“It became neccessary to destroy the village in
order to save it” – An American major after the destruction of a
Vietnamese Village
Before the ‘Baga killings’, of penultimate week, there was My Lai, some 45 years ago.
The My Lai event happened on March 16, 1968, when a company of U.S. soldiers went into the village of My Lai 4, in Vietnam, and committed atrocities never before seen in combat. According to the testimony of one of the soldiers who later testified, “The order we were given was to kill and destroy everything that was in the village. It was clearly explained that there were to be no prisoners.”
Indeed, in 2004, a newspaper in Ohio, the Toledo Blade, won the Pulitzer Prize for its extensive reporting on the atrocities “”committed more than (45) years earlier by the U.S. Tiger Force Unit in the Vietnam War”.
Part of the report reads that “Women and children were intentionally blown up in underground bunkers. Elderly farmers were shot as they toiled in the fields; prisoners were tortured and executed – their ears and scalps severed for souvenirs. One soldier kicked out the teeth of executed civilians for their gold fillings”, the paper reported.
“We met no resistance and I only saw three captured weapons. We had no casualties. It was just like any other Vietnamese village – old papas, sons, women and kids,” a soldier said describing what they found on entering My Lai.
“As a matter of fact, I don’t remember seeing one military-age male in the entire place, dead or alive.” The paper’s report continues, ”The U.S. soldiers started killing everyone in sight.
“There was an old lady in a bed and I believe there was a priest in white praying over her… [U.S. Lt.] Calley pulled the old man outside. He said a few more words to the monk. It looked like the monk was pleading for his life. Lt. Calley then took his rifle and pushed the monk into a rice paddy and shot him point-blank”.
Another testimony disclosed that “An order was given to push all the Vietnamese who had been forced into the area into a ditch. I began shooting them all. I guess I shot maybe 25 or 20 people in the ditch…men, women, and children. And babies!
“A baby crawling away from the ditch was grabbed and thrown back into the ditch and shot. All over the village, platoons of U.S. soldiers were committing similar atrocities. The huts that the villagers lived in and their crops were burned, their livestock killed. Some of the dead were mutilated by having ‘C Company’ carved into their chests; some were disemboweled. Women were raped”.
One GI would later say; “You didn’t have to look for people to kill, they were just there. I cut their throats, cut off their hands, cut out their tongues, and scalped them. I did it. A lot of people were doing it and I just followed.”” The story only came out because “of the persistent efforts of GIs who refused to let the story die”.
Residents walk past burnt houses in the remote northeast town of Baga on April 21, 2013 after two days of clashes between officers of the Joint Task Force and members of the Islamist sect Boko Haram on April 19 in the town near Lake Chad, 200 kms north of Maiduguri, in Borno State.
According to reports, “Lt. Calley was the only soldier convicted of any of the atrocities that took place at My Lai. Despite being convicted of killing over 100 unarmed Vietnamese, Calley served only two days in jail! (Then American President Richard) Nixon then ordered him put under house arrest at Fort Benning, where he could live in a nice apartment, cook his own food, receive guests, watch TV and go to town for supplies (accompanied by MPs). Calley was released from house arrest in just over three years and was able to make large amounts of money speaking to right-wing groups”. Over 400 people were killed in that event. That was 45years ago in Vietnam.
April, 2013, Borno State, Nigeria! The fishing community of Baga suffered its own fate. The operation was carried out by a multinational force. Details are still sketchy and confusing as there is yet no authentic confirmation of the number of dead. Aid agency and Red Cross reports put the figure at no fewer than 180 dead. But Nigeria’s military and defence authorities are disputing that. When you hear about a multinational force, your mind quickly goes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO; or, were it the days of the bitter/hot cold war, you may think of the forces of the Warsaw Pact. Between NATO and countries of the Pact in those days, tensions were always very high.
But this multinational force, which has made and is still making bad news, is made up of soldiers from Chad, Niger and Nigeria. Mind you, Cameroun, a country to the east of Nigeria and which was supposed to contribute a contingent to this multinational force, does not appear to be willing to do so – at least according to information from intelligence sources made available to Sunday Vanguard.
But that tag, multinational force, dresses this team of military men in a toga of respectability.
