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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Politics / Secret Files: Britain's Complicity In The Nigerian/biafran Civil War (321 Views)
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Secret Files: Britain's Complicity In The Nigerian/biafran Civil War by Tflesk: 10:16am On Jul 09, 2020 |
The formerly secret files on the Nigerian civil war in the late 1960s show very clear British complicity in the Nigerian government’s aggression against the region of Biafra, where an independence movement was struggling to secede from Nigeria. This brutal civil war resulted in between one and three million deaths; it also significantly helped shape modern Nigeria, and not least the division of oil revenues between the central government and the regions and people. Background to civil war For those in Britain old enough to remember the war in Nigeria in the late 1960s, ‘Biafra’ probably still conjures up images of starving children – the result of the blockade imposed by the Nigerian government in Lagos to defeat the secession of the eastern region, Biafra. For Biafrans themselves, the period was one of immense suffering – it is still not known how many died at this time as a direct result of the war and the blockade, but it is believed to be at least one million and as high as three million. For those seeking to understand Britain’s role in the world, there is now an important side of the Biafran story to add – British complicity in the slaughter. The declassified files show that the then Wilson government backed the Nigerian government all the way, arming its aggression and apologising for its actions. It is one of the sorrier stories in British foreign policy, though by no means unusual. The immediate background to the war was a complex one of tensions and violence between Nigeria’s regions and ethnic groups, especially between those from the east and the north. In January 1966 army officers had attempted to seize power and the conspirators, most of whom were Ibos (from the East) assassinated several leading political figures as well as officers of northern origin. Army commander Major General Ironsi, also an Ibo, intervened to restore discipline in the army, suspended the constitution, banned political parties, formed a Federal Military Government (FMG) and appointed military governors to each of Nigeria’s regions. Ironsi’s decree in March 1966, which abolished the Nigerian federation and unified the federal and regional civil services, was perceived by many not as an effort to establish a unitary government but as a plot by the Ibo to dominate Nigeria. Troops of northern origin, who dominated the Nigerian infantry, became increasingly restive and fighting broke out between them and Ibo soldiers in garrisons in the south. In June, mobs in northern cities, aided by local officials, carried out a pogrom against resident Ibos, massacring several hundred people and destroying Ibo-owned property.It was in this context that in July 1966 northern officers staged a countercoup during which Ironsi and other Ibo officers were killed. Lieutenant Colonel (later General) Yakubu ‘Jack’ Gowon emerged as leader. The aim of the coup was both to take revenge on the Ibos for the coup in January but also to promote the secession of the north, although Gowon soon pulled back from calling explicitly for this. Gowon named himself as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and head of the military government, which was rejected by the military governor in the eastern region, Lieutenant Colonel Ojukwu, who claimed, with some justification, that the Gowon regime was illegitimate. Throughout late 1966 and 1967 the tempo of violence increased. In September 1966 attacks on Ibos in the north were renewed with unprecedented ferocity, stirred up, eastern region officials believed, by northern political leaders. Reports circulated that troops from the northern region had participated in the massacres. The estimated number of deaths ranged from 10,000 to as high as 30,000. More than one million Ibos returned to the eastern region in fear. In January 1967 the military leaders met in Aburi, Ghana. By this time the eastern region under Ojukwu was threatening secession. Many of Ojukwu’s eastern colleagues were now arguing that the massacres the previous September showed that the country could not be reunited amicably. In a last minute effort at Aburi to hold Nigeria together, an accord was agreed that provided for a loose confederation of regions. Gowon issued a decree implementing the Aburi agreement and even the northern region now favoured the formation of a multistate federation. The federal civil service, however, vigorously opposed the Aburi agreement and sought to scupper it. Ojukwu and Gowon then disputed what exactly had been agreed at Aburi, especially after the Federal Military Government (FMG) issued a further decree in March which was seen by Ojukwu as reneging on the FMG’s commitment at Aburi to give the eastern region greater autonomy. The new decree gave the federal government the right to declare a state of emergency in any region and to ensure that any regional government could not undermine the executive authority of the federal government. Ojukwu then gave an ultimatum to Gowon that the eastern region would begin implementing its understanding of the Aburi agreement, providing for greater regional autonomy, by 31 March.While Biafra was threatening to secede and declare an independent state, the FMG imposed sanctions against it to bring it into line. On 26 May the eastern region consultative assembly voted to secede from Nigeria and the following day Gowon declared a state of