The Biafra Story

by Frederick Forsyth

  As regards the moral implications of the excuse, the Earl of Cork and Orrery, speaking in the Lords on 27 August 1968, said:

  It is the same as saying that if somebody is going to supply the arms in any case, why not we? But unless you are going to insist that the purpose for which they are going to be used contains no evil – and I do not see how you can say that – then this is an argument that no honourable Government can use, for it is the classic self-justification of the black marketeer, the looter, the drug pedlar … a burst of 9 mm bullets in an African stomach is an evil thing any way you reckon it, and if we send those bullets from England knowing that they may be so used, then that particular share in the general evil is ours, and that share is neither diminished nor magnified by a hair’s breadth by the likelihood that if we did not send those bullets they would be sent by somebody else.*

  The fourth and last excuse given for the supplies was that not to supply arms would destroy Britain’s influence with Lagos. This excuse was not brought into play until the debate in the Commons on 12 June 1968, but was used increasingly thereafter. It was as threadbare as its three predecessors. During that debate Mr Stewart assured the House that if any final assault on the Ibo heartland were launched by the Nigerian Army, or if there were any ‘unnecessary deaths’, then in either case Britain would be forced to ‘more than reconsider her policy’.

  The pledges were meaningless. The influence Britain was supposed to have achieved through supplying arms was either never used or, more probably, never existed. In any event the Gowon régime has not deviated one iota from its policy totally to crush Biafra and her people, and no serious British attempt appears to have been made to persuade them to change their course.

  On 23 August 1968 a final assault on the Ibo heartland was duly launched on all fronts and with overwhelming force. From the Imo River basin came foreigners’ eyewitness reports of the wanton slaying of thousands of Ibo villagers in pursuance of Colonel Adekunle’s shoot-anything-that-moves orders. There was no ‘reconsideration’ of policy. A supine Commons was offered yet another disdainful snub by a government that by this time had seemingly come to the view that Lords and Commons only existed to be deceived.

  This was the situation as regards the arms traffic as it existed up to the debate of 27 August 1968. The debate changed things to a certain point, inasmuch as it was on that day that the Wilson Government finally threw aside what remained of its mask of concern and revealed what had in fact been its true policy all along.

  But even by that date it had become clear that the British Government had no intention whatever of discouraging the war policy of the Gowon regime. The consequences of this policy had by the end of December 1968 become so serious that in terms of human lives, whatever the examination of history may reveal to have been the offence of the Nigerian regime, the British Government must now stand as equally co-responsible in a state of total complicity.

  Arms shipments were only one of the ways in which the British Government showed its unalloyed support for the Gowon regime. As a sideline the offices of the Government became a powerful public-relations organization for Nigeria. Foreign diplomats were given the most biased briefings, and many believed them to be factually accurate and impartially composed. Correspondents were daily briefed to the Nigerian point of view, and selected untruths were sedulously implanted. Inspired leaks of such myths as the ‘massive French aid’ to Biafra were slipped to pressmen who had shown themselves to be suitably unlikely to check the facts independently.

  Members of Parliament and other notables who wished to go down to Biafra and see for themselves were discouraged, while those wishing to go to Nigeria were given every assistance. In bars and clubs, committee rooms and cocktail parties the ‘Lagos line’ was enthusiastically pushed, and on orders. No effort was spared to explain the Nigerian case as being the solely valid one, and to denigrate the Biafran version in every possible way, character assassination not excluded. The campaign was not without effect. Quite a lot of influential but (on this topic) uninformed people were persuaded to accept the Lagos propaganda at its face value, to seek to inquire no further into the background to the affair, and themselves to propagate what they possibly believed to be true.

  In terms of technical assistance offered to the Nigerians the British Government was neither less accommodating nor more candid than over the question of arms. Though repeated denials were issued that any British military personnel were fighting for the Nigerians, it soon became known that British technical personnel were attached to the Nigerian Government ‘for training purposes’. It may be that these men were not serving in HM Forces at the time of their attachment, having previously retired from active service, but the hiring of these men under contract was done with the full knowledge and approval of the British Government. While the attachment of ex-army or exnavy experts to foreign and Commonwealth governments for training purposes in time of peace is standard practice, it is habitual to review the arrangements in time of war.

  It is known, and no attempt at denial has been made, that former Royal Navy officers are and have been consistently directing the blockading operations of the Nigerian Navy. They act with the full support of the British Government. It is the blockade which has resulted in the widespread starvation of Biafra, causing an estimated one million deaths from famine in the twelve months of 1968. The blockade is total, but need not have been. A selective blockade to exclude neutrally inspected shiploads of relief foods for young children would have served Nigeria’s military aims just as well. However, the total blockade and its resultant famine are not being used as an unavoidable by-product of war but as a deliberate weapon against civilians.

