Dedicated To Victims Of
Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes & Genocide In Nigeria
(Onitsha Nigeria: 30th July
2018)-Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety) is dedicating her 10th
birthday to victims of crimes against humanity,
war crimes and genocide across Nigeria irrespective of their religion or
faith sect, ethnicity, age, gender, color, class, cultural affiliation or
geopolitical location. Our birthday profile as to how we came, what we do or have
done, challenges and future is a topic for another day, to be released
soon. Intersociety was born into
Nigeria’s Human Rights Community in July 2008.
Our
special birthday commendation goes to ten Nigerian citizens and their families for
heeding our clarion call to join in the fight against regime atrocities and
impunity for their perpetrators; which resulted in the ten citizens suing
sixteen Nigerian security and political actors in far away United States in
their private capacities as citizens of old Eastern Nigeria and of the
international community under UN System.
The EKWENCHE Group in Chicago
Illinois, USA is also specially commended for principally facilitating the
legal services of the Bruce & Delvalle PLLC, New York, USA; the lawyers
handling the case on behalf of the ten victimized and traumatized Nigerians.
Defining Victims of
Socio-political Crimes: They
are the slain, the wounded, the tortured, the traumatized or the surviving
victims of killings, maiming and torture; organized, ordered, supervised,
facilitated and executed by violent State agents including security forces and
political actors as well as violent non State actors such as armed opposition
groups or institutions and organizations including socio-cultural/religious
groups and multinational companies. Killings involving perpetration of crimes
against humanity and war crimes or genocide are such perpetrated outside the
confines of traditional or street crimes of armed robbery, kidnapping,
domestic violence, organized crimes including trafficking in persons and drug
and arms trafficking, civil homicide, etc.
Defining Crimes Against
Humanity: They
are crimes perpetrated through excessive and unlawful use of force by governing
authorities against group of unarmed and defenseless citizens for political,
ethnic, religious or economic reasons; perpetrated in non war situations and
usually in execution of three illegitimate policies of physical or personal violence, structural violence (i.e. political
exclusion and lopsided appointments and sharing of public resources- on the
ground of faith or ethnicity) and
cultural violence (i.e. jihad or anti Christian killings).
Crimes
Against Humanity are also killings
resulting from non State actor (armed opposition groups) violence against
unarmed and asymmetric civilian populations on the grounds of their ethnicity
and religion or cultural and economic emancipation. Such heinous acts by
violent State and non State actors include mass killing, forceful movement of
indigenous population; torture, rape, destruction, seizure, pillaging,
plundering, burning or destruction of properties including homes, sacred places
of worship and annexation and occupation of indigenous lands or violent land
grabbing.
Defining War Crimes: They are killings and property
destruction including burning or destruction of sacred places of worship
perpetrated by armed forces and police of existing sovereign territory and its
rival armed opposition group(s) outside the confines of military necessity or such
horrendous acts carried out against civilians or non combatants and their
properties. Items involve in military
necessity, permissible in war situation include targeting military
facilities and killing or wounding combatants. Instances of heinous acts not
permitted in war situation under the Geneva Conventions of 1949 include mass
killing, forceful movement of indigenous population, torture, rape;
destruction, seizure, pillaging, plundering, burning or destruction of
properties including homes, sacred places of worship and annexation and
occupation of indigenous lands or violent land grabbing.
Int’l Legal Definition of
Victims of Crimes: By
the United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of
Crime & Abuse of Office (1985), victims of crimes particularly crimes
against humanity and war crimes or genocide (int’l crimes) “are persons, who, individually or
collectively, have suffered harm including physical or mental injury, emotional
suffering, economic loss or substantial impairment of their fundamental rights,
through acts or omissions that are in violation of criminal laws operative
within member-States, including those laws prohibiting abuse of power. The
victims include, where necessary, the immediate family or dependant of the
direct victim and persons who have suffered harm in intervening to assist
people in distress or to prevent victimization".
