NIGERIA-RIGHTS: Quest for U.N. Sanctions Slows to a Halt

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 16 1995 (IPS) - A campaign to place Nigeria under U.N. sanctions until it improves its human rights has quickly ground to a halt, despite pressure from the United States and Britain.

U.S. envoys this week kicked off an effort to lead the U.N. Security Council in condemning last Friday’s executions of nine activists of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) in Nigeria, including award-winning writer Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Several Council ambassadors expressed anger at the executions ordered by Gen. Sani Abacha’s military regime. U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said Washington was “outraged” that the nine men were executed without a public trial where they could defend themselves, and called for Security Council action.

On Monday, U.S. diplomats here began to lobby their colleagues on the Council to approve condemnations of the executions and possibly even an arms embargo. That embargo, one diplomat argued, could come as the first step towards a gradual escalation of pressure on Abuja, leading ultimately to an oil embargo.

But the Security Council has yet to schedule even a discussion of any condemnation, let alone of sanctions. Several Council sources told IPS that developing countries on the 15-member Council — including veto-wielding China — doubted that Nigeria’s military regime poses a “threat to international peace and security.”

The United States must now convince doubting Council members that Nigeria’s growing human rights crisis in fact poses such a threat — or else there would be no justification for U.N. sanctions.

Some U.S. diplomats believe that case can be made. One senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted several cases in recent years — particularly sanctions on the former Rhodesia, apartheid-era South Africa and Haiti — where the Council enacted embargoes against governments accused of serious abuses of human rights.

In those cases, “internal human rights abuses began a process…(where the country) ultimately was deemed a threat to international peace and security,” the official said. As a result, he added, “it’s certainly conceivable” that Nigeria’s crackdown on democratic opposition and minority activists — like Saro-Wiwa and his Ogoni colleagues — could be deemed a threat to the stability of neighbouring countries.

“Our position is to seek the strongest possible condemnation” at the Council, the U.S. offical said.

So far, though, other Council members have been dismissive. Several nations with their own human rights problems — including China and Indonesia — have rebuffed claims that Nigeria’s internal problems require international intervention. Nigeria itself sits on the Council and has used its post to keep the issue off the agenda.

Council President Salim bin Mohammed al-Khussaiby of Oman said there are no plans yet to discuss Nigeria.

“There’s so much politics here,” the U.S. official complained. He noted that one Council member has even threatened to delay action on any Bosnia resolutions unless the anti-Abacha effort ceases.

But Nigeria’s critics are undaunted. The United States and Britain finished work on a draft condemnation of Nigeria which they intend to push at the General Assembly. Although the Assembly, unlike the Council, lacks any executive powers, its approval of a condemnation would go far in isolating Abuja diplomatically.

The draft was submitted Wednesday to the Assembly’s Third Committee, which handles political affairs. It condemns the “extrajudicial execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight co- defendants” and calls on Nigeria to improve its human rights conditions, according to a copy obtained by IPS. It also asks that a U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions visit Nigeria and report back to the Human Rights Commission.

Although an Assembly vote on the draft seems more likely than any Security Council action, several parties are still encouraging the Council to act as well.

Sources tell IPS that South Africa — whose president, Nelson Mandela, led the Commonwealth effort to suspend Nigeria over the weekend — is prodding stiff actions against the Abacha regime in the Council.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has joined that effort, writing a plea to Council ambassadors to “impose a mandatory arms embargo on Nigeria, effective immediately.”

Condemning the executions of the nine Ogoni activists, HRW Executive director Kenneth Roth wrote, “This travesty calls for the strongest response, lest it encourage further such savagery.

“Human Rights Watch urges the Security Council to send a clear message that it is determined to isolate the Nigerian military until it complies with the most fundamental human rights…and establishes a timetable for the imminent relinquishment of power to a freely elected civilian government,” Roth added.