RE: NigerianID | Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
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Rex Marinus
Oct 16, 2012, 1:49:28 AM10/16/12
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Dr. Aluko:
It is obsfucation at its most blatant to read Goldstein letter outside of the rationale for action taken by Ojukwu and the Biafran leadership. I'll attempt to answer your earlier questions posed to me alonsgide this, because they are related. The first question was why Ojukwu did not, given that Biafra had shrunk dramatically, not surrender to save starving Biafrans. The second is, to link it to the substance of Goldstein's letter, why Ojukwu insisted on ceasefire and the airlift of relief to Biafrans as the only grounds or conditions for accepting relief. First, Ojukwu knew that an internationally observed ceasefire was the only guarantee for the security and safety of the Biafran. Second, the atrocities recorded wherever the federal forces liberated lent credence to that demand. In fact, it made it imperative, particularly because the Lagos regime was not prepared to negotiate in true faith for the amicable end of the conflict. The war strategy of the Gowon administration was hell-bent on Biafra's complete surrender without guarantees. No political and military leader will agree to that kind of suicide. I'll return to this point. But let me quote from Susan Cronje's quite illuminating book, The World and Nigeria: The Diplomatic History of the Biafran war 1967-1970 ( I'd also recommend that you read the other, Biafra: Britain's Shame). Cronje writes this about the meeting in Niamey referenced by Goldstein:
"The Nigerian delegation was led by Chief Awolowo, but General Gowon arrived in Niamey on 16 July and addressed the meeting as an 'observer.' The main theme of his speech was a warning that if the 'rebels persist in their contemptuous attitude to the conference table the federal government will have no choice but to take over the remaining rebel-held areas...In military terms the rebellion is virtually suppressed already.' But the atmosphere had suibtly changed. hamani diori had altrady suggested that the committee's consultative role should be changed to a mediatory one, and after Gowon's address the committee went into closed session. Eventually it was announced that that Ojukwu had been asked to attend, and Gowon who had already returned to Lagos flew back to Niamey the following day, cancelling all engagements. His presence in Niamey was required not for a meeting with Ojukwu but to reply to a truce proposal put forward among others by General Ankrah. This called for a ten-mile wide demilitarized zone patrolled by neutral troops to allow relief supplies to pass to Biafran refugees. According to one account of the debate, Gowon is said to have turned to General Ankrah, saying, 'You are a military man: you know what it is with commanders.' The suggestion that he might be unable to restrain his army was reinforced when he warned the committee that if it did not see things his way they would have to have 'a Nigeria without me.' According to a Niamey radio report the following day, General Gowon rejected the resolution put to him by the O.A.U. committee; the main points of this resolution were the establishment of a demilitarized zone and 'an international force which would include neutral observers acceptable to both sides.' Ghana and Cameroun, the broadcast said, had offered shipping facilities for moving relief supplies.
Ojukwu arrived in Niamey on 19 July in President Houphet-Boigny's private jet. The Biafran delegation, when it was fully assembled, included Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the former Nigerian president, Dr. Okpara, former Eastern Nigerian premier, Sir Louis Mbanefo, Dr. Eni Njoku and several other notables; Lagos was not far off in suiggesting that the 'entire rebel leadership' had assembled in Niger. At the end of the meeting between Ojukwu and the consltative committee - Gowon had returned to Lagos two days previously - a communique was issued. Two versions appear to be in existence; the one broadcast by Niamey radio read: (1) the Nigerian Federal Military Government and Colonel Ojukwu have agreed to meet immediately in Niamey under the chairmanship of President Diori Hamani in order to begin preliminary talks on a speedy resumption of Nigerian peace negotiations; (2) the Nigeruan Federal Military Government and Colonel Ojukwu have agreed to resume as soon as possible peace negotiations in Addis Ababa under the auspices of the O.A.U Consultative Committee on Nigeria.' The version as broadcast by Lagos - and which does not pretend to be a verbatim report - said that the committee had called on both parties to resume peace talks as soon as possible, '... with the objecvtive of preserving Nigeria's territiorial integrity and guaranteeing the security of all its inhabitants.' The committee said, according to this broadcast, that 'it will be in contact with the federal military government, and Ojukwu or his representativs may at any time contact any member government of the committee.' The Lagos version went on to cite two further point of which ther was no mention in the Niamey version, both dealing with relief, and appealing to the two sides to undertake various mesures to alleviate the suffering among war victims.
In view of the strong criticism that has been levelled at the Biafran leadership for its intrasigence, and the high praise heaped o General Gowon and his Government for humanitarian concern and magnanimity, it should be stressed that in Niamey Gowon rejected the O.A.U proposals for a partial truce and international policing of relief routes, while Ojukwu was prepared to accept both these proposals. When Ojukwu returned to Biafra, he gave a press conference at which he was asked whether his invitation to the OAU had meant any form of recognition of him. For once Ojukwu was cautious in his reply: 'Let's put it this way. My presence in Niamey for once represents the O.A.U's acceptance that there are two sides to a conflict.' He would not reveal any further details about the forthcoming Addis Ababa peace talk, but said, 'I find myself in a rather simillar situation as after Aburi.' He did not want to say anything in case Lagos started 'interpreting it, and go back to square one..." (302-303)
The foregoing provides the clear context of the situation, that it was not Ojukwu, but Gowon who rejected the proposals by which Ojukwu and the Biafran leadership was prepared to abide. The context is clearly established and makes nonsense of Golsdstein's ground for resignation. While the Biafran government was prepared to act without precondition, the Nigerian authorities persistenly insisted on Biafran surrender. It was a deliberate and determined argument made to make certain that the only solution was by a military solution because Lagos knew that the basic grounds on which it made its offer of relief was conditional and unconscionable. It was to disavow the very basic reason why Biafra defended itself in the first place: its sovereignty as a means to the safety, security and dignity of its population. Now, were the Gowon administration acting in good faith, that would be a differet matter. What guaratees could Biafrans have, had Ojukwu surrendered as a condition for food? None. Here is the evidence narrated by John Stremlau in his The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War how Gowon's cable upturned the agreements reached in May 1968 in kampala between Eni Njoku and Enahoro in which Eni Njoku had in fact "conceded the evntuality of one-Nigeria." As Stremalau notes, "Whereas Enahoro had left acceptance of the twelve-state structure implicit in his propsals, Gowon insisted that before any agreement was reached the rebels must explictly embrace the twelve states. In addition, Gowon stipulated that there would be no question of an interim commission for the rebel-held areas, there would be no recruitment and formation of Ibo units into the federal armed forces, and no elements of the rebel troops or police would be allowed to retain their arms. Gowon's instruction, which did not reach Kampala until shortly after Enahoro had made his presentation, clearly reflected the views of the more hawkish elements in the federal government" (172-173).
To put these in summary (a) Ojukwu did not reject relief, he wanted the security and guarantee of safety for Biafrans. He was in fact willing to accept the O.A.U's proposals (b) Gowon and the Lagos administration manipulated international propaganda, as testified in the versions of the broadcasts of the Niamey agreement to further its own goals of the liquidation of Biafra (c) The federal government was not, in spite of all the efforts made by the Biafrans willing to negotiate peace, they were hell-bent on "surrender" as the only condition for the survival of the Biagfran population. If anybody must bear responsbility, it must be those who kept using the talks to elongate the suffering of the civilian population, and clearly this are the 'hawks" who placed the only condition for peace on Biafra's surrender and liquidation. And there, you have it.
Obi Nwakanma
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From: alu...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 04:28:54 +0100
Subject: NigerianID | Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
Dear Emmanuel:
It is obsfucation at its most blatant to read Goldstein letter outside of the rationale for action taken by Ojukwu and the Biafran leadership. I'll attempt to answer your earlier questions posed to me alonsgide this, because they are related. The first question was why Ojukwu did not, given that Biafra had shrunk dramatically, not surrender to save starving Biafrans. The second is, to link it to the substance of Goldstein's letter, why Ojukwu insisted on ceasefire and the airlift of relief to Biafrans as the only grounds or conditions for accepting relief. First, Ojukwu knew that an internationally observed ceasefire was the only guarantee for the security and safety of the Biafran. Second, the atrocities recorded wherever the federal forces liberated lent credence to that demand. In fact, it made it imperative, particularly because the Lagos regime was not prepared to negotiate in true faith for the amicable end of the conflict. The war strategy of the Gowon administration was hell-bent on Biafra's complete surrender without guarantees. No political and military leader will agree to that kind of suicide. I'll return to this point. But let me quote from Susan Cronje's quite illuminating book, The World and Nigeria: The Diplomatic History of the Biafran war 1967-1970 ( I'd also recommend that you read the other, Biafra: Britain's Shame). Cronje writes this about the meeting in Niamey referenced by Goldstein:
"The Nigerian delegation was led by Chief Awolowo, but General Gowon arrived in Niamey on 16 July and addressed the meeting as an 'observer.' The main theme of his speech was a warning that if the 'rebels persist in their contemptuous attitude to the conference table the federal government will have no choice but to take over the remaining rebel-held areas...In military terms the rebellion is virtually suppressed already.' But the atmosphere had suibtly changed. hamani diori had altrady suggested that the committee's consultative role should be changed to a mediatory one, and after Gowon's address the committee went into closed session. Eventually it was announced that that Ojukwu had been asked to attend, and Gowon who had already returned to Lagos flew back to Niamey the following day, cancelling all engagements. His presence in Niamey was required not for a meeting with Ojukwu but to reply to a truce proposal put forward among others by General Ankrah. This called for a ten-mile wide demilitarized zone patrolled by neutral troops to allow relief supplies to pass to Biafran refugees. According to one account of the debate, Gowon is said to have turned to General Ankrah, saying, 'You are a military man: you know what it is with commanders.' The suggestion that he might be unable to restrain his army was reinforced when he warned the committee that if it did not see things his way they would have to have 'a Nigeria without me.' According to a Niamey radio report the following day, General Gowon rejected the resolution put to him by the O.A.U. committee; the main points of this resolution were the establishment of a demilitarized zone and 'an international force which would include neutral observers acceptable to both sides.' Ghana and Cameroun, the broadcast said, had offered shipping facilities for moving relief supplies.
Ojukwu arrived in Niamey on 19 July in President Houphet-Boigny's private jet. The Biafran delegation, when it was fully assembled, included Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the former Nigerian president, Dr. Okpara, former Eastern Nigerian premier, Sir Louis Mbanefo, Dr. Eni Njoku and several other notables; Lagos was not far off in suiggesting that the 'entire rebel leadership' had assembled in Niger. At the end of the meeting between Ojukwu and the consltative committee - Gowon had returned to Lagos two days previously - a communique was issued. Two versions appear to be in existence; the one broadcast by Niamey radio read: (1) the Nigerian Federal Military Government and Colonel Ojukwu have agreed to meet immediately in Niamey under the chairmanship of President Diori Hamani in order to begin preliminary talks on a speedy resumption of Nigerian peace negotiations; (2) the Nigeruan Federal Military Government and Colonel Ojukwu have agreed to resume as soon as possible peace negotiations in Addis Ababa under the auspices of the O.A.U Consultative Committee on Nigeria.' The version as broadcast by Lagos - and which does not pretend to be a verbatim report - said that the committee had called on both parties to resume peace talks as soon as possible, '... with the objecvtive of preserving Nigeria's territiorial integrity and guaranteeing the security of all its inhabitants.' The committee said, according to this broadcast, that 'it will be in contact with the federal military government, and Ojukwu or his representativs may at any time contact any member government of the committee.' The Lagos version went on to cite two further point of which ther was no mention in the Niamey version, both dealing with relief, and appealing to the two sides to undertake various mesures to alleviate the suffering among war victims.
