HC Deb 12 June 1968 vol 766 cc242-300
Mr. Speaker

Before the debate opens, may I remind the House that during the last debate under Standing Order No. 9 I was able to call many speakers because speeches were brief.

I have a long list again today for a debate which is to last for exactly three hours and I again appeal for reasonably brief speeches from both right hon. and hon. Members.

3.35 p.m.

Mr. Michael Barnes (Brentford and Chiswick)

I beg to move, That this House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your decision yesterday that this subject, namely, the effect of continuing the supply of arms from Britain to Nigeria now that the peace talks at Kampala have broken down, was an appropriate one for discussion under Standing Order No. 9.

I know that some people take the view that this debate taking place now could have the effect of upsetting the very delicate negotiations which are going on in London at the present time, but I do not share that view. I believe that if this debate is approached in the responsible way in which I am sure it will be, it can be very helpful in underlining for both sides the fact that the overwhelming priority now in this war is the earliest possible cease-fire.

I do not believe that it is the job of British politicians to take sides in this tragic dispute, but I believe that it is the job of British politicians to make sure that British policy is fair, just and honourable. I believe that this responsibility is especially heavy in this instance, where we are the former colonial Power and where it is now a fellow Commonwealth country which is involved.

One would have thought that when a civil war was threatening a great Commonwealth country it would have been clear that it was our duty to do nothing to encourage the use of force. I am sure that many people applauded the neutrality implicit in the statement made just a year ago in another place by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, when he said: We have, of course, made it very plain to the leaders of Nigeria, to all Nigerian leaders, that we have no intention whatsoever of intervening in the internal affairs of Nigeria."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords; 13 June 1967; Vol. 283, c. 1376.] The United States Government, in August of last year, issued the statement that the United States decided, for its part, on the outbreak of the current hostilities in Nigeria, that it would not sell or otherwise supply arms and ammunition to the other side. To have done so would have risked deepening the conflict. I am sure that many people in this country assumed that the British Government's attitude would be the same, but in that same month, August of last year, news began to leak out of the great charter airlift of arms which was taking place by night from Gatwick under conditions of extraordinary secrecy.

It is hard to discuss whether this policy should or should not be continued unless it is clear what the policy was originally designed to achieve, and it is difficult to be clear about that because different reasons for the policy have been given on different occasions. That does not help.

The first reason given for the policy was that because we were the traditional supplier of arms to the Federal Government of Nigeria we had to go on supplying arms so as to remain neutral. To have stopped would have been to take sides with Biafra. That statement was subsequently modified to read that the Federal Government was the only Government in Nigeria which all the world recognised. That was before the recognition of Biafra by Tanzania and because of this, so the argument ran, because we were the traditional supplier we had to go on.

It must be said against both these arguments—such things were said by many of my hon. Friends for months past— that we were in the past the traditional supplier of arms for the defence of all Nigeria and the protection of the people of all her regions, which is very different from what is happening today.

The third argument and the one on which the Government have placed the greatest emphasis is that it was necessary to continue the supply of arms to maintain the influence and good will which we had in Lagos. There has been precious little evidence of this influence being put to the test. The time when it should have been, above all, was surely before the peace talks began at Kampala. If it had been put to the test then, perhaps those talks would not have been the shambles which they were.

The truth is, I think, that British policy has so far failed on this issue, and failed because the wrong decision was taken at the beginning. The Government were given, and accepted, bad advice. This was not a riot which would be put down in a couple of months but a civil war which has now lasted for nearly a year and will go on for many months unless countries like Britain stop supplying arms. It may be difficult and embarrassing for the Government to change their mind now, but, following the breakdown of the Kampala talks, the arguments for so doing are overwhelming.

The war is now entering a guerilla phase and if it is pursued to a military conclusion—who can doubt that the continuing supply of arms from this country is an encouragement to those "hawks", the numbers of whom I do not know, on the Federal side that a military solution is possible?—the civilian casualties are bound to be even heavier and bloodier than they have been so far.

