第 31 页

The wind blew a gale. Journalists started flocking into Biafra, partly to report the plight of the children, partly to scout for other 'angles'. What they wrote shook the conscience of the world. Western Europe became interested about two months after Britain. Protests were raised by most major opinion-forming organs from the Iron Curtain to Galway Bay.

By the autumn thousands of Britons and Europeans were working for Biafra, a country they had never seen and

people they had in all probability never met. They collected money, demonstrated, paraded, performed hunger strikes, paid for full-page newspaper advertisements, toured, lectured, appealed, lobbied parliamentarians, called for action.

The British Government was forced to answer more and more hostile questions, twice to debate the issue before the House, issue denials, promises, explanations, donations. Despite assurances first that in the event of another major- attack or more 'unnecessary deaths' in Biafra Britain would be forced to 'more than reconsider her policy' and later more assurances that it was really in the Biafrans' interest to be the victims of a 'quick kill' policy after all, Parliament remained unconvinced.

Elsewhere Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Holland announced they would send no more arms to Nigeria, and cancelled existing orders. Italy slipped out quietly without a word. America said it had never sent any at all (which was not true) and France and West Germany said neither had they (which was true).

In Basle, Switzerland, anti-British Government protests forced cancellation of British Week, in Downing Street windows were broken in protest. Still the press coverage flowed in, and still it was lapped up. Looking back it is odd to think that despite the efforts of the Biafran publicists and lobbyists on their own behalf, this translation of the Biafra affair from a forgotten bush-war into an international issue was basically caused by a typewriter and a strip of celluloid, used many times over. It showed the enormous power of the press to influence opinion when its organs are used in concert. The coverage was largely fair. Some was over-effusive, some inaccurate on questions of fact, some slushy, some vituperative. Mostly the reporters stated the facts and let the editorial writers pound out the superlatives, which is the way it should be.

The radio networks covering Africa, mostly owned by governments and dedicated to the task of putting forward that government's viewpoint, tended to orient their news coverage towards Nigeria. Strangely, the 'experts' on West Africa turned out to be wrong; the best coverage came from the ordinary reporters who described what they saw. Most of the senior veterans of the West African circuit plumped in the beginning

for a quick victory for Lagos, and were hopelessly misled. Reading back through the files of these correspondents' dispatches can be amusing. In the early days the few, very few, who suggested the Nigeria-Biafra war was likely to

be long and bloody, finally inconclusive and fraught with the most dangerous perspectives of international intervention -and subsequent escalation, were loftily regarded as naive fools or in love with the Ibos.

In subsequent months the West Africa veterans sometimes came near to gymnastics trying to explain away Nigeria's failure to achieve a quick victory. Animus began to enter into the dispatches of the most sober writers, inevitably aimed against the presumptuous people who continued to resist the fate decided for them.

The reason is that senior correspondents of the Establishment-oriented press tend to be too closely allied to the powersthat-be, from whom they get most of their information on the old-boy network. The Establishment of London and Lagos backed Nigeria heavily. The correspondents, circulating between Commonwealth Office and the right parties on one side, and between Chief Anthony Enahoro's office and the cocktail bar of the Ikoyi Hotel further south, tended to believe what they were told rather than do a bit of leg-work in order to find out for themselves what was happening. Being constitutionally creatures of the status quo and not wishing to vacate their cosy existence on the fringes of the diplomatic galaxy, these gentlemen have given themselves to reports- so one-sided as to suggest they sought rather self-justification than a realistic appraisal of the situation. Two notable exceptions are Mr. Walter Schwarz, the West Africa correspondent of the Guardian and Mr. Michael Leapman, Commonwealth correspondent of the Sun. Both correspondents showed that it was possible to write balanced and objective reports, and although neither came out wholly on one side or the other, both said things which, although no doubt their sincerely held view, could not have been pleasing to both sides simultaneously. Ironically, in -view of the partisanship of others, both these correspondents are still persona grata in both countries.

