Schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria

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How Colonialism Benefits from Boko Haram’s Mass Kidnapping of Girls

emparah iff yuh studee slaveree yuh will see dat arabs tarted fe enslaved afrikkans beefore oyinbo. da part aff slaveree dat rarelee discussed iss da eastern part wear da arabs kiddnapped afrikkan oomen ann killed ar castrated afrikkan men to mekk dem docile. da afrikkans were fiteinn dem back ann winninn so dem combine widd oyinbo fe tag team da afrikkans. two against wan = da colonialization aff afrikka. wan side use islam ann da addar side use christianitee to spinn dem imperialist agenda.

awl dat fe show dat blakk peeps need fe studee slaveree so dem ovatand da histaree aff affrikkan slaveree ann da kidnappinn aff afrikkan oomen fe sexual slaveree dat still cantinue

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Arab Slavery of Africans


ARAB-led slavery of Africans is important because it affects directly contemporary Afro-Arab relations and is complicated by the fact that both Africans and Arabs frequently treat it as an issue to be hushed-up because of the embarrassing reaction it generates. It is a historical reality which differentiates the fate and the aspirations of Africans on the one hand, and Arabs on the other, in their different attempts to achieve Arab unity and African unity respectively. Both these objectives, if pursued democratically, would assist in the emancipation and development of the two peoples.

While the truth is uncomfortable, it is impossible to move forward towards historical reconciliation through "holocaust denial" or by "collective amnesia". Denying the truth of what Helmi Sharawy of the Arab Research Centre for Arab-African Studies and Documentation (ARAASD) Cairo, Egypt calls the "ambiguous relations' of the Afro-Arab cultural interchange in the Borderlands, will not assist reconciliation. For more than a thousand years the Sahara has been the melting point of the two cultures. Slavery was generalized in the Borderlands, stretching from Mauritania on the Atlantic, westwards through the Sahel to Sudan on the Red Sea, with slaves being captured from black Africa and taken, often on foot, northwards through the Sahel into Arabia and out of Africa. Whereas the trans-Atlantic slave trade has been the focus of the on-going struggle for reparations, Adwok Nyaba states that Arab enslavement of Africans "has either been ignored, minimized or completely rejected on false account that the Arabs either were 'brothers in Islam' equally colonized and oppressed by the west or participated in the decolonisation struggles of the African people".

Adwok states that slavery of black people in the Nile Basin began in earnest with the defeat of the Mamelukes of Egypt by the Ottoman Empire in 1517 and that the commodification and merchandisation of the slaves route down the Nile to Southern Europe, Arabia, Persia and China is traced to the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

Under Arab slavery men were castrated and the women were used as sex-machines, so that over generations the offspring of the enslaved women merged into general Arab society, albeit into an inferior caste-type class of sub-species. Today we have slave descendants across the Sahara, such as the Harantines in Mauritania, to the ebony blacks in Arabia.

This is because the slaves were so many that the slavers could not ethnically dilute them into café au lait. Castration and male culling is practised.

Mekuria Bulcha estimates that over 17 million Africans were sold to the Middle East and Asia between the sixth and twentieth centuries. In Bulcha's view the distinction between western and Islamic slavery is largely figurative. Both arrangements involved violence and cruelty as well as the devaluation of humanity.

Africans in the Middle East and Asia remain 'a disjointed diaspora', although records indicate a persistent desire amongst them to repatriate.

Arab slavery is still ongoing in Africa in the Afro-Arab Borderlands. Much of the attention to contemporary Arab slavery of Africans focuses on Sudan and Mauritania but from Mali, Algeria, Niger, Libya and Chad filter through reports about slave practices.

The subject of Arab slavery of Africans is one, which many, including the African states, would prefer to have buried and about which there is an unspoken understanding that Africans should remain silent. The practice has existed for 1 400 years, but both Africans and Arabs, for different reasons exhibit insensitivity to it. Muslim academics, both Arab and African, shy away from the Arab slave trade. Islamic leaders are profoundly defensive on the issue.