In view of the strong criticism that has been levelled at the Biafran leadership for its intrasigence, and the high praise heaped o General Gowon and his Government for humanitarian concern and magnanimity, it should be stressed that in Niamey Gowon rejected the O.A.U proposals for a partial truce and international policing of relief routes, while Ojukwu was prepared to accept both these proposals. When Ojukwu returned to Biafra, he gave a press conference at which he was asked whether his invitation to the OAU had meant any form of recognition of him. For once Ojukwu was cautious in his reply: 'Let's put it this way. My presence in Niamey for once represents the O.A.U's acceptance that there are two sides to a conflict.' He would not reveal any further details about the forthcoming Addis Ababa peace talk, but said, 'I find myself in a rather simillar situation as after Aburi.' He did not want to say anything in case Lagos started 'interpreting it, and go back to square one..." (302-303)
The foregoing provides the clear context of the situation, that it was not Ojukwu, but Gowon who rejected the proposals by which Ojukwu and the Biafran leadership was prepared to abide. The context is clearly established and makes nonsense of Golsdstein's ground for resignation. While the Biafran government was prepared to act without precondition, the Nigerian authorities persistenly insisted on Biafran surrender. It was a deliberate and determined argument made to make certain that the only solution was by a military solution because Lagos knew that the basic grounds on which it made its offer of relief was conditional and unconscionable. It was to disavow the very basic reason why Biafra defended itself in the first place: its sovereignty as a means to the safety, security and dignity of its population. Now, were the Gowon administration acting in good faith, that would be a differet matter. What guaratees could Biafrans have, had Ojukwu surrendered as a condition for food? None. Here is the evidence narrated by John Stremlau in his The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War how Gowon's cable upturned the agreements reached in May 1968 in kampala between Eni Njoku and Enahoro in which Eni Njoku had in fact "conceded the evntuality of one-Nigeria." As Stremalau notes, "Whereas Enahoro had left acceptance of the twelve-state structure implicit in his propsals, Gowon insisted that before any agreement was reached the rebels must explictly embrace the twelve states. In addition, Gowon stipulated that there would be no question of an interim commission for the rebel-held areas, there would be no recruitment and formation of Ibo units into the federal armed forces, and no elements of the rebel troops or police would be allowed to retain their arms. Gowon's instruction, which did not reach Kampala until shortly after Enahoro had made his presentation, clearly reflected the views of the more hawkish elements in the federal government" (172-173).
To put these in summary (a) Ojukwu did not reject relief, he wanted the security and guarantee of safety for Biafrans. He was in fact willing to accept the O.A.U's proposals (b) Gowon and the Lagos administration manipulated international propaganda, as testified in the versions of the broadcasts of the Niamey agreement to further its own goals of the liquidation of Biafra (c) The federal government was not, in spite of all the efforts made by the Biafrans willing to negotiate peace, they were hell-bent on "surrender" as the only condition for the survival of the Biagfran population. If anybody must bear responsbility, it must be those who kept using the talks to elongate the suffering of the civilian population, and clearly this are the 'hawks" who placed the only condition for peace on Biafra's surrender and liquidation. And there, you have it.
Obi Nwakanma
To: naijain...@googlegroups.com
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From: alu...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 04:28:54 +0100
Subject: NigerianID | Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 3:10 AM, Emmanuel U. Obi <bizo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Sworn Igbo haters will always dig up stuff from spurious sources in furtherance of their agenda. One thing I have learned over the years is to ignore all the nonesense once they come from the traditional sources of misinformation about the Igbos .
It is trite to call anybody and everybody who offers another story to yours or others on Biafra as "Igbo haters." It merely arrests debates because the name caller can also be called a "Nigeria hater", or "Yoruba hater" or "Hausa hater" - then what?
Based on the letter revealed below by Nowa Omoigui, the questions that should be asked are:
1. Is/Was there a Robert S. Goldstein, and was he an appointed American PR for the Republic of Biafra?
At the very minimum, it appears that there was (It appears that the correct name is "Robert L. Goldstein". ) Look at this document:
and you will see:
QUOTE
Confidential
U.S. State Department
Central Files
BIAFRA-NIGERIA
1967–1969
POLITICAL AFFAIRS
--- materials deleted-----
0253 POL 27 BIAFRA-NIGERIA Military Operations.
[FMG-Biafra dispute over transportation of war
relief; ICRC, JCA, and French Red Cross use of
U.S. aircraft; Commonwealth Secretariat peace
initiatives; USSR relations with FMG and Muslim
countries; Ivory Coast–South Africa relations;
David Rockefeller; Biafra relations with France,
Gabon, Israel, Ivory Coast, South Africa,
Tanzania, and Zambia; Félix Houphouët-Boigny;
Carl Gustaf von Rosen; Ethiopian Red Cross;
Robert L. Goldstein public relations campaign on
behalf of Biafra; Biafran retention of U.S. law
firm Surrey, Karasik, Gould and Green; Biafran
treaty obligations.]
.. materials deleted...
0320 POL 27 BIAFRA-NIGERIA Military Operations.
[International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions; Biafra-Tanzania relations; war
casualties; John Horgan; death of Marc
Auerbach; World Council of Churches; Catholic
Church; Elbert G. Mathews; Commonwealth
Secretariat peace initiative; Arnold Smith;
postwar rehabilitation planning; Robert L.
Goldstein fund-raising for Biafra.]
0321 March 1968
... materials deleted....
0613 POL 27-9 BIAFRA-NIGERIA Military Operations: War Damage.
[ICRC; war relief; Hank Warton; Joseph Palmer
II; Hamani Diori; Dean Rusk; hunger and
malnutrition; refugees; Finland, Norway, U.S.,
and USSR relief contributions; Donald E.
Lukens; UN Economic and Social Council;
UNICEF; Eugene J. McCarthy; International
Council of Voluntary Agencies; OAU peace
talks; FRG; Yakubu Gowon; Auguste R. Lindt;
Henry R. Labouisse; Nicholas Katzenbach;
Julius Nyerere; British Red Cross; Robert L.
Goldstein; Kenneth Kaunda; David Hunt.]
0613 July 1968
UNQUOTE
For more on this document, including names of Nigerians mentioned, and its Scope and Content, see the Appendix far below.
2. Is/Was there a Collins Obih of ACB, and did Goldstein return some money to Ojukwu (with Letter of Credit No. 354 $400,000 US through Obih?
In fact, there is a Chief Collins K,. Nnadi Obih (from Ideato South), now late, but one time General Manager of Africa Continental Bank (ACB). see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideato_South Achuzia mentioned him recently: http://afripol.org/afripol/item/809-col-achuzia-supports-achebe-claims-gowon-and-awo-were-behind-genocide-plot-against-igbos.html
3. Did Goldstein return a Bond of 200,000 pounds issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria?
About this, I have no information.
But all of these should be confirmable if the truth - which is stubborn - is to be determined.
As Chinamanda says, there is never just a "single story" - and again, we thank Prof. Chinua Achebe.
And there you have it. Let us keep it civil.
Bolaji Aluko
____________________________________________
From: Nowa Omoigui <now...@yahoo.com>
Sender: edo-...@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:32:40 -0700 (PDT)
To: <def...@egroups.com>
ReplyTo: edo-...@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Edo-ciao Robert S. Goldstein: Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
OPEN LETTER OF RESIGNATION TO ODUMEGWU OJUKWU
FROM Robert S. Goldstein
Public Relations Representative of Biafra in the United States
(Published in the Morning Post, Lagos, August 17, 1968)
As your Public Relation's Representative in the United States, it is my distasteful duty to tender my resignation based on the following points:
POINT 1 - In November of 1967 when we met in Umuahia, you and your Cabinet were very impressive. You told me of the woes of your little Republic, that thousands of people had died, were dying and more were prepared to die for freedom's sake.
You and your Cabinet told me you believed world opinion would help your cause if you could get your story across.
You expressed the opinion that very few if any people in the United States knew of the plight of the Biafrans.
You asked me to tell the world that Britain had teamed up with Russia in a conspiracy with the Federal Government of Nigeria to murder every Ibo in Biafra. You suggested I use my talents to induce the Press to write about the Biafran side of the war, as at that time all news came out of Lagos.
You will recall I did not take the asssignment that day but stayed on several days before deciding to take that job.
To help win the peace
At that time I stated to you and your cabinet that I was taking the assignment making it crystal clear I would try my best to help win the peace not the war.
POINT TWO - I immediately arranged the first world Press conference in Biafra inviting the US Press as well as journalists and television people from England, France, Switzerland, Africa and other parts of the Globe. This was the first news break through. I arranged regular trips into Biafra for the world Press, helped set up stringers, etc., so that your statements and the statements of your Cabinet would be heard.
At that time, I was absolutely positive you were right and your cause was a just one in the best interests of the free world and your countrymen.
POINT THREE - Finally the Republic of Biafra was recognized first by Tanzania, then quickly followed by Gabon, the Ivory Coast and Zambia. Our public relations work was paying off, world opnion was starting to side with us.
Peace talks were arranged at Kampala. I thought that if anyone walked away from the table it would be the Federal Government. But to my dismay it was Biafra that left the Conference. After all the fighting and killing, I knew that peace would not come easy but I could not understand leaving the Peace Conference until the last point was negotiated and the avenue explored.
POINT FOUR - Then urgent telex messages were received from 'Biafra' telling of tens of thousands of people starving in the refugee camps, the villages, the bush country - stating if something werent done in the next few months over a million women, children and aged would be starved to death. I immediately contacted the Press, urgently petitioned the State Department for action on their part. Food, medicine and milk were sent to the only available ports open for immediate shipment to 'Biafra' via land routes through Federal and Biafra territory, under the auspices of world organizations such as the International Red Cross among others.
Then came the incredible answer from 'Biafra' that land corridors could not be acceptable until there was a complete ceasefire, and that an airlift was the only solution to feed the starving.
You then appeared before the various Heads of State and representatives of the OAU at Niamey in Niger. I fully expected you to at least accept the world help that was offered your starving throngs. However, you delayed, hoping to use these unfortunates with world sympathy on their side as a tool to further your ambition to achieve war concessions at the upcoming peace talks in Addis Ababa. Thus innocent victims continue to perish needlessly of starvation, the most agonising death that can befall any living creature.
