Media, War & Conflict

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The Nigerian civil war and its media: groping for clues Françoise Ugochukwu Media, War & Conflict 2010 3: 182 DOI: 10.1177/1750635210360083 The online version of this article can be found at: http://mwc.sagepub.com/content/3/2/182

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MWC Article

The Nigerian civil war and its media: groping for clues

Media, War & Conflict 3(2) 182–201 © The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: sagepub. co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1750635210360083 http://mwc.sagepub.com

Françoise Ugochukwu

Open University and CNRS-LLACAN, Paris, France

Abstract Following months of political instability in Nigeria and the massacres of Igbo people in the north of the country during the summer and fall of 1966, the situation deteriorated rapidly. On 30 May 1967, the Eastern Region (Igboland) unilaterally declared its independence, triggering a civil war that, coupled with a tight economic blockade of the secessionist region and the logistic support of foreign powers, turned into a three-year conflict that claimed over three million lives. Nigerian and Biafran troops were engaged in battle from 6 July 1967 until 12 January 1970, when the war ended with Biafra’s surrender. All through the conflict, but especially from 1968–9, the world media converged on Nigeria, trying their best to cover the conflict for their audiences, with mixed fortunes. This study, based on radio bulletins gathered daily in France from 1968 to 1970 from the BBC World Service, Voice of America, France-Inter, Radio-France International, Europe n.1, Radio-Brussels, Radio-Lausanne and Radio-Canada, reveals the way the media groped their way through a flurry of contradicting nuggets of information in a desperate hunt for the truth on a far-away nightmare, with unreliable sources contributing to the confusion and a proliferation of unreliable pieces of news. In spite of these limitations, the media succeeded in covering the progress on the ground, the unfolding of the humanitarian situation and mounting casualties, the arms race and the political scene, and eventually achieved their aim – that of attracting the world’s attention to Nigeria.

Keywords Biafra, information, media, Nigeria, radio, war

Introduction Following months of political instability in Nigeria and the massacres of Igbo people in the north of the country during the summer and fall of 1966, the situation deteriorated rapidly, and threatened Igbo people flocked back to their homeland from all over the federation. On 30 May 1967, after the failure of negotiations, Lieutenant-Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, acceded to Igbo demand and unilaterally proclaimed Biafra’s independence – the new country comprised 3 of the newly created Corresponding author: Françoise Ugochukwu, Department of Languages, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. Email: [email protected]


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12 states: Rivers, East-Central State and South-Eastern State.1 But war with Nigeria broke out on 6 July and Biafra’s capital, Enugu, soon fell. A year later, the conflict that had been expected to only last about two months still dragged on and the first humanitarian flights were organized in February 1968. On 13 April 1968, Tanzania joined the Ivory Coast, Gabon and Zambia in recognizing Biafra. During a press conference on 9 May 1968, the President of the Ivory Coast, Houphouët-Boigny, declared: ‘Even if, because of its military superiority in men and material, the Federal Government of Nigeria happened to occupy the whole of Biafra, this would not solve the problem that led to the secession’ (Von Rosen, 1969: 147). At that time, the situation on the ground was uncertain. In a bid to isolate the secessionists, the Federal army, attacking on all fronts from the Atlantic coast, had already conquered Ikot-Ekpene, some hundred kilometres from Port-Harcourt (P.H. in Figure 1) and the battle raged on around Aba.2 On 27 August 1968, as another attack in the Oguta sector threatened the make-shift Uli airfield, Colonel Okweichime, Biafran Army

Figure 1. Map of Igboland in Nigeria. Source: http://igbology.igbonet.net/docs/igboworld/detailedmap.html


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Chief of Staff, told the French reporter François Debré (1968): ‘Since the rest of the world does not know our real military situation, all that the various press agencies broadcast are victory bulletins from the Nigerian Army’ (p. 86). Much has been written about the Biafran War since 1970; however, studies on the media involvement in the conflict, which followed accusations of partiality on the part of the press, in particular, have either focused on the British side (Akinyemi, 1979) or have appeared within the broader spectrum of war and the media.3 The present comparative study, the first of its kind on the war coverage by radio stations broadcasting in French from 1968–9, at the height of the conflict,4 is based on daily news bulletins from the BBC World Service, Voice of America, France-Inter, Radio-France International (RFI), Europe n.1,5Radio-Brussels, Radio-Lausanne and Radio-Canada recorded in France by the author.6 From the onset of the conflict, these radio stations and others had tried to play their part in keeping their audiences informed. They gave details of military operations and tried to analyse rumours and clues about possible arms sales to the warring parties; they also reviewed the humanitarian situation, followed diplomatic progress and political declarations from various countries, and discussed the peace prospects. I will focus here on reports on the military and humanitarian fronts in order to evaluate potential changes in the reporting of the news and the difficulties faced by the journalists as the war progressed. This article will also investigate whether there were any marked differences between the French and English-speaking news and commentaries in the way they handled the news they received from agencies and war correspondents.

Sourcing information In order to get the attention of their Western audiences, reporters knew they had to beat ‘the law of death per kilometre, this rule that one death on your doorstep equals ten deaths in the neighbouring country and tens of thousands of deaths in Africa’ (Marthoz, 2005: 301), and therefore cover the conflict as best they could. This proved difficult. The French, in particular, had to deal with a poorly known country, a former British possession whose terrain they knew nothing about; for their information, they mostly relied on often unclear agency dispatches, some of which were in English and mentioned places not found on available maps. These pieces of information sometimes contradicted themselves because the situation on the war front, away from major roads, with villages changing hand from day to day, could not always be relayed rapidly, as Biafran troops lacked vital communication equipment. In addition, reporters had to overcome practical obstacles, political pressures and bias, which resulted in a near total blackout on the part of officials and governments. The French Government never officially recognized Biafra; as for the British Government and its US counterpart, neither of them supported the secession. Most of the news gathered by European media thus came from a mixture of inside and outside sources: war correspondents on the ground, radio bulletins from both sides of the war, local witnesses deemed reliable (e.g. foreign missionaries, French doctors and other expatriates), international multimedia news agencies (e.g. the British Reuters), the American Associated Press and the Agence France-Presse (AFP), NGOs (e.g. Caritas and the Red Cross), or Biafran personalities (e.g. Achebe) on brief visits to Western capitals.


