Civil War: Rivers State Nigerians Demonstrate in London in Support of One Nigeria | July 1969 скачать в хорошем качестве

Civil War: Rivers State Nigerians Demonstrate in London in Support of One Nigeria | July 1969

Sunday, July 13th 1969. Footage of Nigerians from the Rivers State of the country demonstrating in London against the Biafran secession and in support of the federal government. The Rivers State was one two states carved out of the old Eastern Region of Nigeria which seceded from the federation in May 1967. Like the Cross River State, it was composed of non-Igbo ethnic groups, many of who feared Igbo domination and who wished to be remain part of Nigeria. They marched through Whitehall and Parliament Square, ending their demonstration at Westminster Cathedral.where they handed a formal letter of protest addressed to Cardinal John Heenan, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain. The protesters alleged that the Catholic Church was biased in favour of the breakaway state of Biafra, where a significant number of the population are Catholics. They charged the Roman Catholic Church with "interference in the internal politics of Nigeria". Catholic organisations such as Caritas International and U.S. Catholic Relief Services were arranging night time flights into Biafra where their agents such as the Holy Ghost Fathers of Ireland, coordinated the distribution of aid. A week earlier, on July 6th, Cardinal Heenan had said that "people in (Britain) feel generally thoroughly ashamed of their country's part in the (Nigerian) war" and that Britain was "helping the federal government to starve into submission the unfortunate Biafrans." Source: Reuters News. Civil War: Rivers State Nigerians Stage Ant-Biafra Protest in London | July 1968    • Civil War: Rivers State Nigerians Stage An...   Footnote: The suspicion at the time by the Nigerian federal government was that arms and ammunition were being smuggled into Biafra via the aid flights, many of which came into Biafran territory from the Portuguese-controlled island of Sao Tome. These fears proved to be correct. The relief supplies and arms helped to prolong a conflict in which both sides used starvation as a weapon of war: The federal side's siege in time-honoured fashion was a strategy designed to demoralise the enemy and force it to capitulate, while the Biafran side used it as a propaganda tool through which they aimed to generate global sympathy, humanitarian aid and ultimately foreign intervention in their favour. The demonstration by minority non-Igbo groups in London, also served to bolster the federal position that the act of secession did not have the active consent of many non-Igbos. While much of the West's reporting focused on the victimisation of Igbos through pogroms directed at civilians (May 1966 and September/October 1966) and army personnel (July 1966) before the outbreak of war and during the war in Asaba (October 1967), a missing narrative was the suffering inflicted on (eastern) minorities such as the Efik, Ijaw, Ogoja and Ibibio. While they suffered at the hands of Northerners in the pre-war period, their communities endured a great deal of suffering at the hands of the Igbo-dominated Biafran Army. For instance, suspected collaboration with Federal Nigerians by members of the Ikun people who bordered Igboland, led to detentions, looting and raping by Biafran troops in Ikunland. Many males were rounded up 'disappeared', while others were shot to death. Many of the ethnic groups from Calabar, Ogoja and Rivers provinces were not in favour of secession because they had been agitating for years to have states of their own carved out of the old Eastern Region in the manner that the Mid-West Region was carved out of the Western State. Many minorities from these places received the attention of the Biafran security apparatus. They were subjected to surveillance and some were imprisoned and subjected to torture. They were also subject to frequent accusations of being saboteurs. And when the federal armies encroached further into Biafran-held territory, the fear of minority "fifth-columnists" led to wholesale evictions of people such as the Kalabaris from their homelands from where they were sent to Igbo towns and cities to live in refugee camps. Another example of this anti-minority sentiment was reflected by the activities of the Biafran Organisation of Freedom Fighters (BOFF), a paramilitary organisation created to protect communities, but which used operations to turn on minority communities. One of the most publicised war crimes committed by the Biafrans occurred when federal troops landed in Calabar in October 1967. About 167 civilians in detention were lined up and executed by Biafran soldiers. The Nigerian Consulate published details of this atrocity as an informational advertisement in the New York Times as part of the propaganda war with the Biafrans, whose propaganda machinery at home, and operating internationally under the auspices of the Geneva-based Markpress public relations firm, always had the edge over the federal side. See Arua Oko Omaka's "The Forgotten Victims: Ethnic Minorities in the Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-1970".