  Sir David Hunt, among many statements that confirm his total and unquestioning support for the cause of the Gowon regime, and his undisguised personal hostility towards Biafra and her leader, has admitted that since the start of the war ‘the close relations between the British and Nigerian Army and Navy have been maintained and strengthened’.*

  Despite this the chief support that the Wilson Government has brought to Gowon has been in the political and diplomatic field. At the time of Biafra’s self-declared independence, there were three options open to Britain. One was to recognize the new state; this in fact would have meant formalizing the de facto partition that had existed since 1 August 1966 when Gowon took the lead of a group of partially successful army mutineers and Ojukwu refused to acknowledge his sovereignty. But as a policy it was not considered, and there is no reason to attach blame for that.

  The second option was to announce and stick by an attitude of neutrality in thought, word and deed. This would not at the time have antagonized either party to the forthcoming conflict, because Ojukwu would have accepted the impartiality as honest (in the event he did try to cling to the myth of Britain’s announced neutrality for as long as he could because he wanted to believe it) and because Gowon was confident of a quick victory.

  The third option was to announce and adopt total moral, political and military support for Gowon. Here again, Ojukwu would have regretted the decision but have known that at least Britain was sailing under her true colours.

  What the Wilson Government did was to adopt the last option and announce the second. In doing so and maintaining the fable for a year, it made a fool of the British Parliament and people, and several other governments, notably those of Canada, the United States and the Scandinavian countries, who later became sufficiently concerned to wish to see peace brought about through the offices of a mutually acceptable and impartial mediator.

  It is still difficult to discern the precise reasons for the British Government’s decision of total support for Lagos. The background to the conflict must have been known; in the most pro-Federal sense the whys and wherefores of the affair indicated that morally it was very much six of one and half a dozen of the other; civil wars are notably confused, bloody and seldom soluble by military means.

  The reasons given later were varied and none stand
s up to objective assessment. One was that Britain must under all circumstances support a Commonwealth government faced with a revolt, rebellion or secession. This is not true. Britain has every right to consider every case on its merits. Even at the time South Africa was a member of the Commonwealth, it is unlikely Britain would have supported the South African Government in any way at all if that Government had been faced with a revolt by the Bantu population after having condoned a racial massacre in which 30,000 Bantu had died.

  Another reason, taken straight from Nigerian propaganda, was that the Ibos of Biafra had forced the unwilling minority non-Ibos into partition from Nigeria against their will in order to grab the oil riches of the Eastern Region for themselves. All the on-the-spot evidence indicated that the minority groups fully participated in the decision-making process to get out of Nigeria, and were as enthusiastic as the Ibos. As regards the oil, Nigerian propaganda stated that 97.3 per cent of the oil production of Nigeria came from non-Ibo areas. Fortunately the oil statistics both of the major oil companies and of the Nigerian Government are available for study.* For the month of December 1966 out of total production in Nigeria 36.5 per cent came from the Midwest, which was not part of Biafra. Of the Biafran production for that month, Lagos’ own figures show that 50 per cent came from Aba Province (pure Ibo area), 20 per cent from Ahoada Division (majority Ibo area), and 30 per cent from Ogoni Division and Oloibiri (Ogoni/Ijaw area). Besides which, every eyewitness present during the months before the decision to break away from Nigeria was made said later that oil was not the chief motive.

  The most commonly quoted reason, and the one which has the most widespread support, is that any secession is in itself bad, since it would inevitably spark off a chain of other secessionist movements all over Africa. The spectres of ‘balkanization’, ‘disintegration’ and ‘reversion to tribalism’ are dutifully held up and even habitually cogent thinkers are overawed.

  Mr David Williams, editor of West Africa magazine and one of the best known writers on the subject, wrote on 27 October 1968 in the Sunday Mirror: ‘Yet in the end the Federal forces will win, and if this whole part of the world is not to become a mosaic of tiny, bankrupt, warring states, they must win.’

  Although this has often been stated, and represents the Wilson Government’s view, it has never apparently been questioned. Neither has it ever been justified. The assumption is badly made, and presumed to be true. The evidence does not support the thesis.

  For one thing the case of Biafra is quite exceptional. Even President Mobutu of the Congo has said categorically there is no similarity between the case of Biafra and that of Katanga, a view mirrored by United Nations diplomat Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien, who could scarcely be described as being in favour of secession.

  For another thing, Mr Wilson when advocating against the use of force in Rhodesia suggested that violence in Southern Africa could spark off a chain of violence across the continent. Indeed the danger of contagious violence is considerably greater than the danger of contagious partition; yet the war goes on without any serious attempt to stop it.

  Thirdly, partition on the basis of incompatibility is an acknowledged political solution to situations where two peoples have shown there is little likelihood of their ever living together in peace. It was used in the case of the partition of Ireland from the United Kingdom. More recently the British Government accepted the secession of Nyasaland from the Central African Federation, the Western Cameroons from Nigeria (on UN supervised plebiscite), the Cayman Islands from the West Indian Federation, Jamaica from the West Indian Federation (after Jamaica’s Premier had admitted there was no legal right to secede); and they accepted the demand of the Muslim League for partition from India in 1947 when it became clear that Indian unity could only be bought at the price of a bloody civil war.