POINT FIVE - This was incredible to me. I am now convinced that I have been used by you and your cabinet to help in military adventures of your origin....using your starving hordes as hostages to negotiate a victory.
If at some later date, following the isuance of this letter, you do concede to allow a mercy land corridor...would you expect me to agree to espouse before the world Press the incredible delay of your decision. What explanation could I honestly give for the needless prolongation of this horror.
Inconceivable acts
I pray this communication may in some small way influence you to move affirmatively, allowing the mercy land corridor to be born.
It is inconceivable to me that you would stop the feeding of thousands of your countrymen (under auspicies of world organizations such as the International Red Cross, World Council of Churches and many more) via a land corridor which is the only practical way to bring in food to help at this time. It is inconcivable to me that men of good faith would try to twist world opinion in such a manner as to deceive people into believing that the starvation and hunger that is consuming 'Biafra' is a plot of Britian, Nigeria and others to commit genocide.
POINT SIX - I cannot in all conscience serve you any longer. Nor can I be a party to suppressing the fact that your starving thousands have the food, medicine and milk available to them.....it can and is ready to be delivered through international organizations to you. Only your constant refusal has stopped its delivery.
I am this date, tendering my resignation and am returning to Mr. Collins Obih of the African Continental Bank all the fees you have given me (Letter of Credit No. 354 $400,000 US.)
I have sent your representative in New York a Bond in the amount of 800.000 pounds that I was holding in your behalf. I have also this date, sent the Bond of 200,000 pounds issues by the Central Bankl of Nigeria back to them for disposal.
FROM Robert S. Goldstein
Public Relations Representative of Biafra in the United States
(Published in the Morning Post, Lagos, August 17, 1968)
As your Public Relation's Representative in the United States, it is my distasteful duty to tender my resignation based on the following points:
POINT 1 - In November of 1967 when we met in Umuahia, you and your Cabinet were very impressive. You told me of the woes of your little Republic, that thousands of people had died, were dying and more were prepared to die for freedom's sake.
You and your Cabinet told me you believed world opinion would help your cause if you could get your story across.
You expressed the opinion that very few if any people in the United States knew of the plight of the Biafrans.
You asked me to tell the world that Britain had teamed up with Russia in a conspiracy with the Federal Government of Nigeria to murder every Ibo in Biafra. You suggested I use my talents to induce the Press to write about the Biafran side of the war, as at that time all news came out of Lagos.
You will recall I did not take the asssignment that day but stayed on several days before deciding to take that job.
To help win the peace
At that time I stated to you and your cabinet that I was taking the assignment making it crystal clear I would try my best to help win the peace not the war.
POINT TWO - I immediately arranged the first world Press conference in Biafra inviting the US Press as well as journalists and television people from England, France, Switzerland, Africa and other parts of the Globe. This was the first news break through. I arranged regular trips into Biafra for the world Press, helped set up stringers, etc., so that your statements and the statements of your Cabinet would be heard.
At that time, I was absolutely positive you were right and your cause was a just one in the best interests of the free world and your countrymen.
POINT THREE - Finally the Republic of Biafra was recognized first by Tanzania, then quickly followed by Gabon, the Ivory Coast and Zambia. Our public relations work was paying off, world opnion was starting to side with us.
Peace talks were arranged at Kampala. I thought that if anyone walked away from the table it would be the Federal Government. But to my dismay it was Biafra that left the Conference. After all the fighting and killing, I knew that peace would not come easy but I could not understand leaving the Peace Conference until the last point was negotiated and the avenue explored.
POINT FOUR - Then urgent telex messages were received from 'Biafra' telling of tens of thousands of people starving in the refugee camps, the villages, the bush country - stating if something werent done in the next few months over a million women, children and aged would be starved to death. I immediately contacted the Press, urgently petitioned the State Department for action on their part. Food, medicine and milk were sent to the only available ports open for immediate shipment to 'Biafra' via land routes through Federal and Biafra territory, under the auspices of world organizations such as the International Red Cross among others.
Then came the incredible answer from 'Biafra' that land corridors could not be acceptable until there was a complete ceasefire, and that an airlift was the only solution to feed the starving.
You then appeared before the various Heads of State and representatives of the OAU at Niamey in Niger. I fully expected you to at least accept the world help that was offered your starving throngs. However, you delayed, hoping to use these unfortunates with world sympathy on their side as a tool to further your ambition to achieve war concessions at the upcoming peace talks in Addis Ababa. Thus innocent victims continue to perish needlessly of starvation, the most agonising death that can befall any living creature.
POINT FIVE - This was incredible to me. I am now convinced that I have been used by you and your cabinet to help in military adventures of your origin....using your starving hordes as hostages to negotiate a victory.
If at some later date, following the isuance of this letter, you do concede to allow a mercy land corridor...would you expect me to agree to espouse before the world Press the incredible delay of your decision. What explanation could I honestly give for the needless prolongation of this horror.
Inconceivable acts
I pray this communication may in some small way influence you to move affirmatively, allowing the mercy land corridor to be born.
It is inconceivable to me that you would stop the feeding of thousands of your countrymen (under auspicies of world organizations such as the International Red Cross, World Council of Churches and many more) via a land corridor which is the only practical way to bring in food to help at this time. It is inconcivable to me that men of good faith would try to twist world opinion in such a manner as to deceive people into believing that the starvation and hunger that is consuming 'Biafra' is a plot of Britian, Nigeria and others to commit genocide.
POINT SIX - I cannot in all conscience serve you any longer. Nor can I be a party to suppressing the fact that your starving thousands have the food, medicine and milk available to them.....it can and is ready to be delivered through international organizations to you. Only your constant refusal has stopped its delivery.
I am this date, tendering my resignation and am returning to Mr. Collins Obih of the African Continental Bank all the fees you have given me (Letter of Credit No. 354 $400,000 US.)
I have sent your representative in New York a Bond in the amount of 800.000 pounds that I was holding in your behalf. I have also this date, sent the Bond of 200,000 pounds issues by the Central Bankl of Nigeria back to them for disposal.
POINT SEVEN - I am now convinced that one Nigeria is the only solution to peace. I also call upon you Mr. Ojukwu to allow your starving people to be fed. Their well-being is of deep concern to me as well as other right thinking people of the world. Your acting in the utmost haste in this matter is in my opinion the first step toward any lasting peace in your country.
________________________
APPENDIX (put together by Bolaji Aluko)
Nigerians mentioned in the US Diplomatic Files, and the Lexis-Nexis Index for them follow the names
Achebe, Chinua
1: 0569; 5: 0420
Adebo, Chief S. O.
5: 0001
Adekunle, Benjamin
6: 0002; 8: 0150, 0715; 9: 0622;
11: 0619
Akinjide, Richard O. A.
5: 0639
Akpan, N. U.
2: 0162, 0291; 3: 0404; 16: 0199;
19: 0002; 21: 0726
Aluko, Samuel A.
5: 0639
Amachree, Godfrey
1: 0239
Arikpo, Okoi
1: 0034; 2: 0291, 0923; 3: 0927;
4: 0429, 0840; 5: 0001, 0825;
6: 0002–0259; 7: 0002, 0351;
8: 0001; 9: 0176, 0622; 10: 0389;
11: 0002, 0830; 13: 0316, 0630,
0820; 14: 0001–0440, 0765;
15: 0002–0183, 0556–0769;
16: 0130, 0396, 0536, 0832;
17: 0002, 0447; 18: 0002, 0297,
0835; 19: 0002, 0849; 20: 0001,
0167, 0352, 0615–0861; 21: 0119,
0235, 0339, 0450
Asika, Ukpabi
1: 0239, 0740; 4: 0429, 0650; 5: 0001,
0420
Awolowo, Obafemi
2: 0923; 3: 0165; 7: 0735; 9: 0622
Azikiwe, Nnamdi
1: 0017, 0034, 0304, 0569; 2: 0102;
4: 0002, 0650; 6: 0002; 7: 0351;
8: 0001, 0150; 9: 0176, 0461;
13: 0002; 17: 0725; 19: 0849;
20: 0861; 21: 0119
Balewa, Abubakar Tafawa
7: 0351
Bamali, Nuhu
20: 0001
Banjo, Victor
3: 0001, 0691, 0927; 4: 0650
Ciroma, Adamu
3: 0001; 5: 0001
Cookey, S. J. S.
21: 0235
Dike, Kenneth
15: 0002; 18: 0297; 19: 0849; 21: 0002
Enahoro, Anthony
3: 0404, 0927; 13: 0820; 16: 0002,
0684; 18: 0297; 19: 0002, 0280;
20: 0001, 0352–0861; 21: 0119,
0235, 0339
Enahoro, Edward
2: 0291; 7: 0002; 11: 0208; 13: 0323,
0327; 16: 0130; 17: 0145; 18: 0002;
21: 0450
Enwonwu, Ben
6: 0910
Essien-Udom, E. U.
8: 0150, 0467
Fafunwa, Babatunde “Babs”
9: 0002
Gowon, Yakubu
1: 0001, 0034; 2: 0601–0685; 3: 0001,
0404–0927; 4: 0177, 0429; 5: 0001,
0420, 0639, 0825; 6: 0002, 0259,
0598; 7: 0351; 8: 0150–0715;
9: 0176, 0795; 10: 0133, 0613,
0862; 11: 0002, 0208, 0619;
12: 0192; 13: 0002, 0323, 0630,
0820; 14: 0182, 0625; 15: 0369;
16: 0243, 0459, 0832; 17: 0002,
0145, 0447, 0980; 18: 0002, 0297;
19: 0280, 0849; 20: 0001, 0167,
0615; 21: 0002, 0119, 0450
Ibiam, Akanu
1: 0034; 4: 0002
Ige, Bola
6: 0002
Ironsi, J. T. Aguiyi-
5: 0420
Isong, Clement
4: 0177
Iyalla, Joe
1: 0034; 9: 0622, 0795; 14: 0001, 0182;
15: 0002, 0556; 16: 0396; 17: 0980;
18: 0297; 19: 0280; 21: 0339
Katsina, Hassan
2: 0291, 0685; 4: 0650; 8: 0150;
20: 0615
Kolo, Sule
16: 0089; 17: 0257; 18: 0297
Martins, N. Ade
1: 0422; 2: 0685; 3: 0404; 4: 0177
Mbanefo, Louis
1: 0422; 2: 0162, 0291, 0923; 7: 0351;
8: 0467; 10: 0389; 16: 0199;
19: 0002; 20: 0001, 0167, 0308,
0861; 21: 0450
Mohammed, Murtala
3: 0404; 4: 0002, 0840; 5: 0639
Mojekwu, Christopher C.
1: 0034; 3: 0001, 0927; 16: 0130;
17: 0002; 18: 0835; 20: 0247, 0861
Nwogu, Egbert
1: 0034
Nzeogwu, Chukwuma Kaduna
3: 0001; 19: 0971
Odaka, Sam
20: 0001
Odumosu, Peter
5: 0639; 6: 0598; 9: 0176
Ogbemudia, Samuel
4: 0650
Oji, Andrew C.