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In 1968–9, however, the radio stations examined here, including the BBC World Service, had a distinct advantage: they all had war correspondents in Biafra – the only place affected by the war in most of the three-year conflict. The French reporters, in particular, concentrated their missions on the Biafran side. This could easily be explained: (i) by the fact that Nigerian bulletins would have been in English without translation;7 (ii) because the French radio stations did not seem to have sent anyone on the Nigerian side; and (iii) because of the deliberate focus on Biafra among the media as the place where the war was taking place. These men criss-crossed the Biafran enclave,8 guided by volunteers, retrieved a considerable amount of information and compared their sources. The Biafran authorities were willing to accede to the reporters’ demands: foreigners were taken on tours of the refugee camps and the war front, and made abundant use of the written documents made available to them by the Biafran information service, such as excerpts from Ojukwu’s speeches.9 On the streets of Umuahia, they read the local press – Biafran Nationalist, the Biafran Sun and the Sunday Champion,10 – which gave the latest news on the war. Valuable information about the conflict was also gathered during impromptu discussions between reporters, usually quartered in the same hotel, who exchanged tips and gave accounts of their day while planning the next one with their Igbo guides. More important, reporters acknowledged listening to the official secessionist broadcasts. Radio Biafra, which was able to recruit a number of trained linguists, played a crucial role in the war.11As Buhler (1968) explains: There were two daily broadcasts in French on 49 m, two commentaries on military and political developments ... in the course of the morning, these programmes were then broadcast in Spanish, Hausa, Tiv, Idoma and Igala. In the afternoon, it was the turn of Yoruba presenters between 4 and 5.45 pm. (p. 24)12

These bulletins, relayed to the European news broadcasts by their reporters on the ground, covered the conflict while offering news from the front, editorial comments on the political and military development of the conflict and a review of national and foreign press. Biafran TV also showed pictures of the war and commented on them. It might have been difficult to access Radio Biafra outside its territory. But, as noted by Jung (2007): Immediately after they proclaimed Biafra’s Independence, its leaders constituted a government that included a Ministry of Information and a ‘Propaganda Directorate’ manned by an intellectual elite selected from the Igbo tribe, which formed the majority of Biafrans. Some foreign countries volunteered to host Biafran Information Bureaux … These organisms influenced the French press through the Agence France-Presse which regularly quoted Radio Biafra, then controlled by the Propaganda Directorate, in its dispatches. In addition, the Biafrans resorted to the public relations agency Markpress, based in Geneva and responsible for disseminating news ... through press releases addressed to the UK, USA and France. Markpress also sent films and photos to the press and organised reporters’ transport into Biafra. The journalist


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Claude Brovelli, who represented the AFP in Nigeria at the time, considers that the budget which Biafra allocated to communications matched that allocated to the Defence and even possibly exceeded it.13

Dealing with a moving front Gathering information from the front was not made any easier by the gradual shift towards disorganized, bloody and rather unpredictable guerrilla warfare. In 1968–9, news from both Europe and the USA covering the military situation thus tended to give the same impression of stagnation, with Nigerian and Biafran troops struggling over a small area for days. This is illustrated by the 21 October 1968, 7 pm France-Inter bulletin report that the Federal troops had only progressed 6 km since 4 September. This impression of stagnation was made more obvious by the fact that, in a desperate bid to throw some light on the confused military situation, all radio stations usually reported without any comment any minute piece of information they obtained, whatever the source, confirmed or unconfirmed. One must concede that reports from Nigerian and Biafran sources did at times agree, as on 21 October 1968, with the BBC World Service reporting at 7.30 am that ‘according to a Biafran report from Umuahia, Biafran forces maintain their ground and progress in Aba and Onitsha sectors. Lagos admits that its forces seem to meet with strong resistance.’ Yet most of the time, unsurprisingly, the ‘enemy brothers’ continued their war on air waves, refuting each other’s victories, and this was quickly relayed by the BBC World Service and the Voice of America, both of which accessed Nigerian radio. The BBC World Service, for example, announced, at 10.30 pm on 22 October 1968, the unofficial news that Oguta had been taken over by Federal troops before conceding the next day that several observers sent word from Biafra that Oguta was actually still in the hands of Biafra, adding that the secessionists had already refuted the announced defeat. Sometimes, news items contradicted each other within the same bulletin: for example, on 24 October 1968 at 8.15 pm, Radio-Lausanne – which was mainly concerned with the humanitarian side of the war – reported that: ‘according to Nigerian radio, Ojukwu seemed to have been wounded in an attempted assassination in Libreville and would be cared for in a Gabonese hospital. But trusted sources in Libreville qualify this rumour as a mere fable.’ Under pressure to perform and respond to their public’s expectations, the various radio stations had no option but to repeat themselves and give the same names day after day, reporting on every kilometre lost or won by the warring parties around Biafra’s major remaining cities: Aba, Owerri and Awka. In this blurred landscape, Aba, the most southern of all three, stood out as a ghost town: it had been taken by Federal troops in September 1968 but on 24 October at 7.30 pm, the BBC World Service announced a Biafran attack before adding that this attack ‘might have been unsuccessful’. In the following months, sparse news coming from both sides and relayed mainly through the BBC World Service, with their lack of details, occasional contradictions and minimal reports on casualties, did not really offer any clearer picture on the situation on the ground, as revealed in Table 1.


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Ugochukwu Table 1. Conflicting reports on casualties from 24 October 1968 to 10 January 1969 Date

Time

Radio station

24/10/1968 7.30 pm BBC World Service 4/11/1968 7.30 pm BBC World Service 17/11/1968 8 am France-Inter 18/11/1968 12.30 pm BBC World Service 19/11/1968 11 pm Voice of America 4/1/1969 7.30 pm BBC World Service 10/1/1969 7.17 pm BBC World Service 10/1/1969 10 pm BBC World Service

Story Unsuccessful Biafran attack on Aba Biafran counter-attack on Aba Counter-attacks in Aba and Owerri sectors Attack on village 35 km north of Aba Biafran forces might have entered Aba – Lagos denies Biafran counter-attacks in Aba, Owerri and Ikot Ekpene sectors Heavy fighting in Aba sector Federal forces regained 2 km in the region

The wording of some of these bulletins expressed both uncertainty and frustration, like that of the news flash from Voice of America on 19 November 1968, reporting that ‘Biafran forces might have entered Aba’ and adding in the next instant: ‘denied by Lagos’.14 Glancing through these news bulletins, it is obvious that, at least in their news flashes, Francophone and Anglophone radio stations hardly differed. In fact, they often broadcast the same information, most probably because it came from the same source, as in the case of the capture of Uzuakoli (in Abia State not far from Okigwi) by Federal troops (see Table 2), first signalled by the BBC World Service and confirmed within hours by Radio-Brussels and Voice of America. On 4 April 1969 at 7.15 am, the BBC World Service relayed the words of its correspondent in Biafra: ‘Ojukwu seems to have called his generals for a talk. One can hear the noise of the battle even in the streets of Umuahia … and Federal troops, under Mohammed’s command, continue their advance’ – six months of an irrepressible advance that is demonstrated in Table 2. Table 2. Same or similar information broadcast from 8 November 1968 to 22 April 1969 Date

