftermath of 9/11 paranoia. Any threat of terrorism, real or otherwise, had to be scrutinized and, whenever possible, acted upon. While al-Qaeda had attacked US interests in Kenya and Tanzania years before, there was never once an existential threat to the US from African terrorist groups. American officials, in their crusade to destroy a war tactic, are now onto Africa.

It looks as though Africa is being colonized yet again, but not by those searching for diamonds or by loan sharks from the IMF. Rather, the United States, acting as a partner in the War on Terror, seems dedicated to crafting and shaping malleable countries throughout the turbulent and eternally hopeless continent.

Jonathan May Be Ngeria's Last President

A Vanguard Newspaper Interview

Reverend Oladimeji (Ladi)P. Thompson, founder and Senior Pastor of Lagos-based Living Waters Unlimited Church has, for over 20 years, followed the activities of terror groups in the North. He is also the international co-ordinator of Macedonian Initiative, a non-government, non-denominational organization established to provide succour to Christians persecuted because of their belief in Jesus Christ. Immediately after the UN House bombing, our SAM EYOBOKA and UDUMA KALU approached him for his comment and the answer is that Boko Haram may break up Nigeria. Excerpts:

You said since 2000 you have a clear vision…

First of all, my warning was to the church leadership . I moved on to the secular world and I found out that it's going to be difficult, so I did not go there any more. But the truth is that Goodluck Jonathan may be the last president of Nigeria. When I was saying this, they sounded very far fetched to believe.

What is helping Nigeria right now is that the people who sponsor what is supposed to happen in Nigeria have been kept busy themselves for now. People like Muammar Gaddafi who used to come to Kano unannounced and unofficially regularly; there are different axis all over the world who are involved in what is happening in Nigeria. For example, the UN House in Abuja was not the handiwork of Boko Haram.

You may say what do I mean? One, there is nothing like Boko Haram. The word Boko Haram is a word created by the Western Media to explain Yusufua Maiduguri. Yusufua is just one out of 26 radical groups that are operating within Nigeria.

The western press, to make it readable to the western world, created the word, Boko Haram. Haram means forbidden and Boko is corruption of book. They have not burnt any university. They have not killed any professor, nor harassed any institution of higher learning.

What they are out for is very simple. Number one, not to Islamise but an Islamic Nigeria, a Nigeria where there is no plurality of religions, but one religion; a Nigeria in which women will be oppressed always, a Nigeria in which they will eradicate democracy. They have scored success in many nations of the world before our own. You only need to go and do research and you will find out.

Uthman dan Fodio and Shehu of Borno

Nigeria's problem started since 1955 or 1956. It is an ancient problem. The problem with Nigeria's own is that before the global resurgence of terror, Nigeria had an ancient streak that started in 1774 when Uthman dan Fodio entered Maiduguri. He was lecturing in Islam doing very nice and quiet and the Hausa people embraced him and were happy with him because he was teaching their children.

They didn't know that he was radicalizing their children at the same time. While he was radicalizing the people at that time, nobody knew. He even instructed one guy called Yoeofa, the son of the king in Islamic way. When Yoeofa was being taught by Uthman dan Fodio, he said dan Fodio was a good and nice teacher, but dan Fodio noticed that the taxes were high; that they were not purists.

The predominant Islamic force in Nigeria then was the remnant of Kanem Borno Empire. You will find out that the Shehu of Borno, who was actually supposed to be the spiritual leader of Islam in Nigeria, was displaced by dan Fodio because dan Fodio in 1804 declared a Jihad.

It was tough then and they were coming towards South. There were three things that stopped dan Fodio. Number one, El Kanemi, a Borno man who said, `I am a Muslim but I don't understand this religion that involves killing of Muslims as well.' And have you noticed that they have also started throwing bombs in mosques in Nigeria? El Kanemi rose and he was able to put a stop to the advance of Uthman dan Fodio.

Secondly, the arrival of the British and they had what they called Maxim gun, and in 1903 or 1904 Sokoto and Kano fell. There was armed resistance and in 1906 there was an uprising in Mali which arose just like bin Ladin's but it didn't last long. The British decimated it. They were able to kill a few British nationals. All the emirs had waited then, saying if he (the Malian) succeeds we will join him, but when they saw the British crushing him, they went underground.

Thirdly, Ilorin was taken but the Jihadists couldn't advance further because of the forest belt. They have an advantage of cavalry; when they were coming to South, they had an advantage of horses but when they hit the forest belt, their horses couldn't proceed. That is why you find that Ogbomoso, Osogbo, that buffer zone is where the rivers spread and the violence was not heavy.

Jihad under colonial rule

The truth is that during the colonial years, the British made one mistake in which they used indirect rule. Lugard personally promised them that he would not allow the Mauguzawas to be introduced to Christianity. Majority of people in northern Nigeria, when the British came, were not Muslims. They were animists and the Mauguzawas, who automatically, because of indirect rule were recognised as Muslims. It is an ancient creed, a very smart creed—very difficult to detect. War can go on even in peace time.

They shifted to consolidate under the British rule; smiling at the British while consolidating their code for the whole of Northern Nigeria. The moment the British wanted to leave, because they appeared nice to , the British made a miscalculation which is what is destroying them till today. What the British did was to devise a formula and hand over power to Northern Nigeria and create a political formula by which Northern Nigeria ordinarily should forget about one Nigeria.

Jonathan, Yar'Adua and Northern power blocs

This last time, whether by the name of Goodluck and by the pattern of his life that was disrupted, for the first time in Nigeria, we had about four or five presidential candidates from the northern part of Nigeria and they couldn't agree on one.

Had they agreed on one, all these things would not have happened. Olusegun Obasanjo came because of the pacification of the South West and after him, the North could have held on to power for ever, but immediately, it shifted back to the North. You know what happened to Yar'Adua. The late Yar'Adua was the Mutewani Katsina (holder of the Emirate's treasury).

The Emirate and an Ancient Dream

What Nigerians don't know is that there is an existence underneath the Federal Government structure in which an ancient dream is kept alive by a core of radicals who teach their children why they should not see Nigeria as one. And because it is not a formalized education, it's not written down anywhere.

It's difficult to detect but they tell their children that southerners should always come to pay obeisance. `We are their rulers and there is only one religion'. You find that when Yar'Adua was in Katsina state, he was a devout Muslim to the core. There is a radical call from Katsina because it is the centre of learning; they're purists.

When he was to become president, I was alarmed because I knew what his sentiments were, but somehow he did not last long and Goodluck stepped in. Goodluck should not have become president this time around but for the fact that northerners could not agree on a consensus candidate. If they had agreed on the formula left for them by the British colonial heritage, there would have been no argument.

Sheik Gumi, Islamic Banking and Jonathan

In 1955 `or 1956, in the Hajj Camp in Saudi Arabia, the Nigerian flag was burnt because the flag had a Star of David on it. One of the contributors of what you are seeing today was late Sheik Gumi, a clever man who never denied where he was going. If you remember, he was the one who declared that over his dead body would there be a Christian ruler in Nigeria.

That was just a tip of the iceberg. One of his boys who converted from Islam in those days, they put fatwa on him. He had to escape to Kano and the Federal Government used all state apparatuses to hunt for him. They beat him till they felt he was dead, but the Christians later found out that he still had life and he later escaped to Ghana. All these sentiments have been there but we are the ones who close our eyes and pretend as if they were not there. There is a radical cult at the centre.

Islamic banking we are talking about today, Gumi was part of it. So, all the noise that people are making at the last moment is pattern of what they have been doing because there is a pattern in which it will work.

Christians in Northern Nigeria

Ask people like Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola, His Eminence Sunday Mbang and those who had headed CAN, they will tell you how many young girls were kidnapped annually in the North. Your children can't go to schools; it is either you fake their names to a Muslim name or there is no promotion.

