the Biafra Story (1969) (28 page)

The preliminary talks began in London on 2 May with the Biafran Chief Justice Sir Louis Mbanefo leading for one side and Chief Anthony Ena,horo heading the Nigerian delegation. The points to be discussed were the venue for the conference, the chairman and international observers (if any) and the agenda. Biafran suspicions that the talks were a stalling manoeuvre were strengthened from the outset. Sir Louis told Mr. Smith that he was persuaded the talks could not succeed. For one reason the British had refused to suspend arms shipments to Lagos even while the talks were in progress, a gesture not misinterpreted by the Nigerians; for another because of the composition of the Nigerian delegation.

Apart from Chief Enahoro they included Alhaii Amino Kano, a Northerner but definitely not of the Northern Establishment, and who could not speak for Northern Nigeria, and three Biafran collaborators, Asika the Lagos-nominated Ibo charged with administering the Ibo heartland, Brigadier George Kurubo, a renegade Rivers man renounced by his own people, who had once been a Brigadier in the Biafran Army before defecting to Lagos when offered the Nigerian Ambassadorship in Moscow, and Mr. lkpeme, a Calabar Efik, who had represented Lagos in Calabar while the reprisals against the Efiks were in progress in late November and December.

It was rather like the South Vietnamese delegation turning up*in Paris with three Vietcong defectors as their spokesmen; the reaction of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese delegations can be imaginedBut although he was aware that this group of men could under no circumstances be regarded as competent to speak for the people of Nigeria, Sir Louis carried on. As a venue the Biafrans asked for Dakar, which was refused by Enahoro who offered no alternative site. After three days' delay Sir Louis asked Enahoro to submit a list of places suitable to Lagos, adding that the Nigerian hope for London being chosen was out so long as Britain continued to supply arms to Nigeria.

Enahoro submitted a list of seventeen capitals in the Commonwealth, out of which Sir Louis proposed Kampala, which had been his own second proposal. But he had kept it up his sleeve. Discomfited but cornered, Enahoro agreed to Kampala, capital of Uganda. Biafra wanted a talks chairman and three independent international observers, aware after Aburi of the necessity of witnesses to such meetings. Enahoro wanted neither, and suggested this matter be settled at Kampala. Sir Louis agreed. After further delays, the agenda came to be discussed.

Sir Louis wanted a two-point agenda: agreement on a ceasefire, and more prolonged talks on the terms of the future nature of association between the two parties, that is, the political solution. Enahoro countered with a seven point agenda which amounted to discussing the ways and means of organizing Biafra's total and unconditional surrender. Sir Louis protested that a ceasefire was the main aim of the talks, and that without a ceasefire the talks would in any case be bound to founder. Besides, he pointed out, the original offer brought back by Smith had been for talks on a ceasefire, without preconditions. The two-point agenda was eventually accepted.

The main conference opened in Kampala on Thursday 23 May 1968. By this date the Nigerian advance patrols had entered Port Harcourt and the conference became an academic exercise. It took two days to agree that there should be no chairman, but one observer. The Biafrans asked for President Milton Obote, their host, putting the Nigerians in the position of either ceding the point or snubbing their host. They agreed, and Dr. Obote named his Foreign Minister Simon Odaka to sit in. On the Saturday the Nigerians complained that one of their secretaries, Mr. Johnson Banjo, was missing, and they could not resume until the errant stenographer was found.

By this time the talks were looking like comic opera, while in Urnuahia Colonel Ojukwu angrily described them as'a grisly farce'. Enahoro could not resume the talks on Sunday morning because of going to church, and made two more excuses for Sunday afternoon and evening. He asked to see President Obote, and then sought private talks with Sir Louis. These led nowhere. On Tuesday he put forward a twelve-point proposal discussing in detail the surrender of Biafra, disarmament of her armed forces, administration of the territory by the Nigerians and the fate of the Biafran leadership. Sir Louis reminded him they were in Kampala to discuss a ceasefire, the first item on the agenda, and the political solution after that. Enahoro stuck to his proposals, which effectively reversed the order of the agenda. By this time the details of the capture of Port Harcourt were through, and hopes for any. conversion of Lagos Government thinking to a peace policy were finished.

While the London and Kampala talks had been going on three more countries had recognized Biafra, Ivory Coast on 8 May, Gabon on 14 May and Zambia on 20 May. But the news of Port Harcourt, reaching Kampala between 23 and 27 May swept away any chance of these recognitions having the effect of changing Nigerian policy.

It was at that time generally believed that the loss of Port Harcourt airport, which fell several days after the city, would cut Biafra off from the outside world and from her arms supplies. in that case it was presumed the Biafran resistance could not last longer than a fortnight.

But the , recognition, if underrated by the exuberant Nigerians, disturbed the British and American Governments. Intense diplomatic activity behind the scenes was undertaken by both parties to dissuade any other tempted nations to follow suit. Mr. Alfred Pamer, US. Under-Secretary of State for African Affairs, a former Ambassador to Nigeria, made a tour of West African countries coming out strongly in private and public against Biafra and for Nigeria. The joint action was not without its effect; the rash of recognitions stopped, and three other African countries which had privately informed Colonel 0jukwu that they were ' considering recognizing Biafra, but whose economies were somewhat dependent on dollar aid, decided to hold their horses.

On Friday 31 May Sir Louis told Dr. Obote first and then the press that his country was of the view Nigeria was totally convinced that there was a military solution, that he was wasting his time, and intended to withdraw. To judge from what they wrote most of the international correspondents had already come to the same view.

Disappointed but still hopeful, Sir Louis returned not to Biafra but to London, where after spending seven days with British officials he finally applied to see Mr. Harold Wilson. Instead he got a call from an official suggesting he see the Minister of State at the Commonwealth Office, Lord Shepherd. Sir Louis agreed and they met at Mr. Arnold Smith's house. Lord Shepherd opened the discussion with a massive solecism.

He made plain that up till that moment he had thought the Biafrans an obscure tribe of a few thousands living somewhere in the bush. Even case-hardened veterans like Sir Morrice James, Permanent Under-Secretary, were reduced to staring uncomfortably out of the window. It was the first appearance of Lord Shepherd on the diplomatic scene.

The two had three meetings, during which Lord Shepherd stressed the British Government's desire to see a ceasefire and more peace talks. He asked if Biafra would accept British mediation. Perplexed that Shepherd had not grasped the situation yet, Sir Louis replied it was, his government's view British mediation was out of the question while Britain supplied more arms to Lagos. Press reports at the time indicated those shipments were escalating. The viewpoint appeared to surprise the 'noble Lord. IHowever Lord Shepherd produced a plan for a ceasefire, which Sir Louis asked be put in writing, which it was. When viewed beside the Biafran plan, no major points of difference in principle emerged. The ceasefire, the need for an international peace-keeping force, the subsequent negotiations for the political solution - all tallied. Lord Shepherd appeared pleased and said he would go to Lagos to try for agreement there on the basic formula already agreeable to the British and Biafrans. He asked Sir Louis to remain in London till he got back from Lagos, but the latter preferred to fly back to Biafra, promising to return to London if Lord Shepherd's mission proved fruitful. The latter flew off on 13 June, and Sir Louis the next day.

What followed stunned the observers. Lord Shepherd's plan, if it was ever broached in Lagos, was turned down flat. For Lagos the political solution, in the form of the Biafran surrender, must be a pre-condition of a ceasefire. Undaunted, Lord Shepherd flew off to Calabar, which was now in Nigerian hands. Here he behaved in an extraordinary manner for a putative mediator, making speeches and asides that showed he had become within a few days a total devotee of Nigeria and its cause.

Confronted by two News of the World correspondents, Mr. Noyes Thomas and Mr. Graham Stanford, who related to him with passion the sights of human misery and degradation they had witnessed in Nigerian-occupied Ibibio territory, notably at Ikot Ekpene, Lord Shepherd manifested some surprise and shock. But within a short time, again the centre of attraction, he was delightedly waving to the crowd (Biafran agents in the town later reported many were Yoruba soldiers in mufti) and even got himself into a situation where he was observed greeting a choir which had been enjoined to serenade him with the psalm 'The Lord is my Shepherd'. Comparisons with Lord Runciman's mission to Czechoslovakia in 1938 and that ridiculous earl's performance at Petrovice were unavoidable. 02

The Peace Conferences In Lagos he made more statements of a strongly pro-Nigeria ffavour and departed with any chances of a negotiated settle ment through his mediation in shreds and tatters.

The effectiveness of British diplomacy in the issue was at an end, and despite subsequent claims of great victories won in the corridors of Lagos, of concessions, of tentative agreements and lots more besides, the British Government has subsequently been able to affect by not one jot or tittle the chances of peace in Nigeria, except perhaps that her continued policy has moved them even farther away. Yet observers were left wondering why Britain of all countries, with a fund of fine diplomats of the calibre of Sir Humphrey Trevelyan who acted so shrewdly over Aden, felt itself obliged when confronted with a situation of the utmost delicacy like the Nigeria-Biafra war to confine her efforts to using the services of Lord Shepherd who is not a professional diplomat.

The next move came from Africa. Emperor Haile Selassie of, Ethiopia had for months headed the six-nation Committee on Nigeria of the Organization of African Unity, a committee which had remained mute since the previous winter when it had been warned off visiting Biafra by General Gowon and had meekly succumbed. After contacting the other five heads of state, those of Liberia, Congo Kinshasa, Cameroon, Ghana and Niger Republic, the Emperor convened a conference in the capital of the last named country, Niamey. The host was the President of Niger, Hamani Diori. The meeting was opened on Monday 15 July, and was attended by General Gowon on the following day. Hardly had he ffown home in the afternoon, than the committee issued an invitation to Colonel Ojukwu to come and present his case.

The news reached Biafra first by radio, but the official invitation took longer, being delivered through the offices of President Bongo of Gabon that night. The next day, Wednesday, Colonel Ojukwu held a long-scheduled press conference at Aba, during which he proposed two means of getting food into Biafra to alleviate the human suffering. One was via a sea and river route up the Niger River to the Port of Oguta, still firmly in Biafran hands. The other was for the internationalization of Port Harcourt under neutral control, and for a ten-milewide corridor from there up to the front-line positions north of the town where the Biafran Red Cross would take over. He was asked at the same conference if he would go to Niamey, but he ruefully shook his head and replied that though he would like to he felt the military situation would not allow it.

Later that evening he had cause to change his mind. A message arrived outlining the availability of speedy transport, and after a hurried meeting with the Executive Council, he and a small group of delegates left shortly after midnight on the morning of 18 July. They landed at Libreville before dawn, were spotted by Mr. Bruce Oudes, a knowing Canadian correspondent on African affairs who had got a tip-off, and the story broke. After breakfast with President Bongo, Colonel Ojukwu flew north in the private jet of President Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast, who had laid the aircraft at his disposal.

Addressing the committee, Colonel Ojukwu brought the full force of his advocacy and personality into play. The proposals for one or two mercy corridors by land or sea were reiterated, The Biafran case was stated. The committee, three of whose members represented governments previously hostile to Biafra, indicated their assent, which somewhat dismayed the Nigerian delegation.

On the Friday Colonel Ojukwu left Niamey and flew to Abidjan to see President Houphouet-Boigny and they,had talks in private. On Saturday he returned to Biafra, having left Professor Eni Njoku in Niamey to head the Biafran delegation. On the Sunday he held another press conference, this time a relaxed affair in a garden in Owerri, during which he expressed cautious optimism that the forthcoming peace conference at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the most important outcome of his Niamey visit, might produce results.

Meanwhile at Niamey the two delegations discussed relief aid, since the beginning of July a subject of growing concern to the world at large. Various criteria for a relief corridor were agreed upon, but when these criteria came to be applied to the various proposals so far made, it became clear that the Biafran proposal for a river-route was more feasible, cheaper, could carry more bulk in less time, and contained less strategic disadvantage to either side and a greater variety of safeguards against abuse than the Nigerian proposal for a land corridor in the north from Enugu to Awgu. When this became apparent the Nigerian delegation backtracked fast, and it was while explaining why suddenly all the agreed criteria were unacceptable that the Nigerian leader Allison Ayida produced his viewpoint on starving children quoted in the next chapter: 'Starvation is a legitimate weapon of war, and we have every intention of using it on the rebels.'