Let them eat sausage-flies
each week that passes, the horrors of the gigeria-Biafra war become more unbear- Ille; yet each week they prove only the relude to worse to come. In his article on tge 44 of this issue the Rev Nicholas deputy director of Oxfam, quotes the al Red Cross estimate that at least 3,000 liafran children are now dying every day; vhile the scale of starvation and disease in he lbo heartland is such that sober observers tom western churches and charities are klking of a death roll of millions, at present rying desperately to survive on a diet of izards and sausage-flies, if nothing is done Provide food and drugs within a matter r weeks---if not days. And nothing—nothing effective, this is— being done. The Federal Nigerian govern- lent, supported by the British government, lsists that any supplies must go overland to eleaguered Biafra, along 'mercy corridors' trough Federal-held territory. This is rejec- ;d out of hand by Colonel Ojukwu, the 'iafran leader, on the grounds that the sup- hes may be tampered with and poisoned, tat the 'mercy corridors' may be used for iihtary purposes, that—with a shortage of t!cks, bad roads, broken bridges and the tiny season on—any overland route would !Ice so long that countless thousands would le before the supplies got through, and that ;reement to the overland route would re- Love all pressures from the Federal govern- Lent to agree to the really urgent need: massive airlift. And to the suggestion of an .rlift, which both the Red Cross and Oxfam believe to. be the first priority, our gallant Nigerian allies (whom we continue to arm) have a simple reply : their own air force will `seek and destroy' any 'unauthorised' air- craft (which means any aircraft at all) on an errand of mercy to Biafra.
Hence the deadlock, while supplies pile up on the islands off the west African coast, and inland the Ibos suffer and die like flies. Neither side is blameless. But the Biafran fears, even if exaggerated, are genuinely felt —which is hardly surprising when the [bus know that one false step could mean geno- cide. By contrast, the victorious Federal Nigerians have nothing to fear beyond the survival of the Ibos they hate. Moreover, about one thing there can be no dispute what- ever : even if a land corridor is acceptable as an eventual solution, an airlift (or an air- drop which the Federals have threatened in the same way) is the only method of dealing with the immediate tragedy.
But even if the arguments of the two sides were equal, there is no doubt which side the British government should be trying to move. We have persisted in the murderous business of supplying arms and ammunition in vast quantities exclusively to the Federal forces for a whole number of alleged reasons, each more dishonourable than the last: but the reason that ministers advance most often is that it is only by providing the Federal government with the weapons of war that we can hope to influence them, Yet we are unable-4ir else unwilling—to influence them even to refrain from shooting down Red Cross aircraft on errands of mercy to the greatest disaster area in tie' world today. In- stead, we supply the ar nd ammunition to the Federals, and then in when we cannot persuade the to Biafrans to make the concessions.
When there is disaster on the scale that there is today in JI.arti every country in the world—anti eft particular every rich nation—has an obligation to do what it can to help. But Britain has a special re- sponsibility, when we have gratuitously and explicitly taken sides in the dispute, and when we have supplied (and continue to supply) the most important element in the Federals' superiority in firepower which has directly led to the present situation.
And how have we discharged that respon- sibility? By offering £250,000 of aid—a fleabite whether compared with the scale of the need or the earnings of our arms sales— without the means to deliver it; by sending Lord Hunt on a time-wasting mission to con- firm the need that has already been fully documented; by failing to persuade the Federal government to budge an inch from its intransigent position; and by keeping up the flow of arms to Lagos and of ministerial hypocrisy in the Commons.
In May this journal declared that 'when the time comes for a dispassionate history of the Wilson administration to be written it is quite likely that the historian will select the Government's policy on Biafra as its wickedest and most disgraceful act of all.' It is no longer merely likely. It is certain.
