An Open Letter to President Donald Trump ; The Ultimate Hope for the Republic of Biafra Restoration.
Your Excellency Mr . President,
Greetings from the people of Biafra. Your emergence as 47th President of the United States of American is miraculous and we celebrate with the overwhelming majority of American citizens that have vested trust in your presidency.
We commend your peaceful initiatives and resolutions targeted on immediate international crisis particularly the Isreal – Palestine conflict and the Ukraine – Russian war. We have gone through that pathetic experience, and that is why the restoration of the Republic of Biafra is of particular interest to us . Permit us to pin point what concerns us with your presidency.
In the year 2016, Biafrans foresaw among others and was first in Africa to envisage the values of your Presidency. In November 2016 , we celebrated your election victory. On 20 January , 2017 massive solidarity rallies were organized by Biafrans in the U.S. embassies in various countries of the world in support of your presidency. Rally in our home city , Port Harcourt in Nigeria resulted to bloodshed. Biafrans again shed blood in defense of human rights. Heroic Biafrans shedded their blood during this solidarity rally for liberty, freedom and peace envisaged in your presidential victory.
Since the surrender of the Republic of Biafra in January 1970, several Biafrans’ campaigns for the restoration of Biafran have been unleashed with brutal suppression within the ranks of the Nigerian police and military forces. Amnesty International recorded that at least 60 people were killed in cold blood during May 2016 protest and accused Nigeria’s security forces of carrying out extrajudicial executions of some of the activists (Newsweek / BBC 20 Jan 2017; Associated Press (AP) 21 Jan 2017).
The declaration of the Republic of Biafra in 30th May ,1967 triggered the Nigerian-Biafran war, which began on July 6, 1967. Till present, Biafra is a word that evokes tragic memories: a long and bloody war, children with swollen belly of kwashiorkor (malnutrition due to the shortage of proteins), a humanitarian catastrophe that struck to the heart of the post-war optimism. That is, the hope that the horrors of World War II would never have been repeated again.
The tragedy of Biafra has represented a capital hub in the history of the twentieth century as vividly noted by Giovanna Marconi in an editorial. One of the first struggle for the right of self-determination prior to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was then that the concept of large-scale humanitarian assistance was created. At the same time, however, it was just the humanitarian catastrophe that obscure the political roots of the affair. In other words, what had triggered that war? What was the response of other states and supranational organizations? Why has the revindication of Biafran state reminiscent in recent years? To these and other questions, we still trust and pray Your Excellency, Mr. President to review the former Senator Eugene McCarthy’s motion speech tabled to Congress on 16 May 1969 ( Text extract below, is reproduced from the Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates, 91st Congress, First Session, vol.115, no.80).
“Mr. President, during the past year, the horrors of the Nigerian-Biafran war have become clearer. Widespread starvation has resulted from the compression of millions of refugees into an area one-quarter of the original home-land, from disrupted planting, and from the cutting off of trade routes by the Nigerian forces. It is reported that over a million Biafran civilians have perished from starvation and a million more deaths may occur within the few months. Not since World War Il has a civilian population been so affected by war.
The American people have responded compassionately by contributing to relief efforts, which operate under the most difficult conditions, to airlift food and medicine to Biafra. The U.S. Government also has donated food and equipment to relief organizations on both sides of the fighting line.
Unfortunately, this relief effort can alleviate only a fraction of the suffering, for as long as the fighting continues only a small part of the desperately needed supplies can be brought in. As long as official U.S. policy awaits a ‘military solution’, present relief efforts will remain superficial and inadequate, if not contradictory to official policy”
It is time to re-examine our policy of ‘one Nigeria’, which has resulted in our accepting the deaths of a million people as the price for preserving a Country that never existed.
The pattern of American diplomacy in this area is a familiar one, not very different from that in Vietnam. It began with misconception, was followed by self-justification, and is ending in tragedy. Political preconceptions have kept us from realistic examination. They have kept us from recognizing that the boundaries of Nigeria imposed artificially by a colonial power are not so sacred as to justify the deaths of several million people. The price of unity is too high.
When independence was attained in 1960 ,Nigeria was a colonial amalgamation of several hundred relatively autonomous peoples, who had by no means developed a national consciousness. It was the Easterners who were the best educated and who had left their crowded homeland in large numbers to occupy middle-level skilled jobs throughout the country, who most looked forward to ‘one Nigeria.’ It was the people of the northern region, where indirect rule had strengthened the conservative and authoritarian structure of the society, who were most regionally oriented and who threatened frequently to secede from the Federation of Nigeria unless they dominated it.