One organ that has put up a remarkable record has been

External Service of the B.B.C., notably the Africa Service. Throughout the whole war listeners and some contributors to the Africa Service were astounded by the number and variety of the misrepresentations of the situation presented by these programmes. Editorial-type comments were liberally mixed with what were supposed to be factual news reports from Lagos, and within a short time most, white and black, living in Biafra and tuning in nightly to the B.&C., became convinced there existed a strong pro-Nigerian bias in the coverage of the story.

Graphic accounts were related of things alleged to have happened in the heart of Biafra which had not happened, towns were described as having fallen to Nigerian troops long before the Nigerian soldiers actually entered them, and some farfetched speculation was attempted apparently on the basis of little more than gossip or the over-optimistic hopes of the Nigerian authorities. For example, there was speculation after Colonel Ojukwu (a devout Roman Catholic) had gone into a week's Lenten retreat in 1968 that he had fled the country or been the victim of a coup; and on another occasion an alleged popular demonstration in Umuahia in favour of Chou En-lai was described. Neither had a vestige of truth.

The overall effect appeared to indicate to an uninformed listener that the Nigerian case was wholly right, while that of Biafra was wholly wrong, and more misleadingly for a listener elsewhere, that Biafra was permanently on the verge of imminent collapse Throughout this time the reportage of the External Services fell consistently far short of the standard of journalism expected of the B.B.C. and which indeed the B.B.C. claims to be its own.

The effect was to cause widespread disgust among the Biafrans and equal disenchantment among the British living in the country. For the former at any rate the editorial attitude at Bush House towards Biafra was explained by the fact that the annual budget of the B.B.C. External Services was not met by the British licence-payer, but by an ex gratia payment from the Treasury through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

One notable exception was the file of dispatches sent from Nigeria by Mr. John Osman, the B.B.C Commonwealth Corre-

spondent; a skilled and conscientious reporter, Mr. Osman gave objective and balanced reports, and was subsequently expelled from Port Harcourt by Colonel Adekunle in a remarkable display of the latter's violent temperament.

15. Conclusion.

AT long last the scale and the outlook of the Nigeria-Biafra war have aroused the disquiet not only of the humanitarian groups but of powerful governments who belatedly see the dangerous perspective ahead. They are coming to realize that the situation contains elements of peril not only for Biafra, but just as much for Nigeria and for the rest of West Africa.

Now the talk is all of a search for a peaceful solution, and those who in their time did their utmost to support the idea of a purely military solution are unconvincingly protesting they have been in favour of a negotiated peace all along.

So 1ar as Biafra is concerned, their position is not complex. They have said since the start of the war that they viewed the problem as being a human one, and consequently not susceptible to a military solution but to a political one. Their offers of a ceasefire have been unrelenting, possibly because they have largely been on the receiving end of the war. But whatever their motivations, they are in favour of an end to hostilities and a negotiated peace.

It is in the mood of the Biafran people that one comes up against the main difficulty on that side. They left Nigeria possessed by three sentiments: a feeling of rejection, of mistrust of -the Lagos Government, and of fear of extermination. To this has now been added a fourth emotion, more intractable, more profound, and consequently more dangerous. It is the emotion of hate, pure, keen and vengeful.

Some of those now talking of peace, notably in Whitehall, seem under the impression that nothing has changed over the previous eighteen months. On the contrary, everything has changed. It is not a question of the growth of the 'army of penpushers' into a redoubtable military machine, nor the recent access to larger quantities of arms. It is the mood of the people who have watched their entire country shattered and despoiled, their children waste away and die, their young men cut down in thousands. Concessions one could have had at the

start of the war, had a firm stand been taken and mediation offered, are no longer available. It is possible that in midsummer 1967 one could have saved at least a Confederation of Nigeria with enough economic cooperation between the consenting partners to have offered all the economic advantages

of the Federation. It is doubtful if this is now possible, at least in the short term. It is useless for men in charcoal-grey suits to talk of the benefits of a single, united, harmonious Nigeria, and to express mystification that the Biafrans do not want it. Too much blood has flowed, too much misery has been caused and felt, too many lives have been thrown uselessly away, too many tears have been shed and too much bitterness engendered.

No one in Biafra now has any illusions about the behaviour of Biafrans if they ever again came to have Military sway over any of their present persecutors. Nor does anyone believe that a Nigerian will be able to walk unarmed and unescorted among Biafrans for a very long time to come. The only possible consequence of a militarily enforced 'unity' now would be total military occupation apparently in perpetuityj with its own inevitable outcome of revolt and reprisal, bloodshed, flight into the bush, and famine. The incompatibility of the two peoples is now complete. , The voice of the Biafran people is the Consultative Assembly and the Advisory Council of Chiefs and Elders, and they are unanimous on that. Colonel Ojukwu cannot go against their wishes - or on that topic their demands - no matter how much vituperation is thrown at him for intransigence, obduracy and stubbornness.

On the Nigerian side the position is more complex. For the Nigerian people have no voice. Their newspapers, radios and television stations are either Government-controlled or edited by men who know that outspoken criticism of Government policy is not the best way to health. Dissenting intellectuals like Pete Enahoro and Tais Solarin are either in exile, or like Wole Soyinka, in prison. The Chiefs, usually the best spokesmen of grass roots opinion, are not consulted.

It is interesting to speculate what would happen if General Gowon were obliged to follow the counsels on his war policy of a Consultative Assembly which included strong representa-

tion of the farming community, the academic community, the trade unions, the commercial interests and the womenfolk; for all these groups are presently showing increasing restiveness at the war policy. But General Gowon can dispense with consultation; recently he felt able to use firearms against demonstrating cocoa farmers at Ibadan.

The result is that the people of Nigeria are muted, and their real views cannot be known to the peacemakers, who must be content to talk with a small regime of men who are more interested in their personal careers than in the welfare of their people. The recent open invitation to the Russians to play a big role in the future of Nigeria indicates that this may well be so.

So far this regime has maintained its position that a military solution is not only feasible but imminent, and that a return to normality would be just around the corner after final victory. But the record of Enugu, captured over a year ago and still a smashed ghost town, does not give credence to this theory. On this position the Nigerian Government has stipulated that any termination of hostilities must be dependent on a number of conditions to be agreed by the Biafrans as a basis for negotiations. But the conditions themselves are so sweeping that they represent in fact all the points that the negotiations would have to be about, i.e., future nature of Biafra, terms of association with Nigeria, permissibility of a potential for selfdefence, etc.

The terms of their ceasefire are effectively the total and unconditional surrender of Biafra, to be delivered bound hand and foot into the hands of the Nigerian Government to do with as it wishes. It must be presumed that the Gowon regime has not abandoned its policy of believing a totally military solution can offer the final answer.

But in the face of this the danger grows. None of the policies hitherto adopted by the governments of the Western world has been successful in promoting peace. Most governments appear to have had more, preferring to accept British requests for a 'hands off' attitude, reminders that the Commonwealth is habitually Britain's sphere of influence, and assurances that it would all soon be over. The British Government's policies are in ruins; all the ex-

planations and the justifications have been proved to -have been based on false premisses. Even the assurance that these policies would bring to Britain great influence with the Nigerian Government, which could then be used to

bring peace, has fallen on its face. Far from having gained in influence Britain, once a powerful adviser in Nigerian affairs, has been shown to be now quite impotent. Ironically the war hawks whom British arms made powerful now feel strong enough to seek new friends while the Wilson Government, unwilling to admit this, has the courage neither to do something positive itself nor to withdraw its caveat to the other major Powers.

Only the Russians have gained from the present mess, being now in a position to move ever more strongly into Nigerian life. It cannot be presumed that they have the interests of the people of Nigeria at heart, for a continuation of the war is in their interest, putting the Nigerian regime ever more deeply in their debt.