I know that many people think that a unilateral decision by us to stop the supply of arms at this stage would make no difference, because other countries are supplying arms, but those who think that under-estimate the present climate of world opinion. World opinion on this issue is, I believe, overwhelmingly in favour of this senseless war, with all its suffering, being brought to the quickest possible end. A new situation was created by the recognition of Biafra by Tanzania, Zambia, the Ivory Coast and Gabon. Already, Czechoslovakia and Holland have stopped supplying arms, and if Britain were to stop I believe that any country which then continued would be in a very isolated position. This is the quick way to end this war—far quicker than trying now to get international agreement, which might take weeks and months to organise.

It can always be said that there are arguments in favour of policies which continue: the status quo, the traditional policy. It is easy to let things continue as they have done and to reassure oneself that this is realistic or pragmatic, but every now and then in politics principles arise which politicians cannot afford to dodge, and we are faced here with such a principle. It cannot be right for this country to be organising peace talks in London with one hand and supplying arms with the other.

I therefore hope and pray that it may not be many more days before the British Government change their attitude on the supply of arms and recognise the contribution to peace which this decision could bring.

3.44 p.m.

Sir John Eden (Bournemouth, West)

The House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswiek (Mr. Barnes) not only for having sought and gained this debate, but also for the studied moderation of his language and for so courteously considering the interests of other hon. Members by keeping his speech short. I hope to follow him in both the latter respects.

For far too long, in my view and that of many hon. Members, there has been far too little knowledge in this country of what is going on in Nigeria, largely due to the very bad communications and the difficulty of getting any reliable information from the fighting areas. This has, naturally but regrettably, led to an ignorance of and even an indifference to the tragic events there.

The very magnitude of the slaughter left many in this country uncomprehending and lent sense of unreality to the reports coming from Nigeria. Far from being unreal, however, it is quite clear that the accounts of the atrocities are all too true. By whoever they have been committed, all will, I believe, deplore this tragic situation. They have been perpetrated on a massive scale and every hon. Member, including every Member of the Government, must be desperately anxious to see this ended as soon as possible.

I am certain that all of us share the ambition of Ministers to use whatever influence we have to bring an end to this war. Therefore, there would be little purpose now in examining the background of these events or looking too closely at the causes of the initial break-away of Biafra. I do not want to try to apportion blame, but the facts which we must face are that a member nation of the Commonwealth is tearing itself apart and that men are perpetrating acts of a degree of inhumanity which has caused universal condemnation.

The debate is primarily concerned with the Government's decision to continue to supply certain arms and military equipment to the Federal forces. Like the hon. Member for Brentford and Chis-wick, I deplore the Government's decision to continue this policy. The situation has changed so substantially since the break-away as to justify an end to this policy.

I have studied carefully Ministerial statements, notably those in another place by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, in the short debate at the end of April. He said: If it were two independent Commonwealth countries which were in conflict, then perhaps there might well be a case for not supplying arms to either side; but this was a conflict within an independent Commonwealth country. It was a recognised Government of a Commonwealth country which had depended on us for much of her military equipment … we should create a serious imbalance … if, because a Government was in a degree of civil war we were to deny it the weapons for carrying out its policy. I understand the reasoning for the Government decision, but I do not think that it is right. To my mind, there is something immoral about the Government continuing to supply arms to a fellow Commonwealth Government when they are engaged in a civil conflict of this nature. This is more than just a civil war. Civil wars in terms of horror, if horror can be measured, are almost more appalling than total wars. This has now become a war leading possibly to the extermination of a race.

The Government offer some hope. The Minister, in his speech in another place, went on to say: Nevertheless, there may be a case for cutting off British supplies if it could be demonstrated that this could bring peace closer."— [OFFICIAL REPORT,House of Lords, 29th April, 1968; Vol. 291, cc. 966, 967.] I would argue that it could be demonstrated, and that the Government should be prepared now to attempt to do just this. In the totally changed situation there is no justification for the Govern- ment to continue to supply limited arms, small arms, grenades and mortar equipment, any more than there is justification for other countries, such as Russia, to supply aircraft or France, or any other country, to supply military equipment to the Biafran forces.

