So Boko Haram weren't the only ones employing kidnapping

[theHandpuppet]

This situation is so furked up... I can't even begin to imagine how any of this mess, this violence and insanity can be stopped.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/06/how-nigerian-police-also-detained-women-and-children-as-weapon-of-war

How Nigerian police also detained women and children as weapon of war
Before Boko Haram started routinely kidnapping girls in northern Nigeria, more than 100 relatives of militants were held by authorities. Their leader vowed to retaliate
Elizabeth Pearson and Jacob Zenn
theguardian.com, Tuesday 6 May 2014

(excerpt)
Boko Haram's move towards using the kidnapping of women as a tactic appears to have come hand-in-hand with a similar strategy deployed by the Nigerian authorities. From December 2011, the Nigerian police began to detain the wives and children of militants leaders – possibly to put pressure on the group, possibly to bring about negotiations.

Whatever the reasons, from 2011 to 2012 more than 100 Boko Haram family members were arrested, with no evidence to suggest they had any part in Boko Haram’s crimes. Among them were relatives of Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau.

These detentions became a source of grievance for Shekau, and were repeatedly mentioned in a series of video messages in 2012. One Shekau film threatens: "Since you are now holding our women, just wait and see what will happen to your own women... to your own wives according to sharia law."

In 2013 the kidnappings began. In May of that year a film released by Boko Haram shows the leader alongside a split-screen image of a group of captured women and children, silently huddled together. Shekau says, “We kidnapped some women and children... including teenage girls”. This was payback, he added. In another video message he promised to make female hostages his servants if certain conditions, including the release from prison of Boko Haram members and their wives, were not met. A tit-for-tat cycle of arrests and abductions was established, with Shekau explicitly threatening the kidnap of more girls.... MORE

[boston bean]

1. It's not unusual in struggles for women to bear the brunt

and be used as tools against the other.

[theHandpuppet]

2. Of course, my question is...

... why are we only now hearing that the Nigerian government has itself been doing this for years?

[boston bean]

4. I don't know. But wish it would stop.

I don't know how it can be stopped when half the worlds population is and can be used in this way, due to how women are viewed.

Pointing it out was my way of adding to the discussion.

[theHandpuppet]

5. Easy targets

No matter where you go, it's always the same, isn't it?

I heard on NBC News this morning that 80% of the Nigerian refugees streaming into Cameroon are women.

[ronnie624]

7. I know why.

Because pointing that out is inconsistent with geopolitical goals in the region, therefore the big companies that own the Western propaganda establishment, have no vested interest in promoting that information.

Clear as a bell.

[theHandpuppet]

8. I think your assessment is spot on.

Nigeria has oil (with Europe as the major importer) and is the largest economy in Africa, despite the fact that 65% of its people are mired in abject poverty. The money flows only to those at the top of its thoroughly corrupt government. It also explains that while some countries have expressed their "outrage" at the persecution of LGBTs in Uganda they have remained silent on the same persecution of LGBTs in Nigeria, which has the same hateful laws. Uganda has no oil, whilst there are too many offshore drilling contracts in the works to upset the apple cart in Nigeria, even if it's a cartload of rotten apples.

[ronnie624]

9. Yep.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Interesting

I'd heard of the security forces using bloody reprisals (eg http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/nigeria-war-crimes-and-crimes-against-humanity-violence-escalates-north-eas ) but not of arrests of uninvolved family members.

The situation reminds me of Sri Lanka - a regional rebel group that was willing to use all kinds of violence, and a national government that had decided to be just as ruthless and uncaring about human rights.

[FarCenter]

6. They have learned from their masters --

As Boer farms were destroyed by the British under their "Scorched Earth" policy—including the systematic destruction of crops and slaughtering of livestock, the burning down of homesteads and farms, and the poisoning of wells and salting of fields—to prevent the Boers from resupplying from a home base many tens of thousands of women and children were forcibly moved into the concentration camps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War#Concentration_camps_.281900.E2.80.931902.29

[Comrade Grumpy]

10. Don't interfere with the prevailing narrative.