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|image_map = LocationBiafra.PNG
|image_map = LocationBiafra.PNG
|image_map_caption = Map of Biafra inside Nigeria
|image_map_caption = Map of Biafra inside Nigeria
|common_languages = [[English language|English]] (official), [[Igbo language|Igbo]]
|common_languages = [[English language|English]] (official), [[Igbo language|Igbo]], [[Efik language|Efik]]/[[Annang language|Annang]]/[[Ibibio language|Ibibio]] [[Ekoid languages|Ekoi]]
|capital = Enugu
|capital = Enugu
|leader1 = Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu
|leader1 = Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu

Revision as of 10:42, 7 August 2008

Republic of Biafra
1967–1970
Flag of Biafra
Motto: Peace, Unity, Freedom
Anthem: Land of the Rising Sun (national anthem)
Map of Biafra inside Nigeria
Map of Biafra inside Nigeria
StatusUnrecognized state
CapitalEnugu
Common languagesEnglish (official), Igbo, Efik/Annang/Ibibio Ekoi
GovernmentRepublic
Historical eraCold War
• Established
May 30 1967
• Disestablished
January 15 1970
Population
• 1967
13,500,000
CurrencyBiafran pound
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Nigeria
Nigeria
For the American musician, see Jello Biafra.

The Republic of Biafra was a short-lived secessionist state in southern Nigeria. It existed from May 30, 1967 to January 15, 1970. The country was named after the Bight of Biafra, the bay of the Atlantic to its south.[1]

Biafra was recognized by a small number of countries during its existence: Gabon, Haïti, Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania and Zambia. Despite a lack of official recognition, other nations provided assistance to Biafra. France, Rhodesia and South Africa provided covert military assistance. The aid of Portugal and JCA proved to be crucial to the republic's survival. Portugal's São Tomé and Príncipe, a pair of islands south of Biafra, became a center of humanitarian relief efforts; Biafran currency was printed in Lisbon, which was also the location of Biafra's major overseas office. Israel also gave Biafra arms that it captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, although that same conflict ruled out further assistance. In contrast, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union provided military support for Nigeria,[2] and the war of Biafran secession ended in a humanitarian catastrophe as Nigerian blockades stopped all supplies, military and civilian alike, from entering the region. Hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of people died in the resulting famine.

History

On 15 January 1966, a coup d'état in the Nigerian government was attempted and mostly successfully initiated by young military officers with promising futures. They were mainly of the Igbo people. The Igbos were referred to as "Ibo" at the time of the conflict. Since mostly Igbo officers in the Nigerian army survived, in the months of May and September 1966, Igbo migrants living in northern Nigeria were the targets of mass killings. Most of Nigeria's Igbo people, who were then estimated at 7 million, though not statistically accurate, lived in what was then the Eastern Region, which had as military governor the Igbo Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.[3] He declared the region an independent state with a capital at Enugu.

Nigeria responded initially with an economic blockade and brought military force to bear starting on June 5, 1967. In the ensuing civil war, raids were made by Biafran troops west into Nigeria in July and August. Nigerian troops soon recovered, however, advancing into Biafra and forcing the repeated transfer of the Biafran capital from Enugu to Aba and then Umuahia by the end of the year, and to Owerri in 1969. Despite the daring efforts of Count Carl Gustaf von Rosen and a small air force, which had a disproportionate effect on the military situation.

It also had a great effect on the humanitarian situation. One of the interesting characters, assisting Count Carl Gustaf von Rosen was Lynn Garrison, an ex-RCAF fighter pilot. He introduced the Count to a Canadian method of dropping bagged supplies to remote areas in Canada without losing the contents. He showed how one sack of food was placed inside a larger sack before the supply drop. When the package hit the ground the inner sack would rupture while the outer one kept the contents intact. With this method many tons of food were dropped to Biafrans who would otherwise have expired from starvation.

The Count's most famous aircraft were small Swedish MFI-9s, but it also had a typical rebel collection of Western influenced aircraft including Douglas C-47s, North American B-25 Mitchells, and Douglas A-26 Invaders. A Nigerian Airways Fokker F27 Friendship which had been hijacked in April 1967 was the first Biafran aircraft. "A DC-3 and a de Havilland Dove were impounded soon after independence, as were several light helicopters of various types."[4]

The independent state of the Republic of Biafra in June 1967.