12: 0002
Ojukwu, C. Odumegwu
1: 0017, 0034, 0304–0569; 2: 0291–
0685; 3: 0001, 0927; 4: 0177;
5: 0001, 0420–0825; 6: 0002–0598;
7: 0173–0351; 8: 0001, 0467, 0715;
9: 0002–0461, 0795; 10: 0133;
11: 0002, 0830; 12: 0407; 13: 0002;
14: 0182, 0625; 15: 0369, 0769;
16: 0759; 17: 0002, 0145; 18: 0002,
0835; 19: 0280, 0849; 20: 0001,
0308, 0615; 21: 0235, 0339, 0717
Okigbo, Pius
1: 0034; 8: 0467, 0933; 14: 0182;
17: 0257; 21: 0002, 0450, 0717
Okonkwo, Albert
4: 0650
Okpara, Michael
1: 0034, 0245; 2: 0102; 4: 0840;
5: 0639; 7: 0351
Okwu, Austin
4: 0429; 16: 0130; 21: 0450
Omobare, Timothy
2: 0291; 12: 0407; 18: 0835
Onyiuke, Gabriel
7: 0173
Otue, Nwonye
6: 0259; 21: 0726
Owono, Joseph
11: 0401
Soyinka, Laide
4: 0650
Soyinka, Wole
3: 0001; 4: 0429, 0650; 8: 0715;
15: 0183
Wachuku, Jaja
1: 0029
SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
The U.S. State Department Central Files are the definitive source of American
diplomatic reporting on political, military, social, and economic developments throughout
the world in the twentieth century. This edition consists of the Central Files for Biafra-
Nigeria for the period between 1967 and 1969, arranged according to the State
Department Records Classification System, February 1963–July 1973. The files here,
consisting entirely of subjects from the category POL (Political Affairs and Relations),
contain cables and letters sent and received by U.S. diplomats and embassy personnel;
reports on meetings between U.S. and foreign government officials and leaders;
newspaper clippings and summaries of international press reports; transcripts of
speeches; and reports and observations on political, military, and social affairs.
On May 30, 1967, Lieutenant Colonel C. Odumegwu “Emeka” Ojukwu, the military
governor of Nigeria’s eastern region, declared the independence of the “Republic of
Biafra” (Reel 1, Frames 0497–0507). Ojukwu led a breakaway movement composed
primarily of ethnic Ibos who had suffered persecution and massacre at the hands of
supporters of Nigeria’s Federal Military Government (FMG). Refusing to acknowledge
the secession, the FMG, led by Major General Yakubu Gowon, invaded Biafran territory
in July, commencing a brutal civil war that would last two and a half years and claim the
lives of between 500,000 and two million Nigerians. Most of the victims died of starvation
and disease brought on by the encirclement of the Biafran enclave, a situation
exacerbated by political disputes that hindered efforts to bring food and medical supplies
to the besieged population.
The U.S. government, under the administrations of Presidents Lyndon Baines
Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, officially maintained a policy of neutrality toward the
conflict, deeming it “essentially a Nigerian, African, and [British] Commonwealth matter”
(Reel 3, Frame 0549), but the reality of U.S. involvement was more complex. Despite an
arms embargo prohibiting military assistance to either side, the U.S. government
continued to recognize the FMG as Nigeria’s sole government while becoming one of
the key international sources for humanitarian relief for the Biafran people. As Assistant
Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs William B. Macomber Jr. explained to a
congressional inquiry, “this conflict has its roots in tribal and regional animosities which
cannot be exclusively blamed on either side” (Reel 6, Frame 0176), and U.S. policy
makers attempted to balance the competing diplomatic and humanitarian demands that
the conflict posed.
This edition of Central Files opens with three reels of material that establishes the
political background to the Nigerian Civil War and introduces the individuals and issues
covered throughout the collection. In addition to extensive documentation on Gowon,
Ojukwu, and other military and government officials on both sides of the conflict, the files
detail the involvement of missionaries and mercenaries, European and African
diplomats, nongovernmental organizations and private citizens, and the oil industry,
principally Shell-British Petroleum and the French state company Société Anonyme
Française des Recherches et d’Exploitation de Pétrole (SAFRAP; now Elf Petroleum
Nigeria Limited), both with critical interests in their Nigerian operations threatened by
the war.
The next portion of the collection consists of material filed under the general heading
“military operations” and runs from Reel 2, Frame 0601, through the end of Reel 9. In
addition to topics already mentioned, this section provides day-by-day, month-by-month
accounts of military actions, diplomatic maneuverings, and the international reach of the
Nigerian Civil War. The United Kingdom and Soviet Union—an unlikely collaboration
amidst global cold war tensions—supplied arms to Gowon’s FMG, Britain only a few
years removed from colonial control over Nigeria, the Soviet Union attempting to gain
influence on the African continent. Ojukwu relied on France and Portugal for military aid
and succeeded in gaining diplomatic recognition from only five small countries—
Tanzania, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Zambia, and Haiti. Peppered throughout the collection
are documents relating to the efforts of both sides to develop and enhance relations
(diplomatic, economic, and military) with other countries.
The third main category of material, “war damage,” begins on Reel 10, Frame 0133,
and continues through the folder beginning at Reel 19, Frame 0614. This section
provides an almost-daily narrative of the enormous humanitarian crisis brought on by the
war and the efforts of various actors, notably the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC) and Joint Church Aid (JCA), to address those needs. The scope of the
tragedy is made apparent in a report noting the estimate of Auguste R. Lindt, the United
Nations High Commissioner for Nigerian relief operations, that the ICRC in November
1968 was “feeding 850,000 in Biafra…3 meals per week” (Reel 12, Frame 0617).
Despite the magnitude of need, analysts determined that “the basic obstacle to
increasing food deliveries to…Biafra is political rather than the inadequacy of supplies of
availability of transport” (Reel 7, Frame 0806; see also Reel 10, Frame 0730, for
evidence of the availability of “sufficient supplies for immediate short term relief”).
Inhibiting the movement of food and medicine was the problem of relief routes. Biafran
leaders refused to accept supplies transported by truck through FMG-held territory (Reel
6, Frames 0111 and 0254), fearing that such would open a corridor through which
government troops might advance. Meanwhile, airlifts from nearby islands proved
hazardous and limited by poor landing facilities (Reel 10, Frame 0909), and Gowon’s
government suspected that arms were being smuggled into Biafra on flights originating
in Portuguese-ruled Sao Tome and Fernando Po (Reel 12, Frames 0007–0010).
Also in this section are glimpses into the heartbreak felt around the world by the
Biafran tragedy, especially following the “discovery” of the crisis by the major news
media in mid-1968. Reportage in the New York Times by Lloyd M. Garrison and Gloria
Emerson, in the Washington Post by Donald Louchheim, Alfred Friendly Jr., and
Anthony Astrachan, and by a host of international correspondents, freelancers, and
photojournalists, captured the stories and pictures of the suffering, starvation, and
refugee crisis brought on by the war. One letter representative of the impact of the
conflict on the lives of ordinary people was written by Mrs. Betty C. Carter of
Washington, D.C., to Dean Rusk on July 25, 1968:
Yesterday evening while eating dinner and watching the news I was unable to
finish eating upon seeing the faces of starving children, babies, men, and women
in Biafra. I felt nauseated because of having so much when these people were in
obvious pain and in dire need of food. I cannot bear to see anyone in need when
I have something to share. Though it is not possible for me to go to Biafra at this
time, I felt the least I could do was write to you and express my concern for these
people and ask that the U.S. and other concerned governments and the United
Nations press for a cease fire. I am sending a check to the World Church Service
today to help the starving Biafrans (Reel 10, Frame 0895).
That same day, U.S. Army Specialist John G. Moss wrote from Vietnam, enclosing a
check for $10 “to help these desperate people” (Reel 11, Frame 0370). Petitions,
resolutions, and appeals with dozens (and often hundreds) of signatures came from
groups such as the Oregon State Legislature (Reel 8, Frame 0755), the Ithaca, New
York, Junior Chamber of Commerce (Reel 7, Frame 0265), the Washington and
Northern Idaho Council of Churches (Reel 7, Frame 0369), the Catholic War Veterans of
Ohio (Reel 11, Frame 0404), the editorial staff of Doubleday publishers in New York
(Reel 11, Frame 0413), and residents of Ottawa, Kansas (Reel 13, Frames 0372–0375),
Dayton, Ohio (Reel 14, Frame 0205), and Hanover and Lebanon, New Hampshire, and
White River Junction, Vermont (Reel 17, Frames 0127–0129). Also here is material on
some of the organizations formally created to rally support for the Biafran cause, such as
the American Committee to Keep Biafra Alive (Reel 1, Frames 0637–0638) and the
Americans for Biafran Relief (Reel 14, Frame 0807). By June 1969 the hit CBS
television news program 60 Minutes featured segments reporting from both sides of the
conflict; a description and transcript of the episode is reproduced on Reel 16, Frames
0413–0417.
The collection concludes with two reels of material related to seeking a halt to the
fighting. Peace proposals, including efforts to secure truces during the Christmas holiday
in 1968 and 1969, were initiated by the Organization of African Unity, led by Ethiopian
Emperor Haile Selassie; the Commonwealth Secretariat under Secretary-General Arnold
C. Smith; and the British government through Minister of State for Commonwealth
Affairs Lord (Malcolm Newton) Shepherd. Despite good intentions, political and
diplomatic efforts failed to end the violence.
Other notable international figures who appear in the documents include United
Nations Secretary General U Thant; British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Foreign
Secretary Michael Stewart; French President Charles de Gaulle and Foreign Minister
Michel Debré; African leaders Ahmadou Ahidjo (Cameroon), Hamani Diori (Niger), Albert
Bongo (Gabon), Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Ivory Coast), Julius Nyerere (Tanzania), Émile
Derlin Zinsou (Dahomey, now Benin), Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia), William V. S. Tubman
(Liberia), and Léopold Senghor (Senegal); Biafran envoy and top advisor to Ojukwu,
Louis Mbanefo; Nigerian writers Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, who was arrested by
the FMG in August 1967 on charges (later dropped) of involvement in espionage on
behalf of the rebels (see Reel 3, Frames 0701–0702, and Reel 4, Frame 0455–0456);
and the first president of independent Nigeria and one-time spokesman for the Biafran
cause, Nnamdi (“Zik”) Azikiwe. The collection also includes material on debates in British
Parliament over the UK’s role in Nigeria (see for example Reel 7, Frame 0479–0482).
U.S. government officials with prominent roles in the Nigerian crisis include
ambassadors to Nigeria Elbert G. Mathews and William C. Trueheart; ambassadors
David K. E. Bruce (UK), Sargent Shriver (France), William O. Hall (Ethiopia), and Roger
W. Tubby (chief of U.S. mission to the European Office of the United Nations in
Geneva); assistant secretaries of state for African affairs Joseph Palmer II and David
Newsom and their deputy C. Robert Moore; secretaries of state Dean Rusk and William
P. Rogers; Nixon administration undersecretary of state Elliot Richardson; and members
of Congress Allard Lowenstein, Donald Lukens, Joseph Resnick, Charles Diggs, Charles
Goodell, Edward M. Kennedy, and Eugene McCarthy.
One unique feature of this particular edition of Confidential U.S. State Department
Central Files is that the collection is very nearly coterminous with the civil war itself. The
files here conclude chronologically with dispatches between the U.S. Embassy in Lagos
and the State Department in Washington in late 1969 as the FMG launched a final
offensive. By mid-January 1970, Ojukwu had fled the country and his successor had
formally surrendered and the Biafran resistance collapsed. Despite a relatively
magnanimous period of reconciliation, the devastation of the war left a legacy that
impaired Nigerian unity and development for years. Gowon himself was overthrown in
1975 by a military coup and a return to civilian rule in the late 1970s coincided with a
period of economic crisis that further hindered stability in the country.
Related LexisNexis collections concerning Africa include Confidential U.S. State
Department Central Files: British Africa: Internal Affairs and Foreign Affairs (three
sections: 1945–1949; 1950–1954; and 1955–1959); CIA Research Reports: Africa,
1946–1976; The John F. Kennedy National Security Files, 1961–1963: Africa; The
Lyndon B. Johnson National Security Files, 1963–1969: Africa; The Richard M. Nixon
National Security Files, 1969–1974: Africa; Confidential U.S. State Department Central
Files: Congo, 1960–January 1963; and Confidential U.S. State Department Central
Files: Ghana, 1960–January 1963.
_____________________________________________________________
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Nigerians In Diaspora Organization. Our mission is to promote the spirit of patriotism, networking, and cooperation among Nigerians in Diaspora....
Donate your used Glasses to the "Seeing Changes the View" Nigeria Project at http://www.proudNigerians.org and help someone today. ProudNigerians.Org is an informal movement of like-minded people who wants to see incremental changes in Nigeria and who are leading by taking simple actions and paying it forward. Mobilizing the people is our primary goal.
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Mobolaji Aluko
Oct 16, 2012, 4:48:39 AM10/16/12
to Rex Marinus, alu...@gmail.com, naijain...@googlegroups.com, naijap...@yahoogroups.com, niger...@yahoogroups.com, omo...@yahoogroups.com, usaafric...@googlegroups.com, raay...@yahoogroups.com, now...@yahoo.com
To the best of my knowledge, Awolowo NEVER attended any of the Nigeria-Biafra peace parleys, not to talk of lead any delegation, in these places:
London - May 1968
Kampala - May 1968 (Led by Chief Anthony Enahoro)
Niamey - July 1968 (This was led by Femi Okunu (?)/Allison Ayida (?), NOT Awolowo)
Addis Ababa - August 1968 (led by Enahoro)
Monrovia - April 1969 (Nigerian side led by Okunnu)
So Susan Cronje, in the first line that you quote below, was wrong on that score, and one wonders, on how many other scores. After after many Consultative Committee meetings that eventually culminated in Aburi in January 1967, and after his May 1967 meeting with Ojukwu (before secession was declared) that Ojukwu rebuffed, Awolowo was in no mood during that period to be parleying with Ojukwu who he could no longer trust to abide by his word on the Biafran matter.
The truth be told: looking at the map below, in 1968, Biafra was negotiating from a position of much relative weakness, and it appeared that Nigeria, seizing land after land, and town after town, sensed that, and did not want to do anything to prolong the war short of demanding Biafra's surrender.
That was the tragedy of both military/diplomatic miscalculation and stubborness on all sides. There is enough blame to go around, hawks, doves and pigeons.
And there you have it.
Bolaji Aluko
Mobolaji Aluko
Oct 15, 2012, 11:28:54 PM10/15/12
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Mobolaji Aluko
Oct 16, 2012, 7:28:35 AM10/16/12
to Rex Marinus, alu...@gmail.com, naijain...@googlegroups.com, naijap...@yahoogroups.com, niger...@yahoogroups.com, omo...@yahoogroups.com, usaafric...@googlegroups.com, raay...@yahoogroups.com, now...@yahoo.com
If you place the dates of the recognitions of Biafra by four nations in 1968 (Haiti joined in 1969):
1. Tanzania - April 13, 1968
2. Gabon - May 8, 1968
3. Ivory Coast - May 9, 1968
4. Zambia - May 20, 1968
5. [Haiti - March 22, 1969]
with the dates of the peace parleys:
1. London - May 1968
2. Kampala - May 1968
3. Niamey - July 1968
4. Addis Ababa - August 1968
5. [Monrovia - April 1969]
you will see that there was desperation on both sides of Nigeria and Biafra: Nigeria, seeing more countries recognizing Biafra must have been worried about a Big One (not USA or Britain or even Russia, but maybe France and/or China) doing so; and Biafra, thinking that if it held out long enough, maybe a Big One would recognize it.
In fact, after Monrovia, Gowon is said to have stated that only a military solution would end the Civil War, and broke off further talks that was not about complete surrender of Biafra.
And there you have it.
Bolaji Aluko
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Rex Marinus
Oct 16, 2012, 11:41:41 AM10/16/12
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Dr Aluko:
We can at least finally agree that Goldstein's letter of resignation was based on his own limited intepretation of events, and that the substansive issue of starvation rested on the intansigence of the federal authorities, and not on Ojukwu per se. The desperation to exert the "final solution" given the increasing international support for Biafra, and I agree with you on that, was the possible ground for the federal policy. This fully supports Achebe's position.
Obi Nwakanma
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:28:35 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: NigerianID | Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
From: alu...@gmail.com
To: rexma...@hotmail.com; alu...@gmail.com
CC: naijain...@googlegroups.com; naijap...@yahoogroups.com; niger...@yahoogroups.com; omo...@yahoogroups.com; usaafric...@googlegroups.com; raay...@yahoogroups.com; now...@yahoo.com
We can at least finally agree that Goldstein's letter of resignation was based on his own limited intepretation of events, and that the substansive issue of starvation rested on the intansigence of the federal authorities, and not on Ojukwu per se. The desperation to exert the "final solution" given the increasing international support for Biafra, and I agree with you on that, was the possible ground for the federal policy. This fully supports Achebe's position.
Obi Nwakanma
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:28:35 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: NigerianID | Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
From: alu...@gmail.com
To: rexma...@hotmail.com; alu...@gmail.com
CC: naijain...@googlegroups.com; naijap...@yahoogroups.com; niger...@yahoogroups.com; omo...@yahoogroups.com; usaafric...@googlegroups.com; raay...@yahoogroups.com; now...@yahoo.com
OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
Oct 16, 2012, 12:18:04 PM10/16/12
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Obi,
--
Compcros
Are not a claiming more for Akuko than he stated? :
'The desperation to exert the "final solution" given the increasing international support for Biafra, and I agree with you on that, was the possible ground for the federal policy. This fully supports Achebe's position.'
Obi Nwakanma
Obi Nwakanma
You have quite a few clauses there. You seem to making assumptions that cannot be justified.
In stringing those clauses together the way you do you try to impute unsubstantiated claims to Aluko and Achebe while in fact you are stating a new position being advanced by yourself using ideas from Aluko and Achebe.
Clause 1-'The desperation to exert the "final solution"- this clause is generated fully by yourself, transposing to the Biafran issue Nazi language implementing the anti-Jewish genocide
Clause 2-'the increasing international support for Biafra'-Aluko agrees on this but doe not share your view that a Nigerian genocidal Final Solution was born in response to this
Clause 3-This fully supports Achebe's position.'- At this point you have conflated suppositions into what you hope is a certainty.
Achebe made an assessment about the mind of Awolowo based on his speculation on what could have motivated the Nigerian government to employ the starvation policy. He is not claiming access to any definitive information on the rationale for the policy. He is of the view that he can locate that rationale in ethnic competition on Awo's part. Being certain of the veracity of his speculative opinion, he presents it as fact. His description of the manner in which he comes to his conclusion, the manner in which he justifies it, however, makes it clear that his views are speculative, and, in my view, represent a narrow reading of the various factors at play.
Now, in your case, Aluko and yourself agree on only one point.
You agree that the Nigerian government was desperate.
You do not agree with Aluko that the Biafran government was also desperate. You do not draw the posible conclusion, from Aluko's summation, that Biafra refused to surrender because it hoped for recognition from a major international player that would make sure Biafra did not have to surrender. It can be argued that was why Biafra allowed so many to die from hunger rather than surrender and why they invested so much in propaganda even when it was clear, or almost clear that they could not win by force of arms.
Aluko does not agree with you that the Nigerian government tried to implement a Nazi style Final Solution of exterminating the Igbos.
Achebe DOES NOT AGREE WITH YOU that Nigeria tried to exterminate the Igbos because Nigeria was made desperate by growing recognition of Biafra. He attributes that initiative to Awo's envy of Igbos.
So, the line of argument you develop belongs to you alone.
Your line of argument is that Nigeria was desperate and so tried to implement a Nazi style Final Solution to exterminate the Igbos.
That is a new introduction to the debate.
If I hereby misunderstand anyone , I would be pleased to be informed.
thanks
toyin
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Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Mobolaji Aluko
Oct 16, 2012, 3:51:46 PM10/16/12
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Very often, we Nigerians say "We are saying the same thing!" when in fact we are not.
Obi's introduction of Nazi terminology here is disingenuous, and he knows what he is doing...
Moving on....
You are right about my thinking, and it is as follows: as 1968 unfolded, a number of countries, albeit small ones, started to recognize Biafra. This worried Nigeria, and it hoped that an international engagement with Biafra under the auspices of the OAU, etc. would stem such recognitions. The recognitions encouraged Biafra, hoping that if it held out, more countries, particularly a Big One (France and/or China), would recognize it.. Nigeria must therefore have seen some of Biafra's hard-line positions, despite significant loss of territory and starving population as deliberate stalling, and in August decided to call off further diplomatic talks with Biafra and end the secession on the battle field in the shortest possible time.
And there you have it.
Bolaji Aluko
On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 5:18 PM, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <toyinvinc...@gmail.com> wrote:
Obi,Are not a claiming more for Aluko than he stated? :
elombah daniel
Oct 16, 2012, 4:06:57 PM10/16/12
to Mobolaji Aluko, usaafric...@googlegroups.com, NaijaPolitics e-Group, OmoOdua, niger...@yahoogroups.com, naijaintellects
HIGHLY SPECULATIVE!
Daniel Elombah
+44-7435469430
Every Nigerian that has something important to say, says it on www.elombah.com
Is it ok for the JTF to kill innocent civilians in pursuit of Boko Haram?
Is anything that can be done to end Boko Haram acceptable, even if that anything includes the death of hundreds of innocent civilians?
Is it ok to starve 2 million Biafran kids to death since the starvation policy will hasten the end of the civil war....
Asks Joe Atueyi
From: Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com>
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Cc: NaijaPolitics e-Group <NaijaP...@yahoogroups.com>; OmoOdua <Omo...@yahoogroups.com>; "niger...@yahoogroups.com" <niger...@yahoogroups.com>; naijaintellects <naijain...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2012 8:51 PM
Subject: Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: NigerianID | Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
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OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
Oct 16, 2012, 8:31:07 PM10/16/12
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Thanks.
Are you indicating that your use of the Nazi term for anti-Jewish genocide is not meant to suggest that the Nigerian military solution was necessarily a genocidal plan?
A military solution is not necessarily genocidal.
My problem is with your efforts to conflate
Your views+ Aluko's views+ Achebe's views = the same view.
Note, too, that Achebe arrives at his genocide theory by a different route. He is not arguing for Nigerian desperation in the face of growing Biafran international recognition, as you are doing. He is arguing that one person's ethnic rivalry with Igbos was the source of the starvation strategy he describes as genocidal.
Achebe's claim cannot be assessed on the same terms as yours because his rationale for making his claim is different from yours.
Secondly, are you not contradicting yourself?
You agree that Biafra was holding out in the hope of getting decisive recognition. Holding out means not surrendering. Not surrendering means the people will continue to suffer.
Does that not agree with the theory that Biafra used its people's suffering to pursue strategic goals involving trying to gain the state they were fighting for, rather than end the people's suffering by surrendering?
Are you suggesting the gamble was worth it or are you suggesting that Biafra was holding out for a decisive recognition that would enable more favourable surrender terms?
Or are you suggesting Biafra was hoping that with such recognition it would not need to surrender and could achieve its sovereignty?
thanks
toyin
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:15 AM, Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Toyin/Dr. Aluko:
The word "final solution" is both implied and valid in Bolaji Aluko's insightful conclusion, and I read him very suggestively. In any case, how else would we describe the aim to exert a full military solution to what was beginning to be viewed on the Nigerian side as an intractable problem? Final solution. The Federal government used that very phrase also in Kampala. So, I'm actually not overreading Dr. Aluko. Here in sum, is the source of this discussion: did General Ojukwu elongate the war as claimed by Goldstein's letter by his alleged intransigence? I drew up evidence to argue that Goldstein's views were bollocks. Dr. Aluko summed up with the view that the desperation to push their positions guided the actions of both parties in that war. Biafra was desperate to secure relief and secure their borders at the same time hoping for greater international recognition of its boundaries and its suffering, while the Nigerians were desperate to withhold relief and push for a final solution before any wider international intervention. That's my reading of Dr. Aluko's quite brilliant analysis.
Obi Nwakanma
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From: alu...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:51:46 +0100
Subject: [NaijaPolitics] Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: NigerianID | Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
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OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
Oct 16, 2012, 7:49:51 PM10/16/12
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CORRECTION
I made a mistake about Gabriel Okara. I expect Egudu was referring to another poet whose name I dont remember.
thanks
toyin
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:46 AM, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <toyinvinc...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks , Bolaji, for confirming my interpretation of your position.We need more sophisticated and realistic readings of this history and this dialogue with Nwankamna might be helpful in that direction.It seems that the absolutist stance being championed by the Biafran side is not helpful.An absolutist stance being championed by some on the Nigerian side might also not be helpful.I expect most human beings will agree that Biafra's suffering was truly horrible.Looking back now, many would have done anything to prevent the war beginning, from enlightening the January 1966 coup plotters that, compared to what would come after through the disruption they would create, those they wanted to kill deserved to be on the right hand of God, as someone put it.Mojo Okediji states on Facebook that if he were Ojukwu he would have resigned rather than enter into a disastrous war.Perhaps Nigeria should have got international pressure to prevail on Biafra rather than taking action on her own.We need to acknowledge that the Biafran starvation must have been hell on earth. We need to acknowledge that any deliberate action that contributed to it is not something that one would like to see happen again.We also need to acknowledge that the Biafran leadership seems to have been less than solicitous for its people's welfare after 1968, when the situation was now desperate.In the light of these recognitions, I am unhappy with Achebe.When Achebe consistently refused national honours, I half resolved that if I was ever offered a national honur, I would refuse it.Why?Because Achebe refused it.What about knowing his reasons reasons for refusing the honour?That was the question a part of me posed.I dont need to know that, was my response. Once Achebe has refused it, it means it is not worth having. Having him articulate his reason is irrelevant.Even though my other venerated one, Soyinka accepted the national award he was given, I saw Achebe's position of detached disdain as superior.People have been arguing that Achebe has a right to say what he likes. That is not true.Others are saying that we should feel fortunate that he has graced us with his account from personal experience. That again is missing the point.What depth of insight is being offered by the adept of 'Language and the Destiny of Man,' 'The Madman' and Arrow of God, fantastic works peering into the depths of contradictions that define humanity?What does he have for us after 40 years of reflection?Is the best the great explorer of the tensions of Igbo culture as evocative of human complexity got to give us a narrative about Igbo exceptionalism? Is that the consummation of the Master's reflections? Is that the best he can do?With the library of scholarship on the civil war, are his reflecctions to be circumscribed by a focus on some figure who wanted to wipe out his people and took a chance to so when he saw it? All the debate on the mentality of Ojukwu and his inner circle, about ideological and strategic tensions tensions in Biafra is that all it amounts to?All the great achievements of Ndigbo all over Nigeria, and the best we can get after 40 years from the greatest Igbo writer is a cry of non-integration, without even any reference to other ethnicities in Nigeria who do not have such prominence?Nna, I dont know what this term means in Igbo but with the way I use it here, I use it to suggest a weary sense that something is not quite right.Achebe has cheated us. He has caused us to lose something precious. Something he gave us and has now stolen or taken back from us while claiming to be doing what is right for him to do.Soyinka wrote his own civil war book ages ago, one of his greatest works. Since then, he has been part of the Nigerian scene doing his bit. His voice has been loud and consistent on Boko Haram.Yet, now, it is the 1970s 20 pounds policy we hear about from Achebe. We are not invited to an exploration of how Ndigbo rose from the ashes of the war and the 20 pounds policy. No reference to the development of motor vehicle technology in the east in the name of Innosun Motors. No reference to the luminaries of Nollywood. All we are being told is that Nidigbo have never been integrated into Nigeria and that the country is doomed for that reason.Something is being said about national mediocrity because Ndigbo have either been rigged out or systematically excluded. When I point out opportunities for prominence enjoyed by Ndigbo, I am told by Adeshina that it is not demonstrative of national integration. If a nation is described as mediocre beceause some people are not being given a chance, why are these same people so prominent in the more exalted achievements and even infamy of that nation, in the public and private sectors?Am I missing something in this kind of logic?If this Achebe book was written ten years after the war, it might belong in the historical stream of its time when such sentiments might have had more relevance. I am not convinced they do now. The issues addressed are significant but in the way that the gentleman is presenting them, they are out of place.I suspect Achebe never recovered from the defeat of Biafra.I now begin to understand better the concept of responsibility. When people lolok up to you at a global, continental national , ethnic and even personal level, you cannot allow others to stand and insist, however eloquently, that you have a right to operate from a tribal prism. It is not fair to yourself. That is not the Achebe of Hopes and Impediments and Morning Yet on Creation Day. It might not even be the Achebe of Arrow of God.We have lost something. It requires mourning. May Achebe live long but our Achebe is gone.I wanted to end the essay at that popint, but the memories of my Igbo lecturers at the University of Benin insists on my mind. Ogo Ofuani, Chinyere Okafor, Virginia Ola,who married a Yoruba man to the disappointment of her family, if I remember well, Romanus Egudu, Okeke Ezigbo, Dr. Onwuemene, Nkeonye Otakpor, Nwabuoku, among others.Is Achebe speaking for these people?Ofuani once mentioned the abandoned property issue to me as it affected his family, but in the spirit of a person looking back at a distant, regretful destabilisation but which no longer defined him.Egudu mentioned fellow Igbo poet Gabriel Okara, if I have the name right, venturing out of a trench during the war, to observe the Nigerian planes and write about the experience. He also seems to have mentioned the experience of having Nigerian planes come close to see if the person standing still pretending to be a tree was really a tree. He said the pilots were really wicked. Egudu described these things in the spirit of a man who had lived through an epic and dangerous situation, and had survived and perhaps became even stronger for it, as in coming home from war to find libraries destroyed and resorting to working on Igbo oral literature, some of his foundational publications. Egudu was a high flying scholar who dominated the department, coming and going from his various appointments at universities in the US or the Nigerian Universities Commission, apart from his time as Dean of Postgraduate School, among other relatively earlier achievements, which was where I first met him when I needed guidance on the confusion I was experiencing in my schooling.Okafor, Ola, Otakpor, Nwabuoku, whom I spent a lot of time talking with, I dont remember once mentioning the war or its aftermath.We were all engaged, as their student, and later their colleague, in the challenges and promises of the moment.When we had opponents, we had the same opponents, who were not tribally defined but in terms of university politics.Does Achebe speak for such people?thanksToyin
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Rex Marinus
Oct 16, 2012, 7:15:10 PM10/16/12
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Toyin/Dr. Aluko:
The word "final solution" is both implied and valid in Bolaji Aluko's insightful conclusion, and I read him very suggestively. In any case, how else would we describe the aim to exert a full military solution to what was beginning to be viewed on the Nigerian side as an intractable problem? Final solution. The Federal government used that very phrase also in Kampala. So, I'm actually not overreading Dr. Aluko. Here in sum, is the source of this discussion: did General Ojukwu elongate the war as claimed by Goldstein's letter by his alleged intransigence? I drew up evidence to argue that Goldstein's views were bollocks. Dr. Aluko summed up with the view that the desperation to push their positions guided the actions of both parties in that war. Biafra was desperate to secure relief and secure their borders at the same time hoping for greater international recognition of its boundaries and its suffering, while the Nigerians were desperate to withhold relief and push for a final solution before any wider international intervention. That's my reading of Dr. Aluko's quite brilliant analysis.
Obi Nwakanma
The word "final solution" is both implied and valid in Bolaji Aluko's insightful conclusion, and I read him very suggestively. In any case, how else would we describe the aim to exert a full military solution to what was beginning to be viewed on the Nigerian side as an intractable problem? Final solution. The Federal government used that very phrase also in Kampala. So, I'm actually not overreading Dr. Aluko. Here in sum, is the source of this discussion: did General Ojukwu elongate the war as claimed by Goldstein's letter by his alleged intransigence? I drew up evidence to argue that Goldstein's views were bollocks. Dr. Aluko summed up with the view that the desperation to push their positions guided the actions of both parties in that war. Biafra was desperate to secure relief and secure their borders at the same time hoping for greater international recognition of its boundaries and its suffering, while the Nigerians were desperate to withhold relief and push for a final solution before any wider international intervention. That's my reading of Dr. Aluko's quite brilliant analysis.