Ronald Segal in his book Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Diaspora, explains that the Islamic slave trade began some eight centuries before the Atlantic trade and was conducted on a different scale providing slaves more often for domestic - including sex - and military service. In the Arab-led slave system, some slaves achieved positions of authority, a few became rulers. In Segal's view, because of specific spiritual teachings, Islam was generally more humane than the West in its treatment of slaves and in its willingness to bestow manumission, although the process of captivity, subjugation and transportation was extremely cruel. Segal looks at the appeal of Islam to African-American communities and the denial by some black Muslim leaders like Louis Farrakan of the continued existence of African slavery and oppression in contemporary Mauritania and Sudan. An interesting point made by Segal in an interview was that "whereas the gender ratio of slaves in the Atlantic trade was two males to every female, in the Islamic trade it was two females to every male." It needs to be noted that the Arab slave trade concentrated particularly on children.

The Arabs focused and still do on children, because children are easier to re-educate and Arabise. They are also easier to capture and transport to Arabia.

With Islam and slavery came the Arabisation of the African. The Arab conquest of North Africa and parts of the Nile Valley spreading their influence throughout the Sahel in the seventh century planted confusion in the minds of Africans. In the Sudan more than anywhere else, profession of Islam and speaking the Arabic language made one an Arab. Many African ethnic communities in Sudan, such as Borgo, Berti amd Maali fell victim to this deception. In the 1960s these zealous African Muslims were used to fight the Southern Sudanese. The relentless struggle of the Southern Sudanese against oppression, including enslavement by northerners, has spread to other marginalized and peripheral peoples in the west, centre and east of Sudan.

When the first war ended in Sudan with South Sudan winning a measure of self-rule through the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972, this left in the cold the Arabised Africans who had fought on behalf of the Arab dominated northern political elite in the name of national unity. The current genocide in the Darfur region of Western Sudan, where the Khartoum government has used a tactic of ethnic cleansing by arming an Arab nomad militia to attack African farmlands, pushing Africans off their land, continues the Arab push southwards, which is part of the Arab national expansionist project dating back centuries, which has seen Africans pushed southwards from the Mediterranean coast into the arid Sahara area. Arabia in general characterizes events in Darfur as 'tribal feuds'.

On the issue of reparations for Arab-led slavery in Africa, the thesis of Adwok Nyaba presented at the Conference on Arab-Led Slavery of Africans, convened on the 22nd February 2003 in Johannes-burg by the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS), Cape Town, South Africa and the Drammeh Institute of New York, USA, is that reparations is a political issue with a legal objective, requiring mobilization and common purpose.

A final declaration was published, as will be the proceedings of the Conference.

Conference endorsed reparations and called for a civilization dialogue between the Arab and African nations. The Sudan Commission for Human Rights (SCHR) pursues reparations for Arab-led slavery in the Sudan, as an appropriate remedy. The World Conference Against Racism and its NGO Forum added their voices to those seeking reparations for African slavery. There are no legal rules governing the law of reparations.

The study of other such initiatives indicates first extensive legal posturing creating a powerful moral climate supporting reparations, thus shaping public opinion - as the primary stage in the campaign for reparations.

Reprinted from:

https://www.newera.com.na/archives.php?id=8960&date=2005-09-26

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Nigeria's Schoolgirl Kidnappings Cast Light on Child Trafficking

Boko Haram's threat to sell the kidnapped girls "in the market" highlights the plight of children sold or lured into exploitation.

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/798/cache/child-trafficking-boko-haram-01_79814_600x450.jpg

The nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped last month from their boarding school in Chibok by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram are suspected to be deep in Nigeria's northeastern Sambisa Forest, officially a game reserve but long a redoubt for smugglers and criminals hiding in its dense and thorny scrub.

With the region's remote landscape and unprotected borders, many fear that at least some of the girls may have been dispersed to neighboring Chad and Cameroon, either to other militants or into the global marketplace of children destined for every manner of work, from domestic or agricultural labor to sexual exploitation, forced begging, and child soldiering.

"I abducted your girls," said the smiling Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, in a video that was circulating shortly after the raid. "I will sell them in the market, by Allah. There is a market for selling humans." (Related: "The Words 'Boko Haram' Have Become Nigeria's National Synonym for Fear.")

There is no evidence yet that Shekau has followed through on his pledge, but "it's entirely possible, and that is a sad commentary on our times right now," says Susan Bissell, chief of child protection for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). "Anything can be bought and sold in our world, even a child."

