Rights body calls for end to vigilante's impunity

Amnesty International called on the governor of Anambra State, southeastern Nigeria, on Wednesday to end human rights abuses committed by its "crime busting" unit, the so-called Bakassi Boys. The appeal followed a recent visit to the state of an Amnesty International delegation. Delegates were inside the compound of the Government House, en route to an appointment with the chairman of the Anambra State Vigilante Service (the Bakassi Boys) when the delegates witnessed an attempted summary execution of a 50 year old man. Amnesty said its delegation was less than five metres away from 12 men armed with automatic weapons, machetes, and bandoliers, dressed in black and wearing dark glasses. The victim, Amnesty said, was on his knees, his arms tied behind his back and his face "disfigured by recent beatings" and bleeding profusely. "AVS members were pouring petrol over the man's body with the clear intention of setting him on fire," Amnesty reported. "When they realized that there were strangers watching the scene, they bundled their victim into a van, loaded the vehicle with machetes and guns, and drove away." The incident occurred just 100 metres from the State governor's office. "This episode is illustrative of the exceptionally serious abuses, committed by the Anambra State Vigilante Service," Amnesty reported. It said there had been reports of over 1,000 summary executions committed by the Anambra vigilante in the past two years, and "several dozen" people had been reported tortured or disappeared. "Similar violations are carried out by armed groups - many of them having formal or informal links with state government authorities - throughout Nigeria," Amnesty added. It expressed concern that the alternative armed security forces in several Nigerian states appeared to "fall outside the law" and that they engage in "widespread abuses of human rights with impunity". Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, trying to curb this kind of activity, has tabled a bill before the federal legislature that, if passed, would allow him to ban such ethnic vigilantes. The full report is available on http://www.amnesty.org/