Does the Amnesty granted to Militants by the Nigeria Government a true solution to solve the Nigerian Niger Delta crises?

Amnistie
Automatically translated into French thanks to WorldLingo
Est-ce queamnistie accordée aux militants par le gouvernement du Nigéria une solution vraie résout les crises nigériennes de delta du Niger ?

Amnistía
Automatically translated into Spanish thanks to WorldLingo
¿La amnistía concedida a Militants por el gobierno de Nigeria una solución verdadera soluciona las crisis nigerianas del delta de Niger?

Amnistia
Automatically translated into Italian thanks to WorldLingo
L'amnistia assegnata ai militanti dal governo della Nigeria una soluzione allineare risolve le crisi nigeriane di delta del Niger?

Amnestie
Automatically translated into German thanks to WorldLingo
Löst die Amnestie, die Militants durch die Nigeria Regierung eine zutreffende Lösung die nigerischen Niger Dreieckskrisen bewilligt wird?

Amnesty
Automatically translated into Portuguese thanks to WorldLingo
O Amnesty concedido a Militants pelo governo de Nigéria uma solução verdadeira resolve as crises Nigerian do delta de Niger?

Amnesti
Automatically translated into Swedish thanks to WorldLingo
Löser amnestin som beviljas till kämpar av den Nigeria regeringen en riktig lösning de nigerianska Niger deltakriserna?

Амнистия
Automatically translated into Russian thanks to WorldLingo
Амнистия даренная к Militants правительством Нигерии поистине разрешение разрешает нигерийские кризисы перепада Нигерии?

Amnestie
Automatically translated into Dutch thanks to WorldLingo
Lost de Amnestie die aan Militanten door de Overheid van Nigeria een ware oplossing wordt verleend de Nigeriaanse Deltacrisissen op van Niger?

قرار
Automatically translated into Arabic thanks to WorldLingo
القرار يمنح إلى [ميليتنتس] بنيجيريا حكومة صحّ حل أن يحلّ النيجيريّة نيجر دلتا أزمات?

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein struggled briefly after American military guards handed him over to Iraqi executioners. But as his final moments approached, he grew calm.

He clutched a Quran as he was led to the gallows, and in one final moment of defiance, refused to have a hood pulled over his head before facing the same fate he was accused of inflicting on countless thousands during a quarter-century of ruthless power.

A man whose testimony helped lead to Saddam's conviction and execution before sunrise said he was shown the body because "everybody wanted to make sure that he was really executed."

"Now, he is in the garbage of history," said Jawad Abdul-Aziz, who lost his father, three brothers and 22 cousins in the reprisal killings that followed a botched 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam in the Shiite town of Dujail.

Iraqi television showed what it said was Saddam's body, his head uncovered and the neck twisted at a sharp angle.

The footage showed the man identified as Saddam lying on a stretcher, covered in a white shroud. His neck and part of the shroud have what appear to be bloodstains. His eyes are closed.

In Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, hundreds of people danced in the streets while others fired guns in the air to celebrate. The government did not impose a round-the-clock curfew as it did last month when Saddam was convicted to thwart any surge in retaliatory violence.

It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader who had vexed three U.S. presidents. Despite his ouster, Washington, its allies and the new Iraqi leaders remain mired in a fight to quell a stubborn insurgency by Saddam loyalists and a vicious sectarian conflict.

The execution took place during the year's deadliest month for U.S. troops, with the toll reaching 108.

President Bush said in a statement issued from his ranch in Texas that bringing Saddam to justice "is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror."

He said that the execution marks the "end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops" and cautioned that Saddam's death will not halt the violence in Iraq.

Within hours of his death, at least 46 people died and more than 80 were wounded in two bombings — 31 in one attack south of the capital and 15 in a Baghdad blast.

Ali Hamza, a 30-year-old university professor, said he went outside to shoot his gun into the air after he learned of Saddam's death.

"Now all the victims' families will be happy because Saddam got his just sentence," said Hamza, who lives in Diwaniyah, a Shiite town 80 miles south of Baghdad.

