be, the fact is that the VC is the most viable and credible

political force in South Vietnam. It unaccountably holds

the loyalty of the people, fights much more cleverly than
we do withmuch poorer equipment, and knowshow to
control most of the country, which we manifestly do not.
These facts, if we could act rationally, should suggest that
the VC must be dealt with on a level of diplomacy that
recognizes its political reality and brings to bear a political sagacity of our own.Suchsagacity,
at the minimum, wouldexclude our supporting a pack of military
clowns in Saigon, attempting topacify a civilized and
dignifiedpeoplebyherdingthem
into the equivalent of
Indian reservations, and employing the fire power of a
mechanized army on the European model to destroy rural
villages. But we have Good on our side and werefuse
to think-its
against the rules of the game.We ignore
facts and reason and, fleeing to the refuge of magical
categories, posit a diabolical system of repression, thought
control, and even a kind of Black Magic emanating from
Hanoi to explain our frustrations. It couldnt be that we
just dont know what we are doing: the fact that we are
Good guarantees against that!
If only we can establish clearly enough our allegiance

to the Good by symbolic acts like confidence and sup

port (that baffling and noncommunicative word),then
none of our failures or blunders will matter. And suppression of domestic dissent might not be a bad idea,
either: in a worldgoverned not by natural laws but by
sympathetic magic that surely would prove to the powers
of the air that our commitment to Good is total and uncontaminated. But apparently our magic is not yet good
or pure enough.What General Westmorelandsmessage
reallymeans is this: we must purify our intent and develop a greater degree of religiousenthusiasmfor
the
war, becausereligious wars must pursue victory at all
costs and this is a religiouswar if there everwasone.
We must steel ourselves to the wars inanities and cruelties because, givenenough
patience, confidence and
support, if the good General and his troops, like half a
million Frodos, are permitted to roam long enough over
the Vietnamese landscape, they will eventuallyfind that
damn volcano and can drop into it the magic ring. Then
Good will triumph and Communist Mordor willblow
itself up and Ho Chi Sauron will go awayand we can
stop scratching our simplistic moral itch. But that only
happens in fairy tales.

IN NIGERIA
STANLEY MEISLER

M r . Mecsler, Africa correspondent of the Los Angeles Times,

a freqzlenr c o n t r h t o r fo The Nation.

Nairobi

TWOsimple posters explain the civil war in Nigeria. The

first, a thin strip, wasgluedto

the walls and windows
of most public buildings in Enugu, the capital of Eastern
Nigeria, a fewweeks before the regionseceded on May
30 to become the Republic of Biafra. The poster shows
four men Three look alike, obviously Ibos, the dominant
trlbe of the east. The fourth man is a Hausa from Northern Nigeria. This Is Your Region, the poster says,
Report Any Strange Face to the Police.
The second poster, a little larger and more colorful,
was slapped all over Lagos, the federal capital of Nigeria,
a few weeks before federal troops invaded Biafra on
July 6 , the beginning of the civil war. This poster shows
a monstrous drawing of the severedhead of Col. Odumegwu O~ukwu,the ruler of Biafra, lying under the
heavy combat boot of a Nigerian soldier. Crush Rebellion, the poster says.
The first poster reflects the intense tribal feeling of the
Ibos of Eastern Nigeria. They are enraged and bitter over
the massacre of thousands of Ibos in Northern Nigeria
last year. They believe the other tribes of Nigeria would
wipe them out if they could. For this reason, the Ibos feel
they are fighting for their survival.
But in Lagos, just 270 miles from Iboland, the federal military rulers and their civil servants, now mostly
from the north, refuse to acknowledge that this emo334

