[Aaron0617]

Africans should help other African nations. Good job by Bush. Hope he keeps the Marines on the ships Nigerian Colonel Emeka Onwuama is carried by Liberians on arrival at the international airport in Monrovia, August 4, 2003. Long-awaited West African peacekeepers arrived as war-weary Liberians danced for joy in ruined streets on hopes of an end to 14 years of bloodshed. Photo by Juda Ngwenya/Reuters

I hope these Nigerian forces don't rob the Liberians blind.

[Aaron0617]

See Freepers the UN is coming. They don't need those Marines

Bangladesh, Namibia Pledge Liberia Troops

Aug 8,11:36 PM ET AP UNITED NATIONS - Bangladesh and Namibia agreed to contribute more than 5,000 troops for a United Nations peacekeeping force for Liberia (news - web sites), U.N. officials and diplomats said Friday.

The U.N. force will replace a West African force that has already begun deploying to Liberia.

The U.N. Security Council ordered the U.N. force to replace the multinational contingent by Oct. 1, but the proposal given to potential troop-contributing nations at a closed-door meeting Thursday calls for U.N. peacekeepers to start deploying on Nov. 1.

[archy]

I hope these Nigerian forces don't rob the Liberians blind.

Robbery is the least of the worries for the liberians.

On February 12th, the UN released a report on human rights abuses in Sierra Leone, a western African nation that has been convulsed with civil war for much of the last decade. While attributing the overwhelming majority of atrocities to anti-government insurgents, the report acknowledged that a Nigerian-led West African regional "peacekeeping" force working with the UN has been "summarily executing detainees who were allegedly either rebels or rebel sympathizers," reported the BBC on February 14th. An earlier BBC report quoted sources in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, who described a January 13th massacre of 22 suspected rebel sympathizers by "peacekeepers." Other witnesses quoted in the February 12th New York Times accused UN personnel of executing children suspected of being rebels and a score of patients at Connaught Hospital in Freetown on January 12th. Other reports described the summary detention of civilians, brutal body searches, "whipping, beating, varying types of public humiliation" of detainees ­ including children ­ and acts of sexual assault committed by "peacekeepers."

"Nigerian officers say quite openly that they shoot rebel suspects on sight," observed BBC reporter Mark Doyle. "One Nigerian officer told me his forces were advancing against the rebels because the Nigerian army had adopted the rebels' own tough guerilla tactics." Those tactics include using civilians as "human shields," the arbitrary slaughter of non-combatants, and the mutilation of victims with machetes. The Nigerian-led "peacekeepers" have matched the rebels' ruthlessness by conducting indiscriminate aerial bombardment of neighborhoods in Freetown and pitilessly mowing down the hapless civilians used as "human shields." Over a two-week stretch in January, the rebels and "peacekeepers" collaborated in the deaths of thousands of civilians; estimated casualty counts run as high as 5,000 killed.

[archy]

Nigerian Colonel Emeka Onwuama is carried by Liberians on arrival at the international airport in Monrovia...

Ho! So these fine Liberian chaps are taking me to a barbecue dinner...how hospitable of them!

[radiohead]

I agree with both of you. The words 'peacekeeper' and 'Nigerian' just don't jibe. I had some real concerns when I heard they were going in.

Going off on a tangent here - I met a lot of Nigerians when I was in college (1970s). One fella offered me sex in return for cleaning his apartment every week. Still gives me the creeps just thinking about it.