Progression of the Ancient Dream

All these things have been there and we pretend as if we don't see them. But they are there, well established in all those states. The movement behind it is a very intelligent; they are slow in their tactics and facts. The progression in Nigeria was that by the time they have swept through the Northern states and consolidated the North…the normal thing is that you push non-Muslims away from the city centres. So most northern cities today that have any sizeable Christian number are divided into two. Why? Because there is a time to come when they will launch an attack unless the Christians agree to live under a status where they become a third class citizen. This issue is not only in Nigeria; it is a global thing.

Islamization of Nigeria

Nigeria has done about 65 per cent, it only has about 35 per cent to go. People are only shouting Plateau State but I pity Plateau State young men because they are falling into a trap till now.

Foreigners on Plateau

Plateau State people think they are doing something but they are wasting their energy by responding with vigilante groups. I have seen a lot of foreigners who are coming into Nigeria with their own silly theory when they don't understand what is going on here. Last week, I was in a place where one of these British consultants was talking on how Plateau indigenes were just killing Muslims. They are only managing information in which the international press is looking at Plateau as blood-thirsty people. And Nigerians know that they are the most peaceful people in Nigeria, ordinarily.

Camps in South South, South East

This same thing has entered Makurdi in Benue State and it is coming down South. Whether you like it or not, there are camps and places where people are being trained in the South South and we now have more Igbo Muslims in Nigeria than we have ever had in this country. Why? They have quietly entered through sponsorships, spending money. There is one school in Afikpo where people are offered scholarships and given free food. As soon as you adopt the Islamic religion, you will be sent out of the country to radicalise you more. In the South South, there are militants milling around in the name of petty traders.

The truth is that they have taken advantage of everything and that is a weakness for us. While we were sleeping, when we didn't know a lot about these people …

Islam in Bauchi

Look at the Bauchi nurses in 2001 who were sacked because they refused to wear hijab. What I am saying is that a medical doctor, S.Y Sabo, who was in charge of Federal Medical Centre, Azare, knew that he was not just a medical doctor but also there to establish something. You can duplicate this in all the places.

Do you remember what happened to Gideon Akaluka on the streets of Kano? Is it normal to parade the head of a fellow human being on the stick and dance round town jubilating? And since all these things happened, has anybody been convicted in Nigeria? You want to know why? It is because Nigerian institutions are riddled with spies and wolves who believe in that future; and the truth is that Nigerian leadership doesn't have the moral courage to face up to the fact that from the police force to intelligence services, to education, to sports, the institutions are filled with people who are fighting the war quietly.

Including the Judiciary?

If you are talking about the judiciary, let me ask? Which rule of law is the uppermost in Nigeria? Nigeria has the British law that we inherited. Then we have the Common Law, the Customary Law and the Sharia Law. Which one is uppermost in Nigeria? If the Nigeria Constitution is uppermost, a former governor in Nigeria married a 13-year- old girl. He paid $100,000 for her, smuggled her into Nigeria from Egypt. According to the laws of Nigeria, is that a crime or not? Will you agree to live in a country where a full grown serving senator can marry a 13-year old girl? We all sat down to watch what would happen when some people came up to say that it was an Islamic affair, a religious affair and not a democratic issue. What happened to the case eventually? So what has been proven now?

Nigeria's mistakes

Now, what are the mistakes we are making? This thing is creeping in and because of the ancient one that started earlier and the emergence of the international one ,they are now woven together. About six or seven years ago, in 2001, a bomb exploded in a church in Lalanto in Jos. Bomb making literature had been coming to Nigeria for more than 10 years. It's just that initially ,it was blowing off their own hands and legs and it was being explained away. But gradually, they have mastered it now. Before, the problem was how they would co-ordinate the activities of 26 Islamic sects with each one having its own leader and different ideas but western countries have solved the problem for them, by creating the name Boko Haram. Unlike before when an individual sect had its own ideology, now Boko Haram has created an umbrella through which they all work. By being stupid and playing into the hands of the western media, they made our case worse. So they are now making more progress and even bolder than they could get before.

The reason why Uthman dan Fodio was able to overthrow Hausa kings was because there was a lot of corruption in the Hausa Kingdoms. There was a lot of oppression and poverty. There was no home for majority of them. There was no hope for the future then.

There is little hope for the future now. A house full of intellectuals, deceive themselves that there is a future. And that is why the average intellectual does not have the reality on what Nigerian life really is. Many Nigerians youths are crossing deserts on foot to escape Nigerian life. That is a pointer for you on what life looks like in the country.

Is the invitation to foreigners to assist us a true way out of the problem?

We have to be very careful. Immediately the UN House was bombed, Nigeria ceded its authority and it was not right for Nigeria to cede its authority. A lot of countries have similar problems and many of them are looking up to Nigeria to see how she would solve the problem to help their own countries. Now, in Nigeria a lot of intelligent strategies have just been just bullshit, they are unwise. At every step, we bring in our soldiers to level (destroy) towns.

Ordinary Boko Haram with 1.6 million members held Nigeria Army and Police Force for almost three weeks. Nigerian youths are impoverished, education is gone, and we are the second highest in the world's infant mortality, maternal maternity, second highest in the world. It is a curse for you to be pregnant in Nigeria, that is what it means. It is better for you to go to Ghana or Cotonou, next door and have your children than to have them in Nigeria.

In all induces by which you measure a state, Nigeria cannot score pass mark in any area. Human life value is very low. A woman was butchered by soldiers in Gombe, till today no compensation. The governor, Danjuma Goje made it impossible for the case to be tried in the state. It was all by collusion. If you like, let's keep deceiving ourselves here that things are well. The infiltration is already noticeable in Calabar, in South East and in these areas we have the problem of tribal divide. No consensus. The youths, almost 75 or 80 per cent of the country, are impoverished, they are disenfranchised, and they have no inheritance. The people who stole their inheritance, their great grand fathers are still alive—all the generals who are arguing against each other. The monies their grandchildren should spend they stole.

Outside Assistance, CAN Chairman

This one has an agenda and a motive. They are schooled somewhere, well funded locally and internationally. Unfortunately for us, the international funders right now are busy but once things are settled in the Middle East, more funding will come back to Nigeria. When the president of CAN called for the arrest of that general, uninformed ignorant people whose children may be slaughtered in future decried the position of the CAN president. As a special adviser to the CAN president, I can tell you that he has more information in his hands than he is allowed to speak to the public.

But whether you like it or not across all the northern states, the number of people killed in order to bring Jonathan Goodluck to power is maximum casualty figure we have never seen in Nigeria before. He rode him on a lot of bloodshed. The pattern of the killing even before the result was announced, the killing had started in the genera's name. When the CAN president called for his arrest, he was not joking. It is just that the government lacked the moral courage to do what is right. They incited people. It was pre-planned, pre-medicated obviously and if you look at the target of the killing, as usual, you cannot say it was political. Even if you bring them out for political reason they will still do what they want to do. Isioma Daniel (who was your colleague) when she made a comment on Miss World, which buildings were burnt? Most of them were churches. What has a journalist's comment on Miss World to do with maiming and killing of people. We are pretending as if this thing is not there but it is mopping up.

UN building bombing and Boko Haram

It was assumed that it is al Qaeda that bombed the UN building. It is more in consonance with al Qaeda. What Nigeria should have done is to first of all examine the explosives used and the methodology of the explosion—because every device has its own signature—and check it maybe it is in consonance with the more primitive ones that they mixed with internet instructions. The truth is that it is not the handiwork of Boko Haram. If we continue to call them Boko Haram, we are uniting 25 to 26 Islamic sects. We are encouraging their unity and helping the foreigners who are funding them to make their work fast. We should break away from calling them Boko Haram and the Nigerian Press must stand up to wage a war against their western counterparts, accusing them of neo-colonialism. If they can create an Islamic battlefront in Nigeria, they will come in from all around the world and Nigeria will fracture and the world will go on, just like Sudan for many years. Their vision is global. There are lots of radical preachers all over the county, they will teach freely for years and nobody ever disturbs them. They are protected by their governors and commissioners of police.

Do you think that it is in the interest of the west to create chaos in Nigeria?

