NIGERIAN WAR MAY LAST MUCH LONGER’

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31781, 11 September 1968, Page 17

NIGERIAN WAR MAY LAST MUCH LONGER’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LAGOS, September 10. The Nigerian Head of State (Major-General Yakabu Gowon), who predicted in a television interview two weeks ago that the 14-mOnth-old civil war in Nigeria would be over in four weeks, now says it may last much longer.

At a press conference in Lagos, General Gowon said the Federal Army was trained to cope with a guerrilla war should the Biafran leader (Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu) want to fight to the bitter end.

The Nigerian leader denied allegations that Biafrans were being massacred. “It is not true that everybody is being killed,” he said. “My troops are under strict orders to adhere to the code of conduct issued to them,. They are certainly not out for big game hunting.” But, he added. Colonel Ojukwu was “a special case” and could possibly be charged with treason, the penalty for which was death.

General Gowon ruled out President de Gaulle’s suggestion of a confederation or union in Nigeria, and said he hoped France would not recognise Biafra. At a press conference in Paris, General de Gaulle had said: “One can, for example, envisage that the Nigerian Federation itself would be transformed into a sort of union, or confederation, which could reconcile both Biafra’s right to self-determin-ation and the links between it and the other elements of the Federation.”

Call To Assembly Biafran community leaders have called for an urgent meeting of the Eastern Region’s Consultative Assembly to consider the possibility of integrating Biafra in the French community, according to a Biafran Radio broadcast. The broadcast, monitored in Lagos, said the leaders had called on the Assembly to “mandate the Head of State to take the necessary steps to ensure that Biafra breaks all ties with the British Commonwealth.”

The Consultative Assembly is composed of hereditary chiefs and local representatives, and serves as a traditional for the breakaway region. The broadcast quoted Biafran leaders as saying: “The ill-fated association with the British Commonwealth has been the cause of Nigeria's plan to exterminate Biafrans.” Hemmed In The Biafrans implored the United Nations, the Organisation of African Unity, and “all

countries of the world interested in humanity” not to stand by and watch the “violation of the United Nation’s declaration against genocide.” Now hemmed in by advancing Federal troops, Biafra has been reduced to one-ninth of its original size, and millions of civilians have vanished into the bush. About 400,000 left the key city of Aba before Federal troops captured it. Reports indicate that Biafran territory is now confined to an apple-shaped zone of some 3000 square miles with a radius varying between 30 and 40 miles. Packed inside the enclave, and mingling with retreating Biafran troops, are an estimated four to six million civilians, all hiding in dense bush country. And the relentless advance of the Federal Army continues. A tour of the 60-mile-wide southern front, the centre of the main spearhead aimed at the heart of Biafran held territory, showed today that Colonel Bejamin (“Black Scorpion”) Adekunle

is leading the Third Marine Commando Division deep into the Ibo country, the Fourteenth Brigade is moving towards the Owerria-Aba road from a position west of the Imo River, and the Fifteenth Brigade Is advancing on Oguta from Ohoada.