Biafra

I met a fine gentleman from Biafra recently, who asked me to do a blog on Biafra. I agreed...here it is. 

Note - there appears to be a significant amount of propaganda regarding Biafra. I'll try to keep this strictly factual, leaving out any value judgements. 

The first thing you need to know is that Biafra is an old nation. European maps from up to 500 years ago record the existence of Biafra, with this reference repeated for the next four hundreds years. Biafra was also treated as a nation in international law by other nations. For example, in 1827 the British signed a treaty with the king of Biafra for control of some small islands to facilitate trade.

The second thing you need to know is that Biafra was incorporated into the state of Nigeria when the British formed that state of Nigeria out of what had been the Northern Nigeria Protectorate and the Southern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914. As was the practice at the time, the populations of these protectorates, including the Biafrans, were not consulted regarding this development.

The Northern portion of Nigeria is predominately Muslim, and the Southern portion, including Biafra, is predominately Christian. Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa, with some 190 million people, of whom about 70 million live in what would have been modern day Biafra. 

This Muslim-Christian nation appears to have been fraught with difficulty since Nigeria gained independence from Britain in 1960. This includes numerous massacres, assassinations, military governments and coups, discrimination and general discord. The fact that Nigeria has oil wealth, and former colonial powers and others have seen fit to interfere in the internal politics of the country to secure access to this oil wealth, has exacerbated these divisions.

The culmination of this discord was a declaration of independence by Biafra on May 30, 1967, and a civil war that lasted about two and a half years, resulting in the defeat of Biafra, and its forceful re-incorporation into the state of Nigeria.  

In terms of its violence and horror, this civil war ranks with the worst of such wars since the end of the Second World War.  Estimates of civilian deaths, largely from a Nigerian blockade that kept food and other supplies out of Biarfa for years and caused mass starvation, range as low as 500,000 to as high as 3 million, with the most usual estimate being just under 2 million people out of a population of some 15 million in 1967.

To put these deaths into perspective, consider that the Khmer Rouge killed between 1.5 to 3 million people, or about 25% of the population of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The Vietnam War cost an estimated 1.3 million lives. The French war to oppose Algerian independence cost about 1.5 million casualties. Finally, losses from the Bangladesh war of independence range from 300,000 to 3 million people. The attempt by Biafra to separate from Nigeria therefore spawned one of the bloodiest wars of the second half of the twentieth century. The vast majority of deaths were those of Biafrans.

Nigeria became a nominal democracy in 1999. The first relatively free election happened in 2007. The development of political freedom has permitted the evolution of a peaceful movement devoted to Biafran independence called MOSSOB or Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra.  This group has a Biafran government in exile as well as Biafran shadow government. Other pro-independence groups have also been formed, and there have been mass protests. These movements and groups appear to have wide ranging support.

These groups have been harassed and their leaders have been arrested by the Nigerian government. There have been extra-judicial killings and accusations of massacres.

I will not comment beyond this as I am not qualified to do so, other than to say that history teaches that peaceful means have no legitimate response other than negotiation and accommodation.