 |
| Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop |
The Australian government has offered to
provide its special forces to help Nigeria to rescue the more than 200
schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram.
The schoolgirls were abducted by the
Islamic sect on April 14. The abduction attracted international outrage and led
to the birth of the BringBackOurGirls campaign.
Australian television website, abc.au.net, reports that the country’s
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told Sky News that
Australia had offered to lend its support but Nigeria had not responded.
Britain, France and the United States
had also offered to help Nigeria.
Bishop reportedly said, “Australian
troops, the SAS, are always on standby for contingencies. We have made an offer
to the Nigerian government to provide whatever support they need to release the
girls. We’ve made a specific offer to our UK and US allies … that we are ready
to assist in whatever way we can.
“We have not had a response from the
Nigerian government. They’ve thanked us for our willingness to be involved in
trying to rescue the girls but we haven’t had any specific acceptance of the
offers that we’ve made.”
The story also quotes the leader of the
country’s Green Party, Christine Milne, as calling on the Nigerian government
to provide more details before Australia could get involved.
Milne said, “The Greens want to see the
schoolgirls in Nigeria rescued. It is shocking to think all those young women
have been dragged away and we don’t know the circumstances in which they find
themselves but I think the PM needs to inform Australia fully as to what
Australia would be getting into if we sent troops into Africa.
“Is this just about rescuing the
schoolgirls or is this about joining a coalition to take on another terrorist
war in sub-Saharan Africa?
“Australians deserve a full explanation
of what the PM’s thinking is before we can make any comment about it but I
would be remembering that we went into Afghanistan … and look where we ended
up.”
No comments:
Post a Comment