| Chapter : | Introduction |
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armed chiefly with determination, stands the secessionist state of Biafra, the home of Nigeria’s Ibo tribe. The Ibos are convinced that they are fighting not only for independence but for their survival as a people.”53
These media reports drew world attention to the fate of people in Biafra. Protests were staged in New York outside the United Nations building. Western parliaments held impassioned debates. Pope Paul VI appealed to federal Nigeria to end the carnage. But even the peace efforts of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the personal intervention of Emperor Haile Selassie did not bring the two sides closer to a negotiated settlement.54
The involvement of some notable world leaders and international humanitarian organizations made the Biafran war of independence the first major international conflict in twentieth-century Africa. Some have argued that the humanitarian support for Biafra and the occasional supply of arms to the Biafran government covertly encouraged, sustained, and prolonged the war.55 Yet it was the ability of ordinary people to eke out a living that endeared the short-lived republic to the rest of the world. Few courageous leaders spoke out against the crisis or offered humanitarian and moral support to Biafra. Kenneth Kaunda, the late Julius Nyerere, the late Felix Houphouét-Boigny, and the late Omar Bongo recognized the Biafran state and sympathized with its people’s cause. Others drew parallels between Biafra and their own historical experiences.
War, Politics, and Memory
Attention to war, genocide, memory, justice, universal human values, and human rights have taken a prominent place on the international scene in recent times. Indeed, Egodi Uchendu’s study of childhood memories of the Nigeria-Biafra War captures the sort of historical knowledge that can be drawn from every layer of society affected by war.56 Memories of the Rwanda genocide, the ongoing genocide in Darfur, and the Kosovo