But people in the Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit, once a power base of Saddam, lamented his death.

"The president, the leader Saddam Hussein is a martyr and God will put him along with other martyrs. Do not be sad nor complain because he has died the death of a holy warrior," said Sheik Yahya al-Attawi, a cleric at the Saddam Big Mosque.

Police blocked the entrances to Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter the city for four days. Despite the security precaution, gunmen took to the streets of Tikrit, carrying pictures of Saddam, shooting into the air, and calling for vengeance.

Security forces also set up roadblocks at the entrance to another Sunni stronghold, Samarra, and a curfew was imposed after about 500 people took to the streets protesting the execution of Saddam.

A couple hundred people also protested the execution just outside the Anbar capital of Ramadi, and more than 2,000 people demonstrated in Adwar, the village south of Tikrit where Saddam was captured by U.S. troops hiding in an underground bunker.

In a statement, Saddam's lawyers said that in the aftermath of his death, "the world will know that Saddam Hussein lived honestly, died honestly, and maintained his principles."

"He did not lie when he declared his trial null," they said.

Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were not hanged along with their former leader as originally planned. Officials wanted to reserve the occasion for Saddam alone.

"We wanted him to be executed on a special day," National Security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told state-run al-Iraqiya television.

Sami al-Askari, the political adviser of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told The Associated Press that Saddam initially resisted when he was taken by Iraqi guards but was composed in his final moments.

He said Saddam was clad in a black suit, hat and shoes, rather than prison garb. His hat was removed and his hands tied shortly before the noose was slipped around his neck.

Saddam repeated a prayer after a Sunni Muslim cleric who was present.

"Saddam later was taken to the gallows and refused to have his head covered with a hood," al-Askari said. "Before the rope was put around his neck, Saddam shouted: 'God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab.'"

Iraqi state television showed footage of guards in ski masks placing a noose around Saddam's neck. Saddam appeared calm as he stood on the metal framework of the gallows. The footage cuts off just before the execution.

Saddam was executed at a former military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah, al-Askari said. During his regime, Saddam had numerous dissidents executed in the facility, located in a neighborhood that is home to the Iraqi capital's most important Shiite shrine — the Imam Kazim shrine.

Al-Askari said the government had not decided what to do with Saddam's body.

The Iraqi prime minister's office released a statement that said Saddam's execution was a "strong lesson" to ruthless leaders who commit crimes against their own people.

"We strongly reject considering Saddam as a representative of any sect in Iraq because the tyrant only represented his evil soul," the statement said. "The door is still open for those whose hands are not tainted with the blood of innocent people to take part in the political process and work on rebuilding Iraq."

The execution came 56 days after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from Dujail. Iraq's highest court rejected Saddam's appeal Monday and ordered him executed within 30 days.

A U.S. judge on Friday refused to stop Saddam's execution, rejecting a last-minute court challenge.

U.S. troops cheered as news of Saddam's execution appeared on television at the mess hall at Forward Operating Base Loyalty in eastern Baghdad. But some soldiers expressed doubt that Saddam's death would be a significant turning point for Iraq.

"First it was weapons of mass destruction. Then when there were none, it was that we had to find Saddam. We did that, but then it was that we had to put him on trial," said Spc. Thomas Sheck, 25, who is on his second tour in Iraq. "So now, what will be the next story they tell us to keep us over here?"

At his death, he was in the midst of a second trial, charged with genocide and other crimes for a 1987-88 military crackdown that killed an estimated 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq. Experts said the trial of his co-defendants was likely to continue despite his execution.

Many people in Iraq's Shiite majority were eager to see the execution of a man whose Sunni Arab-dominated regime oppressed them and Kurds. Before the hanging, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Friday called Saddam's execution "God's gift to Iraqis."

In a farewell message to Iraqis posted Wednesday on the Internet, Saddam said he was giving his life for his country as part of the struggle against the U.S. "Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if he wants, he will send it to heaven with the martyrs," he said.

