Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970

478 Pages·2018·2.54 MB·English

by  A. Dirk Moses

Postcolonial Conflict and
the Question of Genocide
This volume is the first comprehensive and balanced historical account of
the momentous Nigeria-Biafra war. It offers a multi-perspectival treatment
of the conflict that explores issues such as local experiences of victims, the
massive relief campaigns by humanitarian NGOs and international orga-
nizations like the Red Cross, the actions of foreign powers with interests
in the conflict and the significance of the international public sphere, in
which the propaganda and public relations war about the question of geno-
cide was waged.
A. Dirk Moses is Professor of Modern History at the University of Syd-
ney. He is the author and editor of many publications on history, memory
and genocide, including C olonial Counterinsurgency and Mass Violence:
The Dutch Empire in Indonesia (2014, edited with Bart Luttikhuis) and the
Journal of Genocide Research (senior editor).
Lasse Heerten is head of the project ‘Imperial Gateway: Hamburg, the
German Empire, and the Making of a Global Port’ at the Freie Universität
Berlin. Prior to this, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Human Rights at
the University of California at Berkeley. His first book, a global history
of the humanitarian crisis in Biafra, will be published by Cambridge
University Press.
The Routledge Global 1960s and 1970s Series
A s the decades that defined the Cold War, the 1960s and 1970s helped shape
the world we live in to a remarkable degree. Political phenomena including
the almighty tussle between capitalism and communism, the Arab-Israeli
conflict, apartheid in South Africa, uprisings against authoritarianism and
independence from colonial rule for a large swathe of the nations of the
Global South helped define the period, but the sixties and seventies were
as much about cultural and social change, with lives the world over altered
irretrievably by new standpoints and attitudes. Traditionally, analysis of
the era has largely been concerned with superpower posturings and life in
Europe and America, but this series, while providing full coverage to such
impulses, takes a properly global view of the era.
F or a full list of titles in this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/
history/series/GLOBALSIXTIES
Titles in the series include:
Postcolonial Confl ict and the Question of Genocide
The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970
Edited by A. Dirk Moses and Lasse Heerten
Postcolonial Conflict and
the Question of Genocide
The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970
Edited by A. Dirk Moses
and Lasse Heerten
First published 2018
by Routledge
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© 2018 selection and editorial matter, A. Dirk Moses and Lasse Heerten;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of A. Dirk Moses and Lasse Heerten to be identified as the
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Moses, A. Dirk, editor. | Heerten, Lasse, editor.
Title: Postcolonial conflict and the question of genocide : the Nigeria-
Biafra war, 1967–1970 / edited by A. Dirk Moses and Lasse Heerten.
Other titles: Routledge global 1960s and 1970s.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2017. | Series: The Routledge global
1960s and 1970s
Identifiers: LCCN 2017004188 | ISBN 9780415347587 (hardback :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315229294 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Genocide—Nigeria. | Nigeria—History—Civil War,
1967–1970. | Nigeria—Ethnic relations.
Classification: LCC DT515.836 .P67 2017 | DDC 966.9052—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017004188
ISBN: 978-0-415-34758-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-22929-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of Figures viii
List of Contributors ix
Introduction 1
1 The Nigeria-Biafra War: Postcolonial Conflict and
the Question of Genocide 3
LASSE HEERTEN AND A. DIRK MOSES
SECTION I
Genocide and the Biafran Bid for Self-Determination 45
2 Irreconcilable Narratives: Biafra, Nigeria and Arguments
About Genocide, 1966–1970 47
DOUGLAS ANTHONY
3 Marketing Genocide: Biafran Propaganda Strategies