emergency throughout the country, banned political activity and announced a decree restoring full powers to the FMG. Also announced was a decree dividing the country into twelve states, including six in the north and three in the east. On 30 May 1967 Biafra declared independence and on 7 July the FMG began operations to defeat it. It lasted until January 1970 as an extremely well-equipped Nigerian federal army of over 85,000 men supplied by Britain, the Soviet Union and few others, took on a volunteer Biafran army, much of whose equipment initially came from captured Nigerian supplies and which only later was able to procure relatively small quantities of arms from outside. The background is therefore very complex and it remains far from clear cut as to where the ‘blame’ lay for the failure of peaceful negotiations and the resort to war. It does appear, however, that the FMG did go back on its agreement at Aburi on the extent of regional autonomy it was prepared to offer the easterners. Before they began to back the FMG unequivocally once war began, British officials had previously recognised the legitimacy of some of Ojukwu’s claims. The High British Commissioner in Lagos, Sir Francis Cumming-Bruce, had told Gowon in November 1966, for example, that the September 1966 massacres of the Ibos in the north ‘changed the relationship between the regions and made it impossible for eastern Nigerians to associate with northerners on the same basis as in the past’. The issue was one of basic ‘law and order and physical safety throughout the federation’. He told Gowon that the FMG had to go ‘a considerable distance to meet the views of Colonel Ojukwu’. British officials also recognised that the Aburi agreements were ‘extremely woolly on many important points and lend themselves to infinite arguments over interpretation’. By end January 1967 Cumming-Bruce was saying that both Gowon and Ojuwku were ‘seriously at fault and they share responsibility for poisoning of atmosphere [sic]‘. Then there was the wider question of whether it was legitimate for a region to secede and whether Biafra should have been allowed to establish its independence. Again, a lot of complex issues are involved. British officials feared that if Biafra were to secede many other regions in Africa would too, threatening ‘stability’ across the whole of the continent. Most of the great powers, including the US and Soviet Union, shared this view largely for the same reason. Yet there appears to be no reason why Biafra, with its 15 million people, could not have established a viable, independent state. Biafrans argued that they were a people with a distinctive language and culture, that they were Christian as opposed to the Muslim communities lumped into the Nigeria federal state, which had, after all, been a colonial creation. In fact, Biafra was also one of the most developed regions in Africa with a high density of roads, schools, hospitals and factories. The struggle for an independent state certainly appeared to have the support of the majority of Biafrans, whose sense of nationhood deepened throughout the war as enormous sacrifices were made to contribute to the war effort. What is crystal clear is that the wishes of the Biafrans were never a major concern of British planners; what they wanted, or what Nigerians elsewhere in the federation wanted, was simply not an issue for Whitehall. There is simply no reference in the government files, that I have seen, to this being a consideration. The priorities for London were maintaining the unity of Nigeria for geo-political interests and protecting British oil interests. This meant that Gowon’s FMG was backed right from the start. But the files also reveal astonishing levels of connivance with the FMG’s aggression. |
Re: Secret Files: Britain's Complicity In The Nigerian/biafran Civil War by Tflesk: 10:30am On Jul 09, 2020 |
Nigerian aggression, British
support
British interests are very clearly
revealed in the declassified files.
‘Our direct interests are trade and
investment, including an
important stake by Shell/BP in
the eastern Region. There are
nearly 20,000 British nationals in
Nigeria, for whose welfare we are
of course specially [sic]
concerned’, the Foreign Office
noted a few days before the
outbreak of the war. Shell/BP’s
investments amounted to around
£200 million, with other British
investment in Nigeria accounting
for a further £90 million. It was
then partly owned by the British
government, and the largest
producer of oil which provided
most of Nigeria’s export earnings.
Most of this oil was in the
eastern region.
Commonwealth Minister George
Thomas wrote in August 1967
that: ‘The sole immediate British
interest in Nigeria is that the
Nigerian economy should be
brought back to a condition in
which our substantial trade and
investment in the country can be
further developed, and
particularly so we can regain
access to important oil
installations’.
Thomas further outlined the
primary reason why Britain was
so keen to preserve Nigerian
unity, noting that ‘our only direct
interest in the maintenance of
the federation is that Nigeria has
been developed as an economic
unit and any disruption of this
would have adverse effects on
trade and development’. If
Nigeria were to break up, he
added: ‘We cannot expect that
economic cooperation between
the component parts of what
was Nigeria, particularly between
the East and the West, will
necessarily enable development
and trade to proceed at the same
level as they would have done in
a unified Nigeria; nor can we now
count on the Shell/BP oil
concession being regained on the
same terms as in the past if the
East and the mid-West assume
full control of their own
economies’.