By
the above UN definition, Intersociety
is also a victim of crimes against
humanity and war crimes or genocide in Nigeria and as a legal victim, we
join other victims of state actor and non state actor perpetrated crimes across
the country in mourning our departed heroes and heroines massacred by the
agents of the present central Government in Nigeria and its protected jihadist
brigades operating under the color of Fulani Herdsmen as well as those sent to
their early graves by Boko Haram insurgents and “Zamfara Bandits”.
Specifically
mourned and remembered in our 10th birthday are the following
unarmed and defenseless citizens killed in the past three years by the present
central Government of Nigeria: (a) 450 (including 150 killed in Army
Python Dance 11) pro Biafra activists and others in Southeast and South-south
(August 2015-September 2017), (b) 236 Christian IDPs in Kale-Balge in Borno
State (Jan 2017), (c) 50 rural Christians Numan in Adamawa State (December
2017), (d) 240 civilian detainees (Christians and Muslims) at Giwa Military
Barracks in Borno State (2016), (e) 1,130 members of Shiite Muslim sect in
Zaria, Kaduna State (December 2015) and (f) 159 children (Christians and
Muslims) in Northeast Nigeria (2017); totaling 2,265 defenseless civilian
deaths.
In the list of those mourned and remembered today by Intersociety are unarmed and
defenseless citizens massacred since June 2015 by the trio of Boko Haram,
“Zamfara Bandits” and Fulani Jihadists operating under the color of Fulani
Herdsmen. They include 8,920 Christians massacred by Fulani Jihadists and Boko
Haram, 4,470 Muslims massacred by fellow violent Muslim groups: Boko Haram and
“Zamfara Bandits”, 5,400 Christians massacred by Fulani Jihadists since June
2015 and 1,870 other Christians killed by same since January 2018.
Remembered and mourned, too, are 411 children killed
by Boko Haram insurgents in 2017; out of 881 children killed or maimed in the
country same year which was disclosed recently by the UN Sec Gen. Not
forgotten are victims of police custodial and extra judicial killings in
Nigeria in the past three years numbering not less than 9,000, at annual rate
of 3,000 and monthly rate of 250. Remembered are survivors of police custodial
torture numbering tens of thousands and thousands of citizens who got arrested
by police, army and ors and made to disappear till date from custody. Victims of
Nigerian Army rape violence in Northeast recently disclosed by Amnesty Int’l are
also remembered.
Decision to dedicate the 10th birthday of
our Organization is in strong recognition of the fact that int’l crimes not only grievously violate individual victims’ rights and
plunder or annihilate their properties but also touch humanity in all of us.
When such crimes are perpetrated, a three-way traffic justice
seek permanent vengeance for the purpose of facilitating: justice
for victims whose lives have been terminated or liberties impaired; justice for
the perpetrators who perpetrated the atrocities with impunity and walk free in
the streets of Nigeria; and justice for the society that have its moral values
impaired and herself desecrated. Failure to ensure these and on time is
capable of opening a floodgate for self help and reprisal radicalism both
in short and long times.
It therefore saddens our heart that those responsible
for the perpetration of heinous crimes highlighted above are still walking the streets
of Nigeria free and even poised to perpetrate or do more. Fulani Jihadists who
massacre thousands of innocent and defenseless Nigerians yearly since June 2015
are not only protected by central Government of Nigeria till date but also
allowed to dine and wine with powers that be in Nigeria’s central seat of
power. The said perpetrators now decide when to resume the killings or put same
on hold according to the whims and caprices of their patrons at Nigeria’s
central seat of power. It is correct to say that human rights abuses and
violations in Nigeria perpetrated by State actors and non State actors have
become unspeakable and in industrial scale.
At the level of our Organization, the three-way-traffic
justice must be pursued with vigor and resilience no matter how long it
takes. In the words of the Geneva based Civitas Maxima-an expert justice group
seeking for independent legal
representation for victims of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity around
the world; we must continuously seek access
to justice for victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity; whenever,
wherever and however possible!
TVPA Suit In
US & FG’s Celebration of Impunity: Our attention is again drawn to
brazen misrepresentation of facts and celebration of impunity by agents of the
present Federal Government of Nigeria involving Case No.: 17-cv-01033-ESH
(John & Jane Does 1-10 v. Buratai & ors). The civil claimant suit
instituted in June 2017 in US District Court for the District of Columbia
suffered a temporary setback on 19th July 2018 when the Presiding
Judge Dabney L. Friedrich errantly, feebly and flimsily dismissed the suit
citing lack of personal and subject
matter jurisdiction based on foreign official-immunity.
