"The Dawn of a New Dark Age"

The military government of Gen. Abacha, in a bid to destroy the pro-democracy movement after using abusive and illegal means to break an oil workers’ strike for democracy, is steadily bringing the country closer to chaos and collapse. We are concerned not only about how the regime’s human rights abuses are adversely affecting the victims themselves, but also about how these abuses are contributing directly to the creation of a climate of ethnic and regional mistrust and violence. The abuses include the promulgation of harsh decrees that seek to silence the critical press, place the government’s abuses above the scrutiny of the legal system, and permit long-term detention without charge of opposition figures.