[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 10]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 13955-13956]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                HUMAN RIGHTS VETTING: NIGERIA AND BEYOND

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 31, 2014

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, Boko Haram has significantly 
accelerated its acts of mass murder and abduction in Nigeria, requiring 
a more robust and effective response from the Government of Nigeria and 
friends like the United States. According to a recent report by the 
Internal Displaced Monitoring Centre and the Norwegian Refugee Council, 
there are 3.3 million Nigerian Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)--
more than every other country in the world except Syria and Colombia. 
The UN High Commission for Refugees estimates that there are now more 
than 10,000 Nigerian refugees in Niger and Cameroon. According to the 
International Rescue Committee (IRC), due to credible fears of 
abduction as many as one thousand refugees a week--80% women and 
girls--are fleeing to the nearby country of Niger from Nigeria's Borno 
State alone.
  Former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Robin Renee Sanders testified 
before my subcommittee on June 11th that the fight against Boko Haram 
will be a long war, but that Nigerian military and security forces are 
insufficiently trained and ill-equipped to meet the challenge of 
savage, relentless violence. Earlier this month, she told a Capitol 
Hill forum on Boko Haram that in the vacuum created by delays in 
training Nigerian forces, vigilante groups have been formed and that 
now are themselves committing human rights abuses.
  According to the current State Department human rights report, Boko 
Haram is responsible for the most heinous human rights violations in 
Nigeria, but that same report tells us elements in the Nigerian armed 
forces and security apparatus have committed serious human rights 
abuses with little or no accountability.
  Even in the face of serious threats to Nigerian and regional 
security, the U.S. Government, which has a longstanding alliance with 
the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has experienced obstacles in providing 
the security assistance necessary to help our ally address this dire 
emergency. Laws our Congress created to prevent our alliance with rogue 
military and security forces are being blamed for making our assistance 
more difficult to provide. But is the law the problem, or rather is it 
how the law is being applied? Or is the U.S. not attempting to train 
sufficient numbers of human rights-vetted Nigerian forces? What is the 
targeted number of trained Nigerians? For this year--and the future--
how many trainers have committed to this task?
  I believe the Leahy laws are necessary components of a prudent human 
rights policy, and today's hearing is in large part intended to find 
out whether there are legitimate obstacles to their implementation.
  At the outset, I would like to make clear that I have long supported 
human rights vetting to allow for training of those who pass muster. 
One example of many: as chair of the then-Subcommittee on International 
Operations and Human Rights, I chaired a hearing on Indonesia on May 7, 
1998 featuring Pius Lustrilanang, who was tortured by members of the 
Indonesian military amid deep concerns that those involved may have 
been trained under our International Military Education and Training 
Program or IMET program. In like manner, I and others were concerned 
that U.S.-trained Indonesian troops may have been complicit in 
slaughtering people in East Timor.
  On a fact-finding mission to Jakarta, I sought--but never received--
the names of specific individuals, trained by the U.S. including 
members of the elite Kopassus unit, who slaughtered dissidents as the 
Suharto government fell.
  Similar training concerns were expressed by me and others concerning 
the Joint Combined Exchange Training or JCET program and the Rwandan 
Patriotic Army during the period of time when the RPA was engaged in 
the killing of refugees in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the 
Congo.
  Moreover, in 1999, Congress passed my legislation (part of P.L. 106-
113) that suspended all U.S. federal law enforcement support and 
exchanges with the British police force in Northern Ireland, the Royal 
Ulster Constabulary, until new human rights training programs were 
implemented there and until programs were established to ``vet out'' 
any RUC officers who engaged in human rights abuses from benefiting 
from American training and preparation.
  The ``vetting'' legislation worked. Exchanges and training at FBI 
facilities for RUC officers were suspended for more than two years 
until President Bush certified that the British established a system to 
vet and block anyone who committed or condoned human rights violations 
from the program.
  According to the current Quadrennial Defense Review, we are in a time 
of increased danger from terrorist forces in foreign nations while 
shrinking budgets force our military and security forces to become 
smaller and leaner.
  The QDR states that: ``The Department of Defense will rebalance our 
counterterrorism efforts toward greater emphasis on building 
partnership capacity, especially in fragile states.'' One manifestation 
of that developing policy is the president's proposal to allocate $5 
billion to a new Counterterrorism Partnership Fund (CTPF).
  I have visited Nigeria twice in the past nine months alone and have 
chaired several hearings on security in Nigeria in the past two 
Congresses alone. Just last month, I met with U.S. and Nigerian 
Government officials to find out why our security assistance has been 
so difficult to provide when the need is so increasingly great. Is it 
the process, or has the Administration not sought to seriously expand 
training?
  You will notice that the Department of State did not testify at the 
hearing that I convened on human rights vetting earlier this month. 
That is partly because Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, 
Human Rights and Labor Tom Malinowski was unavailable when we invited 
him to testify. But it may also be partly due to the abundance of 
caution surrounding the discussion of difficulties experienced in 
implementing the Leahy laws.