The International Labour Organization estimates that about 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide, and the U.S. State Department says as many as 27 million men, women, and children are victims of trafficking at any given time. In many countries "borders are porous and law enforcement is weak," says Bissell; in addition, some one billion children are currently living in countries affected by conflict, another driver in the trafficking phenomenon. (Read "The Price of Precious" in National Geographic magazine.)

Nigeria's Trafficked Children

Countries can be a source, transit, or destination country for trafficking. There are also countries—like Nigeria with its vast natural resources, wealthy classes, and travel infrastructure—that can be all three at once, says Benjamin N. Lawrance, an expert on trafficking in Africa who holds the Conable chair in international relations at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.

"Nigeria is an important location for trafficked children coming from many countries, primarily for domestic work, for mining, for laboring in cacao fields or other agricultural industry, and also for prostitution," he says, adding that prostitution is a much smaller part of the child-labor economy. Neighboring Cameroon and Chad, he says, are also source, transit, and destination countries.

The girls taken by Boko Haram, Lawrance says, could represent an "intersection of trafficking, forced marriage, and child soldiering." Much like the kidnapping of children by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda and other African countries, the kidnapped schoolgirls could technically fall under the definition of child soldiers if they are living with soldiers and pressed into cooking, cleaning, or portering for them or are forced to comply with the sexual demands of the militants.

The State Department rates countries using a three-tier system to measure trafficking within a country's borders. Nigeria ranks as a Tier 2 country in the most recent, 2013 report—meaning that its leadership is making efforts to fight trafficking but doesn't fully comply with the minimum standards of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act.

As for the kidnapped girls, Rachel Yousey, the State Department's senior coordinator for trafficking in persons, says, "All we can say at this time is that they are definitely victims of kidnapping." But she adds: "What we do know about Boko Haram, in general, is that Boko Haram does forcibly recruit or abduct children for various purposes—for intelligence gathering, for spying, for transporting, portering, for burning down structures like schools and churches, for providing information before subsequent attacks. In those types of roles you would definitely classify children [who] are doing those things as child soldiers as well as trafficking victims."

Sold for Labor or Sex

Children trafficked for labor purposes often do not get the attention that victims of sex trafficking do. Of the 4,746 trafficking convictions the State Department tracked in 2012, only 518 were for labor trafficking, despite its prevalence. "Sex trafficking crimes, whether adults or children—people often have a much more visceral reaction to and take much more seriously than labor trafficking. But that's not to say that labor trafficking victims experience any less abuse or hardship or suffering in their situations," says Yousey.

Martina Vandenberg, president and founder of the Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center in Washington, D.C., says that while "statistics are generally very bad in the trafficking field," labor trafficking can be more common than sex trafficking in many countries, adding that "trafficking does not require the crossing of borders; it can be fully internal within a country." She points to a recent documentary about eastern Ghana, for example, that has highlighted the plight of up to 10,000 boys lured or sold into an fishing industry where they work 14 hours a day and are denied medical care and education.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140515-nigeria-girls-boko-haram-child-trafficking-world/

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U.S. Officials Question Ability of Nigeria to Rescue Hostages

By ERIC SCHMITT and BRIAN KNOWLTONMAY 15, 2014



Obama administration officials on Thursday questioned whether the Nigerian military is able to rescue, even with international help, more than 260 schoolgirls abducted last month, giving impetus to a social media campaign calling for the United States to do more to free the hostages.

That campaign is supported by some members of Congress, but has made the Pentagon increasingly uneasy. Military leaders worry that they might be ordered to send in commandos to undertake a mission they regard as unacceptably risky.

The administration quickly offered its help to President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria in taking on the kidnappers, the extremist group Boko Haram. But the United States has not sent troops, and is unlikely to do so, in part because the girls are not believed to still be in one place, and because of the risks in attempting such a large-scale rescue over a vast expanse.

“At this point, we’re not actively considering the deployment of U.S. forces to participate in a combined rescue mission,” the White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, administration officials on Thursday offered an unusually candid and public assessment of the Nigerian military.

“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.”

The testimony also served as an opportunity for administration officials to pre-empt Republican criticism that the White House was slow to respond to the crisis. The problem, they said, rested more with Nigerian officials who ignored past American warnings to soften brutal tactics that only fueled Boko Haram’s insurgency.