If you are having problem in your country and the people causing problem in your country can move away from your country to another side, would it be in the interest of your own county to encourage the people of that country to learn their mistakes and turn their own land to a fertile ground. They will sell ammunition to both sides. Look at Libya, what is happening is a very interesting scenario. But my fear is the compromise of Nigerian interest. My own insistence is that whatever is going to happen to us, whatever co-operation we are going to have international with anybody; we don't want Nigeria to be represented by bananas who will just throw away the national interest without even knowing what they are doing.

What do you mean?

Look at the UN Building bombing. The place has now been sequestered. Our inadequate facilities, our security systems, obviously, are highly unprepared for this kind of thing and they have yielded it to foreign government. Before you call in foreign assistance, you must think properly and think well. Because of the absence of enough intelligence to handle the problem we are now surrendering, but we should surrender with caution, because one or two moves like this, Nigeria will become the worst of. What makes you think that the nation's security apparatus is not infiltrated? I will like you to go and supply me the list of Nigerian national security advisers from independence. If you can give me that list, let us sit down and scrutinise the lives of every one of them, their utterances in private, not in public; their business interests, their links all over the world. Someone put Nigeria in OIC single handedly. Are there not radicals in Nigeria who have been walking free simply because the orders come from above that nobody should arrest them? Who are the people supporting this no-arrest order? You better let people know what we are up against.

You think President Jonathan is incapable of handling this?

A farmer does not depend on good clock to bring about good harvest and food for us to eat. If a tailor depends on good luck to sew your cloth, when you are looking for a shirt you will end up with a dress. If a farmer does not look for good luck to give us to feed the nation, and a tailor does not depend on good luck to sew cloth, when it comes to certain matters good luck has its limitation. Instead, wise planning and intelligent thinking is what is needed. It's not true that IGP is incompetent as people have been saying. We have a situation where the IG himself is more or less a junior to some of the commissioners of Police serving under him. Remember that some people stayed behind with the intent of helping him, are all of them loyal to him? Do we know where the loyalty of some of them lies? Is it possible for him to have as free hand with the kind of command he's asked to handle? Is he given a free hand? The moment you politicize anything that had to do with security, you have fractured the chain of command. So, whereas, he may be a very competent officer but the structure he was asked to perform with may not help him.

Is that not enough reason to resign as people are calling on him to do?

You will have to interview him on that. Is it easy to resign? If he is your uncle will you ask him to resign?

What is the way forward out of the current logjam?

The leadership must first of all find the moral courage to understand the reason why we are prone to these things more other countries; to face the problem, diagnose it and call it by its real name so it can treat it. If leadership does not do that we are going to slide to the morass faster. That is one. Number two; this new problem, in other countries nobody is relying on old methodologies. In some countries, they call a new kind of war, because there is no text book answer. As I speak right now, all over the world, intelligence experts are just writing the text books to match this menace of terrorism, because it is a resurgence that has not be seen in many centuries. So, coming up with military intelligence to come and answer this problem is a waste of everybody's time; coming up with DIGs to come and answer this, is a waste of everybody's time. What we need is leadership with innovative thinking; people who can think out of the box; who understand the cultural, religious, political and the radical aspects of what we are talking about here; people who know how to recognize the different phases and to handle all the phases with equanimity. I give you an example; one of the things that making this thing spread faster is the lack of a consensus in Nigeria. The Chinese Constitution is about 2,000 words; the American is about 4,400 words but the Nigeria Constitution is in excesses of 74,000 words. Nigeria has never had a real constitution. What we call a constitution is not representative of the Nigerian people. There is no common agreement. The best country that Nigeria to align with right and it is going to be done with utmost wisdom, is USA—the only country that has had the same kind of history and experience and was successful to a point. They were also colonized by the British. Every offer that was given to Nigeria as we transited to independence was also offered the Americans but they rejected all. All the problems in the Nigerian foundation can find solution in the American history. There is something called the American declaration of independence, Nigeria does not have the equivalent of it. What is written there is very simple but very powerful, and you can build the country on it: "…All men are created equal before God and everybody is entitled to the pursuit of happiness…."

