Word: nigerias
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...most devastating civil wars in modern history. At the outset, Biafra's people numbered 12 million-about two-thirds of them Ibo, the rest belonging to minority tribes (as does Effiong, who is an Ibibio). The secessionist territory covered nearly 30,000 sq. mi. and included some of Nigeria's richest land. At the close of the war, 3,500,000 people were squeezed into a devastated area of 1,500 sq. mi. As many as 2,000,000 Biafrans, many of them children, had perished. The great majority had cruelly and slowly starved to death. Another...
...Nigerians were less affected. Even so, in addition to battle casualties their economy was battered by a war that at its climax was costing the government $1,000,000 a day. "There are no victors in a civil war," B. A. Clark, the Deputy Secretary for Nigeria's External Affairs Ministry, said sadly last week. "Not when the people you have been fighting were classmates or your friends or the man that used to work at the next desk or maybe even your cousin. All wars are bad, but civil wars are hideous...
France's Charles de Gaulle, fearful that a too powerful Nigeria would serve as an irresistible example for such former French colonies as Niger and Chad, backed the Biafrans; he might also have been hoping that a secessionist victory would give France a crack at the immense oil reserves in the Niger Delta. The Biafrans were also supported by South Africa, Rhodesia and Portugal, all obviously interested in preventing a united Nigeria from realizing its potential as the most powerful state in all of Black Africa. Black-ruled African nations, worried about the effect of the rebellion on their...
...Washington, for example, President Nixon used the White House hot line twice last week to talk to Britain's Prime Minister Harold Wilson about aiding the defeated rebels. The East Bloc countries, however, withheld compassion. The Polish press insisted that Western relief activities were "gross interference in Nigeria's internal affairs...
Gowon seemed to agree. To punish those who had aided Biafra during the war, he barred any aid from several agencies and nations. "Let them keep their blood money," he declared angrily. "Let them keep their bloody relief supplies." Nigeria's chief was particularly annoyed with Pope Paul VI, who told a crowd in St. Peter's Square that "the victory of arms may carry with it the killing of numberless people. There are those who actually fear a kind of genocide." Gowon, whose tactics for three years have been designed to limit casualties, bristled at the reference...