Obi Nwakanma
From: alu...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:51:46 +0100
Subject: [NaijaPolitics] Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: NigerianID | Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
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OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
Oct 16, 2012, 7:46:14 PM10/16/12
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Chidi Anthony Opara
Oct 17, 2012, 4:58:54 AM10/17/12
to USA Africa Dialogue Series
“Let our igbo brothers be reminded that about three-quarters of their
assets not in the eastern region are in Lagos and we have been very
liberal and accommodating. We have allowed them to live undisturbed”.
---------Ayo Opadokun(Awoist and Yoruba leader)Reacting to Achebe’s
recent book In Thenews Magazine, vol. 39, Nr. 16.
On Oct 16, 6:49 am, Rex Marinus <rexmari...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dr. Aluko:It is obsfucation at its most blatant to read Goldstein letter outside of the rationale for action taken by Ojukwu and the Biafran leadership. I'll attempt to answer your earlier questions posed to me alonsgide this, because they are related. The first question was why Ojukwu did not, given that Biafra had shrunk dramatically, not surrender to save starving Biafrans. The second is, to link it to the substance of Goldstein's letter, why Ojukwu insisted on ceasefire and the airlift of relief to Biafrans as the only grounds or conditions for accepting relief. First, Ojukwu knew that an internationally observed ceasefire was the only guarantee for the security and safety of the Biafran. Second, the atrocities recorded wherever the federal forces liberated lent credence to that demand. In fact, it made it imperative, particularly because the Lagos regime was not prepared to negotiate in true faith for the amicable end of the conflict. The war strategy of the Gowon administration was hell-bent on Biafra's complete surrender without guarantees. No political and military leader will agree to that kind of suicide. I'll return to this point. But let me quote from Susan Cronje's quite illuminating book, The World and Nigeria: The Diplomatic History of the Biafran war 1967-1970 ( I'd also recommend that you read the other, Biafra: Britain's Shame). Cronje writes this about the meeting in Niamey referenced by Goldstein: "The Nigerian delegation was led by Chief Awolowo, but General Gowon arrived in Niamey on 16 July and addressed the meeting as an 'observer.' The main theme of his speech was a warning that if the 'rebels persist in their contemptuous attitude to the conference table the federal government will have no choice but to take over the remaining rebel-held areas...In military terms the rebellion is virtually suppressed already.' But the atmosphere had suibtly changed. hamani diori had altrady suggested that the committee's consultative role should be changed to a mediatory one, and after Gowon's address the committee went into closed session. Eventually it was announced that that Ojukwu had been asked to attend, and Gowon who had already returned to Lagos flew back to Niamey the following day, cancelling all engagements. His presence in Niamey was required not for a meeting with Ojukwu but to reply to a truce proposal put forward among others by General Ankrah. This called for a ten-mile wide demilitarized zone patrolled by neutral troops to allow relief supplies to pass to Biafran refugees. According to one account of the debate, Gowon is said to have turned to General Ankrah, saying, 'You are a military man: you know what it is with commanders.' The suggestion that he might be unable to restrain his army was reinforced when he warned the committee that if it did not see things his way they would have to have 'a Nigeria without me.' According to a Niamey radio report the following day, General Gowon rejected the resolution put to him by the O.A.U. committee; the main points of this resolution were the establishment of a demilitarized zone and 'an international force which would include neutral observers acceptable to both sides.' Ghana and Cameroun, the broadcast said, had offered shipping facilities for moving relief supplies. Ojukwu arrived in Niamey on 19 July in President Houphet-Boigny's private jet. The Biafran delegation, when it was fully assembled, included Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the former Nigerian president, Dr. Okpara, former Eastern Nigerian premier, Sir Louis Mbanefo, Dr. Eni Njoku and several other notables; Lagos was not far off in suiggesting that the 'entire rebel leadership' had assembled in Niger. At the end of the meeting between Ojukwu and the consltative committee - Gowon had returned to Lagos two days previously - a communique was issued. Two versions appear to be in existence; the one broadcast by Niamey radio read: (1) the Nigerian Federal Military Government and Colonel Ojukwu have agreed to meet immediately in Niamey under the chairmanship of President Diori Hamani in order to begin preliminary talks on a speedy resumption of Nigerian peace negotiations; (2) the Nigeruan Federal Military Government and Colonel Ojukwu have agreed to resume as soon as possible peace negotiations in Addis Ababa under the auspices of the O.A.U Consultative Committee on Nigeria.' The version as broadcast by Lagos - and which does not pretend to be a verbatim report - said that the committee had called on both parties to resume peace talks as soon as possible, '... with the objecvtive of preserving Nigeria's territiorial integrity and guaranteeing the security of all its inhabitants.' The committee said, according to this broadcast, that 'it will be in contact with the federal military government, and Ojukwu or his representativs may at any time contact any member government of the committee.' The Lagos version went on to cite two further point of which ther was no mention in the Niamey version, both dealing with relief, and appealing to the two sides to undertake various mesures to alleviate the suffering among war victims. In view of the strong criticism that has been levelled at the Biafran leadership for its intrasigence, and the high praise heaped o General Gowon and his Government for humanitarian concern and magnanimity, it should be stressed that in Niamey Gowon rejected the O.A.U proposals for a partial truce and international policing of relief routes, while Ojukwu was prepared to accept both these proposals. When Ojukwu returned to Biafra, he gave a press conference at which he was asked whether his invitation to the OAU had meant any form of recognition of him. For once Ojukwu was cautious in his reply: 'Let's put it this way. My presence in Niamey for once represents the O.A.U's acceptance that there are two sides to a conflict.' He would not reveal any further details about the forthcoming Addis Ababa peace talk, but said, 'I find myself in a rather simillar situation as after Aburi.' He did not want to say anything in case Lagos started 'interpreting it, and go back to square one..." (302-303) The foregoing provides the clear context of the situation, that it was not Ojukwu, but Gowon who rejected the proposals by which Ojukwu and the Biafran leadership was prepared to abide. The context is clearly established and makes nonsense of Golsdstein's ground for resignation. While the Biafran government was prepared to act without precondition, the Nigerian authorities persistenly insisted on Biafran surrender. It was a deliberate and determined argument made to make certain that the only solution was by a military solution because Lagos knew that the basic grounds on which it made its offer of relief was conditional and unconscionable. It was to disavow the very basic reason why Biafra defended itself in the first place: its sovereignty as a means to the safety, security and dignity of its population. Now, were the Gowon administration acting in good faith, that would be a differet matter. What guaratees could Biafrans have, had Ojukwu surrendered as a condition for food? None. Here is the evidence narrated by John Stremlau in his The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War how Gowon's cable upturned the agreements reached in May 1968 in kampala between Eni Njoku and Enahoro in which Eni Njoku had in fact "conceded the evntuality of one-Nigeria." As Stremalau notes, "Whereas Enahoro had left acceptance of the twelve-state structure implicit in his propsals, Gowon insisted that before any agreement was reached the rebels must explictly embrace the twelve states. In addition, Gowon stipulated that there would be no question of an interim commission for the rebel-held areas, there would be no recruitment and formation of Ibo units into the federal armed forces, and no elements of the rebel troops or police would be allowed to retain their arms. Gowon's instruction, which did not reach Kampala until shortly after Enahoro had made his presentation, clearly reflected the views of the more hawkish elements in the federal government" (172-173). To put these in summary (a) Ojukwu did not reject relief, he wanted the security and guarantee of safety for Biafrans. He was in fact willing to accept the O.A.U's proposals (b) Gowon and the Lagos administration manipulated international propaganda, as testified in the versions of the broadcasts of the Niamey agreement to further its own goals of the liquidation of Biafra (c) The federal government was not, in spite of all the efforts made by the Biafrans willing to negotiate peace, they were hell-bent on "surrender" as the only condition for the survival of the Biagfran population. If anybody must bear responsbility, it must be those who kept using the talks to elongate the suffering of the civilian population, and clearly this are the 'hawks" who placed the only condition for peace on Biafra's surrender and liquidation. And there, you have it.Obi Nwakanma To: naijain...@googlegroups.com
> CC: NaijaPolit...@yahoogroups.com; nigeria...@yahoogroups.com; OmoO...@yahoogroups.com; USAAfric...@googlegroups.com; Raayir...@yahoogroups.com; now...@yahoo.com; ekitipan...@yahoogroups.com
> From: aluk...@gmail.com
>
> read more »
assets not in the eastern region are in Lagos and we have been very
liberal and accommodating. We have allowed them to live undisturbed”.
---------Ayo Opadokun(Awoist and Yoruba leader)Reacting to Achebe’s
recent book In Thenews Magazine, vol. 39, Nr. 16.