That is why you see that nobody jokes with liberty in the US. If you have 10 heads, everybody is equal. Three revolutions were fought by the Americans, all based on the original agreement. In Nigeria, is there any such document that says we are all equal and that everybody is entitled to the basics of life? We do not know the power of such words. America was able to overcome its colonial experience and build their nation properly. Nigeria is yet to that. We must work with America with caution, but there is a lot we can learn from them.

Suffering Amid Libya's Growing Human Disaster

Ahmed Ali, set alight during an apparent racist attack near his home, had been held in a Tripoli jail without access to treatment

A Farm Weekly Report



BEHIND 2.4-metre iron gates, along a sandy path and up concrete stairs, there is a glimpse into the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in newly liberated Libya.



About 300 prisoners, some crowded into cells housing 26 men at once, are being held in Maftuh Jail in Fernaj, a district of Tripoli.



According to the police officer who took over the prison from rebel soldiers on Tuesday, the men were swept up in the rebels' August 20 push to take Tripoli. Most are accused of being mercenaries fighting for Muammar Gaddafi. Most deny the allegations.



After 11 searingly hot days held in unsanitary, overcrowded cells with no running water, the men were desperate for help. They asked for doctors, lawyers and humanitarian workers to come to the prison.



But further down the corridor, we found two young men in an even more desperate situation. His face burnt, peeling and blistered, 28-year-old Ahmed Ali from Nigeria was in need of urgent medical help.



''Nine days ago, some youth near my house got angry - they came to my place and they poured fuel on me,'' he said, bracing himself against a wave of pain.



They set him on fire in an apparent racist attack that has become increasingly common in a country harbouring so much anger against Gaddafi and his mercenaries. Anyone with dark skin - regardless of their loyalties - can find themselves a target. Ahmed has been held here without any medical care - directly across the road from one of Tripoli's largest hospitals.



Another young man in his cell, Mustafa, from Nigers, held up a badly bandaged left hand. Three of his fingers had been blown off by a bullet. He had received no medical care for his injuries.



When confronted about these two prisoners, the officer in charge, Anwar Bin Naji, told The Age: ''The whole of Tripoli is in a difficult situation - the entire system has broken down. Come back in four days, you will find a very different place.''



But why not call a doctor from Tripoli General Hospital, not 500 metres away? ''There are not enough doctors in Tripoli - they have been working around the clock for days,'' he replied.



After some convincing, he pulled his phone out and called the hospital. And he agreed that if The Age could get a doctor to the prison, he would let them in. We contacted Salama Agni, a general surgeon from the hospital, who arrived 20 minutes later. The two badly injured prisoners were brought to the jail's clinic for treatment.



''This man needs to go to a burns hospital,'' Dr Agni said. ''His burns need to be hydrated, and he needs intravenous antibiotics.''



As the doctor smoothed salve onto the wounds on his face, neck and knee, Ahmed explained he had been in Libya for two years, and worked in interior design after doing an architecture course in Nigeria. ''I am not a fighter,'' he said. ''I don't even own a knife.''



Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have been warning of mounting evidence of human rights abuses against dark-skinned Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans ''who have frequently been accused of serving Gaddafi as foreign mercenaries''.



They have urged the de facto government in Libya to treat all detainees in accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law standards, including prompt review before an independent judicial panel and immediate access for the International Committee of the Red Cross to all detainees in Transitional National Council custody.

Jonathan Says Terrorism A Domestic Issue He Can Manage

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan said Islamic radicals who have attacked government officials and security forces are a “domestic problem” unrelated to his election or the nation’s split between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south.

“I can promise you that as a government we are committed and up to the task and will bring it down,” Jonathan told reporters at the United Nations in New York, ahead of a meeting today in Washington with President Barack Obama. “It does not rise to the level where we will have to ask President Obama or other world leaders for assistance.”

Authorities in Nigeria’s north have blamed a radical Islamic sect, Boko Haram, which draws inspiration from Afghanistan’s Taliban movement, for bomb attacks and killings targeting government officials and security forces. More than 14,000 people died in ethnic and religious clashes between 1999 and 2009 in Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer and most populous nation, according to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

At least 14 people were killed and 17 seriously wounded when three blasts went off yesterday in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, including one at the state government secretariat, Borno state police spokesman Lawal Abdullahi said. In a separate incident, a gunman in the city suspected to be an Islamic militant shot dead Ibrahim Mohammed, a Muslim cleric, late yesterday at his home, Abdullahi said.

