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Boko Haram Helped by U.S. Policies, Nigerian President Says Boko Haram Helped by U.S. Policies, Nigerian President Says
(about 2 hours later)
The United States has unintentionally helped Boko Haram militants by refusing to arm Nigerian security forces who are fighting the Islamic extremists, President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria said this week. Nigeria’s new president, Muhammadu Buhari, sharply criticized the United States this week for refusing to sell his country weapons in the fight against Boko Haram, in a speech that raised eyebrows in Washington for its echoes of previous Nigerian rhetoric.
Two days after meeting with President Obama at the White House, Mr. Buhari said on Wednesday that his country’s security forces were “largely impotent” in their fight against Boko Haram, and he put the blame on an American law that blocks assistance to foreign security forces that are accused of human rights abuses. In remarks that surprised current and former United States officials, Mr. Buhari, a former army general, blamed Washington on Wednesday for his country’s failure to rout Boko Haram and brushed aside well-documented reports of human rights violations by the Nigerian military.
The application of the law “has aided and abetted the Boko Haram terrorists,” Mr. Buhari said in a speech to the United States Institute of Peace. He said that the allegations of human rights violations against Nigerian forces were unproven, and that restrictions on military aid have “denied us access to appropriate strategic weapons to prosecute the war against the insurgents,” according to a transcript posted on the institute’s website. The speech at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington — made just two days after he was warmly welcomed to the White House by President Obama — appeared to contradict some of Mr. Buhari’s recent actions, including last week’s across-the-board firing of Nigeria’s military chiefs, some of them linked to the rights violations, and his earlier promise to look into the reports.
Mr. Buhari urged Mr. Obama and Congress to find a way around the law, which restricts sales of certain weapons. Referring to Boko Haram’s activities, he said, “I know the American people cannot support any group engaged in these crimes.” In remarks to reporters this week, President Obama greeted the new Nigerian leader as a breath of fresh air after the corruption and incompetence of the man he defeated in the March election, Goodluck Jonathan.
Mr. Buhari has made ending the insurgency a priority since he took office eight weeks ago. American officials see a strong interest in Nigeria defeating the Islamic militants, and as recently as Monday, when Mr. Obama and Mr. Buhari met at the White House, administration officials vowed to help Mr. Buhari in the fight. And the invitation to Washington itself, which is unusual for an African leader so soon after his election, was intended to show that relations between the two countries were on a new footing after months of frostiness over the reports of human rights violations. Washington blocked weapons sales as a result; the Nigerian government under Mr. Jonathan simply denied the reports. Over the last two years, Nigeria had shifted responsibility for its losing battle with the terrorists to the reluctance of others — principally the United States — to help it.
The administration’s refusal to sell Nigeria advanced weapons, including military helicopters, strained Washington’s relations last year with Mr. Buhari’s predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan. The arrival of Mr. Buhari in office was supposed to change all that, with the new government acknowledging the human rights problems and taking responsibility for failures in its fight against Boko Haram.
A report last month by Amnesty International accused Nigerian forces of torture, mass shootings, starvation and the use of deadly chemicals against detainees in prosecution of its war against Boko Haram militants. The report alleged that in the campaign against Boko Haram, the government’s forces have killed more than 8,000 people — a greater number than the militants have. Instead, Mr. Buhari on Wednesday simply repeated what his predecessor had said for months: the human rights violations were “unproven”; Boko Haram was winning not because of the military’s incompetence but because the United States had “denied us access to appropriate strategic weapons”; and America had unwittingly “aided and abetted” the terrorists as a result.
Human rights violations by the Nigerian military have been a concern for the United States for years, and American officials have often cited such accusations when discussing limits on American cooperation with the Nigerian military. A law in force since 1997, known as the Leahy Law, bars sales of certain types of weapons to the militaries of countries that have been credibly accused of human rights abuses. Mr. Buhari was blunt in his criticism of the application of a United States law that bans assistance to foreign forces credibly implicated in serious human rights abuses. “Unwittingly — and I dare say unintentionally — the application of the Leahy Law,” he said, “has aided and abetted the Boko Haram terrorists in the prosecution of its extremist ideology and hate, the indiscriminate killings and maiming of civilians, the raping of women and girls and other heinous crimes.”
Nigerian officials, including the former president, Mr. Jonathan, have played down the accusations of abuses, saying that violations committed in the fight against Boko Haram have been “exaggerated.” His apparent about turn took experts on Nigeria in Washington and in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, by surprise. They expressed concern that Mr. Buhari might simply revert to the failed policies of his predecessors, and that the hoped-for change in Nigerian governance would prove to be illusory.
In his inauguration speech in May, Mr. Buhari said he would address accusations of abuses by the military. “We shall improve operational and legal mechanisms, so that disciplinary steps are taken against proven human right violations by the armed forces,” he said. “I was kind of astonished,” said John Campbell, a former ambassador to Nigeria, who was in the audience. “It implies that the U.S. has contributed to Boko Haram’s violence by declining to supply military equipment,” a claim that Mr. Campbell suggested did not square with the facts.
In the past, Nigerian officials have been particularly incensed by Washington’s refusal to allow them to buy military attack helicopters, fearing that these could be used to perpetrate the large-scale killing of civilians that the country’s soldiers have already engaged in, using other weapons.
Indeed, the one period when Boko Haram appeared to be on the run, earlier this year, followed Mr. Jonathan’s enlistment of South African mercenaries equipped with helicopters.
“To me it is utterly baffling,” Mr. Campbell said of the speech. “Boko Haram’s success against the Nigerian military is not the result of a lack of military hardware.”
“They have hardware,” Mr. Campbell continued, speaking of Boko Haram, “but it is not particularly sophisticated.”
Another former United States ambassador, Princeton Lyman, said he assumed that Mr. Buhari’s comments were meant to support his embassy in Washington, noting that the Nigerian ambassador there had uttered similar sentiments.
“We were sorry to hear that in the speech,” Mr. Lyman said. But, he added, “you have to look at his actions. He’s replaced all his service chiefs.”
“I think the real Buhari knows he’s got to reform the military, while fighting Boko Haram,” Mr. Lyman said. “That’s not easy.”
Mr. Buhari’s spokesman, speaking by telephone Thursday from Nigeria, denied that the new president had criticized the United States. “This is not criticism, unless somebody wants to deliberately misunderstand what the president has said,” said the spokesman, Femi Adesina. “It’s a fair commentary. It’s not criticism.”
As for the allegations of human rights violations, “the Nigerian government has said it will be investigated,” said Mr. Adesina. “The investigation is still on. Until that investigation is completed it remains unproven.”