There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (34 page)

2.
Metz,
Nigeria
.

3.
Edward Newman, Ramesh Thakur, and John Triman, in their benchmark study for the United
Nations,
Multilateralism Under Challenge: Power, International Order, and Structural Change
(New York: United Nations University Press, 2006), suggest that the UN’s response
to humanitarian disasters prior to 1970 was “undeveloped” at best:

Surprising as it may now seem the United Nations system was very slow to manifest
any broad responsibility for disaster response. . . .

The United Nations system was not utilized to manage a systemic and multilateral response
to a broad range of humanitarian disasters until about 1970. In the well-publicized
Nigerian-Biafran conflict (1967–1970), the major relief players trying to get aid
to civilians in secessionist Biafra were the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) and its Red Cross partners, and Joint Church Aid, a faith-based private consortium.
While other relief actors like the French Red Cross acted independently, no UN organ
or agency was a major player in that drama.

After Biafra . . . the General Assembly created the UN Disaster Relief Office. By
1992 this office morphed into the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs.

4.
The
New York Times
article read in part:

The Nigerian Federal Government readies [another] “final offensive” in war with Biafra;
Government spokesman says East must be subdued by end of February or growing international
aid will make Federal victory impossible.

Source
: Alfred Friendly Jr., “Nigerians Are Preparing for Another ‘Final’ Offensive; War
With Biafra, 19 Months Old, Still Bogged Down; Mood in Once-Cocky Lagos Turns Glum
as Foe Revives,”
New York Times
, February 5, 1969.

5.
Jeffrey D. Blum, “Who Cares About Biafra Anyway?”
Harvard Crimson
, February 25, 1969.

6.
Special to the
New York Times
, “Biafrans Warned of Enemy’s ‘Desperate Effort’; Ojukwu Asserts That British May
Lose Holdings,” February 12, 1969.

7.
Ezenwa-Ohaeto,
Chinua Achebe,
quoting from Chinua Achebe, “A Letter [on Stanley Diamond],” in C. W. Gailey, ed.,
Dialectical Anthropology: Essays in Honor of Stanley Diamond, Vol. 1
(Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1992), p. 134.

8.
John W. Young,
The Labour Governments 1964–70, Vol. 2: International Policy
(Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2009); Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo,
Nigeria: The Challenge of Biafra
(London: R. Collings, 1972); Ruby Bell-Gam and Uru Iyam, David,
Nigeria
, vol. 100 of World Bibliographical Series (Oxford: Clio Press, 1999); P. J. Odu,
The Future That Vanished
(Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation, 2009), p. 168.

9.
“Britain: Loss of Touch?”
Time
.

10.
Speaking to journalists in Umuahia, Ojukwu

suggested that the feasible way to bring Nigeria to the bargaining table was “diplomatic
victory whereby Nigeria would be faced with the specter of isolation.” Was Wilson
the man to bring off such a diplomatic victory? Replied Ojukwu: “I do sincerely hope
that this trip is no gimmick and that he is genuinely out for peace. It is true that
his previous actions do not justify this hope. Yet for the sake of Nigeria, Biafra,
Africa and Britain, one can only hope.”

Source
: “Nigeria: Twin Stalemates,”
Time
, April 4, 1969.

Azikiwe Withdraws Support for Biafra

1.
African-American Institute,
Africa Report
(1969).

2.
Chinua Achebe Foundation interview: Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani, March 6, 2005.

The Recapture of Owerri

1.
Madiebo reports that Colonel Ogbugo Kalu achieved this surprising feat in three phases—by
galvanizing the Fifty-second Brigade under Colonel Chris Ugokwe, the Third Brigade
of the Fourteenth Division under Lambert Iheanacho, and the Sixty-eighth Battalion
under Major Ikeji—and then surrounding the complacent troops of the Nigerian army
while preventing reinforcements from reaching the Nigerians.

Source
: Madiebo,
The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War
, pp. 301–10.