Ojukwu initially tried to get Shell/
BP to pay royalties to the Biafran
government rather than the FMG.
The oil companies, after giving
the Biafrans a small token
payment, eventually refused and
Ojuwku responded by
sequestering Shell’s property and
installations, forbidding Shell to
do any further business and
ordering all its staff out. They
‘have much to lose if the FMG do
not achieve the expected victory’,
George Thomas noted in August
1967. A key British aim
throughout the war was to
secure the lifting of the blockade
which Gowon imposed on the east
and which stopped oil exports.
In the run-up to Gowon’s
declaration of war, Britain had
made it clear to the FMG that it
completely supported Nigerian
unity. George Thomas had told
the Nigerian High Commissioner in
London at the end of April 1967,
for example, that ‘the Federal
government had our sympathy
and our full support’ but said that
he hoped the use of force
against the east could be
avoided. On 28 May Gowon,
having just declared a state of
emergency, explicitly told Britain’s
Defence Attache that the FMG
was likely to ‘mount an invasion
from the north’. Gowon asked
whether Britain would provide
fighter cover for the attack and
naval support to reinforce the
blockade of Eastern ports; the
Defence Attache replied that
both were out of the question.
By the time Gowon ordered
military action in early July,
therefore, Britain had refused
Nigerian requests to be militarily
involved and had urged Gowon to
seek a ‘peaceful’ solution.
However, the Wilson government
had also assured Gowon of British
support for Nigerian unity at a
time when military preparations
were taking place. And Britain had
also made no signs that it might
cut off, or reduce, arms supplies if
a military campaign were
launched.
The new High Commissioner in
Lagos, Sir David Hunt, wrote in a
memo to London on 12 June that
the ‘only way… of preserving
unity [sic] of Nigeria is to remove
Ojukwu by force’. He said that
Ojukwu was committed to
remaining the ruler of an
independent state and that
British interests lay in firmly
supporting the FMG.
Before going to war, Gowon
began what was to become a two
and half year long shopping list
of arms that the FMG wanted
from Britain. On 1 July he asked
Britain for jet fighter/bomber
aircraft, six fast boats and 24
anti-aircraft guns. ‘We want to
help the Federal Government in
any way we can’, British officials
noted. However, Britain rejected
supplying the aircraft, fearing
that they would publicly
demonstrate direct British
intervention in the war and, at
this stage, also rejected
supplying the boats. London did,
however, agree to supply the
anti-aircraft guns and to provide
training courses to use them.
The Deputy High Commissioner in
Enugu, Biafra’s main city, noted
that the supply of these anti-
aircraft guns and their
ammunition would be seen as
British backing for the FMG and
also that they were not entirely
defensive weapons anyway since
‘they could also take on an
offensive role if mounted in an
invasion fleet’. Nevertheless, the
government’s news department
was instructed to stress the
‘defensive nature of these
weapons’ when pressed but
generally to avoid publicity on
their export from Britain. High
Commissioner Hunt said that ‘it
would be better to use civil
aircraft’ to deliver these guns and
secured agreement from the
Nigerians that ‘there would be no
publicity’ in supplying them.
Faced with Gowon’s complaints
about Britain not supplying more
arms, Wilson also agreed in mid-
July to supply the FMG with the
fast patrol boats. This was done
in the knowledge that they would
help the FMG maintain the
blockade against Biafra. Wilson
wrote to Gowon saying that ‘we
have demonstrated in many ways
our support for your government
as the legal government of
Nigeria and our refusal to
recognise the secessionists’. He
also told him that Britain does
‘not intend to put any obstacle in
the way’ of orders for
‘reasonable quantities of military
material of types similar to those
you have obtained here in the
past’. Gowon replied saying that ‘I
have taken note of your
concurrence for the usual
purchases of arms supplies to
continue and will take advantage
of what is available now and
others when necessary’.
By early August Biafran forces
had made major gains against the
FMG and had invaded the mid-
West region. Commonwealth
Minister George Thomas noted
that ‘the chances of a clear-cut
military decision being achieved
by either side now look rather
distant’. Rather, ‘we are now
faced with the probability of an
escalating and increasingly
disorderly war, with both sides
shopping around for arms’. In this
situation, he raised the option of
Britain launching a peace
offensive and halting all arms
supplies. But this was rejected by
David Hunt in Lagos and others
since it would cause ‘great
resentment’ on the part of the
FMG against the British
government and be regarded as a
‘hostile act’. Instead, the
government decided to continue
the flow of arms and ammunition
of types previously supplied by
Britain but to continue to refuse
supplies of ‘sophisticated
equipment’ like aircraft and
tanks.
