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On both counts the question of supplying Nigeria with arms to prosecute a war against the Biafrans must give anyone cause for misgivings. The background to the Nigeria-Biafra war has been described in previous chapters. Within a few weeks of the outbreak of that war the behaviour of the Nigerian infantry in the Midwest, amply witnessed, had indicated that any weapons supplied were likely to be used unhesitatingly on civilians.

Moreover, it is not unusual for the more scrupulous countries to refuse to sell weapons of war, even those necessary for defence purposes in time of peace, to a country of whose internal policies the supplier disapproves. Thus when Britain under a Conservative Government was on the point of selling warships to Spain, Mr. Harold Wilson leapt to his feet with the cry 'No frigates for Fascists', and as his election was in the offing the Spaniards cancelled the deal.

Later, the Labour Government placed an embargo on the sale of arms to South, Africa. While few like apartheid, not even the Labour Party stalwarts suggested that warships and Buccaneer bombers could be used against rioting Africans. The argument was, and it was sincerely felt, that by supplying arms to a country one sustains and strengthens that countWs regime in power, even in time of peace; and that if one dislikes that rigime, and the things it does on the domestic front, one should not strengthen it. The only logical conclusions from the continuing sale by the Wilson Government of arms to

Nigeria is that this Government does approve of the things the Gowon regime practises. These are described from eyewitness reports in a later chapter

The third excuse was that if Britain had not sold the arms to Nigeria, then someone else would have done so. On the practical plane this is not probable. One by one the cash-and-carry suppliers of arms to Nigeria opted out as they and their peoples came to understand the use to which the arms were being put. One by one Czechoslovakia, Holland, Italy and Belgium decided not to supply any more. Belgium rushed through a special law banning even the fulfilment of tail-end orders. The idea that the Russians would automatically supply all that Britain failed to supply could have been knocked to pieces by any expert- on weaponry. The Soviets use different weapons calibres on all types of arms from those used by Britain and NATO. Usually the Soviet calibres are one millimetre bigger than NATO sizes, so that their forces can use Western captured ammunition, while NATO forces cannot use Warsaw Pact ammunition. For this reason Soviet ammunition could not have been supplied to Nigeria for use in NATO weaponry. A change of ammunition would have meant an

entire switchover of all weaponry for an army of 80,000 men, a prohibitively expensive task. In fact, faced with the prospect of being reduced like the Biafrans to dealing on the black market for arms, there is a probability that Nigeria, in the ,d to go to event of a British withdrawal, would have been oblige the peace table with meaningful proposals. By the time Britain and Russia had become the two sole suppliers a chance had been established that an agreement between the pair of them could have been the basis for the all-round arms ban to which Colonel Ojukwu had agreed in advance. But it was not even tried, perhaps because it was never intended to be an argument, but simply an excuse for the gullible.

As regards the moral implications of the excuse, the Earl of Cork and Orrery, speaking in the Lords on 27 August 1968, said:

It is the same as saying that if somebody is going to supply the arms in any case, why not we? But unless you are going to insist that the purpose for which they are going to be used contains no evil -

and I do not see how you can say that - then this is an argument that no honourable Government can use, for it is the classic self-justification of the black marketeer, the looter, the drug pedlar " a burst of 9-mm bullets in an African stomach is an evil thing any way you reckon it, and

if we send those bullets from England knowing that they may be so used, then that particular share in the general evil is ours, and that share is neither diminished nor magnified by a hair's breadth by the likelihood that if we did not send those bullets they would be sent by somebody else.

The fourth and last excuse given for the supplies was that not to supply arms would destroy Britain's influence with Lagos. This excuse was not brought into play until the debate in the Commons on 12 June 1968, but was used increasingly thereafter. It was as threadbare as its three predecessors. During that debate Mr. Stewart assured the House that if any final assault on the Ibo heartland were launched by the, Nigerian Army, or if there were any 'unnecessary deaths' ' then in either case Britain would be forced to 'more than reconsider her policy'.