However, what happened penultimate week (either Tuesday April 16 or Friday April 19) came with neither respect nor humour: unconfirmed and disputed reports put the figure of fatalities at over 180. The Joint Task Force, JTF, in Borno insists only some 30 insurgents and a soldier died. Defence information claims that 25 insurgents and one soldier died. But Senator Lawan Maina, speaking on the floor of the Senate insisted that over 180 people were killed and his community devastated and in ruins. Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, said, on Monday, that “more than” 100 people died.
Satellite dish sits outside a burnt house in the remote northeast town of Baga on April 21, 2013 after two days of clashes between officers of the Joint Task Force and members of the Islamist sect Boko Haram on April 19 in the town near Lake Chad, 200 kms north of Maiduguri, in Borno State.
Now, between 25, 30, 100 and 180 dead, the sad thing is that many lives have been lost.
This bestial act throws up some challenges as well as poses some questions viz:
Firstly, how did the soldiers commence their engagement?
Though reports claim that some informants disclosed to the men of the multinational force that insurgents were hiding in the community and the soldiers made a run for it, the question is who were those harbouring the militants up to that point?
How did the militants smuggle in the weapons of mass destruction alleged to have been stored in the community – the type that were discovered immediately after President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to Borno State?
Some people in Baga who collaborated with the insurgents to use their abode as hiding place, were they expecting garlands from the military? Or did they expect that there would be no consequences?
Early reports claimed the insurgents opened fire on the soldiers first. Did that grant the military men the magna charter to fire back and, in the process, kill civilians?
And whereas the very ready excuse by the military is that the insurgents used civilians as human shields, does that justify any form of killings when it becomes established that there was a very high civilian fatality?
What was the multinational force trying to achieve by employing what may turn out to be a disproportionate fire-power in tackling the insurgents?
How are the people of Baga coping in the aftermath?
Or, were the military men in the multinational force trying to destroy Baga village in order to save it? Into this mix, let’s throw in the proposal for amnesty for the insurgents: Would this affect the on-going amnesty efforts?
Whichever way the Baga tragedy turns out, one thing is certain: The story of insurgency in Nigeria is set for another turn.
Whether that turn would be in the direction of sobriety on the part of the members of the Ahlan Sunnah Lid Da’waati wal Jihad Yaanaa (brothers), popularly known as the Boko Haram sect, or whether it would harden the minds of its leaders, Nigerians would soon discover.
Source: Vanguard
Before the ‘Baga killings’, of penultimate week, there was My Lai, some 45 years ago.
The My Lai event happened on March 16, 1968, when a company of U.S. soldiers went into the village of My Lai 4, in Vietnam, and committed atrocities never before seen in combat. According to the testimony of one of the soldiers who later testified, “The order we were given was to kill and destroy everything that was in the village. It was clearly explained that there were to be no prisoners.”
Indeed, in 2004, a newspaper in Ohio, the Toledo Blade, won the Pulitzer Prize for its extensive reporting on the atrocities “”committed more than (45) years earlier by the U.S. Tiger Force Unit in the Vietnam War”.
Part of the report reads that “Women and children were intentionally blown up in underground bunkers. Elderly farmers were shot as they toiled in the fields; prisoners were tortured and executed – their ears and scalps severed for souvenirs. One soldier kicked out the teeth of executed civilians for their gold fillings”, the paper reported.
“We met no resistance and I only saw three captured weapons. We had no casualties. It was just like any other Vietnamese village – old papas, sons, women and kids,” a soldier said describing what they found on entering My Lai.
“As a matter of fact, I don’t remember seeing one military-age male in the entire place, dead or alive.” The paper’s report continues, ”The U.S. soldiers started killing everyone in sight.
“There was an old lady in a bed and I believe there was a priest in white praying over her… [U.S. Lt.] Calley pulled the old man outside. He said a few more words to the monk. It looked like the monk was pleading for his life. Lt. Calley then took his rifle and pushed the monk into a rice paddy and shot him point-blank”.
Another testimony disclosed that “An order was given to push all the Vietnamese who had been forced into the area into a ditch. I began shooting them all. I guess I shot maybe 25 or 20 people in the ditch…men, women, and children. And babies!
“A baby crawling away from the ditch was grabbed and thrown back into the ditch and shot. All over the village, platoons of U.S. soldiers were committing similar atrocities. The huts that the villagers lived in and their crops were burned, their livestock killed. Some of the dead were mutilated by having ‘C Company’ carved into their chests; some were disemboweled. Women were raped”.