2.
During a visit to the United States in 2003, Colonel Achuzia described how he earned
the nickname “Air Raid”:

I never knew I was called “Air Raid.” It was when Chief Ngbada of Abakiliki and others
called me to come over to their region which was also mine (I was born in Abakiliki)
to help repel the invading feds that a drama unfolded that made me know I was called
Air Raid. In Abakiliki, I spent three days in a fierce battle to repel the feds from
reaching Uwana—the home of Akanu Ibiam. It was brisk and very successful. On my way
back, and approaching a military check point, I heard shouts of Air Raid, Air Raid
everywhere. Market women were running into the bush. People were taking cover left
right and center. As a war commander, I got down from my vehicle to take a look at
where the plane was coming from. It was then that my orderly told me that people were
running because of me. That I was also known as “Air Raid.” I immediately asked that
the rumor should be dispelled immediately and people should go about their normal
business. It was a sobering experience for me.

Source:
Godson Ofoaro, “Ngige and Achuzia came to town,”
Nigeriaworld
, November 10, 2003; nigeriaworld.com.

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye, one of Nigeria’s prized journalists, interviewed the former
Biafran war leader in 2005 and discovered an Achuzia, then seventy years old, who
was far from his austere reputation, amiable and reflective:

Achuzia had assumed office as the Secretary-General of Ohaneze Ndigbo, the apex socio-cultural
organization in Igboland, and by this time had developed a reputation for his frankness
in public statements, and the passion with which he canvassed the Igbo position on
matters of national and regional interests.

Ejinkeonye found the retired colonel astutely unrepentant for his role in the Nigeria-Biafra
war, even while he espoused his strong belief in a “one, united Nigeria, where equity,
justice, fairness and mutual respect for one another are unreservedly operational
at all levels of governance and social interactions.”

Achuzia’s perspective on the quality of the Nigerian army and why the war was fought
is both instructive and alarming:

How can there be unity in an army that is packaged on what you call federal character
(Nigerian version of Equal Opportunity)? People don’t join the army because they see
it as a vocation; most of the people in the army are surrogates of certain people
who put them there for their nefarious purposes. When we have a proper, well-oriented
country, we will put together an army that will be for the protection and the defense
of the people against external aggression. . . . The Igbo fought when the pogrom started,
and they were being killed and pushed out of the federation. So, to ensure that they
stayed in the federation, they had to fight or else, it would have meant being dispossessed
of their land. So where were we expected to run to when the hostilities started—to
Cameroon? So these were the reasons. Again, you must try to differentiate the reasons
for the Civil War from the reasons why Nigeria had a coup, and some people carried
out “Operation
Wetie
,” and the civil strife the country has experienced since the 1950s.

Source
: Chinua Achebe Foundation interviews: Colonel Joseph Achuzia in conversation with
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye, November 28, 2005.

3.
Interviews with anonymous retired Biafran soldiers.

Biafra Takes an Oil Rig: “The Kwale Incident”

1.
“Eni is an outgrowth of Agip (Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli), an oil and gas
company set up by the fascist Italian government in the 1920s.” “Eni,”
Encyclopdia Britannica Online
, April 8, 2009.

2.
“Biafra: Reprieve for Eighteen,”
Time
, June 13, 1969; Anthony Hamilton Millard Kirk-Greene,
Crisis
and Conflict in Nigeria: A Documentary Sourcebook, Volume 2
(London: Oxford University Press, 1971); Ben Gbulie,
The Fall of Biafra
(Enugu, Anambra State, Nigeria: Benlie Publishers, 1989);
Indian Journal of International Law
14, iss. 1–15, 15, iss. 4.

3.
Interview with anonymous former Biafran intellectual.

4.
“Biafra: Reprieve for Eighteen,”
Time
.

5.
Ibid. Also Kirk-Greene,
Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria
; Gbulie,
The Fall of Biafra
;
Indian Journal of International Law
.

6.
Gabonese and Ivorian diplomats made this real possibility clear to Ojukwu. Also see
the following:
West Africa
, iss. 2718–43 (London: West Africa Publishing, 1969), p. 661; Africa Bureau,
Africa Digest
16 (London: Africa Publications Trust, 1969), p. 72.