By 1970, Biafra had been ravaged by war and was in great need of food supplies. Nigeria banned all Red Cross aid in 1969, though it partially relented two weeks later after widespread international criticism, allowing limited, pre-inspected airlifts of food and other supplies.[5] Amid economic and military collapse, Ojukwu fled the country and the rest of the republic's territory was re-incorporated into Nigeria. Many people died in the conflict, mostly through starvation and illness. The number of deaths is often cited at one million.[6]

Nigeria later renamed the Bight of Biafra as the Bight of Bonny.

An excerpt from the last wartime speech of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, head of the Biafran state, follows:

In the three years of war, necessity gave birth to invention. During those three years, we built bombs, we built rockets, we designed and built our own delivery systems. We guided our rockets, we guided them far, and we guided them accurately. For three years, blockaded without hope of imports, we maintained engines, machines, and technical equipment. The state extracted and refined petrol, individuals refined petrol in their back gardens, we built and maintained airports, we maintained them under heavy bombardment. We spoke to the world through a telecommunications system engineered by local ingenuity. The world heard us and spoke back to us. We built armoured cars and tanks. We modified aircraft from trainer to fighters, from passenger aircraft to bombers. In three years of freedom, we had broken the technological barrier. In three years, we became the most civilized, the most technologically advanced black people on earth.

— [7]

The Maps

The Biafra territory marked in the maps here represent the territory of the old Eastern Region of Nigeria which included other ethnic territories than that of the Igbo (see Igbo, Igbo people). The coastal southeast of the old Eastern Region has the Akwa Ibom State and Cross River State which have people of the old Calabar Kingdom (non Igbo people). The coastal southwest of the old Eastern Region has the Delta State, Bayelsa State, Edo State, and Rivers State which are non Igbo people. Igbo people are located in the Northern part of the old Eastern Region marked in the maps. However, along with the Igbos, the non-Igbo people of the coastal sections of the old Eastern Region suffered greatly during the Biafran war, especially, the people of the old Calabar Kingdom (the people of Akwa Ibom State and Cross River State).

Legacy

A child suffering the effects of severe hunger and malnutrition. Pictures of the famine caused by Nigerian blockade garnered sympathy for the Biafrans worldwide.

The international humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières ("Doctors Without Borders") came out of the suffering in Biafra. During the crisis, French medical volunteers, in addition to Biafran health workers and hospitals, were subjected to attacks by the Nigerian army, and witnessed civilians being murdered and starved by the blockading forces. French doctor Bernard Kouchner also witnessed these events, particularly the huge number of starving children, and when he returned to France, he publicly criticised the Nigerian government and the Red Cross for their seemingly complicit behaviour. With the help of other French doctors, Kouchner put Biafra in the media spotlight and called for an international response to the situation. These doctors, led by Kouchner, concluded that a new aid organisation was needed that would ignore political/religious boundaries and prioritise the welfare of victims.[8]

In their book, Smallpox and its Eradication, Fenner and colleagues describe how vaccine supply shortages during the Biafra smallpox campaign led to the development of the focal vaccination technique, later adopted worldwide by the World Health Organization, which led to the early and cost effective interruption of smallpox transmission in west Africa and elsewhere.

On 29 May 2000, the Lagos Guardian newspaper reported that the now ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo commuted to retirement the dismissal of all military persons who fought for the breakaway state of Biafra during Nigeria's 1967-1970 civil war. In a national broadcast, he said the decision was based on the belief that "justice must at all times be tempered with mercy". It is also thought, that during the previous year, there had been a public resurgence of pro-Biafra sentiment among a section of the Igbo, who claimed that in the Nigerian federation, they have been marginalised.[1]

Violence between Christians and Muslims (usually Igbo Christians and Hausa or Fulani Muslims) has been incessant since the end of the civil war in 1970.

In July 2006 the Center for World Indigenous Studies reported that government sanctioned killings were taking place in the southeastern city of Onitsha, because of a shoot-to-kill policy directed toward Biafran loyalists, particularly members of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).[9]

Meaning of the word "Biafra" and location of Biafra

Little is known about the literal meaning of the word Biafra. Manuel Alvares (1526-1583) in his work "Ethiopia Minor and a geographical account of the Province of Sierra Leone", writes about the "Biafar heathen" in chapter 13. The word Biafar thus appears to have been a common word in the Portuguese language back in the 16th century.

