There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

The Calabar Massacre

1.

Rev. David T. Craig, writing in the Presbyterian Record of December 1967 (Scotland), gave more revelation of Nigerian acts of genocide under the caption of “Operation Calabar”: “A group of Efik people (the local inhabitants) brought two young men in civilian dress to the soldiers. The young lads looked like secondary school students. With the Northern soldiers was an Efik-speaking soldier. It was his duty to question prisoners in the Efik language. His job was to see if any spoke Efik with an Ibo [sic] accent. These two young lads did. The soldiers took aim and they were shot on the spot.” (Emphasis in original.)

Source: “The Violations of Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo in the Federation of Nigeria (1966–1999): A Call for Reparations and Appropriate Restitution, A Petition to the Human Rights Violations Investigating Committee, by Oha-na-Eze (The Apex Organization of the Entire Igbo People of Nigeria) for and on Behalf of the Entire Ndi Igbo, October 1999,” http://magazine.biafranigeriaworld.com/oha-na-eze/october-1999-human-civil-rights-petition.html.

2. The quote is from Alfred Friendly Jr., “Pressure Rising in Nigeria to End Civil War as Military Standoff Continues,” New York Times, January 14, 1968; see also, M. S. Armoni, The Minority of One, Vol. 10 (1968); Forsyth, The Biafra Story.

3. The Times (London), August 2, 1968.

4. Ibid.

5. “The Violations of Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo in the Federation of Nigeria (1966–1999), October 1999.”

6. The American Jewish Congress reports:

Some Nigerian commanders, notably Colonel Benjamin Atakunle [sic], maintain that the denial of food to Biafran-held areas and to Ibo [sic] people in Federally-controlled areas, is a legitimate and necessary strategy. As Colonel Atakunle [sic] himself told a Dutch newspaper: “I want to see no Red Cross, no Caritas, no World Council of Churches, no Pope, no missionary, and no UN delegation. I want to prevent even one Ibo [sic] having even one piece to eat before their capitulation.

Source: Quoted in Baum, American Jewish Congress, “Memorandum,” December 27, 1968, from the London Economist, August 24, 1968, as cited in the Village Voice, October 17, 1968.

7. Thirty-four years later, in a Nigerian Guardian newspaper article published on July 25, 2004, with the caption “I Did Not Dislike Igbos, But I Had A War to Win,” Adekunle provides his perspective on his duties as a soldier for the federal forces:

Brigadier-General Benjamin Adekunle has finally dispelled the notion that he is a hater of the Igbo. “I don’t dislike Igbos. But I learned one word from the British and that

is “sorry.” I did not want this war. I did not start this war—Ojukwu did. But I want to win this war. So I must kill Igbos. Sorry!”

He is referring to the 30-month Nigerian Civil War that lasted between 1967 and 1970. This explanation is contained in the book, “The Nigeria-Biafra War Letters: A Soldier’s Story (Vol. 1),” an explosive account of his role in the war. Brigadier Adekunle was the Commander of the “Third Marine Commando,” the dreaded force that operated in controversial circumstances during the war.

Source: www.igbofocus.co.uk/html/biafra_news.html#I-did-not.

8. Achebe, Transition, pp. 31–38.

9. Clayton, Frontiers Men, p. 94.

10. Hugh McCullum reports:

By this time, it appeared as if the Igbo people had lost all their cities including the oil centre of Port Harcourt and the capital, Enugu. Soon 5 million people were squeezed into a tiny oval-shaped enclave of 2,000 sq km around the market town of Umuahia, the new capital . . . touting his now infamous ‘final offensive,’ [underestimating the Biafrans] “Gowon boasted that war would be over in two weeks. The war in fact turned into a bloody and bitter one . . .” painfully stretching out over a 30 month period.

Source: Hugh McCullum. “Biafra Was the Beginning.” AfricaFiles, no. 8 (May 27, 2004) © AfricaFiles; www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=5549.

11. African-American Institute, Africa Report 14 (1969).

12. Solange Chaput-Rolland, The Second Conquest: Reflections II (Montreal: Chateau Books, 1970); Peter Schwab, Biafra, Interim History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008).

13. Newspaper clippings; radio broadcasts monitored in Biafra; travelogues seen during diplomatic trips.

BIAFRA, 1969

1. Chinua Achebe, Collected Poems (New York: Anchor Books, 2004).

The Republic of Biafra

THE INTELLECTUAL FOUNDATION OF A NEW NATION

1. Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Dictionary © Random House, Inc. 2012. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/republic?s=t.

2. For the full text of the Ahiara Declaration, please visit: http://www.biafraland.com/Ahiara_declaration_1969.htm.