GLOBAL CONCERNS ABOUT BIAFRA
STATEMENTS OF EUROPEAN RELIGIOUS LEADERS
European Christians attempted to exert influence over the secessionist conflict at many points. The two statements printed below deal with a call for a restriction on the import of weapons into the conflict as well as a general call for peace in the area.
I. Statement on Arms Supplies by the Church of England1. It is a matter of deep concern to the Churches and Societies we represent both in Nigeria and Britain, that the conflict in Nigeria has reached the point of civil war.
2. We recognise that the Federal Government is the only legal Government in Nigeria. But we are aware that the Eastern Region which is in a state of disagreement with the Federal Government contains more than 7,000,000 people, and consequently the proportions of the dispute surpass the limits of local pacification by the Federal Government.
3. We are aware from Nigerian information that fighting can be of such a widespread character as to lead to an embittered war of sporadic conflict. This can extend to a very long duration with permanent results in estrangement and bitterness between the Regions.
4. We therefore urge H. M. Government not to permit arms to be sent to the Federal Government as the sending of arms cannot but prolong the fighting and increase the bitterness now felt in the Eastern Region. We believe that the paucity of arms on both sides of the conflict is a vital factor which may shorten the period before negotiations bring a solution to the problem now confronting the Federation.
5. Our intimate knowledge of the peoples of the Eastern Region leads us to the conviction that no scale of escalation in the hands of the Federal Government will suffice to subjugate that Region. We are therefore anxious that H. M. Government should not share in a course of action which can only lead to protracted suffering which a cessation of armed conflict and a return to negotiation could prevent.
Issued on 18 August 1967 on behalf of the Conference of British Missionary Societies, Church Missionary Society, Church of Scotland Foreign Mission Committee, and the Methodist Missionary Society.
From: Kirk-Greene, Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria, vol. 2, document #123, p. 152
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II. The Churches' Call for Peace
The Roman Catholic Church and the WCC unite in one voice in a most urgent appeal to both contesting parties for an immediate cessation of armed hostilities in this sad conflict and for the establishment of a lasting peace by honourable negotiations in the highest tradition of Africa ....
We further point out that war is an inhuman and futile attempt to settle disputes. In this sad conflict, especially, armed hostilities cannot achieve a settlement of the differences; on the contrary they are liable to bring, on a scale that is frightening to contemplate, only further loss of life, starvation, suffering and devastation. Even if, against all right reason, armed hostilities continue, the parties can never achieve peaceful co-existence without a negotiated settlement. The longer hostilities endure, the more innocent human lives will be sacrificed in violence and bloodshed, the more impoverished and devastated will become this beloved erstwhile land of promise ....
We appeal in particular to the African Chiefs of State to offer the contribution of their counsel, their suggestions and, should the case arise, their mediation, with a view to the resolution of this sad conflict ....
While it is not our part to declare on the issue of contention, we are bound to call the most immediate attention to the sacred issue of the human right to life itself, which is so seriously threatened on such a vast scale by the horrors and effects of the war. We therefore urge governments and international agencies in a position to act effectively in this matter to secure a denial of external military assistance to both parties, an immediate cessation of hostilities, the necessary assurances of security to both sides on the laying down of arms, and a negotiated peace ....
Issued simultaneously in Geneva on behalf of the World Council of Churches and in Rome on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church, 20 March 1968. Text by courtesy of the British Council of Churches.
In A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria A Documentary Sourcebook 1966-1970, vol. 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 201
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