tionalism exists. In their view, as the second poster shows,

a gangsternamed O~ukwuis stirring up the Ibos. Crush
them, and all the problems of Nigeria go away.
This fear and distrust and resentment and rage in the
Ibos and the federal governments failure to understand
or evenacknowledge it are the reasons why Nigeria,
the most populous country in Africa, and potentially
one of the richest, is destroying itselfincivilwar.
It is
also why the federal government believed, at the beginning, that i t could march into Enugu swiftly and cleanly,
string up OJukwu, and end the secession. The resistance
of Ibo civilians has astonished the federal government,
boggeddown
the federal army, and perhaps presaged
a long, bloody and tormenting guerrilla war, like that
in Vietnam.
The roots of the civil war go back to the coup
of January 15, 1966, when young officers of the Nigerian
army overthrew the government and murdered several
leading politicians,including
Prime Minister Abubakar
Tafawa Balewa and the northern regional leader, the
Sardauna of Sokoto, probably the mostpowerfulpolitician in the country. Although many of the young officers
were Ibo, it was not anIbo coup. The plotters came
from the large class of educated young men, mostly
southerners, who were incensed at that timeover the inefficiency, greed and corruption of the politicians and
over the domination by the Moslem, backward, feudal
northern region. Most southern tribesmen, whether Ibo
or not, rejoiced over the uprising. The young officers
had planned to form a government led by Chief Obafemi
THE

NATION/OClOber 9,1967

Awolowo, the old Yoruba leader, who had been jailed by

thefederal government on charges of plotting its overthrow.ButMajorGeneral
Aguiysi Ironsi, the Ibo who
commandedthearmy,stepped
in to end the young officers coup and take over thegovernment itself.
During lronsis reign, many of the key jobs in government wcnt to lbos; mostly because of their ability but
partly because of their clannishness, onelbo
making
sureanother filled theopening in a ministry. The Ibos
aggressiveness in the new government intensified the dislike thatmosttribes
in Nigeriahad for Ibosformany
years.
TheIbos like to think of themselves astheJews
of
AfricaThey are a hard-working, aggressive people, with
athirst for educationanditsrewards,a
willingness to
take any lob anywhere if it seems to lead to something
betterand,pcrhaps
most importantandmostunusual
in Africa.an
avid acccptance of newtechniques
and
ideas. Unlike the case m mostAfricantribes,status
in
traditional Ibo society depcnded on what a man achieved
in his lifetime, not on his inherited titles, caste or wealth.
In that kind of achieving society, individuals usually
havefreedom to trynew ways to getahead and wir.
status.
When colonialism came, the Ibos quickly accepted
Christian mlssionarles and their schools, recognizing this
ncwway to achieve statusOvcrtheyears,
lbos became
tllc forcmen. thc busincssrnen and
the
yrolessionals,
the skilled artisans of Nlgeria. This was particularly true
in NorthernNlgena, so hackwardthat ithadtodepend
on outsiders-lbos
and Europeans-to
run its railroads,
its shops. its schools, its offices. Like the Jews of Harlem
or the Asians of East Africa or the Chinese of Southeast
Asia, the lbos weretheprominentoutsiders
in the economic life of thedominantpopulationand,likethe
others, they were hated.
On J u l y 29. 1966. northern officers of the army
stagcd a sccond coup, kdling Irons1 and a good number
of Jboofkccrs.
Lt Col. Yakuhu Gowon. a 31-ycar-old
Christian o f a minoritytrihc
in the north. took over
thegovernment.
Two monthslater,
Hausas andother
northerntribesmenstruck
out at the lbos in theirmidst.
The lbos say that 30,000 were kdled in this massacre,
which Biafra now calls the Nigerian pogrom. According
to photographs published by the eastern region, Ibos were