The first 6 years of the Nigerian Republic were characterized by shifting political coalitions, ethnic conflict, regional jealousies, and massive corruption in public administration (s).
In the fall of 1966, 30,000 Ibos and other easterners residing in the north were killed. The easterners living outside their homeland lost trust in the federal government and 2 million of them returned to the east, suffering loss of jobs and property and in many cases, physical injury. They understandably moved away from the commitment to the federal government which had not restored mutual trust among the regions and tribes.
At a conference in Aburi, Ghana, in January, 1967, a confederated union with equality among the regions was agreed upon. However, the Aburi agreement was soon abrogated unilaterally by the government in Lagos with the promulgation, without consultation with the East, of a 12-state system particularly designed to confine the Ibos to a small area and to break their influence. The Easterners felt excluded from the government and seceded in May, 1967, declaring the independent Republic of Biafra which five African Countries recognized.
Secession was followed quickly by war in July 1967. Armed with British tanks and bullets and with Russian Mig’s piloted by Egyptians, the Nigerians have surrounded the Biafrans and cut them off from traditional sources of food and outlets to the sea. A strategy of siege, designed to produce military victory, has produced massive starvation unparalleled in modern warfare.
The Nigerians claimed originally that the Biafran leaders represented a small, elitist clique who acted in their own self-interest without popular support, and this claim was accepted by the British and American Government(s). It was thought that the secession would end soon. Now, although their capital has been moved three times, although they are surrounded and completely cut off from normal sources of food and trade, although they are bombed daily by jet fighters, although their young and old have died of starvation, the Biafrans have survived. They make their own oil for transport and their own crude weapons to fight with. They desert their towns to the enemy rather than collaborate. They fight on, despite the human misery. This is not an elitist struggle.
From the beginning of the civil war, the British have supported the federal military government of Nigeria, partly for economic reasons and partly because of an emotional or intellectual stake in a unified Nigeria, which is represented as a triumph of the British colonial technique of indirect rule and of the successful transition from colonial rule to independence. The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Joseph Palmer, who was our first Ambassador to Nigeria, personally shared this commitment to ‘one Nigeria’. He accepted the analogy of the secession of Biafra to the secession of the American Confederacy, entirely overlooking the fact that Nigeria, unlike the United States, was not unified by a common language, culture, and historical tradition, and had no background of stable, capable government.
Furthermore, 30,000 South Carolinians had not been massacred in 1861, and the inhabitants of the Southern States were neither pushed out of the Union nor were they living in fear for their physical security as is the case with the Biafrans in Nigeria. The U.S. State Department accepted a historical analogy without taking into account the complicated background to the secession. By putting its diplomatic and political weight behind the Nigerian position, the United States has committed itself to a purely military solution.
We were and are, in fact, not neutral. The United States has been neutral only in refraining from shipping to arms. Whereas Great Britain and the U.S.S.R. continue to send in arms, we have officially accepted the Nigerian explanation of the situation and have used our influences to gain acceptance, for this viewpoint among other African nations.
Any review of past events clearly demonstrates the bankruptcy of American policy of ‘one Nigeria – at any cost.’ The ‘one Nigeria,’ which upon the most optimistic projections might survive from the war would have little resemblance to the carefully balanced federation of regions which many people had envisaged as essential to independence. The ‘one Nigeria’ of the future would have to be postulated upon the inequality of different tribes. The Ibos and Eastern tribes who co-operated in forming Biafra would be stigmatized and penalized in many ways. The Ibos would – according to the new proposed division of the country into states – be confined to a crowded, infertile region smaller than their ancestral homeland, with no access to the sea. They would be deprived of all but token participation in the reconstituted unitary state. At a recent planning conference in Nigeria, it was declared that it will be 25 years before Ibos can be given positions in Nigeria.
The United States should immediately call for an arms embargo. We should actively seek a truce. We should use our good offices to promote negotiations for resolving the differences. We should press for a de-escalation of great power involvement. We should seek to form a multinational effort to provide the logistic support required for an adequate relief effort. We should accept Biafra’s right to a separate national existence and look to possible early recognition of Biafra by the United States and other nations.