One of Saddam's lawyers, Issam Ghazzawi, said the letter was written by Saddam on Nov. 5, the day he was convicted by an Iraqi tribunal in the Dujail killings.

Najeeb al-Nauimi, a member of Saddam's legal team, said U.S. authorities maintained physical custody of Saddam until the execution to prevent him being humiliated publicly or his corpse being mutilated, as has happened to previous Iraqi leaders deposed by force. He said they didn't want anything to happen to further inflame Sunni Arabs.

"This is the end of an era in Iraq," al-Nauimi said from Doha, Qatar. "The Baath regime ruled for 35 years. Saddam was vice president or president of Iraq during those years. For Iraqis, he will be very well remembered. Like a martyr, he died for the sake of his country."

Iraq's death penalty was suspended by the U.S. military after it toppled Saddam in 2003, but the new Iraqi government reinstated it two years later, saying executions would deter criminals.

Saddam's own regime used executions and extrajudicial killings as a tool of political repression, both to eliminate real or suspected political opponents and to maintain a reign of terror.

In the months after he seized power on July 16, 1979, he had hundreds of members of his own party and army officers slain. In 1996, he ordered the slaying of two sons-in-law who had defected to Jordan but returned to Baghdad after receiving guarantees of safety.

Saddam built Iraq into a one of the Arab world's most modern societies, but then plunged the country into an eight-year war with neighboring Iran that killed hundreds of thousands of people on both sides and wrecked Iraq's economy.

When the U.S. invaded in 2003, Iraqis had been transformed from among the region's most prosperous people to some of its most impoverished.

Saddam Hussein death sentence a milestone

By Scott Peterson, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Mon Nov 6, 3:00 AM ET

BAGHDAD - Celebratory gunfire swept across parts of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities Sunday as

Saddam Hussein and two former top Iraqi officials were sentenced to die for crimes against humanity.
Defiant as the historic verdict was read, Mr. Hussein accused the judge of the US-created tribunal of being a "mouthpiece of occupation and colonialism," and cursed "your law and your articles and clauses."
Amid fears and explicit warnings that a death sentence would deepen bloodshed, Baghdad and two restive provinces were placed under an open-ended curfew for vehicles and pedestrians.
The tribunal is the first such court since Nuremburg's Nazi war-crimes trials to hand down a death sentence. After appeal, Hussein faces hanging.
The tribunal's creators had hoped that the forum would play a central role in closing the door on 30 years of ruthless oppression under Hussein. Indeed, Shiites and Kurds, who bore the brunt of tens of thousands of deaths at the hands of the regime, were jubilant. But that joy was tempered among Sunnis disenfranchised by Hussein's overthrow, and angry over what many saw as a political trial overly dependent on American experts and resources. The result, experts say, is a positive step for Iraqi justice, but one that reveals a deep and continuing weakness in the rule of law.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki heralded the result as "the end of a dark era," and a reason for hope among Iraqis battered by 3-1/2 years of Sunni-led insurgency and sectarian violence that the UN says takes nearly 3,000 Iraqi lives each month.
"Maybe this will alleviate the pain of the widows and orphans, and those forced to bury their loved ones," Maliki said. "The era of Saddam is now the era of the past. It is an era of dictators like Mussolini and Hitler. We are determined to build an

