Word: missions
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Mission has prepared a 36-page report, edited by Mayer, which calls for an immediate ceasefire as the only way to provide adequate food and medical supplies, a halt of the atrocities being committed against Biafran civilians, and a huge increase in the amount of relief supplies. The report blasts the United States and the United Nations, except UNICEF, for their failure to aid the Biafrans. In a foreward to the report, Sen. Goodell states "It was our purpose to fill America's factual void" on Biafra. "May these findings bestir the world's leaders to prevent an indirect form...
Right now, with the report still at the printer's, it's a moot point whether or not America will carry out the report's recommendations. Chances are good when you consider that Goodell is a leading Republican and that Nixon seemed to smile at the Mission's purposes. On the debit side is the influence of Great Britain, who, along with the Russians, are arming the Nigerians. No matter what the State Department does with the report, or doesn't do, if this report of starvation doesn't stir well-fed America, perhaps, as E. E. Cummings once suggested...
While Biafra originally encompassed 29,000 square miles, present boundaries now enclose only about one-fourth of that area. This remaining territory is totally landlocked and does not contain the former Biafra's most fertile land. The Mission asserts that somewhere between eight and nine million Biafrans live in this area, although many previous estimates have been as low as four million...
Mayer said that several samples collected by the Mission which could not have been "fixed" by the Biafrans were submitted to the Food and Drug Administration upon the group's return. "The samples contained arsenic, the Administration confirmed the Biafran reports." Mayer said...
Right now there are outright starvation conditions among the refugees. Acute protein deficiency is widespread among all Biafrans. The Mission's members reports that, they never saw one child in satisfactory nutritional condition in any of the camps they visited. Mass feedings must be made under the most difficult of situations: distribution centers and refugee camps are bombed and strafed if any large numbers of people are visible in the daylight. Red Cross insignias are singled out for special attention by Nigerian bombers. Mayer saw one European engaged in working on the Biafran side of the war front carry...