US embassy cable - 04ABUJA1279

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ABUJA 001279 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT PASS TO AF/W 
LONDON AND PARIS PASS TO AFRICA WATCHERS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/19/2014 
TAGS: PHUM, PGOV, PREL, ASEC, NI 
SUBJECT: YELWA:  WITH WOUNDS STILL FRESH, RESIDENTS ARE 
SLOW TO RETURN 
 
REF: A. ABUJA 1234 
     B. ABUJA 1277 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR JOHN CAMPBELL FOR REASONS 1.5 (B) AND (D). 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary.  On June 23-25, Poloff traveled to the 
Middle Belt state of Plateau, visiting Jos and crisis-torn 
Yelwa-Shendam where over 800 people were killed in a 
long-drawn communal conflict in May this year.  The small 
town of Yelwa-Shendam was a ghost town with few residents 
returning.  The visit was the first by any USG official since 
the imposition of State of Emergency (SOE) by President 
Obasanjo on May 18th.  This is the third of four Plateau 
State cables.  End summary. 
 
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The Attack, and the Town Today 
------------------------------ 
 
2.  (U)  On June 23-25, Poloff traveled to the Middle Belt 
state of Plateau, visiting Jos and crisis-torn Yelwa-Shendam 
where over 800 people were killed in a long-drawn communal 
conflict in May this year.  The small town of Yelwa-Shendam 
was a ghost town with few residents returning.  The damage 
from the attacks was clearly evident on Poloff's June 24 
visit to Yelwa.  Scorched brick walls were all that remained 
of most buildings along the main roads.  Poloff did not see 
any working gas stations; all had been burned.  Yelwa's 
pre-massacre population was about 30,000, but in late June, 
it was nearly a ghost town.  Despite the presence of police 
checkpoints at all three highways into town, along with a 
police tank at the main intersection in the town, very few 
residents had returned. 
 
3.  (C)  Narrating his own ordeal during the May 2 massacre, 
Yelwa Local Councilor Garba told Poloff that the day soldiers 
guarding the town were withdrawn, the Tarok militias attacked 
the residents with sophisticated weapons, regular firearms, 
local machetes, and even bows and arrows.  The attackers 
first came through the Langtang-Yelwa road before encircling 
the entire community.  Most residents fled on May 2, then 
another attack came on May 3, killing many of those who 
remained in the town.  Human Rights Watch (HRW) told the 
Ambassador on July 13 that, in one incident, some 30 injured 
people sheltering in a clinic were killed on the second day 
of the massacre (reftel A). 
 
4.  (C) Yelwa residents showed Poloff the site of a mass 
grave, very close to the Nigerian Red Cross office, where 
signs announced that over 630 bodies were buried.  Garba 
introduced two women and a little girl who said they had been 
taken captive by the attackers and released just before 
Poloff's visit.  In Jos, Muslim leaders gave Poloff a list 
with the names of 21 women they said had been ransomed from 
the attackers, for amounts of 10,000 to 140,000 naira each 
($75-1050).  They also gave Poloff alleged transcripts of 
interviews with some of the abducted women.  For example, one 
interview was with a 15-year-old Muslim student, who said 
that she had been abducted with seven of her classmates, 
forced to drink alcohol, and raped for five days until she 
was rescued by military patrols.  A 20-year-old Muslim 
housewife said she had been kidnaped with 15 other women, 
raped repeatedly, and forced to drink homemade brandy and eat 
pork.  Both women said they saw 3000-4000 "armed bandits with 
heavy guns."  Like Zaki-Biam, the site of a massacre in 2001, 
Yelwa remains a shell with no apparent prospects for the 
rapid recovery of its social life. 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
As the Body Count Rose, the GON Failed to Act 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
5.  (C) Interlocutors identified the slow response to the 
Yelwa attacks by the federal and state governments as one of 
the factors that aggravated the crisis.  Bureaucratic 
procedures, slavish adherence to the chain of command, poor 
communications, and a lackadaisical approach to security 
reports by the two tiers of government broadened the scope of 
the conflicts.  For instance, the killings in Yelwa in May 
lasted for 2 days before soldiers were deployed to the area, 
even though Yelwa is only about 20 minutes' drive from an 
army battalion permanently stationed in Shendam main town. 
Suspended Plateau State Assembly Speaker Simon Lalong, 
himself a native of Shendam, offered one explanation for the 
slow response.  He recalled that during one previous 
conflict, the former battalion commander quickly dispatched a 
contingent to protect Yelwa-Shendam, but instead of receiving 
kudos for taking appropriate action, he was investigated and 
reassigned "for not properly waiting for instructions, which 
made the current commanding officer reluctant to send troops 
there until clear instructions were received from Abuja or 
Jos."  By the time the soldiers reached the scene of the 
violence in Yelwa, hundreds of lives had been lost, and many 
properties had been burned. 
 
6.  (C) Suspended Governor Dariye told Poloff--and many 
others agreed--that as governor, he did not have the power to 
give instructions to the police or military personnel.  The 
police chief and army commanders in the state did not report 
to him, instead receiving their instructions from Abuja.   As 
chief security officer, he was privy to some classified 
information, but that was the extent of the governor's 
authority. 
 
7.  (C) Dariye complained that the GON did not provide enough 
funds to support peacekeeping operations in the areas, 
lamenting that "the National Assembly has just approved over 
2 billion Naira (about $15 million) for the administration of 
the SOE.  If I had such money from the Federal Government, 
the situation would not have escalated."  Dariye further 
complained that the state government had often had to pay the 
allowances of military and police personnel involved in 
peacekeeping operations in the areas, even though these 
salaries should have been paid from the federal budget. 
 
----------------------------------------- 
When and Where Will the Blood Flow Again? 
----------------------------------------- 
 
8.  (C) Comment:  Although the Yelwa massacre was not 
committed by the police or army, as in the Odi and Zaki Biam 
massacres of 1999 and 2001, respectively, the GON still bears 
much of the responsibility for the bloodshed.  Tensions were 
high in Yelwa, but security forces were withdrawn 
nonetheless, allowing the attackers to approach Yelwa 
unmolested.  When the massacre began, army forces didn't 
leave their base, just a few minutes down the road, until two 
days and hundreds of casualties later.  Until the SOE, the 
GON did not focus on Plateau State.  Ongoing crises in 
Adamawa, Benue, Delta, Kano, and many other places continue 
near the boiling point, and it remains to be seen whether the 
GON will take action to turn down the heat.  End Comment. 
CAMPBELL