Word: nigerians
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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However, it is the former view that dominates the press. Instant international theoreticians of ethnic profiles see in the Ibo a harmonious fusion of the judaic and christian traditions. If indeed this were a relevent category for the discussion of the Nigerian civil war, it would truly represent a tremendous cultural achievement for an African society, in view of the bloody antagonisms which have characterized these two traditions for much of Western history. Unfortunately, the category is irrelevent. Concocted as it was out of political expediency, this image now makes it difficult for the foreign observer to retrieve the objective...
...York Times (to mention only a few) have consistently stated that if the relief efforts are to have any impact on Biafran starvation, food must be transported by land from the rest of Nigeria, because of the inadequacy of airport facilities in what remains of Biafra. The Nigerian Government would surely be responsible for Biafran starvation if she refused to permit the transportation of the badly needed food. Fortunately this is not the case. The same international agencies have affirmed the readiness of the Nigerian Government to open up land corridors to allow the food to reach Biafra. These same...
Thus the primary responsibility for the present mass starvation in Biafra rests with the secessionist leaders. They cannot be meaningfully excused from any ethical exercise we may engage in on the Nigerian war. At the very least Biafran leaders are guilty of gross deceit. Only a few months ago they were proudly announcing to the world that the Biafran economy was running efficiently in spite of the war. At the time, these leaders considered it politically expedient to "prove" the viability of secessionist Biafra outside of a Nigerian federation. Nigerian reports of mass hunger were rejected out of hand...
...students of African politics do not find this callous concealment of the truth surprising. They know that the majority of the Biafran leaders currently parading the world as tribal heroes with synthetic slogans of autochthonous virtues are the same politicians who, in concert with other members of the old Nigerian political class, ruthlessly exploited the Nigerian masses without regard to ethnicity only a few years ago. These tribal patriarchs of today were the nationally convicted rogues of yesterday. When the Nigerian masses were revolting against their exploitation in pre-coup Nigeria, the foreign minister, an Ibo, was busy singing...
These men cheated the Nigerian masses before in the name of free enterprise and unregulated accumulation of private wealth. Today, as they play the cocktail circuit at the seats of political reaction in Portugal, Spain and South Africa, they are once again concealing their particularistic class interests behind the tribal mask. It is not they who are dying; it is not they who are starving; it is their captive Biafran subjects...