decapitated,
dismembered,
gouged, emasculated and
burned alive. The
northerners
used guns, daggers,
machetes, axes, sticks, bayonets and spears to flail, maim
and kill their victims. Almost 2 million Ibos left their
homes and businessesthroughoutNigeria
andreturned
to their tribal homeland
i n Eastern Nigeria. It was clear
to them that there was no safety for them in the rest of
Nigeria.
The massacre madeit impossible for Nigeria to stay
together as a federation, for the lbos now refused to take
part in any political arrangement that failed to give them
full controlovertheirsecurityandtheirfuture.
In the
eightmonthsbetweenthemassacreandthe
secession,
therewassomechance
of workingoutaconfederation
that gavethe Ibos sovereignty yet keptthe regionstogether in an economic union But, for severalreasons,
the chance was squandered.
The federal failure to sense the depth of anger in
theeast was themostimportant.The
Ibos lustseemed
unreasonable to officials in Lagos. Why dontthey let
bygones be bygones? one official asked me, as if the Ibos
were childrennursing a grudge over aharmless prank.
To make matters worse, federal officials, especially northerners,neverseemedcontriteaboutthemassacre.They
might begin aconversation by mutteringhowterrible
it
was, but they would spend most of thcir time cxplaining
itaway. Thc usual linc was thatthelbos.
killing northerners in the first coup, brought thetcrribleretallation
on themselves. In short.cvcryth~ng \vas f a r andsquare
now-a
few northerners killcd. 30,000 lbos kllled. Bygones should be bygones.
The personality of Ojukwu also hamperednegotiations. A cultured,wealthygraduate
of Oxford, Ojukwu
overshadowedGowon
andtheother
military governors
of Nigeria. Unliketheothers,Ojukwubehaved
like a
politician with a flair for public relations. And, at negotiations in Aburi,Ghana,
In January,OJukwusimply
outrnaneuvcred Gowon and the military governors of the
othcr rcgibns and persuadedthem to acccptmost of his
proposals for afutureconfcdcration
of Nigcria. Later,
when theyrealizedwhattheyhadaccepted,Gowon
and
the othersreneged,pleadingthat
they hadcometo
the
conferenceunprepared.Afterthat,
Opkwu, whenever
he discussed Gowon and the
others
with newsmen,
talked of them with contempt anddespair,hemade
it

THS
I S
I YOUR REGION

Report am^ strangr faea to ~GIEI

335

THE NArION/OcIuber 9, I967

1

clear he didnotsuffer
fools gladly. Ojukwus contempt
to Gowon andtheothers,
and their
wasveryevident
resentment intensified to the point where they began to see
OJukwu alone asthecause
of all theirtroubles.They
never understood that Ojukwu simply reflected and guided
the angry emotionalism of hispeople; in fact, he probably was even more moderate than
many of hislieutenants.
Finally, influential people persuaded Gowon to do all he
a strongfederal
couldtokeepNigeriatogetherunder
government. They argued that giving in to O~ukwus plan
for confederation
a
would destroyNigeria.
Themost
prominent of these people were the federal civil servants
whohadtakenadvantage
of the absence of politicians
and the inexperience of the soldiers to run the day-to-day
operation of thecountry.Thesefederal
officials were
joined by diplomats of the U. S. Embassy and the British
in a big Nigeriaand,
High Commissionwhobeheved
sitting in Lagos, also failed to understand how the massacrehadturnedtheIbosintoabitter
and chauvinistic
people.
Withtheeastern
region refusing to accept morethan
the most tenuous tles with Lagos, and the federal
governmentrefusing
to let go that much, secession and civil
warbecameinevitable.Adoptingthestrains
of Fmlandiaas their natlonalanthem.theIbos
seceded and
proclaimedthe
new Republic of Biafra. A few weeks
later, Gowons forcesinvaded,intentoncrushing
OJUkwu and his rebel gang.
The paceandprogress
of thewaris
difficult to
assess. Both sides putout lying war communiquesand.
in themain,refusetolet
newsmen verify the claims.
Butout of thetangle of confusing claimsandcounterclazms. a few pomts seem clear. this IS a war of tiny
armles.a few thousand on each s ~ d c Most of thepeople
of Nlgerla stepout of the way when troopsapproach,
and let them takeovcr.The
only cxceptlonsare the lbo
clvilians who resist wlth fervorandb~tterness. A5 a rcsult, a few federal troops can move in a non-Ibo area of
Blafra wlth ease. And, in fact, the Blafrans, in their takeover of the midwestern region, showed that it is not too
redifficult for them to takeoverterritoryoutsidetheir
gion. Butnofederal
army. nomatterhowgreat,no
MIGs, can
matter how much support it has from Soviet
move with ease in Tboland. The rhos aretootenacious
andtoocommitted,
in short. the iederal government. if
it 1s tosucceed,must
fight torlboland
Inchby
mch.
And, if it is successful, the federalgovernmentmustbe
prepared to occupy lboland as if it were enemy territory.
In many ways the civil war is pointless, for Nigeria
has never been a natron, it exists only because some white
men, in an almostplayfulmood,
satdownat
the turn
of the century and drew some lines on a vague map. One
Britishnegotiator,who
was presentwhenthe
British,
FrenchandGermans
split up theircolonial
prizes, recalled that in those days, we just took a blue pencd and
it down at oid Calabar and drew that
a rule and we put
line up to Yola. We have been giving away mountains
neFotlator.
and rwers and lakes to one another. another
Lord Salwbury, once recalled, only hindered by the small
336

