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"No Regrets" For Task Force Leader In Nigeria's Ogoniland
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Jan 23 (News Agencies) - The leader of a security task force accused of terrorizing and brutalizing Nigeria's troubled Ogoni people told a human rights hearing Tuesday he was proud of what he did.
Colonel Paul Okuntimo told a packed conference hall here the task force sent in 1993 by the late military ruler Sani Abacha to suppress unrest in the Ogoni region of Nigeria's southern oil-producing region had stopped a descent into widespread bloodshed.
Okuntimo was sent into the region in 1993 by Abacha after Ogoni leaders, charging exploitation by oil companies operating on their land demanded an end to oil production and autonomy for their people.
Violence flared in the region and in 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa, the leader of the main opposition Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), and eight supporters were executed after being convicted of murder by a military tribunal.
For years, human rights groups have accused Okuntimo, including MOSOP, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, of ordering and carrying out a series of human rights abuses.
Booed and hissed by a hostile crowd of more than 3,000, he gave a remarkable defense of his actions for almost four hours on Tuesday.
The public investigation into more than 30 years of human rights abuses across Nigeria began in a two-week hearing in Abuja in October and continued over five weeks in Lagos in November and December.
Three weeks of hearings in Port Harcourt began last week.
"If God did not send me Ogoniland, there would be no Ogonis today," he told the panel, when asked to explain the brutality he admitted had been used by his task force to end an uprising in the region in 1994 and 1995.
"I am their redeemer ... I am the embodiment of truth," he said.
"You people should be grateful to me that you are living ... you should worship me," he said, turning to the crowd.
He said the Ogonis should thank him for "a job well done" in ending what he said was inter-communal violence in the region.
He had carried out his task with "simple precision and commendable success."
Asked to explain a video of a news conference in which he said he knew of more than 200 ways of killing people and the Ogonis had only suffered three or four, he said the statement was part of "psychological warfare."
He had "only one regret [during his time in the task force] ... and it was not in Ogoniland," he said, without elaborating.
In a statement, MOSOP President Ledum Mitee condemned Okuntimo's testimony as an insult to the Ogoni people and called for his arrest.
"The testimony of Okuntimo places a direct challenge before ... the panel. We will submit that Okuntimo's testimony is a fabric of lies from beginning to end.
"If soldiers with the attitude of Colonel Okuntimo are allowed to walk free, then this panel will come to nothing," he said.
The hearing was adjourned to Wednesday.
The panel had originally been due to hear evidence concerning the 1995 execution of MOSOP founder Saro-Wiwa, but that was postponed until Wednesday, after lawyers for the family were unable to fly to Port Harcourt on Tuesday.
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