Iraq without mass graves, without Anfal, and without wars, without military coups."
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called the verdict an "important milestone" for Iraq.
The tribunal, partly due to its heavy reliance on American resources and expertise and the blatant interference of senior Iraqi officials, has drawn criticism from international legal experts. Maliki recently said: "God willing, the verdict of death will soon be issued against the tyrant Saddam."
"This tribunal has suffered an unusual number of problems, compared to other tribunals" such as those of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, says Miranda Sissons, head of the Iraq program of the New York-based International Center for Transitional Justice.
Deteriorating security has been a crucial issue, experts say, along with the inexperience of Iraqi judges and lawyers, and little reference to lessons learned from other international tribunals, or to non-US experts.
"If there is one thing that will make this court a laughing stock, it is continued executive interference in its work," says Ms. Sissons. "Mistakes were made in setting up the tribunal that shouldn't have been made."
Still, she adds, "this was not a sham trial. It was always an ambitious undertaking. The judges have done their best in difficult circumstances, coming from a very low base."
Amnesty International, which opposes capital punishment, said on Sunday that the tribunal had missed an opportunity to establish the rule of law in Iraq, and to ensure "truth and accountability for the massive human rights violations perpetrated by Saddam Hussein's rule."
The case dealt with a 1982 assassination attempt against Hussein in the town of Dujail, which prompted revenge killings of 148 people, deportation of 400, and razing of orchards. One intelligence document indicated the level of torture used against the 148, noting that "of those who were sentenced to death, 46...had been eliminated or died during the investigation."
But it is only the first in a dozen or so being prepared against Hussein and the former regime by the troubled Iraqi High Tribunal, which has been dogged by legitimacy issues, the murder of three defense lawyers, the resignation of one chief judge, an array of confusing testimony, and a multitude of farcical in-the-dock antics by Hussein and his codefendants.
The second, much larger case, charges genocide and covers the 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds in which up to 180,000 were killed. Legally, Sunday's death sentences will go through an automatic appeals process with no deadline. If the verdict is confirmed, the sentence must be carried out within 30 days. Hussein had requested execution by firing squad, normally reserved for the military.
Death sentences Sunday were also delivered to Barzan Ibrahim, Hussein's half-brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of the Revolutionary Court. Former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to life in prison; three lesser officials were handed 15-year jail sentences. The oldest defendant, a local Baath Party official in Dujail at the time, was acquitted for lack of evidence.
The Iraqi High Tribunal was expressly set up to enable Iraqis to feel "closer" to justice in the "New Iraq" created by the 2003 US invasion and subsequent occupation.
When the first trial began in October last year, Iraqis were at first riveted by the proceedings of the court, in which tearful witnesses - often testifying anonymously from behind a curtain - spelled out their suffering after the Dujail incident.
But it was not long before the novelty began to wear off of seeing Hussein and his co-accused engaging in feisty, irreverent arguments with judges and even guards during the trial's 39 sessions. Average Iraqis became more focused on day-to-day survival amid ongoing carnage. Sunday's verdict, finally, caught the nation's attention again.
"Saddam deserves to face such a court and I don't know how he could escape a guilty verdict for Dujail or more important cases," says Wamidh Nadhmi, a political science professor in Baghdad who manages a Sunni-led political coalition. "But now we are seeing more killing, more bloodletting than during his era."
Mr. Nadhmi helped Hussein in 1959, when he fled to Cairo after participating in a botched assassination attempt against the sitting leader.
"They promised us - the Americans - there would be democracy and human rights. But we see them violated in every day's happenings," says Professor Nadhmi. "The majority of Iraqis think the drastic failure of this regime and the Americans to bring security and human rights to Iraq, does not entitle them to conduct such a trial [or] issue a guilty verdict."
But the sentencing, regardless of its imperfections, is likely to be seen as justice by Iraqis who often did not grasp the magnitude of Hussein regime crimes - often heard about, but rarely physically encountered - until scores of mass graves began being unearthed starting in 2003.
Besides the Dujail and Anfal cases, tribunal investigators say they have documented evidence of more than 100,000 people tortured and killed in the aftermath of the 1991 Shiite uprising.
Some 5,000 Kurds were killed by chemical weapons in Halabja in 1988. Hussein ordered his armies into

Iran in 1980, sparking nearly a decade of war that left 1 million dead and wounded, and in which Iraq used chemical munitions. And Iraqi troops occupied Kuwait in 1990.
Iraqis reeled from the legacy of those acts, but could rarely quantify them until the regime fell. Among the most poignant scenes came in late April 2003, just two weeks after the fall of Baghdad, at a graveyard adjacent to the