  The British Government has in the past accepted the ‘balkanization’ of the West Indies Federation, the Central African Federation and the Malaysia Federaton without a murmur. In each case there has been no consequent rash of secessions across those parts of the world. Some of the independent states of the West Indies are so tiny as to be almost completely unviable; yet independent Biafra would have the third largest population and the highest prosperity potential in Africa.

  For the real reasons, one must look elsewhere. Only two seem discernible. One is that Whitehall received information at the start of the war from its High Commissioner in Lagos that the war would be short, sharp and sweet, and that one should certainly back the winner. Politically, this is not exceptionable. One does not back causes that are going to vanish from the map within a week or two. However, when it became quite clear that the whole situation had been misunderstood by Her Majesty’s plenipotentiary and his staff, that their information had been bad, that ‘Ojukwu’s revolt’ was in fact a strongly and widely supported popular movement, that the war would drag on for months and maybe years with a steadily escalating death-toll, that the behaviour of the Nigerian forces towards the Biafran civilians of all racial groups was giving cause for considerable alarm, the British Government deserves to be severely censured in that its policy was not only not reconsidered, but was escalated.

  One might have been able to say that up to the end of 1967 the British government did not know to what use its weapons and diplomatic support were being put. But throughout 1968 there was too much evidence, too much eyewitness testimony, too many photographs, too many reliable accounts, too many news and television films, for anyone to entertain a justifiable doubt.

  The other discernible reason for the Wilson Government having continued to comfort and support, politically, diplomatically and militarily, the Gowon régime after the facts became known is that Britain has decided, though on the basis of what reasoning no one has explained, that the Nigerian market shall remain intact no matter what the price.

  But all this became known only after repeated inquiry by the few who were sufficiently interested to ask. For twelve months the mask of neutrality was kept up, only slipping on occasion and revealing the partisanship behind.

  On 20 June 1967, sixteen days before the war started, Lord Walston told the House of Lords that the Government had no intention whatsoever of intervening in the internal affairs of Nigeria and had made this ‘very plain to all the Nigerian leaders’.*

  Eight weeks later, correspondents asking about the arms shipments through Gatwick Airport were told they were just ‘tail-end’ orders being fulfilled. The ‘neutrality’ deception continued unquestioned until murmurs of puzzlement started in January 1968. On 25 January Lord Shepherd, asked by Lord Conesford to clarify the position, replied; ‘We are neutral to both sides, but there is clearly a recognized Government in Nigeria … we certainly are not helping one side or the other.’*

  Four days later he was admitting Britain supplied ‘pretty well all its military equipment’ to Nigeria. By 13 February Lord Shepherd was still maintaining the charade, but had modified it slightly. He told the Lords, ‘To cut off all supplies [of arms] would be seen by them [Lagos] as an un-neutral and one-sided act against them, and against our own declared policy of support for a single Nigeria.’†

  The questions persisted and the maintenance of the deception became increasingly difficult. On 21 May Mr George Thomson developed Shepherd’s theme; replying to a question in the Commons he claimed that neutrality would mean supporting the rebellion.‡ The charade was maintained until the momentous debate of 27 August when the Wilson Government finally came out and revealed it had never done other than support Gowon with everything it had got.

  On the international diplomatic scene the full enormity of the consequences of this misrepresentation did not become apparent until later. Throughout 1968 most foreign governments accepted that Britain was at least politically neutral, and therefore available as an impartial mediator if such should be required. In fact Britain was simultaneously assuring Lagos that arms shipments would continue, and thus encouraging the Federal Government to fight to a bitter and bloody
finish; claiming before world opinion that it was doing everything in its power through secret diplomacy to bring about a ceasefire and meaningful peace talks; using the full persuasiveness of its diplomacy to urge deeply concerned governments not to follow the lead of Tanzania, Zambia, Ivory Coast and Gabon in recognizing Biafra; and when peace talks were finally forced on Nigeria by mounting world opinion, becoming the behind-the-scenes spokesman and advocate for the Nigerian cause. It was a twelve-month hoax. When other governments grew restive and wished to take some initiative, they were warned off with the argument, ‘We are in the best position to bring about peace moves in this situation; outside interference, however wellintentioned, could only cloud the issue; leave it to us, we are doing all we can.’

  In fact Britain was doing all it could – to ensure Nigeria’s total military victory in crushing the life out of Biafra. Colonel Ojukwu’s refusal to accept the Wilson Government as a mediator so long as it remained the chief arms supplier to his enemies was castigated as another incidence of that callous intransigence that was always laid at his door when he refused to fall in with Nigeria’s or Britain’s more obvious ruses.