Page 61 of There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

1. Chinua Achebe, Collected Poems (New York: Anchor Books, 2004).

The Media War

1. Achebe, The Education of a British-Protected Child.

2. House of Lords official report, August 27, 1968.

3. Hugh McCullum provides this perspective: “For the first time in history and just by accident, the mass media zeroed in on an African humanitarian disaster. New technology and a new generation of young, bright, media-savvy church people and NGOs made this possible.”

Source: McCullum, “Biafra Was the Beginning.”

Narrow Escapes

1. In Social History of Rape, Paul Tabori confirms this abomination:

A young British doctor who worked in the pediatric hospital told the reporter: “The soldiers on duty in the area of the pediatric hospital at Okporo were such monsters that I never let the nurses go anywhere without an escort. Especially the white ones. . . . Two Biafran nurses who would only give their names as Theresa and Caroline said they were raped several times.”

Source: Paul Tabori, Social History of Rape (London: New English Library, 1971).

2. “Elephant Grass: Common Name: Napier grass, Uganda grass; Genus: Pennistum; Species: purpureum; Parts Used: leaves for animal fodder. . . . In the savannas of Africa it grows along lake beds and rivers where the soil is rich. Local farmers cut the grass for their animals, carrying it home in huge piles on their backs or on carts.”

Source: www.blueplanetbiomes.org/elephant_grass.htm.

VULTURES

1. Chinua Achebe, Collected Poems (New York:Anchor Books, 2004).

Part 3

The Fight to the Finish

1. Captain Steve Lewis, “Che Guevara and Guerrilla Warfare: Training for Today’s Nonlinear Battlefields,” Military Review (September–October 2001), p. 101 Also, interview of retired Nigerian and Biafran Army officers © Achebe Foundation 2008-2011; See also the military theory, theorists, and strategy Web page of the Air War College. This is the intellectual and leadership center of the American air force. http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-thry.htm.

The Economic Blockade and Starvation

1. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. Biafra: Selected Speeches and Random Thoughts of C. Odumegwu Ojukwu (New York: Harper & Row, 1969).

2. Metz, Nigeria; Forsyth, The Biafra Story; de St. Jorre, The Nigerian Civil War; Akpan, The Struggle for Secession 1966–1970; Amadi, Sunset in Biafra; Falola and Heaton, A History of Nigeria; Madiebo, The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War, p. 14; Ademoyega, Why We Struck; Effiong, Nigeria and Biafra.

3. Seymour M. Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (New York: Summit Books, 1983), p. 136.

4. “Negotiators who have been meeting for four weeks in Addis Ababa made marked progress in clearing the logjam holding up large-scale relief. Meeting with Emperor Haile Selassie, moderator of the talks, they agreed to create both air and land corridors for shipments of food to Biafra’s starving civilians.”

Source: “Nigeria: Biafra’s Two Wars,” Time, August 30, 1968.

5. Writing for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ series, New Issues, Professor Nathaniel H. Goetz of Pepperdine University succinctly captures the complexity of the standoff:

Politically, the possibility of a land corridor seemed impossible. One of the many disagreements between the warring parties was simple, yet it illustrates both the mistrust and complexity of what was occurring: Ojukwu forbade the necessary food to reach the country through a neutral corridor for fear Nigerian troops would poison it. . . . On June 5, an ICRC DC-7 aircraft was shot down by the Federal air force over Biafra, killing the three aid workers onboard. Because of this incident, serious disputes over the conduct of relief operations arose and the airlift was again suspended.

Source: Goetz, “Humanitarian Issues in the Biafra Conflict.”

The Silence of the United Nations

1. Hammarskjöld was “a Renaissance man,” reportedly with interests as varied as banking, economics, literature—he loved the work of Emily Dickinson and Hermann Hesse—politics, Christian theology, fine art, linguistics, gymnastics, outdoor sports such as skiing.

Source: “Dag Hammarskjöld—Biography”; Nobelprize.org, December 14, 2011; www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1961/hammarskjold-bio.html.

2. Metz, Nigeria.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com