The pledges were meaningless. The influence Britain was supposed to have achieved through supplying arms was either never used or, more probably, never existed. In any event the Gowon regime has not deviated one iota from its policy totally to crush Biafra and her people, and no serious British attempt appears to have been made to persuade them to change their course.

On 23 August 1968 a final assault on the Ibo heartland was duly launched on 411 fronts and with overwhelming force. From the Imo River basin came foreigners' eye-witness reports of the wanton slaying of thousands of Ibo villagers in pursuance of Colonel Adekunle's shoot-anything-that-moves orders. There was no 'reconsideration' of policy. A supine Commons Iwas offered yet another disdainful snub by a government that by this time had seemingly come to the view that Lords and Commons only existed to be deceived.

This was the situation as regards the arms traffic as it existed up to the debate of 27 August 1968. That debate changed things to a certain point, inasmuch as it was on that day that

Hans4rd, 27 August 1968, cols. 754,5.

the Wilson Government finally threw aside what remained of its mask of concern and revealed what had in fact been its true policy all along.

But even by that date it had become clear that the British Government had no intention whatever of discouraging the war policy of the Gowon regime. The consequences of this policy had by the end of December 1968 become so serious that in terms of human lives, whatever the examination of history may reveal to have been the offence of the Nigerian rigime, the British Government must now stand as equally co-

responsible in a state of total complicity.

Arms shipments were only one of the ways in which the British Government showed its unalloyed support for the Gowon regime, As a sideline the offices of the Government became a powerful public-relations organization for Nigeria. Foreign diplomats were given the most biased briefings, and many believed them to be factually accurate and impartially composed. Correspondents were daily briefed to the Nigerian point of view, and selected untruths,were sedulously im-

planted. Inspired leaks of such myths as the 'massive French aid"to Biafra were slipped to pressmen who had shown them-. selves to be suitably unlikely to check the facts independently.

Members of Parliament and other notables who wished to go down to Biafra and see for themselves were discouraged, while those wishing to go to Nigeria were given every assistance. In bars and clubs, committee rooms and cocktail parties the 'Lagos line' was enthusiastically pushed, and on orders. No effort was spared to explain the Nigerian case as being the solely valid one, and to denigrate the Biafran version in every possible way, character assassination not excluded. The cam-

paign was not without effect. Quite a lot of influential but (on this topic) uninformed people were persuaded to accept the Lagos propaganda at its face value, to seek to inquire no

further into the background to the affair, and themselves to propagate what they possibly believed to be true.

In terms of technical assistance offered to the Nigerians the British Government was neither less accommodating nor more candid than over the question of arms. Though repeated denials were issued that any British military personnel were

fighting for the Nigerians, it soon became known that British technical personnel were attached to the Nigerian Government 'for training purposes'. It may be that these men were not serving in H.M. Forces at the time of their attachment, having previously retired from active service, but the hiring of these men under contract was done with - the fuU knowledge and approval of the British Government. While the attachment of ex-army or ex-navy experts to foreign and Commonwealth governments for training purposes in time of peace is standard practice, it is habitual to review the arrangements in time of War.

It is known, and no attempt at denial has been made, that former Royal Navy officers are and have been consistently directing the blockading operations of the Nigerian Navy. They act with the full support of the British Government. It is the blockade which has resulted in the widespread starvation in Biafra, causing an estimated one million deaths from famine in the twelve months of 1968. The blockade is total, but need not have been. A selective blockade to exclude neutrally inspected shiploads of relief foods for young children would have served Nigeria's military aims just as well. However the total blockade and its resultant famine are not being used as an unavoidable by-product of war but as a deliberate weapon against civilians.

Sir David Hunt, among many statements that confirm his total and mnquestioning support for the cause of the Gowon regime, and his undisguised personal hostility towards Biafm and her leader, has admitted that since the start of the war 'the close relations between the British and Nigerian Army and Navy have been maintained and strengthened'.

