War of Biafra

The war of Biafra or civil war of Nigeria was held July 1967 at January 1970. It was a conflict at the same time economic Politique, , ethnic and religious which began with the declaration from secession from the area from the East from the Nigeria which autoproclama République of Biafra. The Famine caused by the Blocus terrestrial and maritime of the areas under control of Biafra returned this conflict sadly celebrates. The people Igbo speak about attempt at Génocide on behalf of the Nigerian government, qualifier finally not retained by the international community at the end of the confrontations.

Causes and release of the conflict

With the Independence of the Nigeria in 1960, the country is populated of approximately sixty million inhabitants whose majority belong to three ethnies :

the most Haoussas, mainly Moslem and alive in Nord ;
the Yorubas, Moslems and Christian alive in the West and the South-Ouest ;
the Igbos, mainly Christians and animists and alive in South-east.

At the time of the Colonisation of the country, the British administration had supported Igbos then largely christianized and taught reading and writing by the missionary S. This ethnos group had then preserved its advance at the level of education compared to the other ethnos groups by holding the majority of the stations in the administration and the Commerce S. Moreover, it is in the East of the delta of the Niger where live the majority of Igbos that are the majority of the mines of coal and of the reserves of Pétrole of the country. Moreover one alliance between the two political parties Haoussa and Igbo was concluded which directed Nigeria of 1960 to 1966, thus excluding Yorubas. The various injured ethnos groups feeling at various levels, they were opposed thus to Igbos and the tensions went up until reaching their paroxism in 1966.

Yorubas hitherto supported a party reformist with tendency progressist and of contrary opinion to the preserving block of the Moslems of North, the Action Group . They then carried out a Coup d'etat which led to the formation of more preserving a Yoruba party, NNDP , and with an alliance with Haoussas. The components of this new political alliance excluèrent Igbo of the capacity and threatened them to confiscate their richnesses drawn to them in particular from oil.

The elections of 1965 transfer to clash of with dimensions National alliance Nigerian ( National Nigerian Alliance ) of Haoussas allied to the preserving members Yorubas and other the Grande Alliance Progressist Plain ( Large United Progressive Alliance or UPGA ) Igbo allied with the members Yoruba progressists. The National alliance Nigerian , carried out by Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, gained the victory with one crushing majority which nevertheless was sullied by suspicions with electoral Fraud massive. Igbos officers with warping tendency reversed the government then and placed the general Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi at the report heading.

In July 1966, another coup d'etat founds a military federal government. The junta, in Moslem majority, place with the report heading a Christian, Yakubu Gowon, with for mission of restoring peace in the country and a civil mode with its government. But in the North of the country, as a majority populated of Moslems, of persecutions and the Pogrom S are perpetrated on of Igbos, ethnos group Christian, in spite of the attempts at Lagos to bring back the calm one. Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu, the military governor of the area of the East stronghold of Igbos, then refuses to recognize the authority of Yakubu Gowon and the tension goes up between Christians and Moslems, placing the country at the edge of the Civil war.

In January 1967, the Accord of Aburi is proposed with the Nigeria at the end of a Ghanaian mediation . This agreement envisages the abandonment of the division of the country in areas in order to found a Federal republic made up of twelve States. The Gowon general proposes of sound with dimensions a new administrative cutting which would have deprived Igbos of most of the oil resources. Ojukwu disallows these proposals and declares that all the incomes generated in the area of the East will be requisitioned by the governorship in term of repair at the cost of the displacement of tens of reducing thousands of Igbos North.

The May 26th 1967, the Advisory counsel of the area of the East votes the secession of the area. May 30th, Ojukwu proclaims the independence of the area, which takes the name of République of Biafra, with Enugu for capital. The army biafraise account then approximately 100 000 men. The state of emergency issued in Nigeria on May 26th, 1967 allows to found police measurements aiming at taking again control of Biafra but without much success. Biafra holding the two-thirds of the reserves of Oil, it adapts the last third while crossing the Niger and by invading the area of the Mid-west, where transitory République of the Benign one is constituted, with Benin City for capital (not to be confused with current Bénin, which corresponds to old Dahomey). In reprisals of the armed actions with the Nigerian government, the army of Biafra pushes its incursions until Lagos, the capital of Nigeria.

This conflict remains little followed by the international public until the middle of the year 1968, when that the first photographs of Biafran victims of the famine arrive. Nigeria is then suspected of Génocide towards Igbos, the more so as a plane with sign of the Croix-rouge bringing vivres to them was attacked. The great nations choose to little by little them camp : the France of the de Gaulle general provides Arme S to Biafra, whose independence will be officially recognized only by four African countries (Tanzania, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Zambia) and by Haiti; on their side, the the United Kingdom and the the USSR support the federal government and provide him weapons. The the United States also support Nigeria, but are opposed to any sale of weapons to the two parts. The singer John Lennon, British citizen, returns his decoration of Member off the British Empire to protest against the choice of camp carried out by his country.