Victoriously, apart from the Court’s denial of
defendants’ application for the matter to be struck out, the matter was never
heard on its own merit. Ownership of accountability or responsibility for shooting
and killing or torturing the unarmed and defenseless citizens of old Eastern
Nigeria many of whom pro Biafra activists including the ten plaintiffs in the
case was indisputably admitted or established by the defendants who presently
serve as key political and security actors in Nigeria. The case is
expeditiously and expertly receiving appellate attention either through a motion for reconsideration or
substantive appeal.
Good a thing the US Law under which sixteen Nigerian
security and political officials were sued (Torture Victims Protection Act 1992)
was principally drafted and worked on for six years by Bruce Fein (the attorney
handling the case on behalf of ten Nigerian victims) before its passage by the
US Congress on 12th March 1991. He was a former Assistant Attorney
General of USA. The TVPA Act enacted
on March 12, 1992 is a statute that allows for the filing of civil suits
in the United States against individuals who, acting in an official capacity
for any foreign nation, committed torture and/or extrajudicial killing.
The statute requires a plaintiff to show exhaustion
of local remedies in the location of the crime, to the extent that such
remedies are "adequate and available." Plaintiffs may be U.S.
citizens or non-U.S. citizens. The TVPA
Act is therefore designed to fight impunity in foreign countries including
Nigeria. All local remedies had long been exhausted all to no avail warranting
resort to US courts.
The central purpose of TVPA Act is to compel foreign governments including Nigeria to
comply with customary international law’s obligations and prohibitions and put
an end to culture of lawless savagery. Importantly, the universal crimes against mankind such as extra judicial killings
and torture perpetrated under the color of foreign law can be prosecuted or
redressed in any jurisdiction in the world in consonance with with due process.
Such heinous and horrendous crimes threaten the humanity of the species and are
enemies of mankind!
Sadly, since the filing of the suit, there have been
panics and desperations on the part of agents of the Federal Government including
shielding and defending the perpetrators and brazen misrepresentation of facts.
Such facts misrepresentation include tagging the case “IPOB suit against
Federal Government”, “continuation of Nigeria-Biafra Civil War” and tagging of
the law firm of Fein & Delvalle PLLC as “IPOB Lawyers hired against
Government of Nigeria (GON)”.
The Government’s misrepresentation of facts also
includes using the cover of “terrorism” for the purpose of making it to look
like a legally impermissible suit by relatives of dead combatants arising from
a warlike situation involving violent conflict or war between a symmetric
sovereign territory and asymmetric armed opposition group over violent
territorial dispute. Part of the desperation too was deliberate
muddling of the suit and importation into same of a so called suit seeking for
“40% cuts” or non-repatriation of the “Abacha’s loots”.
It must be restated clearly and unambiguously here
that the TVPA suit pending before the United States Court for the District of
Columbia is on its own and has nothing whatsoever to do with the so called
“IPOB suit against Federal Government of Nigeria in USA” or “dismissed Abacha’s
loots case in US Court”. Going by raging panics and desperations from political
quarters in Nigeria over the TVPA
case, we now have every reason to strongly suspect possible involvement of
“double agents” in the matter. The strongly suspected clandestine role may most
likely involve using “lobbying” (foreign version of bribery and corruption) by
suspected double agents to lure and possibly rip off desperate government
agents especially the defendants and at the same pretending to be “friends of
the victims”.
Totality of these may most likely have been directed
towards perverting the course of justice and scuttling reparative same for the
victims. If our suspicion is true, then those involved have failed. Apostles of
justice and lovers of human rights shall never let go or allow impunity to
continuously thrive. Assertion of right to self determination using nonviolence
is a universally recognized principle. It is fundamentally a human right
embedded in democratic free speeches and can be asserted for purposes of
territorial autonomy, self governance, confederacy, union of federating units,
or political reforms including restructuring, regionalism or for advancement of
ethnic identity, cultural and economic emancipation including resource control.