Jonathan, 53, a Christian from the oil-rich Niger River delta region, defeated his nearest rival, Muhammadu Buhari, a northern Muslim, in the April 16 vote by a 57 percent to 31 percent margin. At least 800 people were killed as protests by supporters of the opposition candidate, a former military ruler, triggered violence between Muslim and Christian ethnic groups, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Terrorist Attacks

“We have challenges, but it has nothing to do with the elections,” Jonathan said. “It has nothing to do with Christians and Muslims. Boko Haram would rather attack Islamic groups that embrace the western way of life. Even the most powerful countries are confronted with terrorist attacks. You have to manage it and gradually suppress it.”

Jonathan said he would use a “carrots-and-sticks approach,” of negotiations with Boko Haram and the use of military force if talks fail. He pointed to the negotiations and amnesty program that has reduced violence in the Niger Delta.

Laurent Gbagbo bunkers down as assault steps up

Men captured by forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara are detained at a checkpoint in Abidjan yesterday. Picture: AP Source: AP

FORCES allied with Ivory Coast's internationally recognised President Alassane Ouattara vowed to launch new attacks overnight on the underground bunker where strongman Laurent Gbagbo remains holed up and refusing to surrender.

Already, airstrikes have pounded holes in his garden and destroyed his weapons depots, and fighters have encircled his home and stormed the gates.

But forces allied to Mr Ouattara, the recognised winner of last November's presidential election, fear killing Mr Gbagbo and stoking the rage of his supporters. About 46 per cent of Ivorians voted for him in the ballot that unleashed chaos.

Mr Gbagbo, 65, who has made an art of staying in power years past the end of his legal mandate, is now fighting for each day, even each hour. "He will not surrender," said Meite Sindou, a defence spokesman for Mr Ouattara. "We will have to take him."

Fighters loyal to Mr Ouattara have made it as far as the gate of the presidential mansion Mr Gbagbo has occupied for the past decade. They attacked it with a barrage of fire, and residents reported concussive blasts. They breached the perimeter only to be forced to retreat in the face of the heavy artillery unleashed by the ruler's inner circle of guards.

Mr Ouattara has pleaded with the international community for months to intervene and remove Mr Gbagbo by force, arguing it was the only way he would leave.

Mr Gbagbo still controls the Ivorian army and has repeatedly used its arsenal of heavy artillery to attack areas of Abidjan where people voted for his opponent. Security forces are accused of turning a machine gun on a group of unarmed women and lobbing mortars into a market.

UN attack helicopters, acting on a Security Council resolution, this week bombarded six arms depots in Abidjan, including a cache inside the presidential compound. "Obviously they didn't get all of it," said a senior diplomat. "When they came after him, he pulled out more stuff.

"Remember, he has had a long time to prepare for this."

Among the preparations was the choice of where Mr Gbagbo would make his last stand. He is said to be holed up in a tunnel originally built to link the president's home and the adjacent residence of the French ambassador.

Ivory Coast's first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, built the tunnel so he could take refuge inside the ambassador's residence in the event of a coup, said Ivory Coast expert Christian Bouquet, a professor of political geography.

Hoha! (Pointblank): The Soundbites

"Left unchecked, we have every reason to believe Gadhafi (will) commit atrocities against his own people... and destabilize North Africa and the broader Middle East...The democratic values that we stand for would be overrun, and the words of the international community would be rendered hollow...The United States will provide the unique capabilities that we can bring to bear, including enabling our European allies and Arab partners to effectively enforce a no-fly zone..."

-------President Barack Obama Warning Libya's Moammar Gadhafi on Friday to immediately stop the "brutal repression" of Libyan civilians or face military consequences from a unified international community.


“With no less than 17 elections coming up this year [in the region], human rights are going to be key to those elections being peaceful...We need to insist on the centrality of human rights in the electoral process...These bad examples could serve as a lesson to be proactive in mainstreaming a culture of human rights..."

-------Patrice Vahard, Senior Human Rights Adviser, United Nations Office for West Africa (UNOWA) on Human Rights being the key to successful elections in West Africa.


"The Nigerian government is not doing enough to bring people to justice in connection with the violence, and this is creating and fostering a culture of impunity, which is allowing an escalation of violence leading up to April's elections... So we've seen political assassination. We've seen bombs. We've seen fighting between candidate supporters. We've seen attacks on rallies," said Freeman. "We've seen what seems to be an excessive use of lethal force by security officers resulting in children being killed who were just bystanders at a political protest. So it's an extremely worrying level of violence across the country."

-------Lucy Freeman, Amnesty International on the forthcoming elections in Nigeria

Meet Zambia's Maleele Choongo For Miss Teen United Nations International

The Miss Teen United Nations International is calling and sixteen year old Maleele Choongo will be representing her native land, Zambia, for the Miss Teen United Nations International Final Contests scheduled to be held in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in September.

At sixteen, it's amazing what Choongo has accomplished. A senior at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science (MSMS), the state's only public, residential, co-educational high school for academically talented juniors and seniors. There, she takes college credit courses. She belongs to the soccer, Debate, Choir, Interfaith Dialogue Club, Beta Club, National Honor Society and the tennis club.

Choongo plans to be majoring in classical music and psychology before heading to law school. Currently, as Miss Teen Zambia which she credits to "fitness, academic achievements, talent, and interview skills in young ladies, which also offers teenage girls an opportunity to not only display but also positively unleash their potential in a way that benefits their community." Choongo feels she's been blessed with all the outlined celebrated traits seeing it as an opportunity to put them to use.

Very confident and believing whoever is granted the title, Miss Teen United Nations International, should not only possess the traits, but must also be passionate and determined enough to use them in a way that best represents her country, Zambia.

Most importantly, Choonga said "I am eager to work alongside the He Touch Me Ministry on my platform, education for orphans, to ensure every child the opportunity of education regardless of their financial status. I focus most of my community service on programs that are centered around educating them."

On a remarkable volunteer work, she assists kindergarten and preschoolers at the MUW Educational Center. She also spent two summers volunteering at the daycare for the least privileged at Bethlehem Day Care Learning Center. She helped a teacher in tutoring and reading to her students at Magee Elementary School.

On academics and excursions, she participated in her school's science carnival where she had a station in which she conducted science experiments and talked to the children about the significance of science in everyday life. In her volunteering for children, and in her own words: "I have truly become passionate about education for orphans. Most importantly, not only do I strive to be a role model inside the classroom, but also in matters remote from academics. I am in no way perfect, but I feel as if my embracing that and using even my imperfections to work towards my goals set at a very good example."

Choongo's other haul of accomplishments and doing stuff for worthy causes:

Murrah High School Counselor's Award; Highest Mathematics Average, National Honor Society; First Place, Jackson Library System Summer Reading Program; First Place, Jackson Heart Study Research Summer Science Program; First Place, JPS Double Tennis; Jckson Ctholic Forensic League Top Five Declamation Speaker; Miss MSMS 2009 -- Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science; National Honors Society Inductee; National Forensic League; Open Doors Gifted Students Award; Open Doors Gifted Students Chess Tournament; Outstanding Mathematics Achievement, Tougaloo Jackson Heart Study Summer Science Program; and the list goes on and on.

In addition, School Recognition Duke Talent Identification Program For Mathematically And Verbally Talented Students, Declamation State Representative National Catholic Forensic League Grand National Tournament and Murrah High School Top 25 PSAT Scores.

While we spoke on the phone in several occasions as outlined above, I popped up some questions she diligently answered without qualms:

So how do you see yourself?

I think I'm a well rounded person; I think I am smart but I am also a hard worker.

What kind of association do you keep to be who you are?

I have always associated myself with like-minded peers meaning people who like doing things I like to do. I have always had decent grades and I akways have kept myself involved in things like Habitat for Humanity, volunteering in after school tutoring and also volunteering at the day care for the least privileged at Bethlehem Day Care Learning Center.