[[Page 13956]]

  When I was in Abuja last month, I asked our Embassy to provide me 
with their recommendations for making the Leahy vetting more effective 
so that we can provide the much-needed aid to the Nigerian government 
and end the increasing slaughter and kidnapping of innocents, such as 
the Chibok school girls. Despite initial assurances of cooperation, I 
have yet to receive the information. I understand that not everything 
that can be said publicly should be said. Nevertheless, these laws were 
created in the light of day, and so should our efforts to implement 
them be clear and transparent to all concerned.
  We refer to Leahy laws because there are actually two: one for the 
Department of State and one for the Department of Defense. Together, 
they cover material assistance, including equipment and training. These 
laws require investigation of allegations of human rights violations by 
military and security forces, including police. These investigations, 
performed mostly by the Department of State, require details on not 
only individuals, but also military units. Failure to obtain such 
information as name and date and place of birth can place an 
investigation in limbo. National government officials may consider such 
information an invasion of their sovereignty, but to avoid aiding and 
abetting rogue elements, we must know if a perpetrator of abuse is a 
man from Jos or a man with the same name from Kano, for example.
  If individuals or elements of a larger force are guilty of human 
rights violations, entire battalions or regiments can be tainted unless 
the guilty are identified and separated out from those forces that are 
innocent of such crimes. The Leahy laws allow for the re-creation of 
``clean'' units. On the surface, it would seem that such a policy is 
clear and possible to implement. Unfortunately, it seems not to be so 
simple in practice.
  Despite the fact that Sarah Sewall, Undersecretary of State for 
Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights told the Foreign Affairs 
Committee on May 21st that at least half the Nigerian military and 
security forces are clear of allegations of human rights violations, we 
continue to be told that Leahy vetting is at least slowing the 
provision of security assistance. According to congressional testimony 
by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs 
Robert Jackson, there are an estimated 187 Nigerian military units and 
173 police units that have been cleared, but very few Nigerian units 
have been trained or are in training today. Why?
  Our Government provides approximately $15 billion in security 
assistance worldwide each year, involving 158 countries. Yet there are 
only 13 headquarters staff people handling Leahy vetting, in addition 
to embassy personnel. Is this a sign that these laws are not being 
taken seriously enough by our own government?
  In the current fiscal year, the Department of State is receiving 
$2.75 million to conduct Leahy vetting, which represents only two-one-
hundredths of a percent of all military aid. Is insufficient funding 
for such vetting the major problem?
  Of the 158 countries we provide with security assistance each year, 
46 had some aid withheld in 2011. The typical percentage of global 
Leahy vettings that don't meet requirements is at most 1-2 percent with 
just under 10% suspended. In Fiscal Year 2012, according to 
Congressional Research Service expert Lauren Ploch, ``the State 
Department vetted 1,377 members of the Nigerian security forces--of 
that figure, almost 85% were cleared to receive assistance, with 15% 
rejected or suspended.''
  In Colombia, the government rejected the requirements of the Leahy 
laws before changing their minds and accepting the process. Now there 
reportedly are more high-ranking Colombian military officers behind 
bars than in any country other than Argentina, and Colombia is cited as 
a Leahy law success. In Nigeria, there have been no disciplinary 
actions against Nigerian military for scorched earth assaults on 
populations, and few high-ranking Nigerian military officers have been 
held accountable for human rights violations.
  We are here today to examine the questions these facts raise, and our 
witnesses have been asked to walk us through the process, to tell us 
what works and what doesn't work and to suggest ways to make this 
process more effective.
  In more than three decades of promoting human rights adherence in 
Congress, I have seen far too much brutality and indiscipline among 
military and security forces that are charged with establishing the 
peace and protecting their people. The Leahy laws are intended to 
prevent our Government from supporting such behavior, but if these laws 
are not implemented properly, they cannot achieve the goals for which 
they were created. No law is perfect, and we must never stop trying to 
perfect the laws we create--especially when they are meant to be both 
practical and aspirational.

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