This is because any of the military officials indicted may end up at the International Criminal Court at The Hague, The Netherlands.
The military was getting used to the periodic allegations of human rights abuses by Amnesty International, but to now face allegations of war crimes, including murder of 8,000 people, starving, suffocating and torturing others to death set off alarm bells .
There has been anxiety in many quarters as to how the report would be handled by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Amnesty said in its 133-page report titled: Stars on their shoulders. Blood on their hands- War crimes committed by the Nigerian military – that since March 2011, more than 7,000 young men and boys died in military detention and more than 1,200 people were unlawfully killed since February 2012.
It said it can vouch for the authenticity of the report based on years of research and analyses of evidence including leaked military reports and correspondence, interviews with more than 400 victims, eyewitnesses and senior members of the Nigerian security forces.
Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Mr. Salil Shetty, in the report outlined the roles and possible criminal responsibilities of those along the chain of command – up to the Chief of Defence Staff and Chief of Army Staff, submitting that “this sickening evidence exposes how thousands of young men and boys have been arbitrarily arrested and deliberately killed or left to die in detention in the most horrific conditions.
It is also about the responsibility of Nigeria’s leadership to act decisively to end the pervasive culture of impunity within the armed forces.”
Shetty then listed the war crimes to include alleged mass deaths in custody, starvation, dehydration and disease, overcrowding and suffocation, fumigation, torture, and extrajudicial executions. Amnesty also claimed that high level military commanders knew of the crimes. see more
Post a Comment