A more murderous harvest
Sir : Permit me to reply to Mr Angus Buchanan, who writes of my 'inanities' in my support of Biafra, and suggests that someone so high- minded and idealistic should rather take one of two choices more satisfying than 'mere' world- war: i.e. return to 'help my impoverished coun- try Ireland,' or render support, physically, to the Ibos (Letters, 27 September).
From Swift to Shaw and after, Anglo-Irish writers have been called worse than 'inane' when they dared to flay British governments over evil policies and practices. So when I say the present British government's policy towards Nigeria since 'independence' has been in my view palpably evil, Mr Buchanan may know that, inane or not, I am writing in the line of tradition and feeling of the Anglo-Irish breed.
More to the point in this correspondence, however, the Irish people, despite their com- parative impoverishment (compared to Britain, that is) are contribUting a humanitarian aid to Biafra which, on a per head of population basis, would already amount to over £2 million if col- lected in Britain. Moreover, Irish aid to Biafra goes to Sao Tome, and thence into Biafra itself; it is not sent, as with British aid organisations, to Lagos, where, to nobody's real surprise ex- cept the dear British, it has tended to rot away in the warehouses, if it was not purloined by the Nigerian army; at least, until very recently.
For myself, I had hoped to offer my services as a deckhand on the Irish mercy ship 'Columcille,' now on her way to Sao Tome, but having taken heed to warnings that gentlemen past retiring age with hernia and other ills might be more prudently employed where they would be less likely to become a physical nuisance—for instance, at their writing desks— I have disciplined myself thus far to stay where I am.
Mr Buchanan makes much of the fact that many prominent Ibos tried to direct events in Nigeria in favour of the Eastern Region, before the Hausa massacres of Ibos in May-July 1966, and before Colonel Ojukwu received his man- date to declare the new nation of Biafra in a separate state, independent and sovereign. But consider an Irish analogy: many Irishmen held high positions in England, and many collabor- ated with and served Britain over the genera- tions, while all the time, no matter how feebly, the long Irish struggle for independence went on, mainly in political but also in military and finally in guerrilla terms.
I find Mr Buchanan's assertion to the effect that the Nigerian war cannot be called genocide `while one Ibo lives in Fetleral territory' start- ling, to say the least. On this count, and since there were some 700 Jewish prisoners alive when Auschwitz was opened by the Allies, the Nazis were certainly not guilty of genocide, and we have all been wrong. Of course, Hitler's `final solution' didn't work in the end. But then the Nazis were defeated and stopped; Germany was forced to open up the concentration camps. Who is to force the Nigerians to open up the Ibo heartland famine camp?
For my part, I recognise that Biafra's struggle for independence is now the condition of the Ibos' national self-preservation, and this calls for my support, and I believe that of all Irish- men, all freedom-fighters.
Their cause is no different essentially from the Czechs', it is only more difficult, since they have Britain as well as Soviet Russia aiding those Nigerians they have to contend with. I hope their own friends will not delay matters until the aid sent is too little and too late. I have a folk memory of 1798, and of a too-strong wind holding a fleet off Bantry Bay.
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