The Government may feel that there would be a certain amount of futility in unilateral action, but I believe that they should endeavour to take it. They have a special responsibility in this. The parties are approaching the conference table, and the Government should now be withholding further support in the supply of military equipment. The Government, and all of us in the House, have a particular feeling towards the Federation. This was not only the child of our own creation, it was the very model of British colonial achievement, in which all hon. Members placed a great deal of confidence, and in which rested many of our hopes for the future of that part of the world. It is very tragic to have to witness now the dismemberment of this great enterprise which had been launched with such auspicious beginnings.

We must face the realities of the situation, which are that there is a major and terrible conflict taking place, that British military equipment is assisting in the continuance and the prosecution of this war, and that it is wrong, in my view, that the Government should be a party to this. I hope that they will change their policy.

3.54 p.m.

Mr. James Griffiths (Llanelly)

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Barnes) opened the debate so admirably that those following him are placed under an obligation to maintain his high level.

This is not the occasion on which to speak about the background of the conflict. We all hope that the damage is not yet so deep and so bitter as to destroy the hope of the recovery of the Federation. As Colonial Secretary in the early 1950s I played a part in the creation of the first Federation, and I have a special interest in it. I do not propose to discuss either the past or the future. It is the present which must concern us now.

In the B.B.C. programme "The World at One" today, Mr. Michael Leatman, of the Sun, who had just returned from Biafra, spoke of the appalling danger of immediate famine. There are thousands of people in the territories surrounding Port Harcourt who are wandering around the countryside, without food or water, and there is the danger of a tragedy which will shock the conscience of the world unless we take action quickly.

I therefore hope that every effort will be made, while the representatives of Biafra and of the Federation are in London, to ensure that the International Red Cross and other agencies, such as Oxfam and War on Want, should have facilities made available to them immediately to supply food, medicines and relief. Otherwise, we shall have on our hands some responsibility for what may be one of the most appalling tragedies of our time.

The immediate objective must be to secure a cease-fire. The war will drift into a guerrilla war, which will become an endless war as people flee into the bush determined to fight for their lives. The Biafrans, as they call themselves, or the Ibcs, as we like to think of them, are confronted with a terrifying choice, either to die in battle or to surrender and, as they fear, to be massacred. We can argue whether there is justification for this belief, but there is no doubt that the Biafrans now believe that this is the choice before them. These are very gifted and courageous people who have made a big contribution to the development of Nigeria in years gone by, and it would be a very poor Nigeria without the gifts and talents of the Ibos to help them in the years ahead.

The first step to be taken, to allay their fear, is to achieve a cease-fire, and I hope that the necessity for this will be pressed in the discussions which are taking place. But the bitterness and the fears have gone so deep that when a cease-fire is achieved it will be imperative to have a peace-keeping force from outside Nigeria to keep the two sides apart during the negotiations which must take place before a final settlement is reached.

I would urge, first, a cease-fire, and, secondly, that consideration should be given to a Commonwealth or United Nations peace-keeping force. All we can do on that is to seek to influence the parties who are here in London and the two Governments out there. If a cease-fire were achieved, without a peacekeeping force, there may be a gap during which no negotiations are taking place, and the bitterness has gone so deep that we might not be able to create the conditions in which talks for peace could take place.

I hope that the negotiations will succeed, but, if they do not, we ought to press strongly for a cease-fire without pre-conditions. So far, there have been offers of a cease-fire with conditions. But, quite frankly, these conditions will not now be acceptable to the Biafrans for the reason that I have given. They believe that that would mean surrender and, if they surrendered, they fear that they would be massacred. It is essential for us to recognise this and to ask the Federal Government to agree now to a cease-fire without pre-conditions and to a peace-keeping force being established at the crucial points in Nigeria, and then to wait for some time before beginning negotiations.

I have very many close friends who are Ibos. My wife and I know many of them, and it has been our privilege to entertain them when they were students here. We do not know where they are, or if they are alive. I implore my right hon. and hon. Friends to work for a cease-fire. If a cease-fire cannot be achieved, it would, in my view, be an intolerable position for the British Government to continue to supply arms which may be used in the massacre of people for whom I have deep affection.

Sir Harmar Nicholls (Peterborough)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It would appear that the Government do not intend to reply until the end of the debate. Surely it would be in the best interests of the cause being debated if we could have a statement from the Government earlier. It would put the House in full possession of the latest facts, and our debate would be much more to the point. Is there any way in which you could influence a right hon. Gentleman opposite to make an early intervention?

