Date Published: 03/11/10

Probe Human Rights Watch on the genocide in Jos By Akeem Adebayo

The latest massacre of innocent and defenceless infants, children, women and men by Fulani terrorists in Jos should not surprise Nigerians because the handwriting was on the wall immediately after the last massacre in January. Unfortunately, the nation didn’t take notice of the obvious signs.

The latest killings could have been prevented had Nigerians paid a closer attention to the sudden interest of Human Rights Watch in the murderous conflict in Jos since 2008. Far from being an impartial observer, the American organisation has taken sides.

Human Rights Watch or specifically, its so-called “senior West Africa researcher” Corinne Dufka has taken sides with the Hausa/Fulani forces in the Jos murderous impasse. The white American woman, who is based in Dakar, Senegal, laid the foundation for the Sunday, 7 March mass killings.

During the crisis of 28-29 November 2008, Human Rights Watch issued a press release accusing the police of using excessive force on mainly “Muslim youths”. The release came after reports of the Yoruba national youth corpers who were bludgeoned to death with machetes by Hausa/Fulani gangs and other gory stories of violence perpetrated against Southerners had enraged the whole South. Out of the blues came the release – a way to create the impression that both “Muslims” and “Christians” were victims alike.

In January this year, as the outcry against Hausa/Fulani violence in Jos was assuming almost universal dimension in the country, Human Rights Watch again released another report on Kuru Karama, where it alleged that 150 “Muslim” (Hausa/Fulani) villagers were killed and their corpses stuffed into wells. Again, the organisation portrayed Hausa/Fulani as victims of mass murder in which elements of their community were actually the chief perpetrators.

Until today, there is no credible independent confirmation of the two incidents that the so-called human rights organisation cited to very powerful international media effect.

How come that it's the group that got wind of the information of the corpses in wells in Kuru Karama when the author of the report, Corinne Dufka, is based in Dakar and not Nigerian journalists who were present in Jos in large numbers at a time no one could even venture out into the streets because of the rumours that Hausa/Fulani soldiers were killing civilians indiscriminately?

And our uncritical press just relayed the story without much of a thought about its authenticity. Before you know it, opinion articles started appearing in our newspapers on Kuru Karama not to mention the wide international media coverage given to the phony story.

The obviously partisan intervention of Human Rights Watch or better said its Corinne Dufka laid the grounds for the new round of genocidal violence in Jos. I will explain.

The Kuru Karama report was the one that was being relentlessly quoted in the Northern Nigerian media and Mosques to show how “Muslims” suffered in Jos – to create an impression that it was “Governor Jang and his Berom people” who killed “Muslim Northerners”.

 “This is genocide in my own opinion, because the amount of massacre that took place was not witnessed during the Boko Haram crisis in Maiduguri in particular, and the Kala Kato crisis in Bauchi of recent,” Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, said at meeting of Northern traditional rulers, which took place in Kaduna on 26 January 2010.

In newspapers such as the notorious Daily Trust (the chief propaganda press organ of the Hausa/Fulani), whenever the Jos conflict was discussed since January, reference was always made to the Human Rights Watch report.

This is despite overwhelming evidence that the Hausa/Fulani, with the support of high-ranking officers in the security forces, planned and carried out the killings of other Nigerians during the January crisis. That much has been testified to by Yoruba, Igbo, Benue State and South South indigenes who fled the city. In fact, more than 200 Yorubas were said to have lost their lives, according to the President-General of the Yoruba Community Council in Plateau State, Chief Toye Ogushuyi, who holds the Hausa/Fulani elements responsible for the deaths.

In February, Corinne Dufka again wrote to Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, calling on him to investigate her phony Kuru Karama tale and the alleged excessive use of police force in 2008 and the extra-judicial killing of Boko Haram members last year. Curiously, Ms Dufka did not mention the widespread allegations that Hausa/Fulani soldiers killed other Nigerians during the January crisis in her letter.

The Kuru Karama story was used by the Jihadists in Jos to mobilize the Fulani killers who carried out the bestial killings of Sunday.

Again, in the release distributed by Human Rights Watch, Ms Dufka alleged that 200 people were killed last Sunday.  Yet, from the reports of the Nigerian media, more than 500 people died in the massacre. The burial of the victims were carried out in the presence of the media. Why has the organisation reduced the number of victims if not for propaganda purposes?

Human Rights Watch obviously does not know what is happening in Jos. It is being fed with prejudiced information by unknown persons that the organisation dishes to the world as facts about the crisis. For example, Corinne Dufka sent an email to this writer on Monday, 8 March 2009, asking for contacts at the Jos University Teaching Hospital for the purpose of sourcing information for her report.

Yet, Ms Dufka only knows me from the articles I have written on the crisis on Sahara Reporters and she's asking me for sources on the crisis that she’s supposed to be a specialist on!

President Jonathan should order a probe into the role of Human Rights Watch in the Jos crisis as a matter of national emergency. This is because the crisis is being increasingly  internationalised as evidenced by the recent statement of the global terror group Al Qaeda Maghreb supporting “Muslims” in Jos.

Also, Nigerians should write protest letters to Human Rights Watch to tell the organisation to stop being helpers to Hausa/Fulani genocidaires in Nigeria .

Dublin, Ireland