17, May 2016 Military
Aid to Nigeria
Following record sales of military weapons to
the Gulf nations who have some of the worst human rights records in the world,
the US is now poised to further enrich weapons manufacturers by approving sales
of 12 A-29
Super Tucano light attack aircraft to Nigeria.
A top Leahy aide, Tim Rieser expressed concern of the
pending shipment, stating “We don’t have confidence in the Nigerians’ ability
to use them in a manner that complies with the laws of war and doesn’t end up
disproportionately harming civilians, nor in the capability of the U.S.
government to monitor their use.” Under the prior president, Goodluck Jonathon,
the Nigerian military detained and killed thousands of innocent civilians in
sweeps of the Boko Haram, a practice that Amnesty International said was
continuing under the new president, Muhammadu
Buhari. This year the
military rounded up several hundred men and boys in arrests that Amnesty,
called “arbitrary, hazardous profiling based on sex and age of the individual
rather than on evidence of criminality”.
Sarah Margon, the
Washington director at Human Rights Watch, was equally critical stating
“indications that the U.S. is going to sell attack aircrafts to Nigeria is
concerning given the absence of meaningful reform within Nigeria’s security
sector; The U.S. must make clear that if the sale is to occur, critical steps,
not just rhetorical commitments, on core human rights concerns must be an
integral component for approving the sale.”
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