The decision to continue arms
exports was taken when it had
already become clear in the
behaviour of the Nigerian forces
that any weapons supplied would
be likely to be used against
civilians. It was also at a time
when Commonwealth Secretary
General Arnold Smith was making
renewed attempts to push for
peace negotiations after having
been rebuffed by Gowon in a visit
to Lagos in early July.
By early November 1967 the FMG
had pushed back the Biafrans
and captured Enugu; British
officials were now reporting that
the FMG had ‘a clear military
advantage’. Now that our side
seemed like winning, talk of
reducing arms to them
disappeared; George Thomas now
said that ‘it seems to me that
British interests would now be
served by a quick FMG victory’. He
recommended that the arms
export policy be ‘relaxed’ and to
supply Lagos with items that
‘have importance in increasing
their ability to achieve a quicker
victory’. This meant ‘reasonable
quantities’ of equipment such as
mortars and ‘infantry weapons
generally’, though not aircraft or
other ‘sophisticated’ equipment.
On 23 November 1967 the Cabinet
agreed that ‘a quick Federal
military victory’ provided the best
hope for ‘an early end to the
fighting’. By early December,
Commonwealth Secretary George
Thomson [sic, not Thomas. need
also to check cos he may have
been FO minister at this time' he
certainly became CW sec by mid
68] noted that the ‘lack of
supplies and ammunition is one of
things that are holding
operations up’. He said that
Britain should agree to the FMG’s
recent shopping list since ‘a
favourable response to this
request ought to give us every
chance of establishing ourselves
again as the main supplier of the
Nigerian forces after the war’. If
the war ended soon, the Nigerian
economy will start expanding and
‘there should be valuable
business to be done’. Also:
‘Anything that we now do to
assist the FMG should help our oil
companies to re-establish and
expand their activities in Nigeria
after the war, and, more
generally should help our
commercial and political
relationship with postwar Nigeria’.
He ended by saying he hoped
Britain could supply armoured
cars since they ‘have proved of
especial value in the type of
fighting that is going on in Nigeria
and the FMG are most impressed
with the Saladins and Ferrets’
previously supplied by Britain.
As a result Britain supplied six
Saladin armoured personnel
carriers (APCs), 30 Saracen APCs
along with 2,000 machine guns
for them, anti-tank guns and 9
million rounds of ammunition.
Denis Healey, the Defence
Secretary, wrote that he hoped
these supplies will encourage the
Nigerians ‘to look to the United
Kingdom for their future
purchases of defence equipment’.
By the end of the year Britain
had also approved the export of
1,050 bayonets, 700 grenades,
1,950 rifles with grenade
launchers, 15,000 lbs of
explosives and two helicopters.
In the first half of the following
year, 1968, Britain approved the
export of 15 million rounds of
ammunition, 21,000 mortar bombs,
42,500 Howtizer rounds, 12
Oerlikon guns, 3 Bofors guns, 500
submachine guns, 12 Saladins
with guns and spare parts, 30
Saracens and spare parts, 800
bayonets, 4,000 rifles and two
other helicopters.ritish
support for a united Nigeria,
saying in April 1968 that ‘I think
we can fairly claim that we have
not wavered in this support
throughout the civil war’.
These massive arms exports
were being secretly supplied –
indeed, massively stepped up – at
a time when one could read about
the actions of the recipients in
the newspapers. After the
Biafran withdrawal from the mid-
west in September 1967 a series
of massacres started against Ibo
residents. The New York Times
reported that over 5,000 had
been killed in various towns of
the mid west. About 1,000 Ibos
were killed in Benin city by local
people with the acquiescence of
the federal forces, the New York
Review noted in December 1967.
Around 700 Ibo males were lined
up and shot in the town of Asaba,
the Observer reported in January
1968. According to eyewitnesses
the Nigerian commander ordered
the execution of every Ibo male
over the age of ten.
Nigerian officials informed the
British government that the arms
were ‘important to them, but not
vital’. More important than the
actual arms ‘was the policy of the
British government in supporting
the FMG’.
This support was now taking
place amid public and
parliamentary pressure for a halt
to British arms to Lagos, with 70
Labour MPs, for example, filing a
motion for such an embargo in
May 1968. Yet the real extent of
arms supplied by Britain was
concealed from the public.
