Washington, DC—In a speech at the U.S. Institute of Peace that largely focused on his desire to address impunity and corruption in his country, President Muhammadu Buhari mischaracterized the U.S. law known as the “Leahy Law.” He asserted that application of this law by the U. S. Government “has aided and abetted Boko Haram” by denying the Nigerian government sophisticated weaponry. However, the unwillingness of the United States to sell arms to Nigeria has nothing to do with the Leahy Law, which only applies to military assistance that is funded by the United States. The Nigerian government has had challenges procuring weapons with its own resources.
Most importantly, the law supports President Buhari’s previously stated objective of Nigerian forces that are accountable to rule of law.[1] As he has noted, disciplined, accountable armed forces will do more to end the reign of Boko Haram’s predations than will undisciplined forces. The Leahy Law supports this conviction and seeks to incentivize internal accountability.
What does this law actually mandate, and why?
Named after Senator Patrick Leahy, who authored it in 1997, the Leahy Law originally focused only on U.S. assistance to Colombian armed forces. He wrote the law after finding out that several Colombian army units that massacred poor civilians had been receiving assistance and training from the United States. Instead of cutting off all U.S. aid to Colombian police and military, then engaged in fighting two insurgencies and narco-traffickers, he prohibited assistance to any particular Colombian security force units (battalions or brigades) that the U.S. State Department believed had committed gross violations of basic human rights until the Colombian government investigated the crimes and held the responsible members of the units accountable.
The law has been expanded over the years and now prevents the U.S. government from providing U.S. taxpayer-funds to any foreign military or police units anywhere in the world if the U.S. government believes those particular units have engaged in the worst human rights violations: murder, torture, rape, and forced disappearances with impunity.
In his speech, President Buhari said that the law “has denied us access to appropriate strategic weapons to prosecute the war against the insurgents. In the face of abduction of innocent school girls from their hostels, indiscriminate bombings of civilians in markets and places of worship, our forces have remained largely impotent because they do not possess the appropriate weapons and technology which they could have had, had the so-called human rights violations not been an obstacle.”
The Leahy Law does not apply to arms sales financed with Nigeria’s own funds. It only applies to assistance being drawn from the U.S. Treasury. Decisions by the Obama Administration to refrain from selling U.S. weapons or technologies to Nigeria in the recent past may have been due to concerns about the human rights (or corruption) record of Nigerian forces, but those decisions were not based on the Leahy Law.
Moreover, in 2014 the United States provided Nigeria with at least $5 million in grant military assistance all of which was subject to Leahy Law screening.[2] In this process the U.S. State Department relies on their own information and that of Nigerian and international rights groups and media to determine whether particular units (battalions or brigades) have credibly been implicated in rape, prison shootings, executions, and razing villages to the ground. If so, those units could not receive the U.S. taxpayer funds until the Nigerian government investigates and brings the responsible parties to book.
Even with the Leahy Law many requests to arm and train Nigerian units have been approved. In 2013, 187 Nigerian military units and 173 Nigerian police units – including those most likely to conduct a rescue operation –were vetted and cleared to receive U.S. assistance. The U.S. was also helping stand up a new counterterrorism unit until the Nigerian government put an end to the effort.
Testifying before the Senate in February 2015, Secretary of State Kerry said that the limiting factors on U.S. assistance to the Nigerian military “have to do with governance itself, choices in the military, leadership, absence of and other problems…not the Leahy Law.”
President Buhari appealed directly to the Obama Administration and Congress “to examine how the U.S. Government can provide us with far more substantial counter-terrorism assistance with minimal strings. The longer we delay, the deadlier the Boko Haram gets.”
As Senator Leahy notes on his website, the Leahy Law “provides the necessary flexibility to allow the U.S. to advance its foreign policy objectives in these countries [with human rights violations]. In addition, it gives foreign governments an incentive to correct the problem: U.S. aid can resume if they bring to justice people who commit such crimes.”
This law should help President Buhari in his effort to combat Boko Haram by helping ensure that Nigerian forces operate as professional soldiers and law officers and that they are seen as accountable to the law.
Lora Lumpe and Sarah Pray are Senior Policy staff at Open Society Foundations.
[1] In his inaugural address, President Buhari said: “We shall overhaul the rules of engagement to avoid human rights violations in operations. We shall improve operational and legal mechanisms so that disciplinary steps are taken against proven human right violations by the Armed Forces.” At USIP he noted, “we have re-written the rules of engagement protecting the rights of combatants and in particular safeguarding civilians in theatres of conflict.”
[2] http://www.securityassistance.org/data/program/military/Nigeria/2007/2014/is_all/Global
