Word: biafra
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London will also be the site of preliminary peace talks beginning this week. After more than nine months of fighting between Nigeria and the secessionist government of Biafra, the two sides agreed last week to meet there and try to pick a site for full-scale peace negotiations, probably somewhere in Africa. Any talks face formidable difficulties: Nigeria insists that Biafra rejoin the country and be split up into three states; Biafra demands that it retain some form of sovereignty in order to protect its 8,500,000 Ibo tribesmen...
...good reason for talking now is that the war has reached an impasse. Nigeria's superbly equipped army of 85,000 men has captured all but one of Biafra's major cities, including the capital of Enugu, squeezing the rebel army of some 35,000 into an interior area only a third as large as the 29,000 sq. mi. that it originally held. Even so, because they fear genocide at the hands of the other Nigerian tribes if they are defeated, the Ibo stubbornly fight on. They have managed to hold Port Harcourt, Biafra's main...
Last week, after a visit to Biafra to check on the extent of the bombing, TIME Correspondent Alan Grossman emerged from the embattled territory and filed this report...
Though its coasts are blockaded, Biafra is in no immediate danger of economic collapse. It grows all the yams, bananas, rice and other vegetables that it needs to prevent hunger, is at work trying to make up for a scarcity of salt by distilling it from sea water. Almost every night, privately owned Super Constellations fly badly needed medicines, along with arms and ammunition, from Lisbon into Port Harcourt. Biafra is unable to sell any of its oil and its refineries are virtually shut down. But breweries and cigarette plants are producing at normal levels, and factories that...
...remarkably well. In the bush, villagers have taken into their families thousands of Ibo fleeing from other regions of Nigeria and from Biafran towns threatened with capture. Wholly new and hidden villages have sprung up near occupied towns. At roadblocks around the country, highschool girls in "Long Live Biafra" T-shirts help militiamen check passing cars. Light-Heavyweight Boxing Champion Dick Tiger, an Ibo, has toured the interior villages, advising militia officers on how to whip their inexperienced recruits into fighting trim...