Time

Radio station

8/11/1968 7.30 am BBC World Service 5/1/1969 12.30 pm BBC World Service 16/2/1969 11 pm Voice of America 3/4/1969 6 pm BBC World Service 6.30 pm Radio-Brussels 4/4/1969 7 am Voice of America 11/4/1969 6.10 pm BBC World Service 15/4/1969 6.15 pm Radio-Brussels 15/4/1969 7.30 pm BBC World Service 15/4/1969 8 pm France-Inter 22/4/1969 11 pm Voice of America

Story Federal bomb on Uli airfield: 5 dead, (c. 20 kms east of Onitsha) 45 wounded Biafran counter-attack near Abagana (c. 20 kms east of Onitsha). Federal attack on Nnewi Capture of Uzuakoli by Federal troops Same confirmed Same confirmed Federal troops have reached Ngu (near Bende) Federal troops have taken Bende, 18 km south-east of Umuahia Same confirmed Same confirmed Nigerian forces very close to Umuahia – Biafra confirms


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Commentaries surrounding the temporary silence of Radio Biafra at the beginning of 1969 give an accurate picture of the lack of information at the disposal of foreign correspondents. On 15 April at 6.10 pm, the BBC World Service reported that: ‘Radio Biafra ceased broadcasting on short wave on Saturday, which may indicate that the radio station is being transferred away from Umuahia.’ The following day, at the same time, the BBC World Service repeated the same information, suggesting Orlu might now be hosting the radio station. Yet 15 minutes later, Radio-Brussels announced that Radio Biafra was broadcasting again after only four hours of silence. That same day at 10 pm, Radio-France denied this latest news, reporting that: ‘Radio Biafra fell silent; the last message was received in Lucerne, Switzerland: Umuahia is now evacuated. Federal troops are in town’, whispered the speaker who added in German: ‘dormitories … dormitories … then silence!’ The day after, at 8 am, that same message was finally given by the Voice of America as coming from a member of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) in Umuahia.15 On 24 April 1969 at 10.30 pm, the BBC World Service declared that, according to Arikpo,16 the then Nigerian Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, the Biafran ghetto was now reduced to 5000 km² – this represented about 10 per cent of its initial size.

Civilian casualties What really concerned French audiences, far more than military operations in a far-away land, was the rumoured humanitarian cost, and Western radio stations used all their sources, including reports from journalists on the ground, to try and gather data on Federal air raids that had been accused of targeting civilians. In wars, churches and hospitals have always been considered to be safe places of refuge, and France-Inter’s detailed comments on 10 February 1968, insisting on the religious character of the target, had already revealed the French public’s revulsion: ‘In Biafra, war goes on with its death toll: yesterday, a bomb landed near Umuahia cathedral at the time that mass was being celebrated, and killed four.’ Faced with contradictory reports and undoubtedly under pressure to downplay the horror, the respected BBC World Service confirmed this raid the same evening at 10.30 pm, offering a rather revealing explanation: ‘In Lagos, Chief Enahoro announced that Federal planes had raided military objectives in Umuahia. Radio Biafra declared that these raids targeted residential quarters and left 4 dead and 11 wounded.’17 Other bombs hit the few remaining Biafran hospitals, infuriating the Red Cross, churches and charitable organizations, whose personnel on the ground were able to give accurate reports on the human cost. Details which could have been considered easy to verify still left reporters struggling to get accurate details. On 11 December 1968 at 12.30 pm, the BBC World Service mentioned the ICRC’s protest after a similar Federal air raid had left three dead. On 6 February 1969 at 7 am, France-Inter informed its audience that Amaigbo hospital had come under machinefire and that two of the female nurses – Red Cross volunteers – had been killed. According to the radio stations, these air raids against civilian objectives had first been completely refuted by Lagos – the BBC World Service reported on 8 and 22 February 1969 that ‘pilots had been ordered to limit their raids to military targets’ – yet civilian casualties remained a daily occurrence and Biafra reported a total of 294 dead and 269 wounded between 5 January and 27 February that year. In the winter of 1968–9, several raids were reported as having deliberately targeted markets, that of Umuahia in particular (see Table 3).


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Ugochukwu Table 3. Reports of Federal air raids on Umuahia market Date

Time

Radio station

Story

14/12/1968 15/12/1968 9/2/1969 10/2/1969 15/3/1969

12.30 pm Evening 6.15 pm 8 pm 1 pm

BBC World Service BBC World Service Radio-Brussels France-Inter France-Inter

Bombing of Umuahia market by Soviet planes Same confirmed, with 69 dead and 300 wounded Four bombs hit Umuahia Same confirmed Bombing of Umuahia market – 30 to 40 dead

Here again, there was no major disagreement between French and English radio stations, as they all confirmed Federal raids on Umuahia and subsequent casualties reported by Western journalists on the ground, who witnessed them and took pictures of the devastating aftermath (Sosnowsky, 1969). Apart from the French concern with casualties suffered by the Catholic Church in Biafra, the main difference between France-Inter and the BBC World Service was in the tone of the few aired commentaries, which reflected the temperament and cultural expression of the French reports, which were vocal and emotional in contrast to the more neutral and professional tone of the BBC World Service. The mounting human cost of the war eventually triggered a public protest and responses from the various governments: on 27 February 1969, both the BBC World Service at 10.30 pm and Voice of America at 11 pm reported that: ‘The British Government had opened an enquiry on these air raids but considered that, if these really took place, they were not deliberate.’ On 13 March at 7.30 am, the BBC World Service conceded that: ‘Official delegates from the American government, just back from Nigeria, declared that they have proof that civilians are being deliberately targeted by Nigerian planes.’ That evening at 6 pm, the same radio station added that the British Government had told its Nigerian counterpart that indiscriminate air raids against civilians should cease and that Gowon had promised to severely punish those responsible. Two days after that, at 1 pm, prime time, France-Inter broadcast Nicolas Lang’s eye-witness account: Last Tuesday, at 12.45 pm at Umuahia, the plane circled round, threw several bombs, came back, threw some more and completed its task with cannon and machine gun, killing between thirty and forty people. There was a market on one side of the road, and some huts on the other: there were dead bodies everywhere. On the hill, scattered bodies had been mangled by cluster bombs …. Honestly speaking, there were no military targets there.

Later, in Geneva, the Head of the ICRC delegates in Biafra declared to the BBC World Service (24 March 1969, 7.30 pm) that he had reported ‘at least 50 Federal air raids against civilian targets within the last eighteen months’, adding that he was sure they had not targeted any military installation. On 6 April 1969, the ICRC issued a further protest after another raid against Awo-Omama general hospital – the second in a month – that killed four and wounded six people’ (BBC World Service, 7.30 pm and 10.30 pm). A team of international observers from Canada, Poland, Sweden and America eventually felt able to report that ‘indiscriminate air raids seem to have diminished’ (BBC World Service, 9 May 1969, 10.30 pm).


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The humanitarian crisis Right from the start, Biafra had been locked in, all its borders closed and its economy paralysed, and disease and starvation soon became the Biafrans’ worst enemies. Here again, radio stations were quick to report human casualties, charitable efforts and diplomatic fall-outs of the airlift organized to help the starving population, with the BBC World Service also providing the Federal point of view on the matter. The 16-hour detention of Auguste Lindt, ICRC’s director of relief operations in Nigeria, and of two other Swiss nationals, all arrested in Lagos on 28 May 1968 and accused of ‘having come from Dahomey without permission’18 (BBC World Service, 28 May, 2 pm), was a measure of Lagos’s growing unease as relief operations intensified. Relief planes, which radio stations estimated at around 50 a day at the time, were systematically subjected to Nigerian antiaircraft fire; the troops had been ordered to ‘bring down any plane that carried unauthorized food or medicines to Biafra’ to serve as a warning to all international organizations at a time when they were rumoured to be planning ‘a huge operation to save Biafrans from starvation’ (BBC World Service, 5 July 1968, 7.30 pm). Relentless radio bulletins undoubtedly helped coordinate humanitarian efforts: on 9 July 1968, according to the BBC World Service (12.30 pm), the ICRC reckoned that Biafrans needed around 800 tons of food to survive; on the 22nd of the same month, Radio-Lausanne announced (11.45 pm) that ‘right now, the ICRC sends 110 tons of food on a daily basis’. The Federal Government had already accused NGOs of meddling in the conflict and using their relief operations to supply the Biafrans with arms. As the war progressed, these accusations found an echo in the radio bulletins. The Voice of America (10 February 1969, 11 pm) echoed Enahoro’s announcement that ‘four planes flying to Biafra, suspected of carrying arms, had been intercepted by the Federal air force and forced to turn back.’ Three days after that, the same radio station (11 pm) reported that ‘four planes from the Danish Red Cross’ had been slightly damaged on Uli airfield. In spite of assurances given by the Gabonese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that planes taking off from his country only carried humanitarian aid, mainly food and medicine (BBC World Service, 15 March 1969, 10.30 pm), Nigeria accused him of supplying the secessionists with arms, and President Macias had to temporarily suspend all relief flights to Equatorial Guinea to assuage Lagos (BBC World Service, 15 March 1969, 9 am). As the war progressed through 1969, Western radio stations now focused on the struggle to safely land ICRC relief planes. Radio-Brussels (22 March 1969, 6.15 pm) gave details of the way Federal planes now lit Uli airfield with magnesium flares to ensure maximum hits. On the same evening (7.15 and 10.30 pm), the BBC World Service reported that ‘an American relief plane carrying food crashed on Uli-Ihiala airfield after being hit by a Nigerian plane. The plane skidded off the tarmac after running into a shellhole.’ Americans were already aware of the dangers faced by their pilots: back home, eight of them had complained that ‘the wages they had been promised did not materialize – they demanded fifty dollars per trip, saying that they had come under Nigerian fire’ (Radio-Brussels, 20 February 1969). Reports of the loss of relief planes on 6 June 1969 give a glimpse of the political and humanitarian dimensions of the war and show the intensity of media efforts to cover


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unfolding events – in this particular case, a week of constant supply of details, with all radio stations engaged in a relay race to uncover the truth: • BBC World Service, 6 June, 12.30 pm: the Swedish Red Cross regrets the loss, the day before, of ‘one of its planes, with four men on board, struck down by Nigerian anti-aircraft defence. Two other relief planes seem to have come under enemy fire.’ • France-Inter, 6 June, 1 pm: one of the planes burst into flames and two others are reported missing. • BBC World Service, 6 June, 6 pm: suspension of all ICRC relief planes; the Federal Government confirmed it had downed a plane suspected of carrying arms and suggested it could be the one Sweden reported lost on its way from Fernando Po with relief food. • Radio Brussels, 6 June, 6.15 pm: the plane downed by the Nigerians was a DC6 whose crew was captured 4 km east of Calabar. • Radio-Brussels, 7 June, 6.15 pm: the Federal Government recognized that they had ‘brought down the relief plane in error’, but informed the media that Nigerian night patrols would continue. The ICRC intended to restart its night flights to Biafra. • BBC World Service, 7 June, 10.30 pm: ‘… is not sure whether ICRC pilots would accept – they had refused to fly until their personal security was assured.’ • Radio Canada, 9 June, 8.45 am: relief flights from United Churches will continue. • Voice of America, 9 June, 11 pm: information confirmed: ‘The ICRC will only restart its flights after receiving the Federal Nigerian Government’s formal guarantee that relief planes are not in any danger.’ • Radio-Brussels, 11 June, 6.15 pm: relief flights just restarted, after five days, but ‘on a smaller scale’. • BBC World Service, 13 June, 12.30 pm: 20 pilots from the Norwegian Red Cross express their revulsion in an ultimatum sent to Gowon after the carcass of the ICRC DC6 was discovered in a swamp near Calabar: ‘If Nigeria does not explain what happened to that plane, they will offer their services to the Biafran army.’ • Radio-Brussels, 14 June: Nigeria insisted that it had brought down the plane from the Swedish Red Cross because it had refused to land on a Federal airfield and ignored the Nigerian pilot’s ultimatum. On 17 June 1969, Radio Brussels reported that Nigeria had now installed ‘an improved radar system’ and that relief planes, now easy targets, had virtually all stopped flying. Lindt’s resignation followed, reported by both the BBC World Service and France-Inter on 19 June. By the end of June 1969, the ICRC was banned from Nigeria (BBC World Service, 30 June, 12.30 pm) and reacted by rejecting the Federal ban the same evening (BBC World Service, 30 June, 12 midnight). Its interim president, Jacques Fremont, declared that: ‘World opinion does not allow the ICRC to stop its work.’ The radio stations proved him right by reporting on the ensuing diplomatic lobbying: the USA tried to persuade Nigeria to change its mind (Voice of America, 1 July) and Pope Paul VI himself offered to send relief planes from Rome to reassure the world (BBC World Service, 2 July, 6 pm).


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Relief and arms supplies Did governments actually supply the belligerents with ammunition? The world media were again relied upon to throw some light on the matter and, although no radio station ever fully answered this hotly debated question,19 they hinted that a number of countries were concerned, even if only discreetly, about the arms trade. On 13 July 1968, for example, the BBC World Service (10.30 pm) reported that a Belgian cargo plane from Sabena20 had crashed near Lagos on its way to Nigeria.21 While enemy brothers kept on fighting over a few inches of land, war alliances were being negotiated behind closed doors and accusations mounted; on 21 October 1968 (7 pm), France-Inter had expressed the view that Biafrans possessed automatic weapons. Three days later, the BBC World Service (24 October, 7.30 pm) acknowledged having proof that Biafra had recently received a huge quantity of armaments, even though Germany denied being involved. Three days later (27 October, 10.30 pm), the BBC World Service reported that Ojukwu denied having received any military support from either France or Germany, adding that such help would be welcome. The following morning, the 7.30 am BBC World Service broadcast added that Biafran troops mostly survived on ammunition taken from the enemy. The same radio station later aired the comment (31 October 1968, 7.30 pm) that rebellion was being encouraged by arms supplies and that those who supplied them with these would have to account for their actions to Africa and the world. Who then supplied those arms? Listening to broadcasts allowed one to glean bits of information that leaked through the smoke screen and revealed both some of the arms deals and their interpretations, as can be seen from the following notes, taken from broadcasts from 5 to 10 November 1968: • Voice of America, 5 November, 11 pm: according to the Nigerian Commissioner for Information, ‘a consignment of armaments from Czechoslovakia and China has been intercepted on its way to Biafra via Dar es Salaam.’ • BBC World Service, 6 November, 12.30 pm: Nigeria accused Tanzania of having diverted arms destined for other African liberation movements to take them to Biafra. • BBC World Service, 7 November, 7.30 am: Wilson22 received a visit from delegates of all British political parties. The broadcast mentioned ‘clandestine arms deliveries from Portugal and the Netherlands’. • Voice of America, 8 November, 11 pm: according to the Nigerian Ministry of Defence: ‘The Federal army downed a plane known to be carrying arms to Biafra.’ • BBC World Service, 9 November, 10.30 pm: the Federal government denied allegations made by the Nigerian press that Biafra ‘might have bought jet planes from Germany’. • Voice of America, 9 November, 11 pm: Lagos reported ‘a flood of arms and ammunitions being sent to Biafra’. • France-Inter, 10 November, 11 pm: in Lagos, the French and German ambassadors officially denied that their governments had supplied any armaments to Biafra as implied by the Nigerian media.23


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In its 12 November 1968 review of the British press,24 the BBC World Service summarized the columns of the daily newspapers in the following words: According to the press, the Biafran resistance has so grown in strength that the final attack announced by Gowon is yet to happen. Instead, the Biafrans counter-attacked in several sectors, leaving the Federal army on the defensive … Whose fault is it? France’s fault: in spite of its diplomats’ denials, it supplies arms to Biafra, especially artillery, delivered by the French army on orders from the Elysée. Why this? France does not want to see the growth of a united Nigeria that would become an Anglophone power in Africa.

Kristilolu (2007) herself confirmed the accepted fact that: ‘French policy towards the Nigerian crisis [was] rooted in a larger and longer framework of rivalry between the French and the British over Nigeria and between the French and Nigeria within the West African sub region’ (p. 9).

The French case The media now turned to the issue of French arms supplies to Biafra, reporting all mentions of the matter: • The French denial had already been confirmed on the BBC World Service (11 November 1968, 10 am) with the added comment that the Gabonese President had denied that any French armaments had passed through Gabon to Biafra. • That very evening, Radio Canada (11 November 1968, 9.45 pm) announced that Gabon had decided to expel ‘all Nigerians on its soil’. At the time, President Bongo was in Paris to discuss humanitarian aid to Biafra and used this platform to repeatedly deny allegations that he was party to arms supplies to the secessionists (BBC World Service, 12 November 1968, 10.30 pm; France-Inter, 29 November 1968, 10 am). On 14 November 1968, Ojukwu decided to call on France to move a step further and officially recognize Biafra, reminding De Gaulle of his August 1968 declaration of support for the Biafrans’ right ‘to govern themselves’ – this declaration was relayed on France-Inter that same day at 4 pm. • The following day, according to the BBC World Service (10.30 pm), the Ivory Coast Minister for Foreign Affairs, just back from London, denied having discussed French arms deliveries to Biafra with Wilson. • On 6 March 1969, Voice of America mentioned a Biafran resolution asking France for arms supplies. • Two days later, France-Inter’s prime time news broadcast at 1 pm featured an interview with Raymond Offroy, President of the French Committee for Biafra and Jacques Marette, a former minister, both on a visit to Ojukwu. The two men took the opportunity to confirm that France had not supplied any arms to Biafra and justified this choice, explaining that their country wanted to prevent the conflict from escalating.


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These denials contradicted the report, aired by the BBC World Service (18 November 1968, 12.30 pm)25 and emanating from a team of unnamed international observers back in Lagos after a tour of the southern front that allowed them to reach 35 km north of Aba after witnessing a notable increase of the Biafran fire power. They equally contradicted Robert Kennedy’s words26 before his death, reported on the Voice of America (7 December 1968, 11 pm) in which he asked France, Britain and the USSR to cease their arms supplies to both Nigeria and Biafra. In a commentary, the BBC World Service (11 December 1968, 12.30 pm) talked of weekly consignments of 150 tons of arms to Biafra. The following morning (7.30 am), the British radio station reported massive French aid to Ojukwu – meanwhile, that same day, on France-Inter (7 pm), the then French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michel Debré27 praised the remarkable character of the Biafran resistance. According to the BBC World Service (22 February 1969), the Nigerian Government then decided to contact its French counterpart on the matter, amidst reports (Voice of America, 9 February, 11 pm) that French arms supplies to Biafra had increased fivefold since August 1968. On 17 April 1969, in an interview with the BBC World Service, Thierry Desjardins, a French journalist specializing in African affairs and working for Le Figaro (a Rightist daily), said he was under the impression that France28 had ceased supplying arms to Biafra a month ago but, while he denied having any explanation for this action, the BBC World Service had already offered its own version the previous evening at 6.15 pm: France stopped its daily twenty tons of arms consignments to Biafra after asking Biafra to do everything in its power to hasten negotiations. It seems France is in the process of revising its friendly policy towards Biafra after Mr. Achille-Fould’s visit to Nigeria and his having received assurances concerning the Igbo people’s safety after the war. It appears that France equally received guarantees from Nigeria on the future of its oil fields in the country. Anyway, Lagos has never broken its diplomatic ties with France. De Gaulle’s silence before Monrovia, and Mobutu and Houphouet-Boigny’s visits to Paris seem to indicate a French desire to end its support to Biafra in order to increase France’s political leverage.29

The BBC World Service offered three additional explanations on 21 April 1969 (12.30 and 6.10 pm): first, arms supplies had exceeded the need; second, they were difficult to ship; the British radio station had already hinted what the third potential argument might be – 60 per cent of the French interests in Nigeria still lay in Federal territory, and the way the war was now progressing left the French in no doubt that these interests would start being threatened by its continued support for Biafra. In addition, of course, France had never officially acknowledged supplying arms to Biafra. In his book, Biafra An II (1968: 130), Debré spoke of some areas that the French Government preferred to ignore.

The British position As for arms supplies to Federal troops, these were no secret as, right from the start, Britain had publicly justified its position, echoed in the BBC World Service news bulletins on 22 October and 18 and 21 November 1968. For the British Government, ceasing the supply of arms would have shown sympathy for the secessionists, recognizing their rebellion as legitimate and endangering the whole of Africa. As noted by Kristilolu (2007): Downloaded from mwc.sagepub.com at Open University Library on April 15, 2013

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The crisis of the Nigerian civil war of 1967 to 1970 became a major foreign policy preoccupation of the British government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Against the sentiments of a sizeable portion of public opinion in Britain, Europe, the United States and other places around the world, the Labour government evolved a policy of support for the Federal authorities in the Nigerian War. The controversial support for the government based in Lagos led to stringent criticism of the foreign policy response of the British government to the Nigerian crisis including the rankling charge that the government’s policy was based largely on Britain’s economic interests. The government denied the charge, insisting that its policy was guided more by the position taken by the overwhelming majority of independent African countries and the need to assist a fellow independent Commonwealth country maintain its territorial integrity. (p. 1)

This official position did not win everyone’s approval, and international radio stations did not shy away from their duty to broadcast it, as they first turned to Nigeria’s former colonial master in search of clues. On 24 October at 3 pm, France-Inter reported that British students had organized a boycott to protest against Wilson’s policies, who later received a delegation from representatives from political parties expressing similar views (Voice of America, 7 November 1968, 7.30 am). A BBC World Service press review (2 December 1968, 7 pm) flagged the negative comments made by The Sun30 against the government. Meanwhile, a Soviet officer had arrived in Lagos to sign a bilateral treaty of technical and economic cooperation with Nigeria (BBC World Service, 10 November 1968, 7 pm) – this treaty was eventually signed on 21 November (Voice of America). On 6 December 1968, The Guardian also advised the British Government to put a stop to arms supplies in order to facilitate the start of negotiations (BBC World Service, 6 December 1968, 12.30 pm). Two days later, The Observer expressed a similar opinion, considering that only international action could bring the conflict to an end (BBC World Service, 8 December 1968, 12.30 pm). On 13 December 1968, in the Commons, Sir Alec Douglas-Home31 revealed the threat presented by the massive increase in Soviet aid to Nigeria (Voice of America, same day, 7.30 am), but failed to convince all MPs: 20 of them, all from Labour, refused to vote in the day’s debate (BBC World Service, same day, 12.30pm). The following day, the BBC World Service (14 December 1968, 12.30 pm) reported that Soviet planes had raided Umuahia market.32 On 4 and 6 January 1969, there were mass demonstrations on the streets in Ibadan33 and in London; in Berlin, hundreds of students demonstrated, shouting ‘Wilson, assassin!’ and threw plastic bags filled with animal blood (France-Inter, 12 February 1969). These displays only led Wilson to reply (BBC World Service, 13 February 1969, 7.30 pm) that an embargo on arms supplies would encourage Soviet supplies to Nigeria and was therefore out of the question. As if to prove his point, on 27 February 1969, a raid by Soviet Iliouchines resulted in 60 casualties in a village. Then, on 22 March 1969, Radio Brussels reported another Iliouchine air raid – information confirmed by the BBC World Service on the same day (10.30 pm) and cited as emanating from AFP. As summarized by Lewis (1970), during the period under review, ‘the worst of the starvation occurred, the worst of the Federal bombing, and the fiercest controversy in Britain, boiling over into several debates in the House of Commons (which the Biafran lobby lost by heavy margins)’ (p. 246). Downloaded from mwc.sagepub.com at Open University Library on April 15, 2013

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Taking the pulse of the war A study of bulletins from the three main radio stations involved reveals a near daily effort of information, with on average only five days per month without news on the conflict between November 1968 and June 1969. The number of daily broadcasts on the subject varied but tended to increase steadily and reached a maximum between February and April 1969, as shown in Table 4 and Figure 2. For French audiences, the BBC World Service, Voice of America and France-Inter were definitely the main audio sources on the conflict, with the added advantage that the first two broadcast in both English and French. Yet, of the three, the BBC World Service offered far more information than the rest, topping up its news bulletins with extended commentaries and press reviews. The amount of news from France-Inter progressively increased after De Gaulle’s aired support for the Igbo, and reached a peak in March 1969, when UDR34 MPs Jean-Claude Fortuit, Raymond Offroy and Jacques Marette visited the Biafran enclave. That same month, France witnessed the ‘national week for Biafra’, held from 10 to 17 March and announced by an official press release from the cabinet, published in Le Monde in the 9–10 March issue. France-Inter’s interest in the war diminished after the capture of Umuahia, which served as an interim capital for the Biafran Government – for the French radio station, ‘the taking of Umuahia would signal the end of the war’ (15 April 1969, 8 pm).

Table 4. Daily broadcasts on the Biafran War between November 1968 and June 1969 Radio station BBC World Service France-Inter Voice of America

11/68

12/68

01/69

27 36 22 8 6 5 12 4 10

02/69

03/69

04/69

05/69

06/69

32 12 12

83 26 17

65 14 20

47 10 12

44 14 12

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

BBC World Service France-Inter Voice of America

Nov-68 Dec-68 Jan-69 Feb-69 Mar-69 Apr-69 May-69 Jun-69

Figure 2. History of daily broadcasts on the Biafran War 1968–9 at a glance.


