Back in the late 1960’s when I served in the US Army with the 9th Infantry Division I use to further my studies by pouring through papers when there was a break in the action looking for stories that were not what many would call “major” stories….back in those days was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the headlines…..but buried deep in an English newspaper that I had got from some Aussie friends I found the story of a tiny break away republic of Biafra….
In case you are not old enough to recall this conflict….I will let Britannica explain it……..
In the mid-1960s economic and political instability and ethnic friction characterized Nigerian public life. In the mostly Hausa north, resentment against the more prosperous, educated Igbo minority erupted into violence. In September 1966, some 10,000 to 30,000 Igbo people were massacred in the Northern Region, and perhaps 1,000,000 fled as refugees to the Igbo-dominated east. Non-Igbos were then expelled from the Eastern Region.
Attempts by representatives of all regions to come to an agreement were unsuccessful. On May 30, 1967, the head of the Eastern Region, Lieutenant Colonel (later General) Odumegwu Ojukwu, with the authorization of a consultative assembly, declared the region a sovereign and independent republic under the name of Biafra. General Yakubu Gowon, the leader of the federal government, refused to recognize Biafra’s secession. In the hostilities that broke out the following July, Biafran troops were at first successful, but soon the numerically superior federal forces began to press Biafra’s boundaries inward from the south, west, and north. Biafra shrank to one-tenth its original area in the course of the war. By 1968 it had lost its seaports and become landlocked; supplies could be brought in only by air. Starvation and disease followed; estimates of mortality during the war generally range from 500,000 to 3,000,000.
The Organization of African Unity, the papacy, and others tried to reconcile the combatants. Most countries continued to recognize Gowon’s regime as the government of all Nigeria, and the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union supplied it with arms. On the other hand, international sympathy for the plight of starving Biafran children brought airlifts of food and medicine from many countries. Côte d’Ivoire,Gabon, Tanzania, and Zambia recognized Biafra as an independent state, and France sent Biafra weapons.
Biafran forces were finally routed in a series of engagements in late December 1969 and early January 1970. Ojukwu fled to Côte d’Ivoire, and the remaining Biafran officers surrendered to the federal government on January 15, 1970. Biafra, on the point of total collapse, thereupon ceased to exist.
(encyclopedia Britannica)
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has warned his country will “not tolerate” another independent Biafra. The leader, who took office in May 2015, told Al Jazeera while on an official visit to Qatar his administration will not engage in a dialogue with pro-Biafran activists.
Pro-Biafrans call for the independence of the Biafran territories forcibly annexed to Nigeria during the British colonisation, which ended in 1960. They hold regular marches across the country’s south-east calling for a breakaway and the release of their leader Nnamdi Kanu, head of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob).
Pro-Biafran activists in southeastern Nigeria have been urged to create a Biafra United Front to continue their struggle for independence and defend themselves against Nigeria’s alleged violence. The Washington-based Organisation of Emerging African States (Oeas), which fights to achieve “true freedom” in Africa, is now calling on all pro-Biafran groups to put aside their internal differences and come together to achieve independence.
This to me is the beginning of a possible US involvement in an internal Nigerian problem…..why?
US troops have been deployed to Nigeria’s neighbor Niger in an attempt to counter the rise and the raids by Boko Haram……
…….around 100 US troops have been deployed in the West African nation of Niger in what officials said was the establishment of a new drone base there to spy on Islamist fighters in the Sahara and support French forces in the region.
“This deployment will provide support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region,” Obama said in a letter to Congress published on the White House website.
US troops have been used in the past to help a “friendly” government….and with the US expanded presence in the world and especially in West Africa….it is a situation that needs to be watched and analyzed…..it is only a matter of time before this explodes yet again and the US may well be drawn into yet another insurrection that could mean more violence directed at Americans…..
Find out what particular financial market is being developed there, and it will clarify the interest of the major players…. It may be to the interests of the US based oligarchs to establish another area of conflict…. In short, this is the political equivalent of ‘grooming’ a victim as done by pedophiles to children they abuse…. They’re just preparing the area for manipulation, to create new markets for arms….
gigoid
I think Nigeria will use it to their benefit but the people of the region want their freedom…a conflict brewing is good business for those toads….did u listen to “another brick”? chuq
Yes…. it’s excellent, but, I’m now a Playing For Change Ambassador, so, they get my donation… but it looks like a movement that will grow, for sure. Old instruments will be needed, if there are any survivors of the coming years…. There will be many new sad songs to play….
