PRESS RELEASE
Nov 18, 2020 Washington DC.
WASHINGTON DC, 18 November – Jubilee Campaign submitted their report Genocide is Loading: Finding Reasonable Basis to Believe Crimes Against Humanity Occurred containing additional evidence to the International Criminal Court regarding the violence in the Middle Belt and northeast of Nigeria.
WHAT DOES IT SAY?
The report summarizes instances of attacks from 2013-2020 that have occurred in the Middle Belt focusing on the actions of Fulani militant groups, making the case for genocide. The report, early on, makes a clear distinction between Fulani militant groups and the Fulani ethnic tribe in general. The report also explains how the term farmer-herder conflict gives a disingenuous picture of what is happening on the ground in light of the asymmetry of casualties and the increasing sophistication of the weaponry and tactics used by the Fulani militants. For example, the attacks are known to be well-orchestrated, with attacks taking place by in the early mornings or late at night when villagers are sleeping or are unarmed.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide documented attacks that took place during the first quarter of 2018. There was a total of 106 attacks on farming communities in central Nigeria which caused the deaths of 1,061 civilians, while in southern Nigeria, there were 11 attacks on farming communities with 21 lives lost. Contrastingly, during that same time frame, there were 7 attacks recorded on Fulani communities or herders, 5 in the central region and 2 in the south, with 61 lives lost. The loss of life on both sides is doubtlessly a tragedy that must be investigated by a commission of inquiry. However, the casualty asymmetry indicates that radical Fulani militants are far more often the aggressors.
Genocide is Loading: Finding Reasonable Basis to Believe Crimes Against Humanity Occurred November 2020, page 3.
The report addresses the recent attacks from 2018-2020 revealing that the casualties are large and that Agatu and Adara tribes specifically who have been driven out of their homes.
Survivors of the killings in Agatu villages have also been displaced. A police chief reported that Agatu villages have been “razed to the ground” following Fulani militant attacks, been emptied of their original inhabitants, and taken over by reportedly heavily armed Fulani herdsmen and 5,000 cattle. It was estimated that as a result of the attacks in this community about 7,000 individuals have fled their homes.
Genocide is Loading: Finding Reasonable Basis to Believe Crimes Against Humanity Occurred November 2020, page 23.
RELIGIOUS TARGETING
The report describes how the victims are marked by both ethnic and religious characteristics, while they are attacked for a variety of motives, these motives do not alter the fact that they are being targeted for being members of a specific group. The cases of the Adara and Agatu tribes in Kaduna and Benue state are particularly compelling as they have been specifically targeted with devastating violence.
The repeated attacks on churches, church leaders, and worshippers strongly suggest that the Fulani militants are motivated by religious hatred as well as an interest in land and resources.
Genocide is Loading: Finding Reasonable Basis to Believe Crimes Against Humanity Occurred November 2020, page 36.
The report is by no means claiming conclusive evidence but is emphasizing that the crimes that are taking place fall within in the jurisdiction of the court. The report describes how the Fulani militant attacks do target a specific civilian population: predominately Christian ethnic tribes engaged in farming.
Obtaining accurate numbers of casualties is difficult due to the formidable challenge of gathering evidence in country. This necessarily makes estimates conservative. Surveying reports published by news and NGO sources, including the publicly available information from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)37 his section aims to provide a snapshot of the increasing Fulani militant violence, starting from the year that the OTP last issued a substantive report on the preliminary examination of the situation.
Genocide is Loading: Finding Reasonable Basis to Believe Crimes Against Humanity Occurred November 2020, page 9.
RESPONSIBLE ORGANISATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS
The report lists several Fulani organisations who have given mixed messages, with the groups’ leadership calling for peace or condemning violence while other statements are in defense of attacks. The report calls for an investigation of how these organizations are involved in promoting a policy of destruction. Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeder’s Association of Nigeria, MACBAN, is one of the organisations named in the report.
Ibrahim Abdullahi, an official with the Fulani organization Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeder’s Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), recounted how one Fulani leader took Abdullahi to a warehouse on the leader’s property where he stored stockpiles of advanced weaponry and guns. He later took Abdullahi to a nearby camp where young Fulani men received combat training from white men.
The document cites several other MACBAN leaders who have made statements defending or excusing the attacks saying they were “reprisal killings.”
MACBAN has openly praised Governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state in his handling of the violence—a governor most farming communities criticize for leaving them vulnerable and for being biased toward the attackers. However, the association has also released statements sympathizing with the victims and calling for peace. Due to the mixed messages disseminated by the group and the influential role it plays on Fulani members, we believe an investigation of this group is necessary to determine if its leadership has played any role in organizing or facilitating attacks.
Genocide is Loading: Finding Reasonable Basis to Believe Crimes Against Humanity Occurred November 2020, page 25-26.
MOTIVES VS GENOCIDAL INTENT
The report makes very clear that according to the travaux préparatoires of Article 6 of the Rome Statute, intent is not be conflated with motive.
Motive may give insight to into acts were committed, but what matters is whether the accused had the intent to kill an individual person while also having the intent to destroy the group, whether in whole or in part, to which the individual belonged.
The final chapters of the report comment on the mounting evidence regarding the case for genocide for the Agatu and Adara tribes, citing the attacks that have taken place.
CONCLUSION
The report calls for an ICC investigation and prosecution of the Fulani militant attackers in Nigeria as the best way of serving justice. The report notes that since the Office of the Prosecutor opened its preliminary assessment of the situation in 2010, the Fulani militant violence has increasingly grown both deadly and systematic, and there is increasing evidence that the attacks are genocidal. The alleged crimes are grave and local authorities have “time and time again proven unwilling to end the violence or hold the perpetrators to account.”
The report wars that further impunity threatens the security of, “not only the Middle Belt and northern states of Nigeria, but of the whole country and the broader region. The report concludes with a statement from the UN Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Agnes Callamard:
“…the absence today of accountability functionality is on such a scale that pretending this is anything short of a crisis is a major mistake. It is a tragedy for the people of Nigeria. Unchecked, its ripple effects will spread throughout the sub-region if not the continent, given the country’s central economic, political and cultural leadership role.”
UN Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Agnes Callamard.