American surveillance aircraft, both manned and unmanned, are making flights over the heavily forested region in northeastern Nigeria where the girls are believed to be held. So far, there are few if any clues about the girls’ location.

“We’re basically searching for these girls in an area that’s roughly the size of West Virginia,” Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said Thursday. “So it’s a tough challenge, to be sure.”

The administration has also sent about 30 specialists from the State Department, the F.B.I. and the Pentagon to advise Nigerian officials. About half are military personnel with medical, intelligence, counterterrorism and communications skills. Two officers with experience supporting a mission in Uganda to track down the Lord’s Resistance Army, another rebel force, have joined the effort.

Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the top general overseeing American missions in Africa, met with other senior American and Nigerian officials this week in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, to analyze Nigerian operations as well as the military’s “gaps and shortfalls,” Ms. Friend said.

Asked whether Nigerian forces were capable of rescuing the hostages, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told CBS News on Thursday, “That’s 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.

Gen. Carter F. Ham, a retired head of the military’s Africa command, said, “My sense is that U.S.G. will remain in a supporting role to Nigeria,” referring to the United States government. “I do not think the U.S.G. will seek unilateral action.”

Even as terrorist groups throughout the world have engaged in more kidnappings for ransom to finance their operations, Pentagon officials have worried that the success in killing Osama bin Laden and a movie like “Captain Phillips,” which depicted the capture and killing of Somali pirates, have placed unrealistic expectations on the American authorities.

“The United States of America doesn’t have the capacity, the capability to go rescue every kidnapped person around the world,” Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, the Air Force chief of staff, said in an interview this week.

But the Nigerian kidnappings have touched a nerve, setting off a campaign on Twitter and calls for action by all 20 female senators as well as such traditional proponents of American power as Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.

At Thursday’s hearing, administration officials condemned the kidnappings and committed American aid to help rescue the girls. But they also voiced frustration at Nigeria’s political and military leaders for failing to heed Washington’s warnings about the extremist group.

“We have been urging Nigeria to reform its approach to Boko Haram,” said Robert P. Jackson, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. “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.”

Administration officials say they have tried to persuade the Nigerian authorities to adopt a more holistic approach to fighting Boko Haram, which the State Department branded a terrorist organization last year. The Pentagon, for instance, has supported programs to counter improvised explosive devices and build greater cooperation between the Nigerian military and the public, in part to help generate tips on suspected terrorists. The efforts have had mixed results, at best.

Moreover, finding Nigerian army units that have not been involved in gross violations of human rights has been a “persistent and very troubling limitation” on American efforts to work with the Nigerians, Ms. Friend said.

The Leahy Law, named after Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, bars the United States from providing training or equipment to foreign troops or units who commit “gross human rights violations” like rape, murder or torture.

Groups like Human Rights Watch say the Nigerian military has at times burned hundreds of homes and committed other abuses as it battled Boko Haram and its presumed supporters. A State Department inspector general’s report last year said 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, although training has now begun with one unit of rangers deemed to have met the Leahy standard.

Senator after senator, of both parties, expressed outrage at how long it has taken the Nigerian government to respond effectively to the abductions. Only on Thursday, Mr. Jackson said, was President Jonathan finally traveling to Chibok, the town where the abductions occurred.

But Ms. Friend was unable to assure the committee chairman, Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, that the Nigerian military had the capacity for a rescue operation, even if it had “actionable intelligence” on the girls’ whereabouts and help from other countries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/world/africa/nigerian-military-schoolgirl-hunt.html?_r=0

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U.S. officials say getting kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls released is a top priority

Washington leaders say rescuing 276 kidnapped Nigerian girls is of utmost importance. Islamic fundamentalist group Boko Haram has 'no regard for human life,' State Department official says.

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Freeing 276 Nigerian girls from the terrorist group Boko Haram is now one of the U.S. government's top priorities, U.S. officials have declaredy, issuing warnings about the militant group's expanding reach and growing capacity for more sophisticated and deadlier terror attacks.

At the same time, the officials lamented limitations on U.S. cooperation and intelligence sharing with the Nigerian military due to human rights concerns and legal restrictions. They also expressed concern about the Nigerian government's commitment and army's ability to combat the group.