Civil war

Beginnings of the war

The July 6th 1967, the oil companies Shell, BP and American Overseas announce their intention to pour directly the royalties with the Biafra and not with the Nigeria. The federal army engages the hostilities then and takes little by little the control of the main cities, while the territory of Biafra is reduced to the wire of the months like a shagreen: Ogoja, Nsukka and the island of Bonny falls as of the May 30th 1967, Enugu the September 28th 1967 (capital transferred to Umuahia), oil-bearing Port Harcourt and its fields the May 24th 1968, Umuahia the April 22nd 1969 (capital transferred to Owerri) and finally Owerri the January 9th 1970.

The various nations supported one or the other of the belligerents by convoys of weapons, Mercenaire S and military advisers (of which French Bob Denard). At the Biafran, the colonel Rolf Steiner constituted the black legion or 4th commando brigade who gained many successes over the forces Nigerians, mainly at the time of the daring raid of Enugu which destroyed the aviation Nigerian in the Northern sector. The eccentric count Swedish Carl Gustav von Rosen directed also an air brigade made up of five planes Saab miniCOIN (two Biafran and three Swedish).

With the fall of Port Harcourt the May 24th 1968, Biafra was definitively private of one access to the Atlantic Ocean. The strategy of smothering of the pockets of resistance biafraise by the army Nigerian led irremediably to the crushing strapping of the revolt.

Humanitarian crisis

From 1968, the two armies maintain their positions and none manages to progress significantly. The civil population, wedged between two fires and fearing Massacre S on behalf of the army Nigerian, has other choices only to support the government of Biafra and to move camps in camps of Réfugié S. the Blocus terrestrial and maritime of the pocket biafraise where million people on a few thousands of square kilometers is wedged then involves terrible a Famine where two million people approximately will die of hunger, thirst and epidemic S.

The mediatization of this famine which showed starveling children and refugees and the cry of alarm of the government of Biafra showing Nigeria of Génocide and to worsen the famine started a humane dash international. An airlift transporting vivres and drugs was set up, which made it possible to stop the crisis partly. These humane air convoys were denounced by Nigeria, because they were used as cover with the sending of weapons and mercenaries. These suspicions went as far as encouraging the army Nigerian to cut down in full flight a plane of the International committee of the Red Cross.

Fall of Biafra

In December 1969, four offensives Nigerians made up of 120 000 men on the whole were right of the last positions biafraises. Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu then escapes towards the Ivory Coast and charges its Prime Minister Philip Effiong with regulating the details of the capitulation. This one signs the January 12th 1970 a immediate Cessez-le-feu and without conditions. The January 15th, the last combat cease and Biafra is officially reinstated within Nigeria.

Post-war period

In spite of the charges of Genocide formulated against the Nigeria, the international observers did not note massive reprisals or massacres against Igbos after the capitulation of Biafra (or could not bring back the proof of it). The proposals for a reconciliation made by the government of Nigeria seem to have been sincere. The combatants of the Biafra will be authorized to reinstate the regular army and no lawsuit will be organisé : Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu itself will be finally authorized to return to Nigeria in 1982, after twelve years of exile.

The rebuilding of Nigeria was relatively fast thanks to the money of the Pétrole extracts from ex-Biafra but maintains it of a military mode federal dissatisfied Igbos which considered the economic consequences insufficient. A law stipulating that no Political party could be based on the Ethnie S or the tribes was adopted but its application was not easy and the ethnic tensions remade surface.

It should be noted that the leaders of Biafra sécessionnaire had publicly declared that they would not call into question any oil concessions existances (source: Kurt Vonnegut, report carried out in Biafra included in its collection of article Thank you, Mr. Rosewater ).

Today, with more than 70 years and candidate with the presidential election Nigerian of 2003, Ojukwu always denounces the living conditions of the fifteen million Igbos among the hundred million inhabitants of Nigeria and the persistence of the many problems which had led to the war in 1967.

Appendices

List of the countries disappeared
History from Nigeria
Indépendantisme
Battle of Abagana

External bonds

the MFI-9B " MiniCOIN" in the air force of Biafra
Glossary, code names and nicknames on the war of Biafra
Interview with propo of the creation of Doctors without borders
Files on Biafra
territorial Evolution of Biafra

Sources

Political and chronology of Biafra
Article on the war of Biafra
Civil war of Nigeria
Estimates on the number of died of the war of Biafra

Random links: