Viewing page 29 of 100

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

NIGERIAN CRISIS        BARRETT
have of necessity to seek such intervention in the form of so-called aid. In this light Ojukwu has addressed his wonderful sense of drama to dramatizing the emotional issues involved and the ethnic divisions in the country in an effort to raise the bogey of genocide and starvation as his last ditch justification for promoting the division of this nation. Having impressed these lies upon the moral vanguard of the neo-colonial forces, through agencies of religion and relief, he has succeeded in sustaining his rebellion by having arms and foreign currency procured for him by these white agencies under the pretext of carrying out humanitarian duties. Two examples of the way in which there is done will suffice to expose the true nature of the secessionist rebellion. 
     (1) Since the so-called Biafran currency is not negotiable by virtue of lack of material solvency the secessionist regime obtains foreign exchange by having some of these white agencies pay the amount of money meant for the purchase of local foods into foreign banks. The foods are then bought from the farmers in the rebel areas in non-negotiable currency and given to the relief organizations. 
    (2) Arms bought in Switzerland, France, and the U.S. are flown to a central pool in Lisbon, from where they are flown by quota to Sao Tome, a Portuguese occupied island off the Nigerian Coast out of which relief organizations flying to the rebel areas operate. From there they are put into relief planes along with an equivalent weight-load of relief materials, to be flown to the rebel areas where such planes are not allowed to land unless radio signals from Sao Tome indicate that the proportion of weapons to food being carried is correct. 

unity must prevail 
These are only two of several such devices employed by the rebel regime in pursuing its aim of perpetuating division in Nigeria. We cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that the nations engaged in ensuring the workability of such devices are nations dedicated to the external subservience of Africa and the black race to their own burgeoning economic ascendancy. 
      I have written this as an appeal and explanation. Black brothers working in their various ways towards the ideal of unity and unit strength for our people in several parts of the world have written to me asking me to clarify for them my own relationship to this crisis in this black nation, because I am here. You black brothers have 

219

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-14 23:46:35