Mr. Speaker

The Government will have listened to the hon. Gentleman's advice. It is for the Government to decide when they want to intervene.

4.2 p.m.

Mr. John Cordle (Bournemouth, East and Christchurch)

The occasion of this debate is an enormously sad and distressing one for me. For years, I have had the closest personal ties with Nigeria. I have friends who are fighting on opposing sides in this savage conflict. I have had friends who have been killed as a result of it. Therefore, this debate is of more than a passing emotional interest to me.

My sympathy is engaged not by seeing the cause at many miles' distance. As a friend of Nigeria, I feel personally involved in what has happened and what is happening today. My small knowledge of Nigeria is not based on the handouts of public relations firms, or a reading of the intellectual weeklies. I returned from Nigeria only last Saturday morning. It was my second visit to that country this year. Last year, I was there four times and, the year before, three times. Perhaps I know as well as any outsider what can have happened to that formerly stable and happy country.

In the present situation, I do not feel that we achieve any useful function by using the sort of emotional language which disfigures reasoned analysis and debate, but I have been angered by the lack of balance which, to my mind, has distorted much of the discussion in the Press and on television. Sometimes it seems to have been due to a straightforward ignorance of what is happening and sometimes to a strangely misplaced sympathy for the seeming underdog in the conflict. But it can more often be traced to the machinations of the public relations firms which have been retained by Colonel Ojukwu at fantastic expense to repair, in terms of so-called world opinion, what his rebel armies have lost on the battlefields.

The immediate tactical purpose of the public relations exercise—which, incidentally, is the sort of exercise that hon. Members opposite are the first to denounce when they think that it is operated by a Right-wing regime—is so to stir up sympathy for the Ojukwu regime that the British Government and others will bow to public pressure and stop shipments of arms to the Federal Government. It seems to be reasonable to conclude that, if Colonel Ojukwu had not been so impressed by the success of the exercise, he might not have withdrawn his representative from the Kampala peace talks.

Let us look at the question of arms shipments in a little more detail. It is said that we supply the Federal Government, our Commonwealth colleagues, with 15 per cent. of their total armaments. I believe that these weapons, in the main, are small arms and ammunition and not heavy armaments, Fills or napalm, contrary to what appeared in another of those mischievous leading articles on the matter in the Spectator, which drew completely false analogies with Vietnam.

These weapons have been purchased by the Federal Government of Nigeria quite simply to restore the unity and integrity of the country. They are not being used in a war between two States, but in what amounts to large-scale internal police action and an attempt to restore law and order and harmony.

To develop the point, it is important to stray slightly from the immediate question of arms and to consider what the dispute is about. We know that there have been atrocities, regrettably on both sides, and it would be neither useful nor instructive to swop atrocity stories. But it is worth pointing out that the slaughter of Hausas at the Imo River in 1966, though played down by the Federal Government for fear of retaliation against the Ibos, was reported on Dahomey Radio and led to the massacre on 1st October of that year.

For every well-publicised allegation against the Federal Government of genocide, I have a handful of well-authenticated stories of war crimes committed by Colonel Ojukwu's rebels. I was even a witness to the bombing of the civilian airport at Kaduna by a Biafran B26 last August. The sheaves of Press hand-outs detailing atrocities explain nothing. The fact is that the first blood which was spilt in the conflict was not Ibo or Biafran blood, but that of a world statesman, the late Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a man I was proud to call a personal friend.

Sir Abubakar was assassinated along with two regional Premiers, one of whom was the spiritual leader of the Moslems, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, and others who, although they may have had their faults, surely would not be thought by even the most bloodcurdling Biafran public relations man to have deserved assassination in the Ibo-inspired 1966 coup which overthrew the former civilian Government.

The one element which all these murdered leaders had in common was that they were not Ibos, and, clever though the Ibos must be acknowledged to be, they could not reasonably expect to commit such acts without some reaction, some retaliation, and some retribution. However, during the last 10 months or so, we should be clear that the policy of the Federal Government has not been one of retribution against the Ibos with British arms. That is what the Ojukwu rebels would have us believe, except that they would not concede the word "retribution".

I met General Gowon last week, and he convinced me that I was right to hold a number of firm views. The first is that the Federal Government had been forced to purchase arms overseas in order to wage a grim struggle for national survival. It has never been the main purpose of the Federal Government to win a total military victory, but rather to effect a genuine national reconciliation in the concept of their sovereign Nigeria.

Mr. R. T. Paget (Northampton)

When the hon. Gentleman has already made the point that both sides are massacring each other, does he not equally make the point that we should not join in that process and that the two ought to be kept apart rather than brought together?

Mr. Cordle

I will continue what I have to say and then it will be made a little clearer.

I am certain that General Gowon is prepared to continue to use force, if compelled to do so, to preserve the unity and integrity of Nigeria. He considers that to be his duty, so even if we stop the shipment of arms to Nigeria he will obtain arms just as he did at the outset and as he did when the Ojukwu forces were within striking distance of Lagos.

The fact that the Federal Government have not turned lightly to arms has been well borne in mind. We should encourage every effort by Mr. Arnold Smith, by Her Majesty's Government and others to end this beastly war, but it is clear that by banning the sale of arms to the Federal Government we will not stop the war but, rather, will prolong it. The Federal Government will continue to purchase arms elsewhere whatever the difficulties. By impeding their attempts to restore order we will only encourage Ojukwu to continue to shun the conference table and a negotiated settlement and to continue his own purchase of arms, some of which have almost certainly been bought with the £10 million given him by the Federal Government to settle Ibo refugees in the East.

A case against continuing these small arms shipments to the legal and lawful Government seems to be based on the naive assumption that if General Gowon is denied munitions the Biafran rebels will lay down their arms. The case for maintaining shipments, which comprise only 15 per cent. of the total Federal Government supplies, is clear-cut.

First, we have the argument, put forward by the Foreign Secretary, that to stop the sale of arms would be taken as recognition of the Ojukwu régime and that we would forfeit what influence we still have in Lagos to strive for a peaceful settlement. After I saw General Gowon I said that we should give the strongest possible physical, moral and financial support and assistance to the Federal Government—that is the legal Government acknowledged by Britain—to bring to an immediate end a war which has already consumed countless lives, including many of my friends and, much less important, is estimated to have cost about £150 million.

I do not say this lightly. I believe that it provides the best road to peace, the greatest contribution we could make to the resolving of the conflict. I do not think that this would result in escalation. The promise of support to the legal Government could well be sufficient to end the war, despite the mistaken opinion in some quarters that Britain is a toothless bulldog.

To back down at this stage would be not only to concede to the rebels who prolong the war, but also to concede to the notion that hired public relations firms can order, control and dictate events in the international community.

I conclude by stating an offer made to me by General Gowon. He told me that he would welcome to Nigeria an all-party Parliamentary delegation, and, further, that he was prepared to invite at his own expense editors of British newspapers to go to Nigeria and get an accurate picture of the situation. Those are not the words of a man who has doubts about the legality of his cause, and I therefore hope the Government will not yield to pressure and stop arms to the Federal legal military Government.

4.15 p.m.

Mr. John Lee (Reading)

Most hon. Members on both sides would deplore the speech that has just been made by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle). Most of us who were prepared in the first instance to treat this debate in a non-partisan way will no longer be prepared to do so.

I should like to correct the hon. Member on a number of matters concerning what has happened in Nigeria. The first thing to be remembered is that what has been happening during the past year in that country is a continuation of something that has been going on for 150 years —that is to say, the conquest of the non-Muslim peoples in West and Central Africa by the militant Muslim movement which started in the early part of the 19th century by Othmar Van Fodio, who was barely arrested when the British came.

Successive British Governments tolerated the build-up of Muslim forces and did nothing to ensure that when we handed over the country to an independent Government that Government was a properly balanced one. The previous Government, and, in particular, Lord Boyd of Merton, Colonial Secretary at the time, bears a heavy responsibility for what has happened.