Despite this the chief support that the Wilson Government has brought to Gowon has been in the political and diplomatic field. At the time of Biafra's self-declared independence, there were three options open to Britain. One was to recognize the new state; this in factmould have meant formalizing the existing de facto partition that had existed since I August 1966 when Gowon took the lead of a group of partially successful Speech at Kaduna, 24 November 1967; B.B.C. Summary of World Broadcasts, Non-Arab Africa, ME/2631/B/2.

army mutineers and Ojukwu refused to acknowledge his sovereignty. But as a policy it was not considered, and there is no reason to attach blame for that.

The second option was to announce and stick by an attitude of neutrality in thought, word and deed. This would not at the time have antagonized either party to the forthcoming conflict, because Ojukwu would have accepted the impartiality as honest (in the event he did try to cling to the myth of Britain's announced neutrality for as long as he could because he wanted to believe it) and because Gowon was confident of a quick victory.

The third option was to announce and adopt total moral, political and military support for Gowon. Here again, Ojukwu would have regretted the decision but have known that at least Britain was sailing under her true colours.

What the Wilson Government did was to adopt the last option and announce the second. In doing so and maintaining the rable for a year, it made a fool of the British Parliament and people, and several other governments, notably those of Canada, the United States and the Scandinavian countries, who later became sufficiently concerned to wish to see peace brought about through the offices of a mutually acceptable and impartial mediator.

It is still difficult to discern the precise reasons for the British Government's decision of total support for Lagos. The background to the conflict must have been known-, in the most proFederal sense the whys and wherefores of the affair indicated that morally it was very much six of one and half a dozen of the other; civil wars are notably confused, bloody, and seldom soluble by military means.

The reasons given later were varied, and none stands up to objective assessment. One was that Britain must under all circumstances support a Commonwealth government faced with a revolt, rebellion or secession. This is not true. Britain has every right to consider every case on its merits. Even at the time South Africa was a member of the Commonwealth, it is unlikely Britain would have supported the South African Government in any way at all if that Government had been faced with a revolt by the Bantu population after having

condoned a racial massacre in which 30,000 Bantu had died.

Another reason, taken straight from Nigerian propaganda, was that the Ibos of Biafra had forced the unwilling minority non-lbos into partition from Nigeria against their will in order to grab the oil riches of the Eastern

Region for themselves. All the on-the-spot evidence indicated that the minority groups fully participated in the decision-making process to get out of Nigeria, and were as enthusiastic as the Ibos. As regards the oil, Nigerian propaganda stated that 97.3 per cent of the oil production of Nigeria came from non-lbo areas. Fortunately the oil statistics both of the major oil companies and of the Nigerian Government are available for study. For the month of December 1966 out of total production in Nigeria 36.5 per cent came from the Midwest, which was not part of Biafra. Of the Biafran production for that month, Lagos' own figures show that 50 per cent came from Aba Province (pure Ibo area), 20 per cent from Ahoada Division (majority Ibo area), and 30 per cent from Ogoni Division and Oloibiri (Ogoni/Ijaw area). Besides which, every eye-witness present during the months before the decision to break away from Nigeria was made said later that oil was not the chief motive.

The most commonly quoted reason, and the one which has the most widespread support is that any secession is in itself bad, since it would inevitably spark off a chain of other secessionist movements all over Africa. The spectres of 'balkanization', 'disintegration' and 'reversion to tribalism' are dutifully held up and even habitually cogent thinkers are overawed.

Mr. David Williams, editor of West Africa magazine and one of the best known writers on the subject wrote on 27 October

1968 in the Sunday Mirror: 'Yet in the end the Federal forces will win, and if this whole part of the world is not to become a mosaic of tiny, bankrupt, warring states, they must win.'

Although this has often been stated, and represents the Wilson Government's view, it has never apparently been questioned. Neither has, it ever been justified. The assumption is baldly made, and presumed to be true. The evidence does not support the thesis.

George Knapp, Aspects of the Biafran Affair, London, 1968, pp. 27, 28,