There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

I have always held that the civil war was unnecessary and avoidable. The delegation of the Midwest Region, which I led at the 1966 conference, held behind-the-scenes discussions with leaders of each of the other delegations; we made proposals, which the leader of the Eastern delegation, Prof Eni Njoku, agreed to go to Enugu to try and sell the plan to the then Military Governor of the Eastern Region, Colonel Ojukwu. The Conference therefore adjourned for a short period; but Professor Njoku and the Eastern delegation never returned to the Conference, and that was the end of our efforts.

Source: Pini Jacobs, “Chief Anthony Enahoro Speaks,” Sahara Reporters, January 2, 2006.

8. Sara S. Berry, Elbert, George A., Uphoff, Norman Thomas; reply by Stanley Diamond. “Letters: An Exchange on Biafra,” New York Review of Books, April 23, 1970.

9. Ibid. Baum, American Jewish Congress, “Memorandum,” December 27, 1968; Morrow, “Chinua Achebe, An Interview,” Conjunctions; Metz, Nigeria; Achebe, “Chinua Achebe on Biafra,” Transition; The Library of Congress Country Studies.

10. Julius Nyerere, Biafra, Human Rights and Self-Determination in Africa (Dar es Salam: Government Printer, April 13, 1968).

11. Achebe, “Chinua Achebe on Biafra,” Transition.

12. From francophone West African writers.

13. Details from Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani.

The Triangle Game: The UK, France, and the United States

1. The triangle game of the former imperial powers and the United States has been extensively discussed by a number of authors, Michael Leapman, Rick Fountain, and university scholars among them.

2. Michael Leapman writing about cabinet papers that recall the starving children of the Biafran war: “British Interests, Nigerian Tragedy,” Independent Sunday, January 4, 1998.

3. Rick Fountain, “Secret Papers Reveal Biafra Intrigue,” BBC News, January 3, 2000.

4. “Britain: Loss of Touch?” Time, March, 29, 1969.

5. The eminent journalist Leapman provides a rare look into the schemes and policy intrigues of the Wilson cabinet:

General Gowon imposed a blockade on Biafra, which meant that no oil could be exported anyway. This was a blow for the British economy, already floundering in the crisis that led to devaluation later in the year. Now the prime object of Whitehall was to get the blockade lifted. An important lever fell into British hands when Gen. Gowon asked for more arms: 12 jet fighter-bombers, six fast patrol boats, 24 anti-aircraft guns. . . . George Thomas, Minister of State at the Commonwealth Office, was sent to Lagos. The Commonwealth Office note to Wilson about the mission was explicit: “If Gowon is helpful on oil, Mr. Thomas will offer a sale of anti-aircraft guns.”

The plan went awry. Gen. Gowon would not lift the blockade but he got his guns anyway; planes and boats were refused, but the Nigerians were permitted to take delivery of two previously ordered patrol boats—which ironically helped enforce the ban on Shell-BP’s oil shipments. That victory came, but not quickly. During 1967 t

he words “famine” or “hunger” appeared nowhere in the hundreds of official documents devoted to the conflict. They would not emerge until 1968, when I and other reporters went to Biafra and witnessed the scenes for ourselves.

By then the policy was too set to be altered. Too many reputations depended on the war’s outcome. The conflict went on for another two years. Millions of children starved. How many would still be alive if that one slim chance had been grabbed back in August 1967 and Option E, E for ethical, had prevailed?

Source: Leapman, “British Interests,” Independent Sunday.

6. Metz, Nigeria; Frederick Forsyth, The Biafra Story: The Making of an African Legend (London: Penguin, 1969); John de St. Jorre, The Nigerian Civil War (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1972); N. U. Akpan, The Struggle for Secession 1966–1970: A Personal Account of the Nigerian Civil War (London: Frank Kass and Co., 1972); Elechi Amadi, Sunset in Biafra: A Civil War Diary, African Writers Series (London: Heinemann, 1973); Falola and Heaton, A History of Nigeria; Madiebo, The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War, p. 14; Effiong, Nigeria and Biafra.

7. John W. Young, The Labour Governments 1964–70, Vol. 2: International Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009).

8. As quoted in Alain Rouvez, Michael Coco, and Jean-Paul Paddack, Disconsolate Empires: French, British, and Belgian Military Involvement in Post-Colonial Sub-Saharan Africa (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994), p. 148.

9. Senators Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, Charles E. Goodell of New York, and Donald E. Lukens of Ohio were well-known American legislators who “became strong supporters of the Biafran regime, and urged relief organizations and the State Department to supply desperately needed funds [at least for humanitarian efforts].” Collectively, they put significant bipartisan pressure on the Nixon administration to act on the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Biafra.

10. Karen E. Smith, Genocide and the Europeans (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 71; Roger Pfister, Apartheid South Africa and African States: From Pariah to Middle Power, 1961–1994 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), pp. 52–53.

11. Jacques Foccart, Foccart parle: entretiens avec Philippe Gailland (Paris: Fayard, 1997).

12. Pfister, Apartheid South Africa and African States, pp. 52–53.

13. A 1968 article published in the journal Africa Today provides a self-congratulatory overview of the role of the United States in the war:

The United States is the only great power that has followed a neutral course. She has supported humanitarian efforts to bring relief to starving civilians, and even recently released several transport planes to religious relief agencies as dramatic testimony of concern for saving human lives. While the Nigerians have been unhappy over the opposition of the United States to a “starve them into submission” policy, they have recognized that the United States has not given military support to the Biafran secession or encouraged in principle diplomatically. However, other great powers have committed themselves. The French now privately back the Biafrans through Gabon with arms, and the Russians and British supply Lagos with arms, planes, and bombs.

Source: Council on Religion and International Affairs, Worldview 12 (1969).

14. A letter written by Mrs. Betty C. Carter of Washington, D.C., to Dean Rusk, dated July 25, 1968, illustrates this point: