REMINDER: Britain’s central role in the execution of the ongoing Igbo genocide ... As the British Labour party faces a meltdown over the antisemitism/racism crisis of its leader Jeremy Corbyn, we must stress that this affliction in the party started half a century ago – 53 years ago to be exact when the then Labour leader and prime minister, Harold Wilson, personally directed the prosecution of the Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)occupation Africa, with Britain’s client-state Nigeria

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

“Diminution-of- African life”

AT THE apogee of phase-III of the Igbo genocide, summer 1968-autumn 1969, 23 years after the horrendous Jewish genocide in east and central Europe carried out by Germany, Harold Wilson informed Clyde Ferguson (United States state department special coordinator for relief to Biafra), on record, that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept half a million dead Biafrans if that was what it took” the Nigerian génocidaires to destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide (Roger Morris, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, 1977: 122). 

Wilson pursued his genocide drive against the Igbo, steeped in that overarching ideological rubric of the expressed “diminution-of-African life” that constitutes the engaging, subjugating template of 400 years of pan-European enslavement of the African humanity in the Americas and elsewhere, beginning in the 15th century, and Europe’s consequent occupation of the African homeland itself. 

 (Harold Wilson, Labour Party leader and prime minister that carried out the Igbo genocide with its Nigeria client state ... “would accept half a million dead Biafrans...”)   

WILSON’s Igbo death-decree tally of 500, 000 represented 4.2 per cent of the Igbo population at the time. The prime minister’s on the ground African executioners led by Fulani islamist/jihadists and their loyal pan-African constituent nations’ allies, particularly Yoruba, Edo, Urhobo, Jarawa, Nupe, Hausa, Kanuri and Tiv,  fulsomely obliged their “massa” Wilson, murdering 3.1 million Igbo by 12 January 1970 – 2.6 million more Igbo than the Labour leader’s slaughtering target or 25 per cent of the Igbo population. 

Wilson would later acknowledge the extent of the British role in the sheer savagery of the Igbo genocide. In his memoirs, he notes that the Nigeria genocidist military, equipped zealously by Britain, expended more small arms ammunition in its campaign to achieve its annhilative mission in Biafra than the amount used by the British armed forces “during the whole” of the Second World War (Harold Wilson, Labour Government, 1964-1970: A Personal Record, 1971: 630, added emphasis). Robert Scott, military advisor in the British diplomatic mission in Nigeria then, couldn’t agree more with Wilson on the subject. Scott stated that as Nigerian genocidist military forces unleashed their attacks on Biafran cities, towns and villages, they are the “best defoliant agent known” (Daily Telegraph, London, 11 January 1970). Chillingly dreadful...

THE BRITISH LABOUR PARTY that led Britain into executing the Igbo genocide, this crime against humanity, is a social democratic/socialist/trade unionist party, democratically elected by the British population in October 1964 in one of the leading West World countries – it is “left wing”, “egalitarian”, “inclusivist”, “party of workingclass/people”, “progressive”, “liberal”, “humanist”, “internationalist” (usually supported tactically, in major political developments, throughout the era, by the Communist Party of Great Britain), not the Conservative party nor “right wing” nor “conservative” nor “party of the oppressor” nor “party of the privileged” nor “party of the rich” nor “party of bankers and landowners” nor “nationalist” nor “nativist” nor “white man’s party”, nor  “xenophobic” nor “far right” nor “fascist”... (cf. the cacophony of the current epoch’s sloganising inanities that pass for studious political discourses especially in Britain and the United States).

Intelligible

SEEN AGAINST this background of Prime Minister and British Labour party leader Harold Wilson’s execution of the Igbo genocide with Britain’s client state of Nigeria, beginning 53 years ago, the dossier of evidence so dramatically and uninterruptedly published in the past three years by influential leaders of this party, leading Jewish leaders, and others elsewhere in Britain that  the current British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic and racist becomes hugely intelligible.

(Jeremy Corbyn, present British Labour party leader... charge of antisemitism and racism by influential members of his party...)

(John Coltrane & Don Cherry, “Focus on sanity” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Cherry, pocket trumpet; Percy Heath, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, US, 28 June/8 July 1960])

Reference

Coltrane, John and Don Cherry. “Focus on sanity”. The Avant-Garde. New York: Atlantic Studios, 28 June/8 July 1960.

Morris, Roger. Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy. London & New York, 1977.

Wilson, Harold. Labour Government, 1964-1970: A Personal Record. London: Penguin Books, 1971.

Sunday Telegraph. London, 11 January 1970.

[*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe’s recently published books on the Igbo genocide and Biafra are The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019) and co-author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, Why #DonaldTrump is #great for #Africa (2018)]

 Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

  

The archives project! Igbo people of Biafra: “The stink of genocide is everywhere...”

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

EXCERPTS ... from the gripping and indelible lines on the Igbo genocide (phases I-III, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970), the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, during which Britain and client-state Nigeria led by Fulani islamist/jihadists and the coterie of pan-African constituent nations including, especially, Yoruba, Edo, Hausa, Urhobo, Jawara, Gwari, Nupe, Bachama, Tiv, Jukun, Kanuri, all in this southwestcentral region of Africa, murder 3.1 million Igbo people of Biafra, beginning 21 years after end of the Jewish genocide, in Leon Uri’s classic, QB VII (London: Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 392-393:

ABE studied them all, his worn-out little band of idealists. 

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” Abe said in a voice that literally moaned with sorrow, “I would like to make a statement by quoting in effect the words of Thomas Bannister, Q.C., when he said that no one in their wildest imaginations would have believed Hitler’s Germany before it actually happened. And he said, if the civilized world knew what Hitler intended to do then they would have stopped him. Well, here we are in 1967, and the Arabs vow daily to finish Hitler’s work. Certainly the world will not stand for another chapter of this holocaust. There is a right and a wrong. It is right for a people to want to survive. It is wrong to want to destroy them. But alas, the kingdom of heaven is concerned with righteousness alone. The kingdoms of the earth run on oil. 

“WELL now, certainly the world should be appalled by what is happening in Biafra. The stink of genocide is everywhere. Certainly, after Hitler’s Germany, the world should step in and stop genocide in Biafra. However, that becomes impractical when one considers England’s investments in Nigeria conflict with France’s interests in Biafra. After all, members of the jury, it is only [African] people[s] killing other [African] people.  

“We should like to think,” Abe said, “that Thomas Bannister was right, when he said more people, including the German people, should have risked punishment and death by refusing orders. We should like to believe there would have been a protest and ask why didn’t the Germans protest? Well today, young people march in the streets to protest Biafra and Vietnam and the principle of murdering their fellow man through the medium of war. And we say to them … why are you protesting so much? Why don’t you go there and kill like your father killed?…” (added emphasis)

(Eric Dolphy Duo, “Alone together” [personnel: Dolphy, bass clarinet; Richard Davis, double bass; recorded: Fuel Records, New York, US, {May?June?July?} 1963]) 

******Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019) and co-author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why #DonaldTrump is #great for #Africa (2018)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

The archives project! Igbo people of Biafra: “The stink of genocide is everywhere...”

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

*****EXCERPTS from the gripping and indelible lines on the Igbo genocide (29 May 1966-12 January 1970), the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, during which Britain and client-state Nigeria, led by Hausa-Fulani/islamist jihadists, southwestcentral Africa, murder 3.1 million Igbo people of Biafra, beginning 21 years after end of the Jewish genocide, in Leon Uri’s classic, QB VII (London: Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 392-393:

ABE studied them all, his worn-out little band of idealists. 

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said in a voice that literally moaned with sorrow, “I would like to make a statement by quoting in effect the words of Thomas Bannister, Q.C., when he said that no one in their wildest imaginations would have believed Hitler’s Germany before it actually happened. And he said, if the civilized world knew what Hitler intended to do then they would have stopped him. Well, here we are in 1967, and the Arabs vow daily to finish Hitler’s work. Certainly the world will not stand for another chapter of this holocaust. There is a right and a wrong. It is right for a people to want to survive. It is wrong to want to destroy them. But alas, the kingdom of heaven is concerned with righteousness alone. The kingdoms of the earth run on oil. Well now, certainly the world should be appalled by what is happening in Biafra. The stink of genocide is everywhere. Certainly, after Hitler’s Germany, the world should step in and stop genocide in Biafra. However, that becomes impractical when one considers England’s investments in Nigeria conflict with France’s interests in Biafra. After all, members of the jury, it is only [African] people killing other [African] people.  

“We should like to think,” Abe said, “that Thomas Bannister was right, when he said more people, including the German people, should have risked punishment and death by refusing orders. We should like to believe there would have been a protest and ask why didn’t the Germans protest? Well today, young people march in the streets to protest Biafra and Vietnam and the principle of murdering their fellow man through the medium of war. And we say to them … why are you protesting so much? Why don’t you go there and kill like your father killed? …” (added emphasis)

(Eric Dolphy Duo, “Alone together” [personnel: Dolphy, bass clarinet; Richard Davis, double bass; recorded: Fuel Records, New York, US, {May?June?July?} 1963])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

The Biafra freedom movement has indeed a dinner party dimension in its dynamics

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

MAO TSE-TUNG once proclaimed that a revolution is not a “dinner party” but an “insurrection, an act of violence” in which a group of subjugated people in a power relation overthrows the other that controls this power of subjugation.

In its own reading of prevailing history, 90 years after this declaration, the Biafra freedom movement has projected and is operationalising a liberation strategy with resounding effect that is dramatically antithetical to Mao’s: non-violence.

Quite a few find this strategy surprising, if not intriguing, as the Igbo have had to resist a genocidist Nigeria, during the course of these past 51 years, an evidently more ruthless murder machine than either the Kuomintang Chinese regime or the (external) Japanese forces that the Maoists confronted. Neither the Kuomintang nor the Japanese was genocidist – so the incredulous observers of Biafran current strategy do feel that the Igbo, given their history, would have been obvious candidates deeply engaged in a Maoist “insurrection, an act of violence”, not its distinct opposite.

Referendum

Two interlocking factors account for Biafrans’ non-violence drive. First, they have channelled the “long march” wealth of experience of one-half century of resistance to genocide to an evocative stream of conscientisation on Biafra freedom and restoration-of-independence across the length and breadth of the Biafran homeland where an essentially alternate Biafra state has begun to flourish despite the brutish Nigeria genocidist occupation. The Igbo now dictate the terms of their freedom from Nigeria. They have acquired this pivotal status, in the past 24 months, it should be stressed, without firing a shot – either in defence or offence. They insist on a referendum to democratically secure the next crucial phase of the process. They have turned Biafran towns and villages into freedom parks for open, participatory creative debates on Biafra, often involving a range of family members, that would have been deemed impossible just a few years ago. The quest for Biafra freedom is at once an occasion for celebration involving all generations of the people. Huge crowds of people across the country, varying from hundreds of thousands to two and three million estimates in the July 2017 Igwe Ocha and Owere assemblies, south and eastcentral Biafra respectively, and in mid-August (2017) in Ekwuluobia (west Biafra) have attended rallies organised by the Indigenous People of Biafra in which leader Nnamdi Kanu has fervently articulated the salient features that map out the current phase of the freedom movement with emphasis, particularly, on a referendum for the people for restoration-of-independence.

Guillotine

SECONDLY, 51 years after the launch of the Igbo genocide which coincides with the dramatic, ironical upheaval of the historic demands and consequences of Scotland’s quest for independence (or, more historically appropriate, restoration-of-independence) from Britain itself, a co-genocidist state in this genocide, and Britain’s own decision (through a referendum) to exit from the European Union (Brexit) that it had been a member for 44 years, Biafrans now regard Britain, not the on the ground genocidist Nigeria, as the primary agency that not only funds the genocide but is prepared to maintain its continuing execution as a means of controlling its Nigeria-creation in perpetuity. Clearly, Britain is the owner and director of the genocidist guillotine that has murdered Igbo people so gruesomely for five decades. The Nigerians are nothing more than the executioner in this project. For Britain, thanks to Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s notorious stance taken right soon after the outset of the genocide on 29 May 1966 (“I would accept a half million dead Biafrans if that was what it took” Nigeria to destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide – Roger Morris, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, London and New York: Quartet Books, 1977: 122), just 18 years after the end of the deplorable perpetration of the Jewish genocide by Germany during which 6 million Jews were murdered, its central role in the Igbo genocide represents an incredibly low-risk strategy as an Africa-based executioner force, headed by Britain’s close allies in the region for over 100 years, the Hausa-Fulani/islamists, is right there in Biafra to murder the Igbo as ever as it wills with no expected condemnation from Britain – a corresponding position invariably adopted particularly by its West allies as the history of this crime attests.

