[Reader-list] Nigeria:Massacre Of 500 Christians

[S. Jabbar]

More from CNN
Nigerian violence fed by ethnic, economic issues, ex-president says

By Tom Evans, CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
At least 200 people have been killed in the recent sectarian violence
Conflict does not have religious roots says former Nigerian President
Olusegun Obasanjo
Nigerian Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka says next year's election will be
crucial
150 Muslims were killed in violence in the Jos area in January
(CNN) -- Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo insisted Wednesday that
this week's explosion of violence that claimed at least 200 lives is not
driven by religious tensions between Christians and Muslims -- but by
ethnic, social, and economic problems.

In Sunday's violence near the central city of Jos, Christian villagers said
a mob armed with guns, knives and machetes killed and burned at will,
leaving a trail of death and destruction. The attack came in the same area
that 150 Muslims were killed in January.

In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Obasanjo said, "If you have
one group or a community that has land that's been encroached upon by
another community or even by itinerant cattle farmers, then the people who
lay claim to the land will fight back."

"If there are job opportunities in an area, and persons believe they are
indigenous to that area, and (are) not getting enough out of the jobs that
are available, they will fight those who are getting the jobs," Obasanjo
said.

Obasanjo said he's convinced the conflict in the oil-rich nation does not
have religious roots, because Nigerian religious leaders have come together
and deliberated on the problems in Jos, which lies on a faith-based
fault-line between Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria and the mainly
Christian south.

The former president also said it will be very dangerous if the acting
president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, fails to implement reforms quickly
because that country -- Africa's most populous -- is full of expectations
for change.

Thousands of Nigerians Wednesday protested in the Nigerian capital, Abuja,
demanding urgent action from the government on a host of issues ranging from
corruption to unemployment.

CNN's Christiane Purefoy, reporting from the scene, said there was a lot of
tension between police and the protesters, who believe that local governors
are trying to get away with as much as they can because there's no one in
charge at the top.

Acting President Jonathan continues to hold the reins of power, even though
ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua has returned to Nigeria after three months
treatment for an unspecified medical condition in Saudi Arabia.

Purefoy reported that Jonathan hardly ever makes any public appearances, and
seems to be acting president in name only, without exercising real power.

Obasanjo said the whole episode with Yar'Adua is unusual. "I think ... the
way it was handled by his handlers and the way it's been couched in secrecy
and shrouded in mystery is strange. Somebody said it can only happen in
'wonderland' Nigeria."

Nigerian Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka told Amanpour the Nigerian people
are demanding a sovereign national conference to empower the right people to
restructure and reform the country.

He said next year's general election will be crucial to the future of the
nation. "Right now we're running a constitution that has been imposed on the
people themselves," he added.

Soyinka said the political system in Nigeria has been handed down first by
the colonial past, and then by what he called "the internal colonial past,"
which is the military.

Amanpour also spoke with another Nobel Prize laureate on the program,
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who has always preached
reconciliation over the urge for revenge.

Tutu has written a new book "Made for Goodness" with his daughter, the Rev.
Mpho Tutu. The book says that people are inherently good and there is
inherent goodness on the earth.

"All of history has demonstrated the truth that evil people, evil systems,
don't last forever. They bite the dust," Archbishop Tutu said.

"The fact of the matter is that evil is really an aberration. After God
creates, God says, it is not just good, it's very good... and God rubs both
hands and says 'ha, ha.'"

Archbishop Tutu was chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in
South Africa that tried to heal the wounds in the country after decades of
apartheid.

Reports from Nigeria say lawmakers in the parliament there are proposing
their own Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to end the distrust that has
fueled the violence in the center of the country.


> From: Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:09:16 +0530
> To: reader-list <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Subject: [Reader-list] Nigeria:Massacre Of 500 Christians
> 
> Source 
> :
http://centurean2.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/nigeriamassacre-of-500-christians
> -by-muslims/

CHANNEL 4 NEWS LAST NIGHT- SHOWED HUNDREDS OF BODIES PILED UP-
> CHILDREN AND
WOMEN WERE THE HIGHEST IN NUMBERS- BUT INCLUDED MEN TOO- THE
> MUSLIMS HAD
BEEN SHOOTING GUNS INTO THE AIR- WHEN THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN RAN
> OUT ONTO
THE STREETS THE MUSLIMS ARMED WITH SWORDS AND MACHETI¹S CUT THEM
> DOWN- IT
WAS DESCRIBED AS A MASSACRE!!

10,000 Christians have been
> slaughtered by Muslims in the past four years.
And Barack Obama says
> nothing.
Violence against Christians by Muslims in Jos in central Nigeria site
> has
more than one hundred deaths. Sectarian violence in the region in
> January,
took hundreds of lives. The Christian villagers were massacred with
> machetes
and then put in fire.

A witness who visited the village after the
> massacre reported that there
were hundreds of bodies in stacked layers.

The
> Muslim attackers came from the surrounding hills and attacked the
sleeping
> villagers, took them from their homes and slaughtered them with
machetes. Jos
> is located on the border of the Muslim north and predominantly
Christian
> southern Nigeria and is regularly the scene of religious
> riots.
LINK

Approximately 140 million people inhabit Nigeria, the most
> populated country
in Africa. The country is divided by ethnic and religious
> differences. 60%
of the population is Muslim living mostly in the North of the
> country.
Christians mainly inhabit the South. The introduction of the Sharia
> law 10
years ago in 12 states provoked a series of riots throughout the
> country. In
August 2004 the Islamic government in the Zamfara state threatened
> to
demolish all churches considered as illegal structures, close all
> businesses
belonging to Christians during Muslim prayers, and enforce a new
> law against
clothing that is not compliant with Islamic
> law.
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