A letter to General Gowon
BIA,FRA MARGERY PERHAM
Dame Margery Perham, Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and the official biographer of Lord Lugard, is a leading authority on African affairs. Last September she broadcast on Lagos radio, calling on the Biafrans to surrender as the best means of ending the war. This week she wrote a letter to General Gowon indicating her reassessment of the situation in the light of events since her much-publicised broadcast. We publish below the full text of that letter.
My dear General Gowon, I presume to write this open letter to you be- cause in the three hours we spent discussing your civil war and in our subsequent correspon- dence you showed yourself so humane and so ready to understand the nature of the concern which I share with so many for the people of Biafra.
When I was in Nigeria in September it seemed as though a Federal victory was imminent and my one great hope was that Colonel Ojukwu should not hold out to the end, one that could mean the further destruction of the people by war and famine, in the belief that your government was determined to destroy the lbo, and there was therefore nothing to be gained by the attempt to open negotiations. That phase passed with the unexpected entry of new arms into Biafra and your own problem of extended communica- tions. Now we are told again that the Federal armies are poised for a new advance. If so there are bound to be immense losses on both sides, but especially among the Biafrans, from fighting and from starvation accelerated by the disturb- ances of warfare. For it would appear that Colonel Ojukwu and his people will struggle to the end.
I wonder if the Nigerian authorities and people can understand the depth of the impact made upon western nations by the television pictures we see of the sufferings of the Biafrans, and especially of the starving and dying child- ren, with their bones almost breaking through their skin and the appeal in their dying eyes. There is no neo-colonialism about the passion- ate response, the desire to send food to them somehow, anyhow, or about those brave foreigners who are working in Biafra or on the hazardous food planes. It is possible to blame the Biafrans for their refusal to surrender but we have to bear in mind the main motive which explains their obduracy, the belief that they were expelled from Nigeria by hatred and mas- sacre. I know that the full unbiased story of all the tragic events since January 1966 has still to be written. I accept that there have been mur- ders and massacres by both sides. But the largest of the items in this obscure balance sheet is that of the massacres in the north. Now when the Federation is overwhelmingly the stronger side, able to import all the arms it needs, is surely the time for your government to show the gener- osity of strength and bring about effective negotiations. I admit that your government has shown a tolerance of external humanitarian ser- vices to your opponents rare in the history of warfare and this emboldens me to ask for still more generosity and restraint.
How could this be shown? It is difficult for a half-informed outsider to answer the question in exact terms. Obviously a cease-fire, and a neutral presence composed in a form acceptable to both sides are necessary elements, accom- panied by massive provision of food supplies. Clearly such action is difficult without some agreed basis upon which negotiations could be- gin. Would it not be possible to offer the Biafrans some interim status as a temporary measure? There would in any case have to be a period during which Biafra was in a special cate- gory while the region was restored to normal life and the human and physical damage re- paired. During this period the Federal authori- ties could do much to win over these alienated people by their generous and humane treatment. And the Biafrans could realise the degree to which their future must depend upon fully co- operative relations with the great state of which they are physically and economically a part and in which a large proportion of their own people are living as full citizens.
I realise that this may not be an easy policy to put forward in the Federation. Nigeria has been through a series of crises. The prolonged war has put a strain upon your government and people and, like all wars, has aroused combative and angry feelings. But on the other side must be reckoned the deep revulsion of all the civi- lised nations for the horror they see continuing in Biafra, and the harm it does Nigeria's image in the world.
There is another consideration. The world today and in the past is full of examples of the unsatisfactory political results of forcing people by arms into political subjection. The survivors of a Biafra which has been turned largely into a graveyard will never forget their wrongs and will alsTays look back to the tragedy of their enforced suppression. Events such as this not only leave an enduring stain on a nation's his- tory but have injurious practical results. We in Britain have not to look beyond the so-called British Isles to see the long and deep results of the suppression and massacre inflicted upon the southern Irish and even today the embers of that old fire are still glowing in northern Ire- land. Your great federation of peoples, for the future of which I hope and pray, could best win back its rebellious subjects and also gain great honour in the world and for the future by a gesture now of patient and humane recon- ciliation. All the humane peoples of the world look to you and your government to show the wisdom of the statesman and the generosity of the strong.
Your., very sincerely, Margery Perham
Previous page