Beacon

DESPITE the sheer savagery of this British-led genocide in which 3.1 million Igbo were murdered in the first three phases (29 May 1966-12 January 1970) and tens of thousands murdered subsequently in phase-IV (i.e., since 13 January 1970 to this day), the Igbo have not only survived but have emerged more focused, steadfast, and resilient to free themselves from Nigeria and restore Biafran sovereignty.

Britain must now know that it cannot stop this process. No one else can stop Igbo freedom from Britain’s genocidist Nigeria. Surely, Britain has no other choice but terminate its role at once in waging this crime against humanity in Biafra, 3130 miles away in southwestcentral Africa, accept full responsibility, apologise to Igbo people, and pay them comprehensive reparations.

As most observers know, Biafra is the beacon of the long-sought African peoples’ renaissance of the current epoch.

(Eric Dolphy Septet plays “Naima”, John Coltrane’s classic composition [personnel: Dolphy, bass clarinet; Donald Byrd, trumpet; Nathan Davis, tenor saxophone; Jacques Dieval, piano; Jacques B Hess, bass; Franco Manzecchi, drums; Jacky Bambou, percussion; recorded: ORTF radio broadcasts, Paris, France, 11 June 1964])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

No German arms to genocidist Nigeria

(Angela Merkel: … German chancellor)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

Muhammadu Buhari, head of the genocidist Nigeria regime, embarks on a 3-day “state” visit to Germany today. According to a regime spokesperson, “cooperation on security”, a euphemism for possible German arms exports/transfers to Nigeria, will be one of the subjects of Buhari’s discussion with German officials. Indeed, Markus Elderer of the German foreign ministry had been quoted in the Lagos (Nigeria) Vanguard (7 June 2016) that Nigeria had asked for German weapons for “security challenges” especially in its northcentral/northeast region, epicentre of the islamist Boko Haram insurgency.

Igbo genocide

But as I have argued, variously, Buhari is not really at war with Boko Haram not to mention this organisation’s other ruthless cousin, Fulani militia. On the contrary, Buhari is an integral component of Boko Haram/Fulani militants. Buhari’s war, since his March 2015 imposition as head of Nigeria regime by US President Obama and ex-British Prime Minister Cameron, is to the south of Nigeria – in Biafra, occupied by Nigeria since 13 January 1970.

Buhari has continued the Nigeria state genocide against the Igbo people, fully supported by Britain, which he, himself, as a lieutenant then in the genocidist army has been an active participant right from launch date, 29 May 1966. 3.1 million Igbo people were murdered in the three phases of the genocide prior to 13 January 1970. Hundreds of thousands have been murdered subsequently including those murdered since Buhari’s current position in power, especially beginning October 2015 and has continued unabated.

(Ursula von der Leyen: … German defence minister)

Any German weapons sold/transferred to Nigeria presently, even a bullet, pistol or grenade, are more likely to be deployed to murder Biafrans. This will amount clearly to German complicity in the Igbo genocide, this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. Federal Germany, it must be recalled, in commendation, was one of the first countries which placed a comprehensive arms embargo on Nigeria during the May 1966- January 1970 phases I-III of the genocide unlike its “other half”, the GDR (East Germany), which ignominiously supported the genocide, particularly in its training and reequipping of squadrons of loaned Egyptian air force pilots flying Soviet MiGs who specialised in the carpet bombing of Biafran cities and towns and villages.

What relationship?

Germany started its direct “relationship” with Africa in the early years of the first decade of the last century quite abominably with its organised genocides against the following African peoples in the southwest region of the continent: beginning in 1904 and through to 1907, the German military, operating in the region, murdered 65,000 out of 80,000 Herero people or 80 per cent of the total Herero population wiped out; beginning in 1904 and through to 1907, the German military, operating in the same region, murdered 10,000 Nama people or 50 per cent of the Nama population destroyed. Thirty years later, the German-state would resume this southwest Africa genocidist antecedent 5000 miles away in the heart of Europe, its continental homeland, as it embarked on the gruesome genocide of Jewish people, murdering 6 million of them by 1945.

Given its catastrophic history in the 20th century, it is hopefully inconceivable that Germany would wish to “reengage” with Africa in this second decade of a new century, this time in southwestcentral Africa, by intervening to send weapons to Nigeria to enable the latter intensify its campaign of savagery in the ongoing Igbo genocide, a genocide in which Nigeria and Britain murdered 25 per cent of the Igbo population between 29 May 1966 and 12 January 1970.