Abu Ghraib prison. There, some 993 graves were marked only with crude numbered signs, until families, most of them Shiites, found lists that matched victims' names with numbers. "O my father, my father!" lamented Mustapha al-Fadil at the time, weeping uncontrollably at grave No. 659, when his family came to dig up the remains for reburial.
Fadil Sadoun, an overtly religious man, had been arrested in 1996 and never came home. "You should be happy," mourned the son. "Saddam is gone."
The scene repeated itself hundreds of times that day, with broken families taking home the broken remains of executed loved ones. At least they could be identified; most mass graves around Iraq are filled with anonymous victims.
But if state-sanctioned violence defined the former regime, Hussein threatened its use again on Sunday, when defense lawyers reported, after a lengthy talk with their client, that the former Iraqi dictator vowed to "die with honor and with no fear."
Americans in Iraq, defense lawyers quoted Hussein as saying, "will see rivers of blood for years to come. It will dwarf Vietnam," Reuters reported.
Days earlier, Hussein's chief defense counsel, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said after a guilty verdict, "The doors of hell will open in Iraq, the sectarian divide in the country will deepen, and many more coffins will be sent back to America."
But Iraq's prime minister, whose own Islamic Dawa Party had claimed responsibility for the Dujail assassination attempt, saw it differently. "The martyrs and all Iraqis have a right to smile," said Mr. Maliki.

