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Japan’s Abe Says North Korea Agrees To Probe Abductions

Japan’s Abe Says North Korea Agrees To Probe Abductions

TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday that North Korea had agreed to reinvestigate its past abductions of Japanese nationals.

The announcement came after diplomatic talks this week in Stockholm between Japan and North Korea.

Tokyo said it would lift some sanctions on North Korea once Pyongyang launches its reinvestigation and that it would supply humanitarian assistance.

Abe’s government is eager to make progress on the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Japan lists 17 nationals kidnapped by North Korea. Five were returned alive in 2002.

Pyongyang has contended that eight have died and four others never entered the country, and it previously said repeatedly that it considers the issue resolved.

 Flickr via Yoshikazu Tsuno

Nigeria Says It Knows Location Of Kidnapped Girls

Nigeria Says It Knows Location Of Kidnapped Girls

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times

KANO, Nigeria — Nigeria’s military has located more than 270 girls kidnapped by the militant group Boko Haram, the country’s chief of defense staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, said Monday.

“The good news for the parents of the girls is that we know where they are, but we cannot tell you,” he said.

Badeh ruled out a forceful military operation to free the girls, amid reports of secret negotiations to secure their release.

“We can’t go and kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back,” he said after demonstrators marched to military headquarters in Abuja, the capital, a few days after trying to march to President Goodluck Jonathan’s office. He met demonstrators and spoke to journalists.

Badeh offered no information as to how the military planned to recover the girls, other than to rule out force.

“We want our girls back. I can tell you we can do it. Our military can do it. But where they are held, can we go with force?”

Jonathan and ministers have publicly ruled out negotiations with the radical Islamist group, which would run counter to the country’s anti-terrorism law. Most analysts say any military operation to try to rescue the girls would probably end in mass casualties.

Jonathan said Sunday that Boko Haram must release the girls unconditionally.

“We must rise up to tell them that they cannot defeat us, they must release our sisters back to us unconditionally,” he said. “Our security men are working. Their mission is to ensure that Nigeria is a safe place and what Nigerians should do at this time is pray for them and support them.”

Badeh rejected criticisms of the military.

“Nobody should come and say the Nigerian military does not know what it is doing. We know what we are doing,” he said.

Authorities are stung by the protests and a viral Twitter campaign, under the hashtag BringBackOurGirls, that have focused international attention on Nigerian military failures to protect the population in the country’s northeast.

Hundreds have died this year, with almost daily attacks on Muslim and Christian villages in the region.

Nigeria’s Premium Times reported last week that the military knew where the schoolgirls were, citing senior military officials.

U.S. officials this month pointedly derided the Nigerian military in comments to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, describing the forces as “afraid to even engage.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel expressed doubt in comments on television about whether the Nigerian military was capable of rescuing the girls. “That’s an open question,” he said May 15.

Nigerian analysts accuse the military’s top brass of corruption and failing to invest in equipment and training, despite a hefty budget. Human rights groups have often accused the army of scattershot attacks that kill civilians during the pursuit of Boko Haram suspects, and of killing or jailing suspects without trial.

AFP Video Capture 

Nigeria ‘Willing To Talk’ To Boko Haram Over Missing Girls

Nigeria ‘Willing To Talk’ To Boko Haram Over Missing Girls

Abuja (AFP) – Nigeria on Tuesday said it was willing to talk to Boko Haram militants, as the United States sent its top Africa general for talks on the rescue mission of more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

The governor of Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, Kashim Shettima, confirmed that all of the girls shown in the latest video released by the militant Islamist group had been identified as students in the school attacked in Chibok last month.

President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday requested a six-month extension to the state of emergency declared in Borno and two neighboring states a year ago because of the “daunting” security situation.

Special duties minister Taminu Turaki restated the Nigerian government’s position that it was open to negotiations on ending Boko Haram’s increasingly bloody five-year insurgency.

Turaki, who last year headed a committee tasked with pursuing an amnesty pact with some of the group’s fighters, told AFP: “Nigeria has always been willing to dialogue with the insurgents.”

“We are willing to carry that dialogue on any issue, including the girls kidnapped in Chibok, because certainly we are not going to say that (the abduction) is not an issue.”

Nigeria’s interior minister had previously dismissed a suggestion from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in a video released on Monday that the girls could be swapped for imprisoned militants.

But the military later said it would “explore all options” to end the crisis.

Boko Haram fighters kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from the remote northeastern town of Chibok in Borno state on April 14 and 223 are still being held.

The group’s latest video purported to show some 130 girls, in an undisclosed rural location, wearing Muslim dress and praying, and claimed they had all converted to Islam.

A special viewing of the footage was organised for the missing girls’ parents.

“All the girls in that video were identified to be students of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok,” Borno Governor Shettima said in Abuja.

Earlier, the leader of the Chibok community in the capital, Tsambido Hosea, said the video had stirred up conflicting emotions back home.

“I called Chibok and spoke with some of them (the parents),” he said at a protest march.

“Some are saying they are happy because they have seen their daughters. Some have their grief increased. So, there is a mixed reaction.”

U.S., British, French and Israeli specialists have been sent to Abuja to provide specialist assistance to Nigeria, whose initial response to the kidnapping was criticized as slow. China has also offered help.

A U.S. defense official said General David Rodriguez, the head of U.S. Africa Command, was also in the capital “discussing U.S. assistance for the search as well as overall cooperation.”

The four-star general arrived on Monday for talks with his Nigerian counterparts, as well as U.S. diplomats and military officers, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Nigeria’s chief of defense staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, told Rodriguez that the government thanked the United States for “responding positively to the call for assistance,” the military said.

Rodriguez’s visit came after Washington confirmed it was flying manned aircraft over Nigeria and sharing commercial satellite imagery to help with the hunt for the kidnapped girls.

Britain said it was sending its Foreign Office minister for Africa, Mark Simmonds, to Abuja on Wednesday to discuss what further help is required.

One of Britain’s military specialists on the ground, Brigadier Ivan Jones, said there was close co-operation with the Nigerians but warned the search was difficult.

“No one should underestimate the scale and complexity of this incident and environment,” he said in a statement.

“But it is clear that there are areas where we can have a real impact on their capability, building on the close co-operation and training that already exists.”

Jonathan’s request for a six-month extension of the state of emergency in the northeast requires the approval of both chambers of Nigeria’s parliament.

The request comes almost a year to the day after the state of emergency was first imposed and nearly six months after an initial extension.

But with more than 1,500 people have been killed this year alone and no let-up in the violence, the wisdom of an extension was immediately called into question.

Shehu Sani, an expert on Boko Haram and violence in northern Nigeria, said it was a “futile” exercise and the government should instead seek a negotiated settlement.

“Let him do that first and see to the release of the abducted Chibok girls. Then, we take it up from there,” he added.

Jonathan, criticized for his slow response to the kidnappings, has said he believed the students were still in Nigeria and would be freed soon.

But there are fears they may have been split into groups and taken to Chad or Cameroon.

Nigeria’s military is combing the Sambisa forest former nature reserve in Borno, where Boko Haram camps and arms dumps have previously been found.

Boko Haram has been waging an increasingly deadly insurgency in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north since 2009, attacking schools teaching a “Western” curriculum, churches and government targets.

Civilians, though, have borne the brunt of recent violence and tens of thousands have been displaced after their homes and businesses were razed.

 

Fearful Parents Seek Kidnapped Daughters’ Faces In Boko Haram Video

Fearful Parents Seek Kidnapped Daughters’ Faces In Boko Haram Video

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times

JOHANNESBURG — Nigerian parents of more than 200 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram desperately scanned a video Tuesday released by the Islamist group in search of their daughters’ faces. One mother recognized her child; many others did not.

U.S. aircraft began flying missions over northeastern Nigeria trying to trace the girls, according to The Associated Press. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan asked parliament to extend a state of emergency in the area.

Nigeria has been grappling for years without success with the insurgents, who seek to impose Shariah law in the country’s northeast.

Nigerian media reported that some parents raised doubts about the video released by the insurgents on Monday, saying some of those pictured in long dark hijabs didn’t look like teenage students but appeared to be in their 30s and 40s.

Mallam Zannah Chibok told Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper that he could not identify his kidnapped daughters in the video, which appears to show just over 100 girls. The newspaper cited several other parents, who did not give their names, who also did not see their children on the video.

But Dumoma Mpur, chairman of the parent-teachers association of the school in Chibok where the girls were kidnapped, told Reuters news service that one mother recognized her child.

The girls were shown praying in the video, and two said they had converted to Islam from Christianity.

In the video, insurgent leader Abubakar Shekau said he was willing to exchange some of the girls for Boko Haram prisoners held by Nigeria.

The Nigerian government has said it will do everything necessary to free the girls without specifying whether it would be willing to negotiate a prisoner exchange with the group, which is designated a terror organization by the U.S. government.

Parents of the girls have complained that Nigerian security forces didn’t act on their reports identifying the location where the gunmen were holding the girls in the days after the April 14 kidnapping.

It took weeks for Jonathan to respond to the abduction — and then only after the start of an international Twitter campaign under the hashtag “BringBackOurGirls.” The campaign had been supported by President Barack Obama, his wife, Michelle, and celebrities such as Mia Farrow and Angelina Jolie.

Some argue that a prisoner exchange would only encourage further abductions. But it would be difficult for security forces to rescue the prisoners without risking high casualties, leaving Jonathan’s government in an awkward position.

In the video, Shekau said he carried out the kidnappings in retaliation for the imprisonment of Boko Haram members and detention of women and children associated with the group. He said the militant group was holding many other people but gave no number.

“There are some of my brethren who have spent five complete years without seeing their wives, without seeing their children. For God’s sake, even for ensuring their release, will I not kidnap? After all God says I should kidnap,” Shekau said in the video.

“You that seized and detained my brethren for five years, you arrested and kept a woman without getting married for four, five years. You seized and hold our children. You did all this to us and today, because we did what God already told us to do, you are busy making noise, ‘Shekau has kidnapped this and that, he said he would sell.’ Yes, I will sell.

“I will sell. Those of them that have not accepted Islam, they are now gathered in numbers. They are staying with us. We will never release them until our brethren are released.”

©afp.com / Robert MacPherson