Word: ibos
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...Ibo tribesmen in the secessionist state of Biafra are proving as adept at the business of defending their homeland as they have always been at trade and commerce. That is the impression brought back last week by Western newsmen who flew into the Biafran city of Port Harcourt in a darkened plane to get their first look at Nigeria's rebellious state. Though Biafra hired a Hollywood public relations man to organize the trip, TIME Correspondent Friedel Ungeheuer, who went along, learned enough on his own by moving around the country, talking with Biafrans and Europeans and interviewing Biafra...
...world's shortest-lived country was the tiny state of Biafra - or so it seemed. Six months ago, the Eastern Region of Nigeria, the home of 8,500-000 Ibo tribesmen, proclaimed itself a sovereign nation and plunged Nigeria into civil war. No country ever recognized Biafra, and the Nigerian federal navy soon choked its economy with a blockade. By October, federal troops sent to quell the rebellion had captured almost a third of Biafra's territory, including the capital of Enugu, and sent the secessionist government fleeing into the region's rain forests. The surprising fact...
...miles up a channel from Bonny Island, which is occupied by swarms of federal troops. Port Harcourt has the only major airport left to Ojukwu, who depends upon air shipments for arms and other vital supplies. Its loss would leave Ojukwu's men tightly sealed in their Ibo heartland. To prevent a federal force from coming up the channel, the Biafrans have sunk a barge, cars, trucks and even a bus in it. But last week the federal army was preparing to navigate a vast network of secondary channels and creeks to reach Port Harcourt...
...Ibo Hunts." The Biafrans are adamantly against surrender because they fear that they will be massacred. The killing of many thousands of Ibo in Northern Nigeria last year led to the civil war, and the Northern-dominated army has given Biafrans little cause to believe that they can escape the same fate. Major General Yakubu Gowon, the head of the federal government, has tried to keep his men in line, but without much success. Ragtag recruits who "mop up" after Gowon's armies have joined local tribesmen brandishing machetes and cutlasses in "Ibo hunts." In the Midwest, they rounded...
More than 50,000 people have been killed on both sides in the civil war, which has also brought thousands of refugees, mostly Ibo, from the rest of Nigeria crowding into already overpopulated Biafra. Ojukwu insists that Biafra's sovereignty is not negotiable, has arrested 600 persons he suspects of plotting to bring about a compromise. For his part, Gowon does not seem to be demanding Ojukwu's removal anymore, but does persist in his plan to carve the Eastern Region into three states, only one of which would be reserved for the Ibo. Weeks overdue, an Organization...