In last month's we highlighted the attempts by the Home Office to deport Alphonsus Uche Okafor-Mefor before he could address the March 31 No One is Illegal conference in Liverpool ( see page 5). Here Alphonsus explains the political struggle that the people of Biafra are engaged in and calls for solidarity with their cause It is axiomatic to say that Biafrans - the people of the Eastern Region of Nigeria are in fact one of the most endangered human races in the world, whose precarious situation started way back in the early and continues unchallenged to date.
For the purposes of historical relevance, the Biafra/Nigeria civil war of between 1967-1970 did register one of the world's most atrocious war crimes ever.
But the international community still relegates it to the basement and routinely appears too busy to listen to the cries and the plight of the Biafran people.
The many and varied instances of war crime charges being prosecuted today are in no way comparable to what happened to the Igbos and the other ethnic nationalities that made up the Eastern Region.
The Nigerian government with the support of their allies effectively used the instruof starvation by blockading the Eastern Region by air, land and sea) and massacred children and pregnant in their large numbers.
Over 1.5 million people (including women and children) lost their lives during the remote and the immediate causes of the War.
While these atrocities were being committed, the international community (Britain, U.S.A, USSR, the commonwealth of Natiens and the United Nations) looked the other way, supporting the Nigerian government for both economic and political reasons at the expense of the hapless Biafran people.
The death toll on the side of the Biafrans notwithstanding, the observer team from Canada, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom in their reports exonerated the Nigerian forces from charges of genocide against the Biafran people, but instead accused the Biafran leadership of deliberately exposing the Biafran population to danger in order to attract international attention.
Here, justice was denied the Biafrans by the international community.
Energised by this overwhelming support from the international community, the successive oppressive Nigerian leaders, both military and civilian (while spending billions of dollars on fixing and embarking on image laundering of Nigeria to the outside) have continued unabated to unleash mayhem on any dissenting voice(s) from the Eastern region for exercising their rights of self-determination.
Though the people of the Eastern Region were reabThe Biafra Liberation League
is a group
dedicated to the
peaceful achievement of an independent state of Biafra. We are linked to MASSOB (the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra) who are currently taking the lead in the struggle
for freedom in Eastern Nigeria, for
which they are
being killed,
persecuted and illegally detained.
We welcome
support from
everyone who cares about human
life and the
prevention of
genocide. sorbed into the Nigerian federation in principle, the Igbos and other ethnic nationalities are still being treated today as second-class citizens.
There is the unwritten policy of systemic exclusion, marginalisation, punitive political and economic sanctions against the Biafrans and the overt/covert massacring of the Biafran youths and anybody associated with Biafra Actualisation.
This oppressive and vicious attacks on and the occupation of the Biafraland by the Nigerian government without any meaningful development, or the upliftment of the living conditions of the people of the Eastern Region has led to the resurgence of the Biafran consciousness and the need for the Biafrans to demand for their right of selfDetermination through nonviolent means.
The Movement for the actualisation of the sovereign United States of Biafra (MASSOB) came into being in 1999 to demand for these civil and political rights of the Biafran people under the United Nations civil and political rights.
Other pro-Biafran organisations (from different parts of the world) working closely with MASSOB have also been mination to the Biafran. mination the Biafran
Between 1999 and today, many members of this organisation have been massacred or killed extra-judicially. Some are buried in mass graves.
The leaders of MASSOB have been detained by the Nigerian government under Starvation and massacres slaughtered vast numbers in Biafra in 1967-70 constant torture and inhuman conditions, without trial or access to proper medical attention.
The vicious attacks by the Nigerian government (using armoured tanks, helicopter gun ships and other heavy fire artilleries) against members of MASSOB and the Biafran
have continued unchallenged to date.
The incessant but blatant destruction of the environment as result of oil spillages which has posed serious danger to both aquatic and human lives in the Niger Delta of the Eastern Region remains a thorn in the conscience of the International Community.
The British and American government has been suppressing exploiting the people of this Region through the multinational oil companies like Shell nnd Exxon Mobile with the assistance of the corrupt Nigerian leaders from the Northern and Western regions.
Since the civil war, they have been supplying the Nigerian government with weapons to suppress further the already suppressed people of the Eastern region.
These are issues difficult to narrate, yet too serious and compelling to ignore.
Consequently, we of the Biafra Liberation League in the UK (a functional extension of MASSOB in the United Kingdom) hereby make bold to call on you, the international community and all men and women of goodwill:
• To support the upholding of the rights of SelfDetermination of the indigenous people of the Eastern Region of Nigeria
• Prevail on the Nigerian government to release the leaders of MASSOB (Chief Raph Uwazurike, Mazi Uchenna Madu); the Leader of NDVF (Alhaji Asari Dokubo) and all other Biafrans and prisoners of conscience languishing in secret cells across the Nigerian federation
• To call on the Nigerian government to engage with the Biafran people without further delays and commence dialogue on the self-determination of people of the Eastern Region
• To constitute an International Commission of Inquiry into the unlawful killings of the MASSOB members and other Biafrans especially between 1999 till date (2006) by the Obasanjo regime and to push for the stiffest penalties against, and bring to trial all offenders.
• To press for International sanction against the Nigerian government's disregard for the rule of law and the encroachment and violation of the civil and political rights of all Biafrans.
• To press for the toughest sanctions possible against the Nigerian government's noncompliance of any or all the above.
• To demystify and condemn the Nigerian government's use of the resources and the wealth of the Biafran people do image laundering and face-lift abroad.
Director of Communications, Biafra Liberation League, 07886171427