😉
Glad you liked it….chuq
*grin*
I want one of the bass fiddles…. looks like fun to play….
gigoid
Keith Emerson dead at 71…R.I.P.
As Pierre Trudeau famously quipped in 1968, “Where’s Biafra?”
Me? I like my Biafra with heaping helpings of Jello. A good carpet-bombing of Jello back in 69-70 could have saved hundreds of thousands of Biafrans. Matter of fact, we could all use more Jello. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jello_Biafra
Okay, now that I got that out of my system….good separatist movements never die, even after their proponents are slaughtered by their opponents. A few examples:
1) Well over a century after it got its ass handed to it, the US South still mutters about succession from time to time…until it remembers it can dominate the entire nation.
2) Centuries after kilt-wearing Mel Gibson got slaughtered, Scottish separatists damn near voted to leave the United Kingdom recently.
3) While fewer things have blown up lately, the Basques are still out to leave Spain for some reason.
4) Canada’s french speaking province, Quebec, got clobbered by the English on the Plains of Abraham in 1759. Yet in the 60-70’s, FLQ terrorists blew up mailboxes and offed a couple guys. Since then, Quebec has had 2 referendums over separation. While things have mellowed a bit, you can still easily get elected to both provincial & national office on a platform of leaving Canada. (To make room for Americans fleeing President Trump?)
5) Even after its indestructible leader got poisoned to death, Palestine is still trying to separate from Israel.
I have been to Montreal in the past…Old Town was just beautiful…..my French sucks……chuq
Not much of Old Montreal in this clip, but plenty of retro fromage! I’m taking a wild guess and saying this was shot about the time you visited. Maybe you’ll recognize something. I did. (The cubist buildings, for one.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MA9c9HYOFQ
There’s a lot more of Old Montreal featured in another 1973 Montreal film, The Pyx, starring Christopher Plummer & Karen Black. It was a classic mid-budget 70’s occult/crime movie which was hurt by its “over-ambition”. It was bilingual and used an odd time-shifting storytelling format with 2 parallel story-lines. Karen Black wrote & sang the creepy soundtrack. This often confusing movie goes down easier with an “anti-stress brownie”. I’m sure half the 1973 audience saw it that way too.
However, finding a 2-3 minute clip with old Montreal in it was impossible. You’d have to sit through the whole grainy print of the movie to see much Montreal.
Sounds like the Alamo….it sits on about 2 acres downtown San Antonio surrounded by modern skyscrapers…
Huh? The Alamo??? No, that happened in the Ottawa Civic Centre in 1968, where Montreal’s Trudeau massacred the disorganized Liberal Party establishment the way Trump might do at the Republican Party Convention.
If you’re talking about the modern cubist buildings, I seem to recall they’re closer to the Olympic Stadium than Old Montreal. They’re pretty obvious in the clip (at about the 2 minute mark). The groovy car chase zooms right past them, but then the camera pulls back and stays focused on the bizarre complex for a few seconds. They were pretty controversial.
But if you’re talking about Old Montreal being surrounded by the new, like the Alamo is…from what I recall that’s more or less accurate. Although, the river gets in the way and offers some isolation for the older section. Montreal proper is an island, but it’s sprawled onto the mainland since 1973, when the movie was shot. The average building age on the island is probably double that of the city that’s off the island. But I haven’t been there for a long time. I’m sure Montreal’s gone to shit like most cities have.
From what I hear, the recent trend (as is almost everywhere) is to replace, older, better-built, better looking, buildings with hideously ugly, character-free, glass monstrosities that make the cubist stuff look great by comparison. This trend, of course, is intended to line the pockets of Trump-like douchebags.
That is what we Americans do best….we destroy our history in favor of abortions for buildings…..
Check that, the cubist buildings actually are fairly close to Old Montreal as the crow flies, but are on the other side of the dockyards.
Okay, so the whole thread was really just an excuse to check out old drive-in movies with cool car chases. But I think you already figured that out 🙂
I like old movies….new ones are to techno for me…..