(Andrew Hill Sextet, “Dedication” [personnel: Hill, piano; Kenny Dorham, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone;  Richard Davis, bass; Tony Williams, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 21 March 1964]) 

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

The archives project! Igbo people: “The stink of genocide is everywhere...”

– excerpts from the gripping and indelible lines on the Igbo genocide (29 May 1966-12 January 1970), the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa during which Britain and client-state Nigeria, southwestcentral Africa, murder 3.1 million Igbo people, beginning 21 years after end of the Jewish genocide, in Leon Uri’s classic, QB VII (London: Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 392-393:

Abe studied them all, his worn-out little band of idealists. 

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said in a voice that literally moaned with sorrow, “I would like to make a statement by quoting in effect the words of Thomas Bannister, Q.C., when he said that no one in their wildest imaginations would have believed Hitler’s Germany before it actually happened. And he said, if the civilized world knew what Hitler intended to do then they would have stopped him. Well, here we are in 1967, and the Arabs vow daily to finish Hitler’s work. Certainly the world will not stand for another chapter of this holocaust. There is a right and a wrong. It is right for a people to want to survive. It is wrong to want to destroy them. But alas, the kingdom of heaven is concerned with righteousness alone. The kingdoms of the earth run on oil. Well now, certainly the world should be appalled by what is happening in Biafra. The stink of genocide is everywhere. Certainly, after Hitler’s Germany, the world should step in and stop genocide in Biafra. However, that becomes impractical when one considers England’s investments in Nigeria conflict with France’s interests in Biafra. After all, members of the jury, it is only [African] people killing other [African] people.  

“We should like to think,” Abe said, “that Thomas Bannister was right, when he said more people, including the German people, should have risked punishment and death by refusing orders. We should like to believe there would have been a protest and ask why didn’t the Germans protest? Well today, young people march in the streets to protest Biafra and Vietnam and the principle of murdering their fellow man through the medium of war. And we say to them … why are you protesting so much? Why don’t you go there and kill like your father killed? …” (added emphasis)

(Eric Dolphy Duo, “Alone together” [personnel: Dolphy, bass clarinet; Richard Davis, double bass; recorded: Fuel Records, New York, US, {May?June?July?} 1963])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

Igbo people: “stink of genocide is everywhere”

 – excerpts from the gripping and indelible lines on the Igbo genocide (29 May 1966-12 January 1970), the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa launched by Nigeria and Britain 21 years after end of the Jewish genocide, in Leon Uri’s classic, QB VII (London: Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 392-393:

Abe studied them all, his worn-out little band of idealists. 

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said in a voice that literally moaned with sorrow, “I would like to make a statement by quoting in effect the words of Thomas Bannister, Q.C., when he said that no one in their wildest imaginations would have believed Hitler’s Germany before it actually happened. And he said, if the civilized world knew what Hitler intended to do then they would have stopped him. Well, here we are in 1967, and the Arabs vow daily to finish Hitler’s work. Certainly the world will not stand for another chapter of this holocaust. There is a right and a wrong. It is right for a people to want to survive. It is wrong to want to destroy them. But alas, the kingdom of heaven is concerned with righteousness alone. The kingdoms of the earth run on oil. Well now, certainly the world should be appalled by what is happening in Biafra. The stink of genocide is everywhere. Certainly, after Hitler’s Germany, the world should step in and stop genocide in Biafra. However, that becomes impractical when one considers England’s investments in Nigeria conflict with France’s interests in Biafra. After all, members of the jury, it is only [African] people killing other [African] people.  

“We should like to think,” Abe said, “that Thomas Bannister was right, when he said more people, including the German people, should have risked punishment and death by refusing orders. We should like to believe there would have been a protest and ask why didn’t the Germans protest? Well today, young people march in the streets to protest Biafra and Vietnam and the principle of murdering their fellow man through the medium of war. And we say to them … why are you protesting so much? Why don’t you go there and kill like your father killed? …”

(Eric Dolphy Duo, “Alone together” [personnel: Dolphy, bass clarinet; Richard Davis, double bass; recorded: Fuel Records, New York, US, {May?June?July?} 1963])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe