Dear Biko Agozino,
From my 'illiterate' standing, my innate intelligence tells me that whether it is declared a weapon of war or not, starvation is an inevitable consequence of war anywhere in the globe. No one has declared starvation as a weapon of war in the Northeast of Nigeria where hundreds of people are now reported dying daily of starvation. In Somalia and South Sudan, starvation is also reported to be taking many lives, most especially children and the old aged. While it is regrettable that many people starved to death inside Biafra, extreme caution must be observed in apportioning blame to Nigeria or the Federal Government. In declaring the sovereign state of Biafra, Ojukwu said that it was the only way to guarantee security of life for the Igbo. It was Ojukwu's responsibility to provide citizens under his government with food without which there could be no security of life. Had Gowon not declared 'No victor, No vanquished' Ojukwu and a host of his collaborators would have be tried for war crimes at the end of the war in 1970. Why?
By September of 1968, Ojukwu's Biafra had been reduced to a small enclave into which he had forcibly evacuated people from all the big towns liberated by the Federal forces after convincing them that they would be killed if they remained behind. Ojukwu could not even feed his soldiers not to talk of people in his refugee camps (p.210, Chinua Achebe's There was a country). When the news of starvation inside Biafra reached the outside world in the Autumn of 1968, General Gowon offered to open up land routes from Port Harcourt for internationally supervised transport of relief supplies to civilians in Biafra. Ojukwu's reaction was recorded by Chinua Achebe thus, "To the consternation of Gowon, Ojukwu opted out of land routes in favour of increased airlifts of food from São Tomé by international relief agencies p. 211)." Ojukwu's action in obstructing relief supplies to civilians through land corridors supervised by international agencies was a war crime. The so-called international relief agencies had no rights whatsoever to violate the airspace, and in fact the sovereignty, of Nigeria. However, Gowon's regime turned blind eyes to the violation of the Nigerian airspace until when Count Carl Gustav von Rosen, who had previously flown Scandinavian Churches' relief supplies into Biafra, flew MINICON planes to bomb Nigerian military positions in Port Harcourt, Benin, Enugu and Ughelli, in May 1969. Consequently, Nigeria issued order that all relief aircrafts flying into Biafra should first land for inspection in Port Harcourt before flying into Biafra. When that order was despised by a DC-7 marked Swedish Red Cross flying into Biafra on June 1, 1969, it was shot down and it was exposed of carrying arms and not relief supplies. If according to you, Biko, deaths by starvation is genocide, the person who caused starvation in Biafra was Ojukwu and his war cabinet. In fact, in the history of warfare, Nigeria is the only country in the world that has ever invited a team of international observers (from the UN, OAU, Sweden, Canada, Britain and Poland) to trail behind its forces at the war front and to report on their conducts. The international observers' reports exonerated Nigeria from genocidal crime in her prosecution of the civil war.
My dear brother, Biko Agozino, I do not need, in this regard, to read the book you referenced since I believed that you had no need to falsify the contents of what you have read and reproduced. This is what you wrote, "Here is some evidence of genocide by eye-witnesses based on the number of people that they were burying every day." Thereafter you reproduced a cable to the UN by WCC thus, "FOR SECRETARY GENERAL UN FROM WCC REFUGEE RELIEF BIAFRA. DEAR MR. THANT, ESTIMATED DEATH FROM STARVATION IN MONTH OF JULY 6,000 PER DAY, AUGUST 10, 000 PER DAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 000 PER DAY..." Only a literate oaf would convert the figures in the WCC's cable to evidence of genocide and eye-witnesses account on the number of people that they were burying everyday. An eye-witness to the number of people starved to death and buried everyday should reasonably not be estimating the number of people starved to death that he had really witnessed buried!! You can forecast/predict the future by guessing, estimating and approximating but you cannot do that with the past. An eye-witness to the rain that fell yesterday cannot say today, perhaps/probably rain fell yesterday.
The music of Biafra war stopped in 1970 but, unfortunately, some deaf persons have not stopped dancing to Biafra war music.
S.Kadiri
Skickat: den 20 juni 2017 09:27
Till: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Kopia: Olayinka Agbetuyi
Ämne: Re: SV: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Igbophobia
Skickat: den 18 juni 2017 20:32
Till: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Igbophobia
Skickat: den 16 juni 2017 19:59
Till: USAAfricaDialogue
Ämne: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Igbophobia
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