Chuck it, Stewart
Last week's impassioned outburst by the President of the International Red Cross, and the spontaneous wave of revulsion it engendered against the idea of allowing a second million Biafrans to starve to death, has at least in theory achieved something. At hurried meetings in London last week- end with the British Foreign Secretary and with the Red Cross's Vice-President, the Nigerian Commissioner for External Affairs repudiated any intention of pre- venting Red Cross relief to Biafra (pro- vided it was routed through Lagos) and apparently withdrew his government's earlier decision that in future all such relief must be handled exclusively by the Nigerian authorities, instead of being organised by the Red Cross itself.
But what does this really mean? Has the Lagos regime made a genuine offer in good faith, or has it given a pledge which it has no intention of honouring. simply as a sop to outraged world opinion? On the answer to this could depend the lives of hundreds of thousands of Biafran children in the next few weeks alone.
Mr Stewart, of course, has no doubt whatever about the Federal government's good faith. 'Two things are needed to make the Federal offer on daylight flights effective' he told the House this week : 'the co-operation of the relief agencies, and acceptance by the rebel authorities.'
The Lagos government's intentions, it seems, are so much above suspicion that they can be taken for granted. Even so, Mr Stewart found it necessary to ingra- tiate himself with the Federal military regime in terms more grovelling than any British Foreign Secretary can ever before have had occasion to use.
'As far as I know' he declared, 'this is the first occasion on which a Government who were in a position [to starve its enemy out] have said, "We are willing not to do so provided that there are con- ditions which ensure that our generosity is not exploited for military ends" . . . I must say again—and this puts some of us Europeans to shame—that the Nigerian government have shown a more merciful attitude about allowing food and medical supplies to go to their enemies than have many other nations . . . The Nigerian government have genuinely striven to allow a blockade to be breached in a way in which no blockade has ever been breached before. That deserves the sym- pathy and support of humane people everywhere.'
Evidently, Mr Stewart does not know very much. He does not know (if we are to believe him) that Britain and America specifically allowed the Red Cross thFough their blockade to feed starving children in German-occupied Greece in 1942/3. He does not know, it seems, that under the Geneva Conventions no country may prevent the Red Cross from breach- ing a blockade in order to relieve starva- tion. What makes the present situation in the Nigerian war unique is not the alleged magnanimity of the Federal government, but the monstrous scale of Biafran starva- tion. Even so, Mr Stewart's ill-informed eulogy of the Lagos regime might just be tolerable were it genuinely the case that Nigeria did intend from now on to forswear a policy of starving the Biafrans into submission. This has certainly not been the case in the past, as we showed in these columns last week. But what of the future? What evidence is there that this policy has now been abandoned? Everything suggests that the very re- verse is the case. While the immediate need is for the fastest possible supplies of relief to Biafra, which means by air, there is also a continuing need on a larger scale. The United States govern- ment has proposed that this be provided by American landing craft sailing up the Cross river, which flows through Biafra (through Federal-held territory) to the sea. General Ojukwu has agreed to this. The Federal government has refused. But the crucial issue at the present time is air relief. According to Mr Stewart's account, the only obstacle to this is General Ojukwu's insistence that relief flights to Uli should be at night. as a cover for Biafran arms supplies. In fact, however, General Ojukwu has already agreed to daylight relief flights direct to Uli, with the arms coming in by night (so that no question of 'cover' would in future arise), stipulating only that Uli must remain under Biafran military pro- tection to prevent its capture or destruc- tion. Lagos, however, is insisting on the complete cessation of night arms flights. Since it is this sole source of arms supply that enables Biafra to continue the fight for her independence, this is tantamount to a clear ultimatum: either you sur- render or we starve you to death. Nor is di is Nigeria's only demand. The Lagos government has insisted that all relief flights should touch down at Lagos, so that Nigeria can be sure that the Red Cross planes are not in fact carrying arms. Once again, Mr Stewart considers this—and the monstrous implicit accusa- tion against the Red Cross—perfectly reasonable, and General Ojukwu wicked for jibbing at it.
Yet if the alleged Nigerian belief that all the relief agencies, whether Red Cross or run by the churches, are secret Biafran gun-runners is a genuine one, why is it that Lagos has refused Biafra's suggestion that all relief flights should touch down on neutral territory—such as Cotonou in neighbouring Dahomey--where the car- goes may be checked by the Nigerians to their hearts' content?
Nevertheless a very great responsibility still lies with General Ojukwu. with the lives of his people at stake, if he refuses point-blank Nigeria's alleged offer. His fear is a very clear one—and almost cer- tainly well-founded: namely that Nigeria is insisting on all relief being routed through Lagos simply and solely so that the Federal government can so slow down and obstruct the supply of food and medical aid that the Federal policy of starving Biafra into submission is not seriously impeded. Yet why should this and with it the Federal government's good faith, not be put to the test? It is the British government's duty to use what influence it still has to see that it is put to the test—but in a way which will at the same time ensure that further mass starvation is prevented. General Ojukwu should be persuaded to agree to the acceptance of relief through Lagos, and the Federal government simultaneously persuaded to accept an immediate re- sumption of direct relief flights to Uli. each on the understanding that the direct flights would cease just as soon as, but not before, the International Red Cross was satisfied that relief through Lagos was flowing to Biafra at the speed and on the scale that the catastrophe demands: Nothing less than this will do.
If Mr Stewart could for once stop acting as General Gowon's PRO and begin to act like Britain's Foreign Secretary— or even a decent human being—the greatest tragedy threatening the world today could still—just—be averted.
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