Volume 14, Number 4 · February 26, 1970
Who Killed Biafra?
By Stanley Diamond
Now that Biafra has been defeated by Nigeria and its patrons, history is being rewritten in order to accommodate the interests of the victors. In fact, the defeat of Biafra is not a victory for the Nigerian people but for the neo-colonialists, whether Soviet or North-Atlantic. As Conor Cruise O'Brien has pointed out, it is Nigeria, not Biafra, which resembles Katanga. But statements emanating from the Great Powers would have us believe that the Biafrans were the aggressors against a liberal and well-intentioned Nigerian regime, that the nation was allied with the white supremacists, that it was a creature of the oil companies, that the war was a conspiracy by a clique of adventurers led by Ojukwu. These variations on a theme run from Moscow through Whitehall to the State Department and the editorial pages of The New York Times,[1] and they echo in the pronouncements of General Gowon.
Feature, 8379 words
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