Robert Jackson, a State Department specialist on Africa, said Thursday Boko Haram "has no regard for human life." He said the Obama administration was boosting Nigeria's intelligence and law enforcement capabilities, while seeking global sanctions on Boko Haram at the United Nations.

The girls' abduction last month from a school in the remote Nigerian town of Chibok triggered global outrage. The extremist Islamist militants have threatened to sell the girls into slavery.

"Resolving this crisis is now one of the highest priorities of the U.S. government," Jackson told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee. Boko Haram, he said, "has been killing innocent people in Nigeria for some time, and the attack at Chibok is part of that long, terrible trend." The group has killed more than 1,000 people this year in attacks on schools, churches and mosques and now poses a growing threat to neighboring Cameroon, he added.
Members of more than 40 African women’s groups demonstrated in Kenya Thursday over the kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria. The U.S. said it has made the girls a top priority.

Testifying alongside Jackson, Alice Friend, the Defense Department's principal director for Africa, said Boko Haram was becoming more dangerous by the day.

The group has proven it is "capable of directly and successfully engaging Nigeria's armed forces," she said.

"In general, Nigeria has failed to mount an effective campaign against Boko Haram," Friend told the panel. "In the face of a new and more sophisticated threat than it has faced before, its security forces have been slow to adapt with new strategies, new doctrines and new tactics." She said Nigeria's own record of atrocities committed by security forces fighting Boko Haram is "even more troubling.".

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-s-officials-freeing-kidnapped-nigerian-schoolgirls-top-priority-article-1.1793407#

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Missing girls: How Nigeria got here

The present contains the past, it is said, and it’s how we’ll understand the Boko Haram kidnapping, says Dr Firoz Osman.

Johannesburg - The agonising plight of the families of the more than 200 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram and the Nigerian government’s dismal failure to protect them has evoked worldwide outrage and condemnation.

The official misuse of resources for personal enrichment has ranked Nigeria 139th out of 176 countries in Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index, with the police perceived to be one of the most corrupt institutions.

Nigeria was created in 1914 from an amalgamation of the north and south region by British colonial authorities.

Northern Nigeria consists mainly of the Hausa and Fulani ethnic groups, who are predominantly Muslim, while southern Nigeria consists of the Yoruba and Igbo ethnic groups, who are Christians and animist worshippers.

The history of northern Nigeria has been profoundly influenced by religion and politics. Since the Borno Sultanate and the Sokoto Caliphate – which ruled parts of what is now northern Nigeria, the Republic of Niger and southern Cameroon – fell under British control in 1903, there has been strong resistance to Western education among the Muslims of the area.

Since the activities of early Christian missionaries who used Western education as a tool for evangelism, it has been viewed with suspicion by the local northern population. Muhammed Yusuf, the popular former leader of Boko Haram who established schools that provided an alternative curriculum, was killed in police custody. A massive crackdown on the movement’s followers led to its militant insurgency.

Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer and strongest economic powerhouse, but most of its people subsist on less than $2 (R20) a day. Under President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s economic growth has not trickled down to the poor.

Health care and education are beyond the reach of many.

A phalanx of security personnel are paid to protect the wealthy and the foreign companies, such as Shell, that want to access the country’s resources, especially oil.

Corruption and the widening income gap, poverty and lack of development provide fertile ground to spawn groups such as Boko Haram.

Mushrooming criminal gangs have used the Boko Haram label to disguise their motives for attacks.

The wild, lunatic bluster of Abubakr Shekau on video excited the Islamophobes who exploited his delirious ranting to vilify Islam and Muslims. This was rubbished by all with a modicum of knowledge on Islam and Muslims.

In a Human Rights Watch’s 2014 World Report, Nigerian security have been “implicated in various human rights violations with regard to the Boko Haram insurgency”, including “the indiscriminate arrest, detention, torture and extra-judicial killing” of those suspected to be supporters or members of the group.

Security forces razed and burnt down homes and properties in communities thought to harbour Boko Haram fighters.



A Nigerian human rights watchdog released a report that said security forces were killing, torturing, illegally detaining and raping civilians in a fight to halt an Islamic uprising in north-east Nigeria that has killed nearly 2 000 people since 2010.

It is this background that informs the terrible plight of the kidnapped girls in Nigeria.