During the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–1970 72
ROY DORON
4 The Case Against Victor Banjo: Legal Process and
the Governance of Biafra 95
SAMUEL FURY CHILDS DALY
5 The Biafran Secession and the Limits of Self-Determination 113
BRAD SIMPSON
vi Contents
SECTION II
A Global Event 135
6 The UK and ‘Genocide’ in Biafra 137
KAREN E. SMITH
7 France and the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–1970 156
CHRISTOPHER GRIFFIN
8 Israel, Nigeria and the Biafra Civil War, 1967–1970 177
ZACH LEVEY
9 Strange Bedfellows: An Unlikely Alliance Between
the Soviet Union and Nigeria During the Biafran War 198
MAXIM MATUSEVICH
10 West German Sympathy for Biafra, 1967–1970:
Actors, Perceptions and Motives 217
FLORIAN HANNIG
11 Dealing With ‘Genocide’: The ICRC and the UN During
the Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970 239
MARIE-LUCE DESGRANDCHAMPS
12 Humanitarian Encounters: Biafra, NGOs and Imaginings
of the Third World in Britain and Ireland, 1967–1970 259
KEVIN O’SULLIVAN
13 ‘And Starvation Is the Grim Reaper’: The American
Committee to Keep Biafra Alive and the Genocide
Question During the Nigerian Civil War, 1968–1970 278
BRIAN MCNEIL
14 ‘Black America Cares’: The Response of
African-Americans to Civil War and
‘Genocide’ in Nigeria, 1967–1970 301
JAMES FARQUHARSON
SECTION III
Trauma and Memory 327
15 Women and the Nigeria-Biafra War 329
GLORIA CHUKU
Contents vii
16 ‘Biafra of the Mind’: MASSOB and the Mobilization
of History 360
IKE OKONTA
17 Memory as Social Burden: Collective Remembrance of
the Biafran War and Imaginations of Socio-Political
Marginalization in Contemporary Nigeria 387
EDLYNE ANUGWOM
18 The Asaba Massacre and the Nigerian Civil War:
Reclaiming Hidden History 412
S. ELIZABETH BIRD AND FRASER OTTANELLI
19 Imagined Nations and Imaginary Nigeria: Chinua
Achebe’s Quest for a Country 435
MPALIVE-HANGSON MSISKA
Index 457
Figures
3.1 ‘She Appears Near, but She Ain’t’, T he Leopard ,
26 January 1968 78
3.2 ‘Wrestling Cartoon’, T he Leopard , 16 February 1968 79
3.3 ‘International Observers HQ, Lagos’, The Leopard ,
22 November 1968 80
3.4 ‘Gowon’s Harvest’, The Leopard , 22 November 1968 80
18.1 Refugee Camp at St. Patrick’s College, Asaba, 1968 415
18.2 Refugees Assemble for Distribution of Rice, Beans
and Yams; Catholic Mission, Asaba, 1968 416
Contributors
Douglas Anthony is Associate Professor of History at Franklin & Marshall
College. His previously published work explores the experiences of Igbo
Nigerians living in northern Nigeria the years following the Nigeria-
Biafra war, and the place of modernity in Biafran wartime discourse.
Edlyne Anugwom is Professor of Sociology and African development at
the University of Western Cape, South Africa. Professor Anugwom is
also the current Secretary-General of the Pan African Anthropological
Association (PAAA), the editor of the A frican Anthropologist published
by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in
Africa (CODESRIA) and a recipient of the Georg Forster Fellowship of
the Humboldt Foundation. His areas of research interest include mem-
ory studies, natural resources conflict, work, ethnicity and the politi-
cal sociology of African Development. He has published extensively
in these areas, including a recent book, Religion, Occult and a Youth
Conflict in the Niger Delta of Nigeria (2017).
S. Elizabeth Bird is Professor of Anthropology at the University of South
Florida, where her research centres on media, popular culture and cul-
tural heritage. She has published over 60 articles and book chapters
in these areas, and is the author or editor of four books, including T he
Audience in Everyday Life (2003) and T he Anthropology of News and
Journalism: Global Perspectives (2010).
Gloria Chuku is a historian with over 25 years of teaching and research
experience. She is Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, and Affili-
ate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, and of the Language,
Literacy and Culture PhD Program at the University of Maryland, Balti-
more County, USA. Her research has focused primarily on Igbo history,
women in colonial and postcolonial political economies, ethnonation-
alisms and conflicts in Nigeria, and African nationalism and intellec-
tual history. She has published extensively in these areas, including a