On Oct 16, 6:49 am, Rex Marinus <rexmari...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dr. Aluko:It is obsfucation at its most blatant to read Goldstein letter outside of the rationale for action taken by Ojukwu and the Biafran leadership. I'll attempt to answer your earlier questions posed to me alonsgide this, because they are related. The first question was why Ojukwu did not, given that Biafra had shrunk dramatically, not surrender to save starving Biafrans. The second is, to link it to the substance of Goldstein's letter, why Ojukwu insisted on ceasefire and the airlift of relief to Biafrans as the only grounds or conditions for accepting relief. First, Ojukwu knew that an internationally observed ceasefire was the only guarantee for the security and safety of the Biafran. Second, the atrocities recorded wherever the federal forces liberated lent credence to that demand. In fact, it made it imperative, particularly because the Lagos regime was not prepared to negotiate in true faith for the amicable end of the conflict. The war strategy of the Gowon administration was hell-bent on Biafra's complete surrender without guarantees. No political and military leader will agree to that kind of suicide. I'll return to this point. But let me quote from Susan Cronje's quite illuminating book, The World and Nigeria: The Diplomatic History of the Biafran war 1967-1970 ( I'd also recommend that you read the other, Biafra: Britain's Shame). Cronje writes this about the meeting in Niamey referenced by Goldstein: "The Nigerian delegation was led by Chief Awolowo, but General Gowon arrived in Niamey on 16 July and addressed the meeting as an 'observer.' The main theme of his speech was a warning that if the 'rebels persist in their contemptuous attitude to the conference table the federal government will have no choice but to take over the remaining rebel-held areas...In military terms the rebellion is virtually suppressed already.' But the atmosphere had suibtly changed. hamani diori had altrady suggested that the committee's consultative role should be changed to a mediatory one, and after Gowon's address the committee went into closed session. Eventually it was announced that that Ojukwu had been asked to attend, and Gowon who had already returned to Lagos flew back to Niamey the following day, cancelling all engagements. His presence in Niamey was required not for a meeting with Ojukwu but to reply to a truce proposal put forward among others by General Ankrah. This called for a ten-mile wide demilitarized zone patrolled by neutral troops to allow relief supplies to pass to Biafran refugees. According to one account of the debate, Gowon is said to have turned to General Ankrah, saying, 'You are a military man: you know what it is with commanders.' The suggestion that he might be unable to restrain his army was reinforced when he warned the committee that if it did not see things his way they would have to have 'a Nigeria without me.' According to a Niamey radio report the following day, General Gowon rejected the resolution put to him by the O.A.U. committee; the main points of this resolution were the establishment of a demilitarized zone and 'an international force which would include neutral observers acceptable to both sides.' Ghana and Cameroun, the broadcast said, had offered shipping facilities for moving relief supplies. Ojukwu arrived in Niamey on 19 July in President Houphet-Boigny's private jet. The Biafran delegation, when it was fully assembled, included Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the former Nigerian president, Dr. Okpara, former Eastern Nigerian premier, Sir Louis Mbanefo, Dr. Eni Njoku and several other notables; Lagos was not far off in suiggesting that the 'entire rebel leadership' had assembled in Niger. At the end of the meeting between Ojukwu and the consltative committee - Gowon had returned to Lagos two days previously - a communique was issued. Two versions appear to be in existence; the one broadcast by Niamey radio read: (1) the Nigerian Federal Military Government and Colonel Ojukwu have agreed to meet immediately in Niamey under the chairmanship of President Diori Hamani in order to begin preliminary talks on a speedy resumption of Nigerian peace negotiations; (2) the Nigeruan Federal Military Government and Colonel Ojukwu have agreed to resume as soon as possible peace negotiations in Addis Ababa under the auspices of the O.A.U Consultative Committee on Nigeria.' The version as broadcast by Lagos - and which does not pretend to be a verbatim report - said that the committee had called on both parties to resume peace talks as soon as possible, '... with the objecvtive of preserving Nigeria's territiorial integrity and guaranteeing the security of all its inhabitants.' The committee said, according to this broadcast, that 'it will be in contact with the federal military government, and Ojukwu or his representativs may at any time contact any member government of the committee.' The Lagos version went on to cite two further point of which ther was no mention in the Niamey version, both dealing with relief, and appealing to the two sides to undertake various mesures to alleviate the suffering among war victims. In view of the strong criticism that has been levelled at the Biafran leadership for its intrasigence, and the high praise heaped o General Gowon and his Government for humanitarian concern and magnanimity, it should be stressed that in Niamey Gowon rejected the O.A.U proposals for a partial truce and international policing of relief routes, while Ojukwu was prepared to accept both these proposals. When Ojukwu returned to Biafra, he gave a press conference at which he was asked whether his invitation to the OAU had meant any form of recognition of him. For once Ojukwu was cautious in his reply: 'Let's put it this way. My presence in Niamey for once represents the O.A.U's acceptance that there are two sides to a conflict.' He would not reveal any further details about the forthcoming Addis Ababa peace talk, but said, 'I find myself in a rather simillar situation as after Aburi.' He did not want to say anything in case Lagos started 'interpreting it, and go back to square one..." (302-303) The foregoing provides the clear context of the situation, that it was not Ojukwu, but Gowon who rejected the proposals by which Ojukwu and the Biafran leadership was prepared to abide. The context is clearly established and makes nonsense of Golsdstein's ground for resignation. While the Biafran government was prepared to act without precondition, the Nigerian authorities persistenly insisted on Biafran surrender. It was a deliberate and determined argument made to make certain that the only solution was by a military solution because Lagos knew that the basic grounds on which it made its offer of relief was conditional and unconscionable. It was to disavow the very basic reason why Biafra defended itself in the first place: its sovereignty as a means to the safety, security and dignity of its population. Now, were the Gowon administration acting in good faith, that would be a differet matter. What guaratees could Biafrans have, had Ojukwu surrendered as a condition for food? None. Here is the evidence narrated by John Stremlau in his The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War how Gowon's cable upturned the agreements reached in May 1968 in kampala between Eni Njoku and Enahoro in which Eni Njoku had in fact "conceded the evntuality of one-Nigeria." As Stremalau notes, "Whereas Enahoro had left acceptance of the twelve-state structure implicit in his propsals, Gowon insisted that before any agreement was reached the rebels must explictly embrace the twelve states. In addition, Gowon stipulated that there would be no question of an interim commission for the rebel-held areas, there would be no recruitment and formation of Ibo units into the federal armed forces, and no elements of the rebel troops or police would be allowed to retain their arms. Gowon's instruction, which did not reach Kampala until shortly after Enahoro had made his presentation, clearly reflected the views of the more hawkish elements in the federal government" (172-173). To put these in summary (a) Ojukwu did not reject relief, he wanted the security and guarantee of safety for Biafrans. He was in fact willing to accept the O.A.U's proposals (b) Gowon and the Lagos administration manipulated international propaganda, as testified in the versions of the broadcasts of the Niamey agreement to further its own goals of the liquidation of Biafra (c) The federal government was not, in spite of all the efforts made by the Biafrans willing to negotiate peace, they were hell-bent on "surrender" as the only condition for the survival of the Biagfran population. If anybody must bear responsbility, it must be those who kept using the talks to elongate the suffering of the civilian population, and clearly this are the 'hawks" who placed the only condition for peace on Biafra's surrender and liquidation. And there, you have it.Obi Nwakanma To: naijain...@googlegroups.com
> CC: NaijaPolit...@yahoogroups.com; nigeria...@yahoogroups.com; OmoO...@yahoogroups.com; USAAfric...@googlegroups.com; Raayir...@yahoogroups.com; now...@yahoo.com; ekitipan...@yahoogroups.com
> From: aluk...@gmail.com
> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 04:28:54 +0100
> Subject: NigerianID | Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
>
> Dear Emmanuel:
>
> Subject: NigerianID | Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
>
> Dear Emmanuel:
>
> On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 3:10 AM, Emmanuel U. Obi <bizon...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Sworn Igbo haters will always dig up stuff from spurious sources in furtherance of their agenda. One thing I have learned over the years is to ignore all the nonesense once they come from the traditional sources of misinformation about the Igbos .
>
> It is trite to call anybody and everybody who offers another story to yours or others on Biafra as "Igbo haters." It
> ...
>
> Sworn Igbo haters will always dig up stuff from spurious sources in furtherance of their agenda. One thing I have learned over the years is to ignore all the nonesense once they come from the traditional sources of misinformation about the Igbos .
>
> It is trite to call anybody and everybody who offers another story to yours or others on Biafra as "Igbo haters." It
>
> read more »
OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
Oct 17, 2012, 9:00:13 AM10/17/12
to NIgerianW...@yahoogroups.com, naijain...@googlegroups.com, Mobolaji Aluko, usaafric...@googlegroups.com, NaijaPolitics e-Group, OmoOdua, niger...@yahoogroups.com
Nkechi,
Be specific, please.
Are Igbos being denied rights of any kind?
I think this Igbo marginalization thing is empty smoke.
Please try and make a case.
Toyin
--
Be specific, please.
Are Igbos being denied rights of any kind?
I think this Igbo marginalization thing is empty smoke.
Please try and make a case.
Toyin
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 4:24 AM, <aauwn...@aol.com> wrote:
Dear Toyin
I humbly suggest you examine the missing link within the same contextual analysis of the African American struggle for civil rights. Did African Americans excel in many areas of American society during the periods they were denied their civil rights?
Best
Nkechi
aauwn...@aol.comSent via BlackBerry by AT&TFrom: OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <toyinvinc...@gmail.com>Sender: NIgerianW...@yahoogroups.comDate: Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:46:14 +0100ReplyTo: NIgerianW...@yahoogroups.comCc: Mobolaji Aluko<alu...@gmail.com>; usaafric...@googlegroups.com<usaafric...@googlegroups.com>; NaijaPolitics e-Group<NaijaP...@yahoogroups.com>; OmoOdua<Omo...@yahoogroups.com>; niger...@yahoogroups.com<niger...@yahoogroups.com>Subject: Re: [Naijaintellects] Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: NigerianID | Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968)
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OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
Oct 17, 2012, 2:07:59 PM10/17/12
to NIgerianW...@yahoogroups.com, naijain...@googlegroups.com, Mobolaji Aluko, usaafric...@googlegroups.com, NaijaPolitics e-Group, OmoOdua, niger...@yahoogroups.com
Nkechi,
I have responded to one of them, the issue of a road or roads. I indicated that bad roads are recurrent in most if not all of Nigeria. I gave an example of the terrible Lagos-Benin road that was a death trap for years, and was not put in permanent order even when an Edo man, Tony Anenih, was Minister of Works.
I have not looked closely at the other examples you gave but can they be as bad as the case of the Niger Delta, from where the country gets its major revenue, oil?
I doubt if they have the level of strategic infrastructure you are unhappy about in connection with the East and their environment has certainly suffered devastation of a kind that I wonder if the government and the multinationals have the will to address squarely.
I think the claims of Ndigbo generally as being disadvantaged and victimised in today's Nigeria are baseless and I consider Achebe mischievous and possibly even wicked for peddling such falsehood.
I am interested in how you can prove that Ndigbo are disadvantaged in Nigeria compared to other ethnicities. I am keen to know how you can demonstrate that Ndigbo are not integrated into Nigeria as Achebe falsely and tragically claimed.
I am interested in analysis and examples. I am not keen on name calling and emotional outbursts or insults from anyone. I just want a careful analysis of this issue.
thanks
toyin
I have responded to one of them, the issue of a road or roads. I indicated that bad roads are recurrent in most if not all of Nigeria. I gave an example of the terrible Lagos-Benin road that was a death trap for years, and was not put in permanent order even when an Edo man, Tony Anenih, was Minister of Works.
I have not looked closely at the other examples you gave but can they be as bad as the case of the Niger Delta, from where the country gets its major revenue, oil?
I doubt if they have the level of strategic infrastructure you are unhappy about in connection with the East and their environment has certainly suffered devastation of a kind that I wonder if the government and the multinationals have the will to address squarely.
I think the claims of Ndigbo generally as being disadvantaged and victimised in today's Nigeria are baseless and I consider Achebe mischievous and possibly even wicked for peddling such falsehood.
I am interested in how you can prove that Ndigbo are disadvantaged in Nigeria compared to other ethnicities. I am keen to know how you can demonstrate that Ndigbo are not integrated into Nigeria as Achebe falsely and tragically claimed.
I am interested in analysis and examples. I am not keen on name calling and emotional outbursts or insults from anyone. I just want a careful analysis of this issue.
thanks
toyin
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 6:44 PM, <aauwn...@aol.com> wrote:
Dear Toyin
May I refer you to an earlier email of mine that provided you with three illustrations to which you responded that you would reflect on.
Best
Nkechi
aauwn...@aol.comSent via BlackBerry by AT&TFrom: OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <toyinvinc...@gmail.com>Sender: NIgerianW...@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2012 14:00:13 +0100ReplyTo: NIgerianW...@yahoogroups.comCc: <naijain...@googlegroups.com>; Mobolaji Aluko<alu...@gmail.com>; usaafric...@googlegroups.com<usaafric...@googlegroups.com>; NaijaPolitics e-Group<NaijaP...@yahoogroups.com>; OmoOdua<Omo...@yahoogroups.com>; niger...@yahoogroups.com<niger...@yahoogroups.com>
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