One GI would later say; “You didn’t have to look for people to kill, they were just there. I cut their throats, cut off their hands, cut out their tongues, and scalped them. I did it. A lot of people were doing it and I just followed.”” The story only came out because “of the persistent efforts of GIs who refused to let the story die”.
Residents walk past burnt houses in the remote northeast town of Baga on April 21, 2013 after two days of clashes between officers of the Joint Task Force and members of the Islamist sect Boko Haram on April 19 in the town near Lake Chad, 200 kms north of Maiduguri, in Borno State.
According to reports, “Lt. Calley was the only soldier convicted of any of the atrocities that took place at My Lai. Despite being convicted of killing over 100 unarmed Vietnamese, Calley served only two days in jail! (Then American President Richard) Nixon then ordered him put under house arrest at Fort Benning, where he could live in a nice apartment, cook his own food, receive guests, watch TV and go to town for supplies (accompanied by MPs). Calley was released from house arrest in just over three years and was able to make large amounts of money speaking to right-wing groups”. Over 400 people were killed in that event. That was 45years ago in Vietnam.
April, 2013, Borno State, Nigeria! The fishing community of Baga suffered its own fate. The operation was carried out by a multinational force. Details are still sketchy and confusing as there is yet no authentic confirmation of the number of dead. Aid agency and Red Cross reports put the figure at no fewer than 180 dead. But Nigeria’s military and defence authorities are disputing that. When you hear about a multinational force, your mind quickly goes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO; or, were it the days of the bitter/hot cold war, you may think of the forces of the Warsaw Pact. Between NATO and countries of the Pact in those days, tensions were always very high.
But this multinational force, which has made and is still making bad news, is made up of soldiers from Chad, Niger and Nigeria. Mind you, Cameroun, a country to the east of Nigeria and which was supposed to contribute a contingent to this multinational force, does not appear to be willing to do so – at least according to information from intelligence sources made available to Sunday Vanguard.
But that tag, multinational force, dresses this team of military men in a toga of respectability.
However, what happened penultimate week (either Tuesday April 16 or Friday April 19) came with neither respect nor humour: unconfirmed and disputed reports put the figure of fatalities at over 180. The Joint Task Force, JTF, in Borno insists only some 30 insurgents and a soldier died. Defence information claims that 25 insurgents and one soldier died. But Senator Lawan Maina, speaking on the floor of the Senate insisted that over 180 people were killed and his community devastated and in ruins. Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, said, on Monday, that “more than” 100 people died.
Satellite dish sits outside a burnt house in the remote northeast town of Baga on April 21, 2013 after two days of clashes between officers of the Joint Task Force and members of the Islamist sect Boko Haram on April 19 in the town near Lake Chad, 200 kms north of Maiduguri, in Borno State.
Now, between 25, 30, 100 and 180 dead, the sad thing is that many lives have been lost.
This bestial act throws up some challenges as well as poses some questions viz:
Firstly, how did the soldiers commence their engagement?
Though reports claim that some informants disclosed to the men of the multinational force that insurgents were hiding in the community and the soldiers made a run for it, the question is who were those harbouring the militants up to that point?
How did the militants smuggle in the weapons of mass destruction alleged to have been stored in the community – the type that were discovered immediately after President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to Borno State?
Some people in Baga who collaborated with the insurgents to use their abode as hiding place, were they expecting garlands from the military? Or did they expect that there would be no consequences?
Early reports claimed the insurgents opened fire on the soldiers first. Did that grant the military men the magna charter to fire back and, in the process, kill civilians?
And whereas the very ready excuse by the military is that the insurgents used civilians as human shields, does that justify any form of killings when it becomes established that there was a very high civilian fatality?
What was the multinational force trying to achieve by employing what may turn out to be a disproportionate fire-power in tackling the insurgents?
How are the people of Baga coping in the aftermath?
Or, were the military men in the multinational force trying to destroy Baga village in order to save it? Into this mix, let’s throw in the proposal for amnesty for the insurgents: Would this affect the on-going amnesty efforts?
Whichever way the Baga tragedy turns out, one thing is certain: The story of insurgency in Nigeria is set for another turn.
Whether that turn would be in the direction of sobriety on the part of the members of the Ahlan Sunnah Lid Da’waati wal Jihad Yaanaa (brothers), popularly known as the Boko Haram sect, or whether it would harden the minds of its leaders, Nigerians would soon discover.
Source: Vanguard
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