Govt slammed over silence on Boko Haram

  • Breaking
  • 11/05/2014

Labour and Amnesty International are calling on the Government to speak out against African terrorists Boko Haram.

The fundamentalist Islamist group caused international outrage last month by kidnapping 276 teenage girls from a school in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno.

Amnesty International Aotearoa NZ says the Nigerian government was warned of the attack hours beforehand, but did nothing to stop it.

Executive director Grant Bayldon said on Firstline this morning the Nigerian military itself has a poor human rights record, and the government ignored early offers of international assistance.

"There's a real lack of confidence from security forces in actually engaging Boko Haram, which is a very well-equipped force."

Labour associate spokesperson for foreign affairs Maryan Street says our Government has been "ringingly silent" on the atrocity, and her attempts to contact Foreign Minister Murray McCully have come to naught.

"I haven't had a response yet," she said on Firstline this morning, "but we did urge him to take all practicable steps, whether they be financial – offering aid – or offering loud moral support, or offering some kind of logistical support.

"Whatever we are able to provide, we should not let our size and our distance from Nigeria prevent us from offering."

Mr McCully has yet to speak or issue any releases about the kidnapping, a silence which Ms Street says is detrimental to New Zealand's chances of getting a spot on the UN Security Council.

"This is a breach of human rights of the most fundamental sort," says Ms Street. "Why is our Government being silent on it? You may think that we cannot offer much, but offering nothing at all is no use, especially if we want our reputation to be one that says we are big enough to play on the UN Security Council."

Boko Haram is said to mean 'Western education is sinful', and Mr Bayldon says if their aim is to stop young people in Nigeria getting an education, they're succeeding.

"Already a lot of people are afraid to send their girls to school in areas where Muslim fundamentalists are at work… but also boys too. We saw earlier this year a horrific attack on a boys' dormitory, a lot of boys killed," he says.

"Apart from wanting Sharia law, that's one of the things they're trying to do, shut down what they consider to be Western-style education. That has terrible consequences for that area of Nigeria, if parents lose confidence to send their children to school."

But what can New Zealand do? Ms Street says the least the Government can do is back the UN's "damning statement about this shocking event".

"We can apply pressure, moral pressure, to the Nigerian government. Now the Nigerian government is feeling sensitive about its own efforts, and so it should. But what we need to do is ensure that we have joined in one way or another in an international effort to assist Nigeria to rescue these girls."

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source: newshub archive