7.
“Pope Paul VI met Federal Nigerian and Biafran representatives separately during
his visit to Kampala early in August. A Vatican spokesman said that the Pope had raised
the possibility of negotiations to resolve the conflict.”

Source
: Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. General Council, Royal Institute of International
Affairs,
Report on World Affairs
50, iss. 3 (1968).

8.
The Daily Register
(Red Bank), August 1, 1969; see also
Africa Research Bureau
6 (London: Africa Research, 1969).

9.
Robert D. Schulzinger,
A Companion to American Foreign Relations,
volume 24 of Blackwell Companions to American History, Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2006); Auberon Waugh and Suzanne Cronjé,
Biafra: Britain’s Shame
(London: Joseph, 1969); Peter Schwab,
Biafra
(New York: Facts on File, 1971), digitized by the University of Michigan Press, September
16, 2008.

10.
Russell Warren Howe and Sarah Hays Trott,
The Power Peddlers: How Lobbyists Mold America’s Foreign Policy
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977); Christian Chukwunedu Aguolu,
Biafra: Its Case for Independence
(self-published, 1969); Hersh,
The Price of Power
.

11.
Kari A. Frederickson
, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

12.
Ibid.

13.
West Africa
magazine, iss. 2718–43 (1968, 1969).

1970 and The Fall

1.
Martin Meredith,
The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2011), p. 205; Henry Robinson Luce,
Time
100, iss. 14–26 (New York: Time, 1972); Blaine Harden, “2 Decades Later, Biafra Remains
Lonely Precedent,”
Washington Post
, June, 27, 1988.

2.
Chinua Achebe Foundation interviews, Number 15: General Yakubu Gowon, October 2005,
©The Chinua Achebe Foundation.

3.
Mort Rosenblum, “Gowon Assails International Relief Agencies: Biafran Crisis Builds
Up,”
Observer-Reporter
(Washington County, PA), Associated Press, January 14, 1970; “Lagos Spurns Promises
of Aid,”
The Montreal Gazette
, Reuters, January 15, 1970; Jean Strouse,
Newsweek
75, iss. 1–8; United Press International, “Nigeria Eases Relief Ban: Million Biafrans
Near Starvation,”
Palm Beach Daily News
, January 15, 1970; Nancy L. Hoepli, ed.,
West Africa Today
42, iss. 6 (1971).

According to Carl Ferdinand and Howard Henry, “Three days after thousands of Biafran
soldiers surrendered, Nigeria’s leader, General Yakubu Gowon, assailed the international
relief agencies coordinated through Joint Church Aid (JCA) and said: ‘Let them keep
their blood money.’”

Source
:
Christianity Today
14, iss. 1–13; vols. 1-13 (Chicago: American Theological Library Association, 1969).

4.
Ibid.

5.
Dirk Kruijt and Kees Koonings, eds.,
Political Armies: The Military and Nation Building in the Age of Democracy
(London, New York: Zed Books, 2002).

6.
Various estimates place the number killed at over two million people.

The Question of Genocide

1.
“Death Tolls for the Major Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century”; www.users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm.
The following sources provide death tolls for the Biafran war:
Compton’s Encyclopedia
: 1,500,000 starved; Charles Lewis Taylor,
The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators
(WHPSI): 1,993,900 deaths by political violence, 1966–70; George Childs Kohn,
Dictionary 0f Wars
: nearly 2,000,000; William Eckhardt in
World Military and Social Expenditues, 1987–88
by Ruth Leger Sivard: 1,000,000 civilians + 1,000,000 military = 2,000,000; Dan Smith,
The State of War and Peace Atlas
: 2,000,000; Jacobs,
The Brutality of Nations
: 3,000,000.

2.
Robert Leventhal, “Responses to the Holocaust: A Hypermedia Sourcebook for the Humanities,”
Department of German, University of Virginia, 1995; www2.iath.virginia.edu/holocaust/genocide.html.

Another undeniable authority, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, reminds
us:

On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust and in no small part due to the
tireless efforts of [a Polish-Jewish lawyer, Raphael] Lemkin, the United Nations approved
the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention
establishes “genocide” as an international crime, which signatory nations “undertake
to prevent and punish.” It defines genocide as: