June 1969: Documenting a crime against humanity

Emaciated and desperately starved Biafran children during the Pogrom and Biafran War. circa 1969...Image: Romano Cagnoni/Hulton Archive

BY HERBERT EKWE-EKWE


Thankfully, for the interest of posterity, the Igbo genocide, perpetrated by the Nigeria state, is one of the most documented crimes against humanity. Leading university and public libraries across Europe (particularly in Britain, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden and Denmark) and North America have invaluable repositories of books, state papers (including, crucially, hitherto classified material now declassified as part of mandatory timeframe provisions and freedom-to-information legislations), church papers, human rights/anti-genocide/anti-war groups’ campaign papers, reports, photographs and interviews, Red Cross/other third sector papers, reports and photographs, newspaper/newsmagazine/radio/television/video archives and sole individual depositories, some of which are classified as “anonymous contributors”.

These data variously include extensive coverage of news and analyses of varying features of the genocide between May 1966 and January 1970 as well as still photographs and reels and reels of film footage of the devastating impact of the genocidist’s “starvation” weapon attack on Igbo children and older people, the genocidist air force’s carpet bombings of Igbo population centres (especially refugee establishments, churches, shrines, schools, hospitals, markets, homes, farmlands and playgrounds) and the haunting photographs and associated material that capture the sheer savagery of the slaughter of 100,000 Igbo in north Nigeria towns and villages during the first phase of the genocide in May to October 1966. A stream of these archival references has flowed steadily unto the youtube website as well as other internet outlets and much more material on the genocide will be available online in the months and years ahead. On the whole, these documentations are a treasure-trove for the conscientious scholar and researcher on the genocide. For the would be prosecutor of the perpetrators of this crime, they couldn’t have wished anything more for that crucial resource base to embark on their historic enterprise. A total of 3.1 million Igbo, or a quarter of the nation’s population at the time, were murdered in the genocide, the worst in Africa since the 19th century.

Not-“yaki”

Quite auspiciously, the genocidists’ own record on the genocide makes no pretences whatsoever about the goal of their dreadful mission – such was the maniacal insouciance and rabid Igbophobia that propelled the project. The principal language used in the prosecution of the genocide was Hausa. Appropriately, the words of the ghoulish anthem of the genocide, published and broadcast on Kaduna radio and television throughout the duration of the crime, are in Hausa: Mu je mu kashe nyamiri/Mu kashe maza su da yan maza su/Mu chi mata su da yan mata su/Mu kwashe kaya su (translation: Let’s go kill the damned Igbo/Kill off their men and boys/Rape their wives and daughters/Cart off their property).

The Hausa word for war is “yaki”. Whilst Hausa speakers would employ this word to refer to the involvement/combat services of their grandfathers, fathers, relatives and friends in “Boma” (reference to World War II Burma [contemporary Myanmar] military campaigns/others in southeast Asia, fighting for the British against the Japanese) or even in the post-1960s Africa-based “peace-keeping” military engagements in Cameroon, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Sudan, they rarely use “yaki” to describe the May 1966-January 1970 mass murders of the Igbo people. In Hausaspeak, the latter is either referred to as lokochi mu kashe nyamiri (past tense: when we murdered the damned Igbo) or lokochi muna kashe nyamiri (past continuous tense: when we were murdering the damned Igbo). Pointedly, this “lokochi” (when, time) conflates the timeframes that encapsulate the two phases of the genocide (May 1966-October 1967 and July 1967-January 1970 – for detailed analysis, see Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, Biafra Revisited, 2006), a reminder, if one is required, for those (especially currently in a projected conference on the subject in the United States) who bizarrely, if not mischievously, wish to break this organic link.

Elsewhere, genocidist documentation on this crime is equally malevolent and brazenly vulgar. A study of the genocide-time/“post”-genocide era interviews, comments, broadcasts and writings on the campaign by key genocidist commanders, commandants and other officials such as Adekunle, Danjuma, Gowon, Obasanjo, Katsina, Haruna, Rotimi, Awolowo, Enaharo and Ayida underscores the trend. A brief review of Obasanjo’s contribution (published in his My Command, 1980) that focuses on his May 1969 direct orders to his air force to destroy an international Red Cross aircraft carrying relief supplies to the encircled and blockaded Igbo is hugely illustrative.

Obasanjo had “challenged”, to quote his words, Captain Gbadomosi King (genocidist air force pilot), who he had known since 1966, to “produce results” in stopping further international relief flight deliveries to the Igbo. Within a week of his infamous challenge (5 June 1969), Obasanjo recalls nostalgically, King “redeemed his promise”. King had shot down a clearly marked, in coming relief-bearing International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) DC-7 plane near Eket, south Biafra, with the loss of its 3-person crew.

Obasanjo’s perverse satisfaction over the aftermath of this crime is chillingly revolting. He writes: “The effect of [this] singular achievement of the Air Force especially on 3 Marine Commando Division [the notorious unit Obasanjo, who subsequently becomes head of regime for 11 years, commanded] was profound. It raised morale of all service personnel, especially of the Air Force detachment concerned and the troops they supported in [my] 3 Marine Commando Division.” Yet, despite the huffing and puffing, the raving commanding brute is essentially a coward who lacks the courage to face up to a world totally outraged by his gruesome crime. Instead, Obasanjo, the quintessential Caliban, cringes into a stupor and beacons to his Prospero, British Premier Harold Wilson, to “sort out” the raging international outcry generated by the destruction of the ICRC plane...

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide, Literature (forthcoming, 2009)

2009 Time's 100 Most Influential People.

The opening shot of Time's 2009 100 most influential people was veteran Democrat Edward Kennedy who was described as the most bipartisan politician in congress, and whose story was told by California Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom the governor called 'Uncle.' Schwarzenegger writes;

"How do I describe Uncle Teddy? Everyone knows him as the Lion of the Senate, a liberal icon, a warrior for the less fortunate, a fierce advocate for health-care reform, a champion of social justice here and abroad and now even a Knight of the British Empire. But I know him as the rock of his family: a loving husband, father, brother and uncle. He's a man of great faith and character."

Time's 100 has an array of lists: leaders and revolutionaries; builders and titans; artists and entertainers; heroes and icons; and scientists and thinkers. The list includes Hilary Clinton, Norah al Faiz, Paul Kagame, Angela Markel, David McKeirnan, Asfaq Kayani, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, The Twitter guys, Ted Turner, Nouriel Rouboum, Oprah Winfrey, the drug addled Rush Limbaugh, Joaquim Guzman and Maya Arulpragasam (M.I.A.) among others.

Read story as told by Schwarzenegger

Spike Jonze on M.I.A.


Michael Elliot on Angela Merkel

T Boone Pickens on Ted Turner

Madeleine K. Albright on Hillary Clinton

Aston Kutcher on The Twitter Guys

J.K. Rowling on Gordon Brown

Tim Padget on Joaquim Guzman


Rick Warren on Paul Kagame

Gordon Brown on Barrack Obama

Photos cortesy of Time Magazine

Nigeria Does Indeed Belong To A "G-"!

By Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe


An important development that must not and cannot be ignored… Until last week, 43 years to the day since the beginning of the Igbo genocide perpetrated by Nigeria and its allies, no head of regime in power in Nigeria had ever admitted, albeit unwittingly, the utter worthlessness of Nigeria in the pecking order of the countries of the world. On Nigeria’s non-invitation to the April 2009 G-20 London economic summit, regime head Yar’Adua mournfully noted: “Today is a sad day for Nigeria as a country. This is because we are not invited to a meeting of the 20 world leaders. We have the population, we have the resources and we have the potential.” Predictably, Yar’Adua refers to those hackneyed, bogus indices (“population”, “resources”) that everyone knows obfuscate the immanent fragility, infamy and hopelessness that chart the Nigeria quagmire. In response to Yar’Adua’s pain, Kevin Ani, the lucid analyst, is succinctly upfront: “Even if one extends (sic) this list to G-1000, Nigeria still will not make it.”

It cannot be overstated that the Igbo genocide put paid to any Nigeria pretensions to transform itself to a serious state of global contention. Nigeria, which the Igbo had strategically led to liberate from 60 years of British occupation, collapsed, irremediably, in May 1966. This was when its troops, police, students, teachers, civil servants, community leaders, clergy, alimajiri and the like in north Nigeria planned and descended on Igbo children, women and men domiciled in the region – killing, raping, maiming, looting, destroying … A total of 100000 Igbo were murdered between May and October (1966) in this first phase of the worst genocide in Africa since the previous century. The Nigerians later expanded their murdering zones of operation to liquidate the Igbo by attacking the entire stretch of Igboland (from Issele-Ukwu, Agbo, Anioma, Ugwuta and Onicha in the west to Ehugbo, Aba and Umuahia to the east; from Nsukka and Eha Amufu in the north to Igwe Ocha, Umu Ubani and Igwe Nga to the south) between July 1967-January 1970. A total of 3 million Igbo were murdered during this second phase. Altogether, the Igbo lost one-quarter of their population as a result of the genocide.

On the morrow of this pulverising season of murdering, the only tangible capability that the murderers had acquired was one to commit even more murders – nothing else … definitely, not the more challenging capacity to develop and transform an economy to, in turn, attract and merit the accolades and recognitions from peers elsewhere. The tragedy of the otherwise farcical so-called “rebranding” of the Nigeria state is that this current “quest” is supposedly overseen by an Igbo academic (Dora Akunyili) who presumably is unaware of the history of her people in Nigeria or is probably biding her time to tell her employers the blunt truth of Nigeria’s inexorable cascade into irrelevance.

Yet, contrary to Yar’Adua’s angst over Nigeria’s non-membership of the G-20, Nigeria actually belongs to a “G-” grouping. It is called Group-G and Yar’Adua must know that not only does his country belong to this outfit but it also heads it as its undisputed supremo presently. In this club, the “G” letter stands for the beginning of that dreadful word which Nigeria has at once operationalised and institutionalised as the legacy of its vicious existence and has since exported across contemporary Africa – Genocide.

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide, Literature (Fortcomung, 2009)

The Trend, The Time and Bob Marley

Old pirates yes they rob I
sold I to the merchant ships
minutes after the took I
from the bottomless pit
but my hand was made strong
by the hand of the Almighty

we forward in this generation
triuphantly
won't you help to sing
the songs of freedom
'cuz' all I only have
redemption song...redemption song

emancipate yourself from mental slavery
none but ourselves can free our minds
have no fear for atomic energy
'cuz' none of them can stop the time
how long shall they kill our prophets
while we stand aside and look

some say it's just a part of it
\we got to fulfill the book
won't you help to sing
the songs of freedom
'cuz' all I only have
redemption song...

"Yes, the lyrics is baked in my genes from the moment the album was released. And I 'dunno' if this is becoming craziness. But, no, I am trying to figure out how it all popped up, and of what origin am beginning to sense that this is not something new or probably I may be losing it because the lyrics itself had a whole lot to do about my being,and specifically the pirates who had thought they were doing my being a favor which led to the mess that seemingly has consumed the world today, and certainly a world that continues to be troubled."

"Hey, man, what's wrong with you and what the hell are you talking about... are you alright, man!?"

"Oh, yeah, 'am alright. It's just that something is baked in my genes and it continues to give me that natural high. I really 'dunno' what it is."

"What's going on and what exactly is baked in your genes?"

"Well, I just gave you a hint and it's not rocket science. Simple and clear, but since you are too dumb like Fred Sanford would tell his son when they ran the salvage company, Sanford & Son, let's try it again. It's called 'The Trend and The Time", not Morris Day & The Time, perhaps before "Purple Rain." Did you get it?"

"Nope."

"So what do you want me to do? Stuff it?"

"What are you talking about for goodness sake?"

"Here we go again, he wants to know everything."

"Of course, I do. Have you been smoking some weed or something?"

And, what's that... you see what I mean? Each time something pops up, it's all about weed."

"Look, man, I'm through with you."

"Really?!"

"Really!"

"Ok, let's see, have you ever heard of Bob Marley?"

"Of course, who doesn't know Bob Marley, the legend."

"Here you go. You are becoming a good boy and I am proud of you. But let me ask you, though, did he ever made sense to you?"

"Yep, and now what?"

"This is the deal, and make sure you take notes when I lecture."

Funny and confusing, huh? It all depends on which way you look at it. Not much happenned for the gone week but I did chew on some few stuff. Too many books popped up about Bob Marley, though I haven't made time to check them out at the bookstores, but I read the review, "The Bob Marley Story", well-done by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro in the April 9, 2009 edition of the of The New York Review of Books. Summing it all up, to one essay, Schapiro provided a lot of information from the following: "Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley", by Christopher John Farley; "Bob Marley: Herald of the Postcolonial World," by Jason Toynbee; "The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers' Album of the CEntury", by Vivien Goldman; and "Soul Rebel: An Intimate Portrait of Bob Marley", by David Burnett.

Good piece and in-depth, and Schapiro writes;

"Marley is the only third world performer to be elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 1999, the BBC named his "One Love" the "Song of the Millennium", the same year Time Magazine declared his 1977 "Exodus" the "Best Album of the Twentieth Century" voted the third greates songwriter of all time in 2001 by BBC poll (behind Bob Dylan and John Lennon...)"

Bob Marley was something else. He changed everything about reggae which evolved from ska, rocksteady and prophesy after his neigborhood buddies, Winston McIntosh and Neville "Bunny" Wailer" Livingstoe would join him in forming the Wailers. McIntosh went by the name of Peter Tosh while Livingstone would be Bunny Wailer. And, the rest would be history.

"The Harder They Come" and the Venice Film Festival. Jimmy Cliff. Perry Henzell. Rita Anderson (Marley's wife). Christopher Blackwell, the brain behind Island Records. Lee "Scratch" Perry, the gem behind reggae explosion. Desmond Dekker, the first reggae artist whose album "Israelites" catapulted reggae to the top. Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF freedom fighters and independence for Zimbabwe. And, all in all, Blackwell was the man. And reggae came to stay, and the vibe would change the world; and of course, the flow made sense.

And as it goes, so I found myself knowing more stuff about the legend. There was Aston "Family man" Barrett who claimed to have fathered 52 children; there was Bruce Dunbar in the era of the reggae explosion; there was Coxsone Dodds label that paid poorly; there was the American group, The Drifters, Marley listened to growing up in Jamaica and there was a group that admired the works of Marcus Garvey and celebrating "the 1930 coronation of Haile Selassie 1 as emperor of Ethiopia as a fulfilment of Garvey's supposed prophecy to 'look to the East for the crowning of the African King'"

Marley, the legend, you did stuff and you changed the world. Your legacy lives.