Alamieyeseigha In Dramatic Escape From London
Recounts ordeal as EFCC vows to pursue case
From George Oji in Abuja and Chuks Okocha in Port Harcourt, 11.21.2005
The embattled Bayelsa State Governor, Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha, standing trial in London on charges of money laundering, made a dramatic return to the country yesterday to assume office.
Alamieyeseigha, who is on bail, was said to have arrived his village, Amasoma around 2.am yesterday before he drove into the state capital, Yenagoa, in a long convoy at about 9.25am.
Details of his arrival are like that of his Plateau State counterpart, Governor Joshua Dariye, as they are still kept as top secret, but facts are emerging, from THISDAY investigations, on how he beat the security dragnets around him in the United Kingdom.
Last Friday, according to diplomatic sources, Alamieyeseigha failed to report at the Police Station as dictated by the terms of his bail, thus breaching one of the conditions.
The next day, Saturday, British undercover agents who were detailed on him, were said to have trailed him to a flat behind Hilton hotel in London Park Lane. He was said to have left the flat same day in the company of a young lady to another flat on Peckham street where he spent the night.
The next morning, Sunday, two ladies were seen leaving the Peckham flat by the undercover agents and it was much later when, the governor's whereabouts became unknown, that they got wise to the realisation that Alamieyeseigha was indeed the 'second woman'.
Giving details of how Alamieyeseigha escaped from London, Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, yesterday confirmed that he disguised as a woman using forged travel documents and following illegal routes to the country.
Although Ribadu refused to make further disclosures in order not to jeopardize investigations on the matter, Alamieyeseigha was said to have been helped by an Ijaw man who procured for him a fake Nigerian passport with which he travelled out of the United Kingdom.
There were, however, conflicting reports yesterday as to how he arrived the country. Government sources said he arrived by a British Airways flight while another report said he came by a chartered flight.
A top security source, however, confirmed that "the man could not have pulled off such stunt without the support of some people".
An Ijaw man, said to have facilitated the escape, is believed to have already been arrested by the British Metropolitan Police.
There were also reports last night that the plot was hatched by no fewer than four close aides of the governor who were said to have enlisted the services of a private British security firm.
Yesterday in Yenagoa, Alamieyeseigha who spoke in his native Ijaw language addressed the crowd that gathered at the Government House to welcome him.
He lauded the people of the state for their steadfastness during his absence, most especially their support for his Deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who he commended for piloting the affairs of the state in a mature and most effective manner. While thanking the people of the state for their support, the governor reminded them that there was still a lot of work to be done.
Alamieyeseigha reaffirmed his total loyalty to President Olusegun Obas-anjo: “For 65 days or so I found myself in the wilderness of foreign restrictions and torment. However, God Almighty has used this travail to humble me and I pray Nigerians accept the will of God in my life. Today, I reclaimed and reaffirmed my Nigerianness.
"Today, I am back at my desk, forever committed to serve the people of Bayelsa and Nigeria. I thank the Almighty God for his protection, I thank Bayelsans, the Ijaw Nation and indeed Nigerians for standing by me”.
The governor received in audience eminent dignitaries, including Chief Melford Okilo, first civilian Governor of old Rivers State, members of the council of traditional rulers led by HRM King Joshua Igbagara, including King Alfred Diete-Spiff, first Military Governor of old Rivers State, and many others.
Alamieyeseigha said the task before Bayelsans was to join hands with the government to move the state forward. He further urged the people to be focused, united and steadfast in the struggle for resource control and self-determination.
Alamieyeseigha said he would make a state-wide broadcast where the details of his travails, his impressions about the Nigerian - nation and other national issues would be disclosed.
The streets of Yenagoa were agog with jubilations. There were several youths and women in motor bikes and vehicles waving green leaves, celebrating the arrival of the governor.
Apart from that, the youths gathered at the Creek House, the seat of government apparently awaiting Police officials and EFCC agents said to be on their way from Abuja to arrest the governor. The youths vowed to resist any move to arrest the governor.
The arrival of the governor caught many unawares, even the Deputy Governor, Dr. Jonathan Goodluck, was said to be meeting opinion holders canvassing support for his new position as the acting governor.
On hand to welcome the governor was the Commissioner for Women Affairs, Remi Kuku, his cousin, Abel Ebifeomwi, who is popularly known as 'TO'. Others include the impeached Deputy Speaker, Jephatath Foihgha.
The Deputy Governor, Goodluck, later met the governor when he was addressing the people in Ijaw language. The address lasted for over thirty minutes.
But in Abuja, Ribadu described as sad the incident involving the arrest of the governor and his escape back to the country.
Fielding question from reporters who were invited to EFCC's Abuja head office to witness the issuance of $17 million cheque to representatives of the Brazilian banks as part of the $214 recovered by the commission he said: "It's a sad development, it is not something we are proud of. Unfortunately, it is a Nigerian that is involved, and a powerful Nigerian.
"It is a matter that has to do with the justice system in the UK. It is bail conditions that was issued by a UK Court that was violated and the accused person jumped bail, and today he is with us.
"But we knew how he got in, we are following it; the way he dressed as a woman, we know that he forged documents to gain entrance and passed undetected through all the security checks both at the UK side and also the Nigerian side but he is being investigated.
"We will change Nigeria not to be a safe haven for fugitives. Even though we may have handicaps even though we may have hurdles in bringing certain people or group of people to justice in this country, it's temporary, I am sure it's not going to be the same again.
"It's a case we have been investigating and we'll continue to investigate him. We will take all necessary steps and measures, legal measures to ensure that justice is done. It is a task we have taken up for ourselves and we will not in any way be deterred,
we will not relent, the resolve is strong.
"We believe that it is a little too early to unfold our plans. The governor just arrived this morning through illegal route. We intend to do what is right, what is legal what is permitted by our own law. If it means whatever it takes to ensure that we go through the due process to ensure that justice is done we'll do it.
"But for your information this is an issue that has to do with the British justice system. If there is any way we can assist and cooperate in that process we shall be glad to do so.
"Let me make it clear, all over the world we have people who jump bail, even in Nigeria, even in EFCC we have people who have been granted bail by the court and they jumped bail. So, it's not just common to the UK judicial system.
"The moment you don't have 100 per cent control of an individual and he is not in custody or in prison, chances are that he'll escape, that is all over the world.
"But the ability for us to get him back to justice is what matters and that is what is important and criminal trial do not expire through time.
"If he is going to be out there for as long as necessary he will remain a fugitive of justice and the time will come possibly when justice will catch up with him.
"What I feel bad about is that somehow Nigeria is viewed as a safe haven for people to come and be protected. This is a place criminal acts are committed and ironically this is the same place they come back for protection, and it's a tragedy. It is a challenge to us, it is a challenge to our justice system," Ribadu said