Word: biafra
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Hank Warton, who is also Ojukwu's major gunrunner. Both Caritas, the international Catholic relief organization, and the International Red Cross have paid for his services (cost of a round-trip flight: up to $25,000), simply because it was the only way to get medicine and food to Biafra. Some flights were temporarily suspended by bad weather and the Nigerians' radar-directed antiaircraft fire, but last week a Swedish DC-7 landed at Annabelle by a new, still-secret route. It was piloted by Count Carl-Gustaf von Rosen, 59, a legendary air adventurer who began his long career...
...food are now stockpiled on the islands of Fernando Poo and Sao Tome, in Lagos and at other points?but the combatants cannot agree on how it is to be delivered. Nigeria insists that it come by overland route, where federal forces can make an in spection for arms. Biafra insists on an air route, claiming that the Nigerians will poison the food if they get close...
There can be little doubt, however, that Biafra's leader is holding out for an airlift for other reasons, too. He knows only too well the value of an airlift as a visible symbol of the world's helping a besieged people stay alive. That, in turn...
...world finds it hard to understand why some powerful nation, particularly the U.S., cannot announce that it will send food to Biafra, and simply do it. In fact, the Administration has privately agonized over Biafra's suffering for a long time, but concluded that nothing short of military muscle would get supplies through, and it is certainly unwilling to risk that. An unauthorized airlift might endanger the lives of 5,000 Americans now living in federal Nigeria, and it would bring howls of outrage from most governments in Africa, which have served notice that they want to handle the Nigerian...
...absence of neighborly compassion among the tribes is a fact of African life. But the Nigerian government is caught in a special dilemma. If Biafra succeeds in its secession, a Nigerian federation will be doomed. On the other hand, if the Ibos are decimated and permanently embittered, the federation may be doomed in another way. Nigeria's rulers are talking unity, while at the same time conducting a form of tribal warfare that may make unity impossible at best and unnecessary at worst. By granting Ojukwu his demand for airborne relief, the Nigerians would show minimal concern for 8 million...