Word: nigerians
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Their black faces shaded gray by shock, they handed weapons and ammunition to their replacements. There was the unmistakable whistle of a 105-mm. howitzer. "Don't worry," said the colonel. "It's ours. We brought it up this morning." The gun fired six rounds, and the Nigerian lines began to crumble...
Nevertheless, Nigerian mortar bombs and small-arms fire continued to splash about aimlessly, killing here, falling sterile there. A soldier crawling through the bush was hit between the eyes. He stumbled to his feet when he must have been already dead and jerked about in a reflexive dance of death. Then he collapsed, the puppet strings finally cut. A group of wounded who should rightly have been in catatonic shock stumbled down a path under a squall of incoming fire, their intestines peeking pinkly between their fingers. The colonel walked through it all with quiet confidence. He questioned a second...
After nearly two years, Nigerians and rebellious Biafrans are close to stalemate. Nigerian troops are liberally supplied by both the British and the Russians with jet planes, mortars, armored cars and guns; but up to now they have often used the equipment like dilettantes. The outgunned, outmanned Biafrans have retreated to advantageously familiar home ground, and receive French arms by air. On their northeastern front, the Nigerians are largely in control. In the southeast, the Biafrans have 3,000 Nigerian soldiers encircled at Owerri but lack strength to wipe out the pocket and push south toward the oil town...
...fight, he says, "until the rebellion is completely crushed" unless he hears "alternative suggestions," meaning Biafran capitulation. If Wilson presses him to stop by cutting off the arms supply, Gowon can easily cover any cutback in British shipments with increased deliveries from Russia. Moreover, Britain might lose investments in Nigerian oilfields that now amount to $720 million. To avoid those unpleasant possibilities, Wilson lamely explained last week that he had come "to help mitigate the suffering of your country, of its people and, not least, of its children...
...Lagos, where British governors once resided and where Admiral Horatio Nelson still looks down from the wall, Wilson nevertheless proceeded to do some blunt overseer's talking. He brought up a topic that embarrasses Britain and shocks nations who would otherwise be more sympathetic to Nigeria: the indiscriminate Nigerian bombing of Biafran hospitals, schools, markets and missions. Gowon insisted that this is not his policy but that he cannot always control his pilots. Neutral observers in Biafra have tallied 677 civilian dead and 1,313 wounded in 30 civilian strikes this year alone...