Throughout 1967 and 1968,
Ministers had been telling
parliament that Britain was
essentially neutral in the conflict
in that it was not interfering in
the internal affairs of Nigeria but
simply continuing to supply arms
to Nigeria on the same basis as
before the war. As the
declassified files, referred to
above, show, this was simply a lie.
For example, Wilson told the
House on 16 May 1968 that: ’We
have continued the supply… of
arms by private manufacturers in
this country exactly on the basis
that it has been in the past, but
there has been no special
provision for the needs of the
war’.
One British file at this time –
mid-1968 – refers to deaths of
between 70,000-100,000 by now
as ‘realistic’. The Red Cross was
estimating around 600,000
refugees in Biafra alone and was
trying to arrange desperately
needed supplies to meet needs,
estimated at around 30 tons a
day.
Humanitarian suffering, especially
starvation, was severe as a
result of the FMG’s blockade of
Biafra. Pictures of starving and
malnourished children went
around the world. The FMG was
widely seen as indulging in
atrocities and attacks against
civilians, including apparently
indiscriminate air strikes, in an
increasingly brutal war in which
civilians were the chief victims.
The files show that Wilson told
Gowon on several occasions in
private letters that he had
successfully fended off public and
parliamentary criticism in Britain,
in order to continue to support
the FMG – clearly showing where
the government’s priorities and
sympathies lay. As in Vietnam at
the same time, Wilson was not
going to be deflected by mere
public opposition from backing
ongoing aggression by key allies,
whatever the level of atrocities
and casualties.
With federal forces in control by
mid-year of Port Harcourt, the
most important southern coastal
city, British officials noted that
‘having gone this far in
supporting the FMG, it would be a
pity to throw away the credit we
have built up with them just
when they seem to have the
upper hand’. Britain could not halt
the supply of arms since ‘apart
from other considerations, such
an outcome would seriously put
at risk about £200m of British
investments in non-Biafra
Nigeria’, George Thomson
explained to Harold Wilson.
It was also at this point that
British officials sought to counter
widespread opposition to the
Nigerian government by conniving
with it to improve the
‘presentation’ of its policies –
another example of Britain’s past
‘information operations’ described
in earlier chapters. Britain urged
the FMG to convince the outside
world that it was not engaged in
genocide or a policy of massacre
and to make public statements
on the need for a ceasefire and
humanitarian access to Biafra.
High Commissioner Hunt
suggested to Gowon that the
federal air force be used for
‘psychological warfare’ and to
drop leaflets over the Ibo towns
which would help the FMG score a
‘propaganda point’. Officials
noted that their support for the
FMG was under attack and that
‘our ability to sustain it… depends
very much on implementing
enlightened and humane federal
policies and securing public
recognition for them’. What was
needed was ‘good and well-
presented Nigerian policies which
permit that support to continue’.
Wilson therefore urged a senior
Nigerian government official,
Chief Enahoro, ‘to make a greater
effort to ensure that their case
did not go by default’.
The files indicate that these
‘presentational’ issues were much
more important to British officials
than any actual suffering of the
Biafrans themselves. London
never did anything significant to
press the FMG. British officials
ruled out threatening to cut off,
or reduce, arms exports to force
the FMG to change policies. The
issue that most concerned the
government at the time was that
it would be forced to withdraw or
reduce its support for Gowon in
the face of public pressure. This,
therefore, had to be countered,
and the FMG needed to make
greater efforts. |
Re: Secret Files: Britain's Complicity In The Nigerian/biafran Civil War by proudevil: 10:43am On Jul 09, 2020 |
Ahhhh op please summarise. |
Re: Secret Files: Britain's Complicity In The Nigerian/biafran Civil War by Tflesk: 10:43am On Jul 09, 2020 |
CONTINUE READING BELOW http://www.codewit.org/reports/biafra/18191-nigeria-s-war-over-biafra-1967-70 |
Re: Secret Files: Britain's Complicity In The Nigerian/biafran Civil War by Nobody: 10:55am On Jul 09, 2020 |
After the Biafran withdrawal from the mid- west in September 1967 a series of massacres started against Ibo residents. The New York Times reported that over 5,000 had been killed in various towns of the mid west. About 1,000 Ibos were killed in Benin city by local people with the acquiescence of the federal forces, the New York Review noted in December 1967. Around 700 Ibo males were lined up and shot in the town of Asaba, Why did Benin locals killed the igbos again!! Although I knew it was a war but the kiling of Young igbos boy above 10 years is evil and not okay.... This shud nt be... It is bad in all circumstances.. Why shud normal igbos boys be killed, |
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