impedlmcnt that we never knew exactly where the mountains and rivers and lakes were. Nigeria, as administered
by the British, made no sense as a geographic, historical
or ethnic unit. In fact, the British did not even rule it as
a single unit
until
1914. This
amalgamation,
which
combined the Islamic north with the Christian and pagan
south, was something like putting
Egypt and Ireland togetherandcallingthecombinationanation.
Despitetheobviouslack
of aNigeriannationalism,
mostAfricancountries
publicly support thefederal government in itsattempt to endthe
secession. There are
so many secessionist movements in Africa-almost
all
Africanleadersfearthe
a legacy of colonialism-that
success of one might ignite theothersandleadto
conIf Biafra succeeds, so might Eritrea in
tinentalchaos.
Ethiopia,Buganda in Uganda,thenorthernfrontier
district in Kenya, Katanga in the Congo, or the Casamance
in Senegal. There isameasure
of justificationfortheir
fear.
Yet
the
special circumstances of the war-the
of the
intensetribal feeling of theIbosandthehatred
to be persuading
at leasta
other tribes for them-seem
few Africans to push aside their fears and
show a bit of
sympathyforBiafra.
The Africaneditors of The Daily
Natron i n Nairobiand of The Tarcanran Nationalrst in
Dar
es
Salaam.
for
example,
have
written
editorials
questioning the policies of the federal government.
The UnitedStates,however,hasnever
seemed
to questionfederal policies. The embassy in Lagos has
consistently encouraged the federal government to take all
measurestopreservethefederation.Oncethefederal
government seemed intentoncrushingthe
secession by
force. the embassy adopted a
policy of keeping its hands
off and its mouthshut in public. This, of course, was a
sllent way of showing its approval.
Itshard to indict the StateDepartment, however. for
encouragmg the federal government to take a course that
it probably would have taken n o matterwhat it heard
from
the
Americans.
Moreover,
when Gowon asked
Americandealers
to sell hlm arms, the StateDepartment rightly refused to grant them an export license.
be indictedfor, first, failing
ButtheAmericanscan
to understandthemoodanddetermmation
of theIbos
and, second,for failing to usetheir infiuence to encourage the federal government to face realities and negotiate
with the Biafransforaconfederation.
Is a negotiated settlement poysible now3 The bloodletting may have stlrredhatred so deeply a%to make it
impossible. But. mtheevent of negotlation.asettlement
cancome only if the federal government accepts a loose
confederation In which it would have little more power
than that of representing the various reglons in the United
Nations.Inexchangeforthis,Biafra
likely would have
to
agree
to
participate
in an
economic
union. which
distributed a share of Biafras ample oil revenues to the
rest of theconfedcration
If Blafra
Withoutnegotiations,thefutureseemsclcar.
wins the war, Nigeria will split into several pieces. If
thefederalgovernment
wins, theIbos
will becomea
In eithercase, civil war
maimed and occupiedpeople.
will not make a nation
out of Nlgena.
THE N A T I O N / O c t o b e l

9,I967