Hollywood icons and politicians have seized the opportunity to make this a cause célèbre. Yet there was no publicity over the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, even though Unicef estimated that 12 000 children were abducted by the LRA between 2002 and 2004 and forced to fight, work or be used for sex.

Unicef also reported in 2011 that more than 31 000 children were rescued from militias in the Democratic Republic of Congo or escaped from them in the previous seven years.

And, of course, there is no international outcry about “Christian terrorists”.

The kidnapping presents the US, Britain, France and Israel with a golden opportunity to secure a foothold in the oil-rich country.

This is part of its efforts to build up a string of military bases across the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and West Africa.

Experts opine that the move is in line with a broader “pivot to Africa” aimed at securing control of the continent’s huge mineral and energy resources and containing, if not excluding, China from Africa.

Africom already has a presence in Africa. Its forces are engaged in West Africa through their Predator drone base in Niger, which borders northern Nigeria.

It also borders Mali, the scene of recent French and British interventions, and Libya, object of a disastrous Western bombing campaign in 2011 that has left that country in a state of civil war and collapse.

US drones operate too in Djibouti, Ethiopia and just across the Red Sea in Yemen.

US President Barack Obama ominously suggested any potential military response won’t just be about securing the release of these girls. “We’re also going to have to deal with the broader problem of organisations like this that can cause such havoc in people’s day-to-day lives,” he said.

Just as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and Syria, West Africa is fertile ground to create chaos and mayhem. Nigeria’s 160 million people are divided between numerous ethno-linguistic groups and also along religious lines. Nigeria can be pushed from the frying pan into the fire.

Experts state that Western countries have no humanitarian credibility, and as part of other “anti-terror” campaigns are employing practices such as extra-judicial execution, long-term detention without trial, the bombing of weddings, death squad activity, the treating of all military-age males as “militants” and massacres. They have unaccountably killed thousands of women and girls in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Pakistan and strongly support formally misogynistic states in places like Saudi Arabia.

They regularly exploit humanitarian crises, fabricated or real, to further their own strategic aims, often leaving a trail of destruction and misery in their wake, unfortunately ignored by media and supporters of such “interventions”.

Only by addressing the fundamental cause for the crisis will it lead to greater protection for the children and women of Africa who are habitually stripped of their dignity, frequently violated and the principal victims of both poverty and war.

* Dr Firoz Osman is from the Media Review Network.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.

The Star

http://www.iol.co.za/the-star/missing-girls-how-nigeria-got-here-1.1688967

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OCCUPY AFRICA: DRONES CANNOT CAPTURE BOKO HARAM GENERALS
May 16, 2014

- by Farouk Martins Aresa –

Africans have been stung many times in the past, but must not give in to advice of Boko Haram Generals. Only Nigerians can capture Boko Haram Generals, not foreigners. Army has proved worthy in world peace and war missions; only confused and paralyzed from mixed messages of traitors at home, Boko Haram Generals. No matter how Nigerians feel about President, they are courageously and fiercely independent. Armed Forces are noted as opposing Africom since they understand what it can turn into. It is why the President resisted foreign aids before now.

Report is that there was a mutiny. It sounds like a house is divided within itself between officers in high command affiliated with Boko Haram and soldiers whose lives are placed at risk, starved of equipment to fight back. Nobody would send Zaki Biam commander to Zaki Biam, which is the advantage of different ethnic groups. This must not be swept under the carpet because we have been hearing stories for a while. Another story was that soldiers in hot pursuit into the evil forest were ordered back. By whom, why and do we need foreign technology to find that out?

Boko Haram has become an opportunity for all kinds of countries to occupy Nigeria. It is déjà vu again at the table of amalgamation of African countries. Which in reality, is the disintegration of Africa by western influences, languages and culture. They have colluded and collided in the past and it will happen again at the expense of their hosts, if Africa is not discrete. We already have some mercenaries from France and Israel in full control of some African presidential guards.

One message that must be sent to terrorists is that negotiation with them is fruitless because it only encourages them to take more hostages for future negotiations. It is the same governors in the North and in the South-south of Nigeria that have been negotiating for terrorists. Once they are released into the custody of their Emirs and governors with stipulation that they would never repeat such crimes again, they grow wings and repeat worse crimes.

The best way to send the message to terrorists that we will not negotiate is to break promises made to them under duress during negotiations. That is, negotiate carefully and make sure you can shadow their movements, their dens and collaborators. If possible, plant devices in their gadgets, clothing or vehicles so that they can be watched, traced, located, and apprehended. When this is repeated often enough, they will realize you do not negotiate, you set them up.

If Africa has a say in what technology they prefer, where and how it can be deployed, fine. But do not hold your breath. Beggars have no choice. Each time a country or continent is occupied, you can bet the roof over your head that the place will never be the same again. Be careful now you may get more than what you ask for. Look before begging for local solutions, from abroad.

Africa was easily occupied by missionaries and adventurers with best intention not in their self-interest, by exchanging mirrors for gold. The rest is history. Since the occupation of Libya, their terrorists have dispersed into Africa south of Sahara. We have called on the super powers for help in dislodging these unwelcome adventurers from Sudan. Moved to Nigeria and Cameroon, we have no need to for massive troops on the ground since technology helps African-trained.

Well, is it time for verification by drone space intelligence? We do not want drones in airspace killing indiscriminately as collateral damage. We also have sensitive intelligence that others claim have already been sold to super powers in Russia, China, Europe and Americas for visa. There are differences between Wiki-Leaks, direct involvement in senseless self-destruction of lives, eradication of ideologies and properties ranging amongst different beliefs and cultures.

There are people of goodwill worldwide, sincere and willing to share. Unfortunately, they come wholesale with the bad and the ugly looking to exploit every situation for their selfish interest. We see how they pointed fingers to one another in Ukraine and destabilized the Country. All Ukraine was looking for was economic aids by joining European Economic Market. Libya is now worse than when Gadhafi was in power cooperating; and Syria is in ruins as was Lebanon.

There are extreme views out there whether this occupation was deliberately planned so that African countries can ask for help: invade under the disguise of supplying technology. Whatever the case, the discretion of these countries must be respected and accommodated as they have suffered greatly in the past from colonialism and its counterpart, neo-colonialism. We are yet to recover from either, and some Africans are so naive, they are asking for return to colonialism.

Our greatest Empires Ghana, Mali, Songhai and Kanem-Borno were destroyed by barbarians from the Northern continents, some of who still occupy the Northern part of Africa today. We are students of history, even when our destructive behavior indicated otherwise. Africans are generally very friendly and accommodating. However, through history it has worked to our disadvantages. We need to open a new chapter and be very sensitive and suspicious of aids.

Actually, it is ironic that United States included some hostage negotiators in the team of experts sent to Nigeria. In the first place, U.S claims it does not negotiate with terrorists. Then, African hostage takers, if they are really Africans, they would respond better and culturally to African negotiators than to Americans, not every time. Unless there are some Nigerian/Niger/Sudanese Americans in the team since USA can boast of most natives from most part of the world.

The victims of most of their crimes are the poor and defenseless women and children. Instead of waiting for the Army to defend them, they got sick and tired and resort to defending one another anyway they can. So far, they have driven some terrorists back, seized their weapons and killed some of them. Instead of seizing the opportunity to fortify grassroots effort, Major General took to his heels. Either Major-Gen. Ahmed Abdullahi or others are Boko Haram.

http://africanheraldexpress.com/blog8/2014/05/16/occupy-africa-drones-cannot-capture-boko-haram-generals/

[blugiant]

wat tickinn mii awf iss dat awl da afrikkan countries cannot unite and deal widd dem eediat boko harams ann tri rescue dem school girls. dat y dem affii begg fii dem imperialist masters help

diss natt onlee look badd pon nigeria butt awl afrikkan countrees dat dem still cyaan protect afrikkan oomen

[Gen]

if only it were that simple eeh.

wat tickinn mii awf iss dat awl da afrikkan countries cannot unite and deal widd dem eediat boko harams ann tri rescue dem school girls. dat y dem affii begg fii dem imperialist masters help

diss natt onlee look badd pon nigeria butt awl afrikkan countrees dat dem still cyaan protect afrikkan oomen

[Emperah]

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[Emperah]

Obama Administration Threatened Nigeria with Sanctions in 2013 for Fighting Boko Haram


Obama's 2nd Term Obama: Post American Immorality
16 Comments




This is too monstrous for words. Here is yet more evidence of what I contended years ago: that Obama had switched sides in the war on terror — even before Benghazi. And the heads exploded on the left (here).
And I was right.

