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Biafran Refugees: A Tale of Endurance and Brutality
Abstract
Presentation, April 8-9, 2011
I have read and listened with some interest, annoyance and even half amusement as self-styled historians and experts on the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War (1967-1970) applaud General Yakubu Gowon and his army for their humane and compassionate handling of Biafra's surrender and the subsequent conclusion of the war. Not surprisingly, such eagerness to delineate Gowon's regime as something synonymous with humanitarian largely comes from elite scholars who did not experience Biafra, who lost no one during the war and whose communities and people did not endure the type of starvation and devastation of life and property that Biafrans had to contend with.
I have read and listened with some interest, annoyance and even half amusement as self-styled historians and experts on the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War (1967-1970) applaud General Yakubu Gowon and his army for their humane and compassionate handling of Biafra's surrender and the subsequent conclusion of the war. Not surprisingly, such eagerness to delineate Gowon's regime as something synonymous with humanitarian largely comes from elite scholars who did not experience Biafra, who lost no one during the war and whose communities and people did not endure the type of starvation and devastation of life and property that Biafrans had to contend with.
Biafran War Database.
Editor: Azuka Nzegwu.
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