The reactions to these proposals by those who have shaped American policy in West Africa heretofore can be anticipated. They will say that Biafran independence will be a first step toward the Balkanization of Africa. They will say that the Rivers tribes and other minority tribes of the east will suffer if Biafra gains its independence. They will say that these proposals will undermine the position of our British ally in Africa. They will claim that U.S. diplomatic recognition of Biafra will constitute intervention into a purely African problem.
Let us look at each of these objections.
The prediction that Biafran independence would lead to the Balkanization of Africa is obviously the discredited domino theory transferred to a new locale. There is no more reason to think that it is correct or that it is an adequate basis for present policy in West Africa any more than it is in Asia. Local grievances, local animosities, and local injustices are more important than outside influences in accounting for revolutionary developments within a country. It is significant that four African countries – Tanzania, Zambia, Ivory Coast, and Gabon – have recognized Biafra. Each of them has large minority groups, but none of them seemed to fear that its recognition of a secessionist regime elsewhere would encourage secession within its own boundaries.
As regards the question of economic stagnation and retrogression, it should be recognized that eliminating the hostility generated by an artificial political union could release energy for economic development. Certainly the technical ingenuity of the Easterners will be stimulated by the independence of Biafra. Furthermore, independence does not preclude economic association. The Biafrans have already indicated their willingness to co-operate with Nigeria on vital problems of transportation and communication, particularly the use of the Niger River.
Almost any advantage that can accrue from ‘one Nigeria’ can also be achieved by regional economic arrangements such as a common market and a regional development board for redistributing revenues. Even without such arrangements it is clear that Nigeria is viable without the eastern region, since it has great resources, including vast amounts of oìl in the Midwestern region; it has been able to forego the Eastern oil revenues for 2 years while fighting a costly war, and it would evidently be in far better economic condition without the expense of the war.
It is hard to credit the claims of the Federal Government of Nigeria that Biafra is governed solely by and for Ibos, who subjugate the minority tribes. In any case, the national preference of the minority tribes is a question which can be settled through plebiscites supervised by the United Nations or the Organization of African Unity. Even without some minority tribes, Biafra would be a populous country by African standards, larger than three-fourths of the African countries. Only 10 of some 40 African countries would be larger.
The argument that American recognition of Biafra would undermine the position of our British ally depends upon two premises, both doubtful. The first is that essential British oil interests would be threatened by Biafran independence. However, as pointed out before, much of the oil is in the Midwest, nor have the Biafrans expressed any intention of expropriating British oil. In any case, this should hardly be a major consideration of American foreign policy in this case.
The second premise is that the British support the Federal Government of Nigeria has diminished Soviet influence upon that government. However, all that can be said with assurance is that the Federal Government of Nigeria has shrewdly played off the Soviet Union against Great Britain in order to receive as many arms as possible from both. Who will come out ahead in this game of influence is uncertain.
To argue that diplomatic recognition of Biafra would constitute intervention into purely African affairs is irrelevant; nonrecognition is also intervention. There are faults of omission as well as of commission. The United States has already intervened repeatedly in the area: first by propping up General Gowon when he assumed power; later by backing him when Nigeria abrogated the Aburi agreements; and also by exerting pressure on a number of African nations not to recognize Biafra.
The steps I propose are diplomatic, not military. Our goal should be the recognition of Biafra which has demonstrated that it represents the interest of its people. We should begin by seeking an arms embargo. Our goal should be a truce with a view to reasonable negotiation. We should seek to de-escalate great power involvement. We should provide massive relief. The alternative – to continue to give passive military support and active diplomatic support in the name of unity – is no longer defensible”.
The surrender of Biafra never capitulated her citizens right of sovereignty. Onus for the clarion call for restoration. The yellow sun of the Republic of Biafra still shines.
We are still being killed mostly for our peaceful world values, hence we strongly believe that you are the chosen to restore our right to self-determination.
We hereby demand your support for a referendum deal to resolve this persistent crisis and to support Biafra that challenged the threats of jihadism more than fifty years ago in Nigeria. Your present tenure is miraculous and we hope it is ultimate hope for the restoration of the Republic of Biafra.
Signed
The Chancellor
Biafra De Facto Customary Government
Phone: +1 917 346 5419
Email: biafradefactogov@gmail.com
Website: [www.bdfcg.org](http://www.bdfcg.org