“Obama Administration Threatened Nigeria with Sanctions in 2013 for Fighting Boko Haram,” by Fred Dardick, Canada Free Press, May 14, 2014:
Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only Obama administration official who went to bat for Boko Haram over the past few years. Soon after John Kerry took over as Secretary of State, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Terence P. McCulley, accused the Nigerian government of butchery during a confrontation with Boko Haram terrorists in Baga, a Nigerian town on the shores of Lake Chad, and in May 2013 threatened to withdraw U.S. military aid from the West African nation.
Boko Haram militants attacked a Nigerian military outpost in April 2013 outside Baga, killing one soldier. Following the three-day battle human rights activists, including the George Soros-funded and liberal aligned Human Rights Watch, which is not exactly known for its impartiality when it comes to reporting on Islamic issues, claimed the Nigerian military wantonly slaughtered 183 civilians and burned down over 2,000 homes and businesses.
The Nigerian government denied the claims saying the death toll and destruction had been vastly overstated by its enemies, and in fact 30 Boko Haram terrorists, 6 civilians and one soldier, had died in the fighting. Reports from the Baga clinic, which treated 193 people following the battle, but only 10 with serious injuries, seemed to back up the Nigerian government claim that no large-scale massacre had occurred.

The U.S. Nigerian Ambassador, blindly believing any Islamist sob story that crossed his path, responded in a May 2013 meeting with human rights activists by defending Boko Haram:

Mr. Terrence announced to the activists that the US congress had previously passed a law that bars the United States from rendering military assistance to any government that violates basic rights of citizens. He said the Obama led US government has therefore ceased to assist Nigeria militarily in obedience to the law.

The threat of military sanctions, and whether or not they were actually implemented, is an open question as there has been zero coverage of this issue in the mainstream media, may have had a chilling effect on Nigerian military operations against Boko Haram. Since Ambassador McCulley’s proclamation the Nigerian civilian death toll by Boko Haram Islamic militants has skyrocketed over the past year.
No wonder the Nigerian government was initially reluctant to accept U.S. assistance with finding the more than 200 Christian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram last month. Emboldening Nigeria’s Islamic terrorist enemies and having been already accused by the Obama administration of crimes against humanity for fighting militants who were responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths since 2010, they likely felt that Obama’s belated support was more a product of diplomatic CYA than actually caring about the fate of kidnapped Nigerian children.

- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2014/05/obam....N1m7lxp1.dpuf

[lonewolf]

Arab slavery is still ongoing in Africa in the Afro-Arab Borderlands. Much of the attention to contemporary Arab slavery of Africans focuses on Sudan and Mauritania but from Mali, Algeria, Niger, Libya and Chad filter through reports about slave practices

I listened to many interviews of Gregory Kane on WBAL radio in Baltimore of his experience in Sudan. Also, I read his pulitzer prize winning (3 part maybe 4?) series in the Baltimore Sun (news paper). I posted link to same on this web site. Folks on here seemed disinterested in present day slavery. But always interested in slavery as it existed in the US before they existed...go figure?

Debunking a myth. Stein, M.L. // Editor & Publisher;8/10/96, Vol. 129 Issue 32, p14
Details the foreign assignment undertaken by `Baltimore Sun' reporters Gilbert Lewthwaite and Gregory Kane where they bought two young slaves from a slave trade in Sudan. Assignment was an investigation into Louis Farrakhan's claim that slavery is nonexistent in Sudan; Reporters' impressions on...

[Gen]

that's one long helluvah hashtag

i would just leff dem fi sort out demself

#inshallah

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2427[/ATTACH]

[Gen]

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely

[blugiant]

I listened to many interviews of Gregory Kane on WBAL radio in Baltimore of his experience in Sudan. Also, I read his pulitzer prize winning (3 part maybe 4?) series in the Baltimore Sun (news paper). I posted link to same on this web site. Folks on here seemed disinterested in present day slavery. But always interested in slavery as it existed in the US before they existed...go figure?

slaveree inn merikka still xxist. so wood yuh support dem prisoners woo iss fitinn fe end awl farms aff slaveree