The fundamental odd to it is resort to armed resistance or insurrection.
For purpose of clarity, therefore, the suit (John & Jane Does 1-10 v. Buratai
& ors) has absolutely nothing to do with “Biafra sovereignty
judicial contest” as issue of “sovereignty or territorial judicial contest”
can never be entertained by foreign municipal court including the US Court for
the District of Columbia. The matter under reference is strictly about gross
human rights abuse civil claimant suit using the instrument of TVPA Act of
March 12, 1991 (USA). The principal aims of the suit are to internationalize
the ongoing persecution including killing, maiming and torturing of innocent
and defenseless citizens of Nigeria mostly of Igbo Ethnic Nationality; seek an
end to perpetrators’ impunity by way of facilitating reparative justice making
the perpetrators to pay heavily or in heavy reparative manner to serve as
deterrent to others.
Therefore, IPOB as a group or corporate legal
personality is not legally responsible for the case and does not retain
professional services of the named Law Firm in the named case. The name of the
group is involved only at the background of the case such as when,
where, how, why and who killed the victims’ relatives or maimed surviving
others. Some of the slain victims whose relatives filed the suit have
also been found to be “non IPOB members” or ordinary members of the public shot
and killed in their places of work during government violent crackdown on pro
Biafra activists and their peaceful assemblies.
Informatively and importantly, the TPVA suit (Case No.: 17-cv-01033-ESH (John & Jane
Does 1-10 v. Buratai & ors) is a hybrid arrangement involving several
human rights, socio-cultural and justice groups principally led by EKWENCHE Group in Chicago, Illinois,
USA. The highly respected and lettered EKWENCHE
Group is an assemblage of accomplished Igbo experts living in USA and other
western countries. As at May 2018, the
EKWENCHE Group, as principal funder of the case had committed tens of
thousands of dollars to retain the services of the Law Firm of Bruce &
Delvalle PLLC. As a matter of fact, the
Law Firm of Fein & Delvalle PLLC (USA)
shall speak publicly on the matter and related others in coming days.
Commending
IPOB for Its Continued Nonviolence Stance: IPOB is hereby commended for
remaining steadfast and nonviolent despite the Government of Nigeria’s violent
policy against it in particular and extended policies of physical, structural and cultural violence against the citizens of
old Eastern Nigeria in general. The Group is also commended for being helpful
in the course of gathering of evidence pertaining to killing, maiming and
torturing of some of their supporters profiled by Intersociety and Amnesty
Int’l. This is more so when a saying goes in the principle of evidence
that: when a crime is committed without any documentation, then no crime has
been committed.
The verdict of 19th July 2018, described
by Bruce Fein (a former Assistant Attorney Gen of US) as “errantly and egregiously
flawed in reasoning” marks the beginning
of all the beginnings in our solemn quest for justice for the victims of
crimes against humanity and war crimes or genocide in Nigeria. The zeal and
determination to pursue the case with vigor and courage will hopefully open a
floodgate of further civil and criminal suits against perpetrators of the named
heinous and horrendous crimes in Nigeria; using the instrumentalities of local judicial processes (when
appropriate and safe), Int’l Criminal Court (ICC) and the Universal,
the Passive Personality and the Active Personality Jurisdictions. These
shall be used or resorted to whenever,
wherever and however possible!
Our quest for justice for the victims of crimes against
humanity and war crimes or genocide can never be overturned by perpetrators’
resort to hide under the cleavages of office
or official foreign-immunity because nothing including political office
holding lasts forever. We call on apostles of justice and lovers of human
rights across Nigeria and beyond including the authorities of Civitas Maxima,
Geneva, Switzerland to pay special attention to Nigeria and adopt or designate
same as one of their “focus areas” hit by industrial-scale abuses and violations of
human rights especially crimes against humanity and war crimes or genocide.
Signed
For: Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Email: [email protected]
Barr Chinwe Umeche
Head, Democracy & Good Governance Program
Email:[email protected]
Intersociety dedicates 10th year anniversary to victims of crimes against humanity
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