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And then the curtain fell Struggling to place toponyms on the map and to follow the twists and turns of a war that often turned the world media into propaganda tools, the average French radio listener in 1969 would have had a hard time getting to know the truth, and would be forced to try and interpret silences, diplomatic waffle and the daily mix of denials, facts and contradictions dished out by daily news. Nigerian and Biafran troops battled on from 6 July 1967 until 12 January 1970, the war ending with Biafra’s surrender. In the months that followed, Nigeria was quick to blame the media, especially the BBC World Service. Now, more than 35 years on, one can exonerate them. They had to contend with pressure from their various governments and directors; on the other hand, as proved by books written in 1968–9 by news reporters, they could not watch the conflict unfold and stay impassive: their trips to the war-torn region left them with traumatized memories and passionate views that were reflected in their reports; in a bid to reach out to their public and express what was indeed beyond words, journalists gave pictures and sounds precedence over cold rhetoric, and their feverish efforts to pass on every tiny bit of information sometimes led to disinformation. On the whole, the BBC World Service honoured its reputation and tried its best to sift the truth from the lies. Far better placed than others to obtain first-hand information on a conflict tearing apart a former British possession, it gathered a huge amount of data coming from both sides and did its best to pass it on. These efforts proved costly: on 25 January 1969 at 6 pm, the BBC World Service announced that Chief Enahoro declared that all facilities given to the BBC by the Federal Government were to be removed, because the radio showed partiality in its reports on the military situation. The restrictions later imposed were eventually lifted within a month (BBC World Service, 22 February 1969, 5 pm), but on 14 June 1969 at 6pm, the BBC World Service informed its audience that ‘Peter Steward, the BBC correspondent in Lagos, had been arrested in his residence and expelled from Nigeria without having been allowed any luggage. The Federal Government had not yet given any reason for its action.’ Steward might have consoled himself with the thought that he was not alone in his predicament: Auguste Lindt, from the ICRC, and Mgr. Paterson, the Anglican archbishop of West Africa, both left the country around the same time and in similar circumstances. The BBC World Service eventually obtained an explanation for the repatriation of its correspondent (BBC World Service, 22 June 1969, 1 am): Peter Steward ‘was accused of sending false reports and of relaying the secessionist radio’. In the same late-night news bulletin, the BBC World Service registered its protest and vowed to continue covering the war in its entirety. It also confirmed that Peter Steward still enjoyed its full confidence. From then on, things moved faster. Two days later, Radio-Brussels informed its listeners that foreign correspondents still in Nigeria would no longer be allowed to get into direct contact with Nigerian officers on the war front, but would only be supplied with information through the Nigerian Commissioners for Information and Defence. The war and its media entered what became termed ‘the final phase’.


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Notes 1 In 1960, Nigeria, whose capital was then Lagos, consisted of only three regions. The number of states grew to 12 on 27 May 1967, 19 on 17 March 1976, 21 on 23 September 1987, 30 on 27 August 1991 and 36 on 1 October 1996, in addition to the Federal capital territory, now Abuja, which replaced Lagos as capital in 1991. 2 Aba and Oguta (French translation of the Igbo ‘Ugwuta’) are important towns in southern Igboland (see Figure 1). All names on the map are written in the standard Igbo orthography; but the colonial orthography of these names, which can sometimes differ from that, has prevailed and is in official use in Nigeria. Those official names which differ from the Igbo are given here, with the Igbo equivalent in brackets : Abor (Abo); Enugu (Enugwu); Nsukka (Nsuka), Oguta (Ugwuta); Onitsha (Onicha); Orlu (Olu); Uguta (Ugwuta); Owerri (Owere); Awka (Oka); Orlu (Olu); Okigwi/Okigwe (Okigwe). 3 See Bamisaiye (1974), Mattelart and Mattelart (1979), Uche (1989), Benthall (1994) and Frère (2005). A comprehensive bibliography of works on the Biafran War can be found in Ugochukwu (2009). 4 While France, torn between its longstanding cooperation with African governments, its vested political and economic interests in Nigeria and its tradition of defence of human rights, watched the developing conflict, the French media which had reported the Biafran secession within hours of its proclamation, closely followed the unfolding events and soon started sending reporters to the war zone. In August 1968, a French journalist, Christian Brincourt from RTL (Radio-Télévision Luxembourg), was one of the first to be sent to Biafra. He spent 12 days reading on Nigeria, stayed 5 days in Biafra and came back with enough data for 8 radio broadcasts. From 1968–9, Biafra also received reporters from all over the world, including a number from Britain. Other French professionals were also there at that time, notably Bernard Kouchner, the current French Minister of Foreign Affairs, who served as a physician with the Red Cross in Biafra from 1968 to 1970 and contributed to the media coverage of the war. 5 Now Europe1. Although radio bulletins from the BBC World Service and Voice of America were in both English and French, most of the recordings were taken from their French services (my translation). 6 Like Radio-France International, Radio-Lausanne and Radio-Canada rarely mentioned the war. They are nevertheless worth quoting because they gave an insight into the views of the International Red Cross and other charities. 7 As will be seen later, Radio Biafra offered bulletins in French. 8 Buhler travelled south from the Mgbidi makeshift airport, part of Agwu in the Enugu region, to Aba, then toured the region, passing through Owerri, Nwanze, Umuahia, Ihiala, Abagana, Orlu, Emekuku (near Owerri), Ikot Ebok, Uru Akpam and Nto Edino (south of Aba, in the Delta). 9 See Stafford (1984): On the Nigerian side, access to the war zone was extremely limited since the military controlled the movements of journalists, thus effectively censoring much information. The Biafrans allowed freer movement by the media, seeking every advantage in courting world opinion. 10 Media publishing in Nigeria started in 1859 and by 1939, i.e. 30 years before the year under study, there were already more than 50 local dailies. 11 The exact impact of this radio station has been under discussion, as revealed in the topic of ‘Radio Biafra and war propaganda’ proposed for discussion as part of an awareness campaign launched on 2 May 1996 on an internet newsgroup, a formal Request For Discussion (RFD)


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12

13

14

15

16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

for the creation of a worldwide moderated usenet newsgroup soc.history.african.biafra [http:// www.faqs.org/ftp/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/soc/soc.history.african.biafra]. News items in Spanish were aimed at Sao Tome while Hausa news targeted Federal troops that recruited mostly in northern Nigeria; Tiv, Idoma, Igala and Yoruba news targeted neighbouring southern Nigerian states. Biafran news bulletins were mostly dispatched through the Geneva office of Markpress, a public relations firm owned by American adman H. William Bernhardt. According to the then Times correspondent, between January and August 1968, there were more than 250 of these press releases [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838607-1,00.html]. The involvement of Markpress was also mentioned by Lewis (1970: 244). According to Jung (2007), in the first half of 1968, Markpress had arranged air passages into Biafra for more than 70 newsmen from every western European nation, and transmitted eyewitness reports to their publications. According to Stafford (1984), the press had adopted the same pattern in its reporting of news from the war front: ‘Press releases from the two sides were so distorted that the New York Times, for example, ran adjacent Biafran and Nigerian sourced stories’ [http://www. globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1984/SMR.htm]. Uche (1989) highlighted the political pressures and propaganda that led to some press articles ending up ‘embarrassingly claiming military victories long before they were a fact’ (p. 131). According to him, one of the most famous examples of this disinformation was the front page of the London Times that claimed that Federal troops had been cleared of the killing of four European relief workers in Okigwi on 30 September 1968. Okoi Arikpo remained Commissioner for Foreign Affairs from 1967 to 1975. Anthony Enahoro was born in the present Edo State on 22 July 1923. He remained Federal Commissioner for Information and Government spokesman from 1967 to 1974. The Republic of Benin, west of Nigeria, was called Dahomey until 1975. A number of publications did venture into the debate. See Von Rosen (1969) and the online document published at www.pressafrique.com/m233.html. The then Belgian airline, that folded in 2002. In his book, the French journalist Debré (1968: 123) later wrote that on 15 July, the Nigerian army prevented foreign reporters from getting near to the crash scene. The BBC World Service broadcast was aired two days before that and included a comment from the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs; according to him, the arms deal that led to the plane load had been signed before a decision was reached on an embargo on arms deals with Nigeria. Harold Wilson was the British Prime Minister at the time and throughout the Nigerian civil war – he remained in post from 16 October 1964 until 19 June 1970. Voice of America reiterated the German denial on 29 November 1968, 11 pm. No details recorded. The BBC report merely mentioned the observers’ views and may not have shared their opinion. Robert Kennedy (1925–68) was a Democrat Senator (1964–8). He was hit by an assassin’s bullet on 5 June 1968 and died the following day. Michel Debré (1912–96), French Prime Minister (1959–62), was Minister for Foreign Affairs from June 1968 to April 1969. De Gaulle (1890–1970) resigned on 28 April 1969 after the 24 April vote of no confidence. His government had been the target of virulent criticism since May 1968. Aymar Achille-Fould, an MP from the centre-right party UDF – Union pour la Démocratie Française – was an influential member of the France–Nigeria Association that was hostile to the Biafran secession. See Bach (1982) and Brauman (2004: 8).


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30 The Guardian, The Observer, The Sun: British dailies. The Sun has a lower social class readership than the other two newspapers. 31 Sir Alec Douglas-Home (1903–95) was a key Tory figure at the time, in the Opposition after having been Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964. 32 The Soviet Union and other countries also contributed to the supply of armaments to the Federal Government, see Lewis (1970: 242). 33 Ibadan was the capital of the then western state – today, the capital of Oyo State, Nigeria. 34 UDR – Union for the Defence of the Republic, the Gaullist party led by Georges Pompidou during the 1969 presidential elections.

References Akinyemi, Bolaji (1979) The British Press and the Nigerian Civil War: The Godfather Complex. Ibadan: Oxford University Press. Bach, Daniel (1982) ‘Dynamique et contradictions dans la politique africaine de la France: les rapports avec le Nigeria 1960–1981’, Politique africaine 2(5): 47–74. Bamisaiye, Adepitan (1974) ‘The Nigerian Civil War in the International Press’, Transition 44: 30–5. Benthall, Jonathan (1994) Disasters, Relief and the Media. London: I. B. Tauris. Brauman, Rony (2004) ‘Biafra-Cambodge, un génocide et une famine fabriqués’, in CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique), Colloque international ‘Face aux crises extrêmes’, Lille, France 21–2 October. Buhler, Jean (1968) Tuez-les tous! Guerre de sécession au Biafra. Paris: Flammarion. Daily radio news in English and French from BBC World Service, Voice of America, France-Inter, Radio Brussels, Radio Lausanne. Debré, François (1968) Biafra An II. Paris: Julliard. Frère, Marie-Soleil et al. (eds) (2005) Afrique centrale, medias et conflits vecteurs de guerre ou acteurs de paix. Bruxelles: Coédition GRIP – Éditions Complexe. Jung, Barbara (2007) L’image télévisuelle comme arme de guerre. Exemple de la guerre du Biafra 1967–1970. Paris: Institut Pierre Renouvin, Bulletin 26. URL (consulted 5 Dec. 2009): http:// ipr.univ-paris1.fr/spip.php?article355 Kristilolu, Yomi (2007) ’Business as Usual: Britain, Oil and the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–1970’, African Economic History Workshop 25 April. London: London School of Economics. URL (consulted 5 Dec. 2009): http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/economicHistory/seminars/ Kristilolu.pdf Lewis, Roy (1970) ‘Britain and Biafra: A Commonwealth Civil War’, The Round Table: the Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 60(239): 241–8. Marthoz, Jean-Paul (2005) ‘Journalisme global ou journalisme de métropole? Les conflits africains dans les médias du Nord’, in M-S Frère et al. (eds) Afrique centrale, médias et conflits vecteurs de guerre ou acteurs de paix, pp. 299–316. Brussels: Coédition GRIP – Éditions Complexe. Mattelart, Armand and Michèle Mattelart (1979) De l’usage des médias en temps de crise – Les nouveaux profils des industries de la culture. Paris: Alain Moreau. Pressafrique.com. ‘Implication francaise dans la guerre du Biafra (French involvement in the Biafran war). URL (consulted 5 Dec. 2009): http:// www. pressafrique. com/m233.html Sosnowsky, Alexandre (1969) Biafra, proximité de la mort continuité de la vie. Paris: Fayard. (An annotated photo album) Stafford, Major Michael R. (1984) ‘Quick Kill in Slow Motion: The Nigerian Civil War’, War Since 1945 Seminar series, 2 April. Quantico, Virginia 22134: Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Marine Corps Development and Education Command. URL (consulted 4 Dec. 2009): http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1984/SMR.htm


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Uche, Luke Uka (1989) Mass Media, People and Politics in Nigeria. New Delhi: Concept Publishing & Co. Ugochukwu, Françoise (2009) Biafra, la déchirure – Sur les traces de la guerre civile de 1967–1970. Paris: L’Harmattan. Von Rosen, Carl (1969) Le ghetto biafrais tel que je l’ai vu, trans. from Swedish by Raymond Albeck. Grenoble: Arthaud.

Secondary readings Encarta. Map of Biafra. URL: http://encarta.msn.com/media_461551017/Republic_of_Biafra.html Estève, Marie-Helene and Mazon, Janine (eds) (1988) Nigeria, guide touristique. Lagos: French Embassy. Médecins sans frontières. URL (consulted 5 Dec. 2009): http://www.msf.fr Oguocha, Ike (1996) ‘Request for Discussion (RFD) for the Creation of a World-Wide Moderated Usenet Newsgroup’, 3 May, soc.history.african.biafra. URL (consulted 5 Dec. 2009): http:// www.faqs.org/ftp/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/soc/soc.history.african.biafra Okonko Research Gateway (n.d.) ‘Igbo World’. URL (consulted 5 Dec. 2009): http://igbology. igbonet.net/docs/igboworld/detailedmap.html

Biographical note Françoise Ugochukwu, a former Professor from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, has been lecturing in Higher Education in Nigeria, France and the UK for more than 35 years. An Africanist, she is affiliated to the Open University UK and a collaborator with the Paris CNRS-LLACAN. Address: Department of Languages, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. [email: [email protected]]
