John Bull's other army
AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS
The Commonwealth Relations Office is notori- ously stingy in making its confidential docu- ments available to the press. This is a pity, as the texture of their prose and the subtle colouring of their arguments, still evoking the blood-red tapestry of imperial diplomacy, would indubitably repay the study of less sophisticated governments interested in starting a commonwealth of their own. The memoran- dum below, in order not to give offence to members of the Commonwealth, concerns a non-existent country, and the characters in the Civil Service to whom it is addressed are understood not to bear any responsibility to any real person. living or dead, whom the document may concern.
CRO BRIEFING TO ALL DEPTS. SUBJECT: BIAFRA
As some of you may have heard in a round- about fashion, considerable concern has been expressed recently in Government Circles in Lagos about the non-existent state of Biafra. What seems to concern them most is that its non-existence is taking rather longer to achieve than they had at first imagined. General Gowon, the rather charming black man some of you may have glimpsed having a glass of amontillado with me on the lawn one wet afternoon some months back, a Sandhurst man and a keen Christian, was apparently under the impression that the non-existence could be brought about in hours rather than days. Not unlike a certain creepy gentleman puffing on his ghastly little pipe not a mile from where I sit, he was mistaken in this estimate.
The situation is now roughly as follows. General Gowon, the charming Christian Sand- hurst man I touched briefly on above, would appear to be head of the Federal government. Not having the facts and figures before me as I write I can only hope to furnish you with a thumbnail sketch of events, but a decision would seem to have been taken at a relatively low level some months ago to cut back the Ibo population to a more acceptable figure— a thousand here, a thousand there—and it was to this that the Ibos took exception. The Ibos, I am informed by the Guinness Book of Records, are an industrious but pushing type of black man, sometimes compared to the Israelites. I feel I need say no more.
Faced with the outrageous demands of the aggrieved and in some cases bereaved Ibos for a monstrous ghetto in the eastern end of the country, to be called for some inexplicable, woolly-headed reason 'Biafra'—as if we at this office had not got enough ridiculous little tin- pot break-off splinter-countries to deal with as it is—General Gowon, the charming Sand- hurst Christian person I had cause to refer to before, lost his temper and ordered the imme- diate reduction of the so-called 'Biafrans' to non-existence. As Herr Hitler however had discovered before him—and for all his faults the man did offer a kind of leadership sadly lacking in the country at this time—the reduc- tion to non-existence of fourteen million people, even by a nation of over forty million, is an uphill slog.
We are, 1 hasten to add, doing everything in our power to help. Nigeria, as a Common- wealth country, not to say a large and poten- tially largeF market for British exports, de- mands our loyalty in its hour of need. While Egyptian pilots in their Russian aircraft practise for future missions in the Holy Land, dropping tons of Russian bombs on the Ibo ragamuffins, Federal troops, I am proud to say, are shooting them to shreds on the ground with British bullets fired from British automatic weapons and rifles, and blasting their pro- vocative hospitals and unnecessarily aggressive school buildings out of the earth with good British mortar bombs. The revolting Ibos' only income from the Shell Oil Refineries at Port Harcourt having been wisely cut off by the oil company, who wisely recognise their loyalty to Nigeria as a Commonwealth country, not to say a large and potentially larger market for their products, and certainly not to say the side most likely to win, the revolting Ibos I say are without weapons, ammunition or food. Until a few weeks ago, everything seemed ticketiboo. The final solution appeared to be within the genial General Gowon's grasp. Then, alas, having skilfully avoided the net of petty restrictions spread by International Lib- eralism in the path of strong leadership, he encountered something of a snag.
Pinkoes in Hampstead and Los Angeles clearly saw, and indeed see, nothing objec- tionable in the process: the reduction of the 'Biafrans' to non-existence may be faintly racialist in origin, but as the instigators are not white, they must naturally appear lily- black in their innocence. A few feeble attempts by pacifists to stop the dispatch of British small arms to Federal Nigeria on the tenuous grounds that not even our own Conservative party approved of the sale of such weapons to South Africa was sensibly quashed: if British arms were stopped, Russian arms would take their place, and when the process was successfully completed who would be Nigeria's friend then? Bearded protestors continued to devote their attention to the political prisoners of Greece, the repressive regime in Rhodesia, and the bombing of North Vietnam. Discreetly, General Gowon, the Christian Sandhurst man I alluded to earlier, was able to supervise the reduction of over 80,000 Ibos to non-existence. What then went wrong?
Perversely, and presumably under the in- fluence of some Mad Mullah-like fanaticism for survival, the revolting Ibos appear to have disagreed with General Gowon's policy and even to have had recourse to violence. As a result the good General has been forced much against his will to commence so-called 'peace talks' in the face of this dumb insolence, though the reduction, I am pleased to say, continues unchecked. This decision, however, has raised a nasty question mark which hangs over all our heads here today. If, for some lunatic pseudo-humanitarian reason, the Gen- eral's policies are reversed, what kind of a position is the British government left in with regard to the now arrogantly existent Biafrans? A thorny one, I think you will admit. It is for this reason that I would urge you to per- suade press chappies, MPs, Members of the House of Lords and so forth to `down-pedal' the issue as far as is possible until a clearer picture emerges. British interests in the area lould be badly hurt. A strong idealistic state- ment at the right moment on the other hand could do much to recoup our losses. I know that an appeal to the patriotic spirit and to our mutual trust will not go unheeded. God bless you all. Amen.
F. C. Wigginshaw-Beamish, PDQMG
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