Historical maps of Biafra

Ancient maps on Africa from the 15th-19th centuries reveal some interesting information about Biafra:

  1. The original word used by European travellers was not Biafra but Biafara, Biafar and sometimes also Biafares.
  2. The exact original region of Biafra is not restricted to Eastern Nigeria alone. According to the maps, European travellers used the word Biafara to describe the entire region east of the River Niger going down to the Mount Cameroun region, thus including Cameroun and a large area around Gabon.

Maps indicating the word Biafara (sometimes also Biafares or Biafar) with corresponding year:

Maps from the 19th century indicating Biafra as the region around today's Cameroon:

See also

References

  1. ^ Room, Adrian (2006). Placenames of the World: Origins and Meanings of the Names for 6,600 Countries, Cities, Territories, Natural Features and Historic Sites. McFarland & Company. p. 58. ISBN 0786422483.
  2. ^ "Biafra[dead link]," Encyclopedia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Accessed 20 November 2006.
  3. ^ Hanbury, Prof H G (1967). "OE News - News from All Quarters". The Epsomian. XCVII (1): 35. Colonel C O Ojukwu, Military Governor of Eastern Region, Nigeria was vigorously commended in The Daily Telegraph, by Prof J G Hanbury, QC, for his refusal to go to Lagos for a constitutional conference, at the risk of probable assassination. Prof Hanbury considers that as 'an intensely patriotic Nigerian,' Col Ojukwu 'will spare no effort to hold the federation together,' but if there is no way open except secession 'he will take steps to placate the minority in Rivers and Calabar provinces and may hope to carry the East to new prosperity' {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  4. ^ Hagedorn, Dan and Hellström, Leif (1994). ""Foreign Invaders - The Douglas Invader in foreign military and US clandestine service". Earl Shilton, Leicester, England: Midland Publishing Limited: 106. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ "1969: Nigeria bans Red Cross aid to Biafra," BBC. Accessed November 20 2006.
  6. ^ "Biafra: Thirty years on," BBC. 13 January, 2000. Accessed November 20 2006.
  7. ^ "The Promise that was and still is Biafra." U. O. May 11, 1995. Accessed November 20 2006.
  8. ^ Bortolotti, Dan (2004). Hope in Hell: Inside the World of Doctors Without Borders, Firefly Books. ISBN 1-55297-865-6.
  9. ^ Emerging Genocide in Nigeria, Chronicles of brutality in Nigeria 2000-2006

Additional reading

Nonfiction

Articles

Books

  • Requiem Biafra by Joe Achuzia, ISBN 978-156-256-0. (1986)
  • The Biafra Story by Frederick Forsyth, ISBN 0-85052-854-2. (1969)
  • Biafra: A People Betrayed by Kurt Vonnegut, from Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons, ISBN 0-385-33381-1. (1974)
  • Surviving in Biafra: The Story of the Nigerian Civil War by Alfred Obiora Uzokwe, ISBN 0-595-26366-6. (2003)
  • The Banknotes of Biafra by Peter Symes [Printed privately] (2000) [2]
  • Surviving the iron curtain: A microscopic view of what life was like, inside a war-torn region by Chief Uche Jim Ojiaku, ISBN-10: 1424170702; ISBN-13: 978-1424170708 (2007)
  • The Last Adventurer by Rolf Steiner.
  • "Chapter Nine: Tanzania Recognizes Biafra", pp. 268 - 304, in Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Third Edition, New Africa Press, Pretoria, South Africa, 2006, ISBN 978-0980253412; "Part One: The Nigeria Civil War: Implosion of A Federal State and Its Implications for Africa Today," pp. 1 - 80, in Godfrey Mwakikagile, Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria: A Comparative Study, First Edition, Nova Science Publishers, Inc., Huntington, New York, 2001; Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa and America in The Sixties: A Decade That Changed The Nation and The Destiny of A Continent, First Edition, New Africa Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0980253429.
  • "Biafra, The Memory of the Music" by [Jim Malia], ISBN 978-1-906050-00-9, First Edition, Melrose Books, 2007

Fiction

Music

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