I have a copy of the minority Report of 1958, just before Nigeria's independence, by a former distinguished Member of this House, Mr. Henry Willink, and a former Deputy Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Gordon Hadow. It consists largely of an exercise of justification as to why they should not hive off a middle belt from the Northern Region of Nigeria and not do anything to adjust the boundaries of the Northern Muslim-dominated region, notwithstanding the fact that nearly one-third of the peoples of Northern Nigeria were not Muslims and were apprehensive of the kind of treatment they would receive after our departure— which the unfortunate Ibos are now receiving.

Of course, we could not safeguard against a country tearing up its Constitution in the way Nkrumah did in Ghana, but the least that could have been done was to ensure that the Federation would not be the lopsided thing it is. The population of Northern Nigeria far exceeds that of the other three regions combined, and in area it is enormous. It is like having a Federation of the United States consisting of Texas, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire.

The effect of permitting the Mid-West Region to be created was to alter the traditional regional boundaries and to weaken still further the peoples in the South, not only the Ibos but the Yorubas as well. Because of their proximity to Lagos they have been less able to do anything about it. As a result, we bear a heavy responsibility for what has happened in the succeeding years. Nobody living in West Africa at that time had any illusions that something of this kind would not happen sooner or later.

I think that I can understand the Government's reticence in this matter, and their reluctance hitherto to say very much. One knows how quickly the Governments of newly-emergent nations can change and how easy it is to give offence, and no country is more open to give offence than the ex-colonial Power. If I may tell a story against myself, I put down a Parliamentary Question last year mildly critical of the Ibos in Biafra, and it caused riots and trouble in Port Harcourt for which I was rightly taken to task by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain), who had been out there and said that I did not realise the damage that this sort of thing could do.

We cannot claim, as a result of abstaining from saying anything, to have done anything to moderate this horrible war. It is no good saying we would lose such influence as we have with the Federal Government in relation to this war. We have no influence on it. Everybody knows that there have been the most horrible massacres and that it is the avowed intention of a good many people in the present Federal Government to obliterate the Biafrans. One can draw a fair analogy with what has been happening in the Sudan, where a genocidal war has been waged for a number of years. That is the proper analogy, not the analogy with Vietnam which the hon. Member made.

If we now withdrew our support from the Federal Government we would undoubtedly cause offence, but we could be certain that we would be doing something to help the Biafrans to stay in existence long enough for proper negotiations to take place. It is true, of course, that this is not a war between fellow sovereign States. Things would be easier if it were. Even these days it is not often the intention of one sovereign State completely to wipe out another.

The great danger in this situation is that, because Biafra is not a sovereign State—or is not recognised by more than a few other peoples to be such a State— the rest of Nigeria will consider it quite reasonable not to negotiate at all, and perhaps to conclude that if they carry on in the present way for long enough they will destroy Biafra completely, so that there will be nobody with whom to conduct any negotiations.

Mr. James Johnson (Kingston upon Hull, West)

Would my hon. Friend explain how 50,000 Ibos are at present in Lagos working peacefully and collaborating with the Government of the Federal Party?

Mr. Lee

I do not know whether that gives my hon. Friend much comfort. If he really believes that what has happened elsewhere gives one reason to believe that these people will go on being treated in the same way, this is being just about as naive as those who pointed out, before the Second World War, that some Jews were in Germany going about their business undisturbed while others were being put into concentration camps. I do not share my hon. Friend's optimism in this matter.

I appreciate that other people may step in and try to supply arms, but if we stop supplying arms we will be in a better position to apply diplomatic pressure on others to ensure that they follow our example, and perhaps we will be in a better position morally to give the kind of lead which certain members of the Commonwealth are looking to us to give as proper mediators.

"As my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Barnes) said, it is no good trying to be a media- tor, on the one hand, and a supplier of arms, on the other. I earnestly beg my right hon. Friend to give a more positive answer at the end of this debate than the answers we have been given so far. I am bound to tell him that if we do not receive a positive reply some of us may be minded to divide the House.

4.23 p.m.

Mr. David Steel (Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles)

I rather regret having to speak following the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. John Lee), because I did not want to be led along the path of party differences in this matter. I have always believed that the House of Commons is at its best when discussing a topic of this sort, an issue which causes genuine concern to all hon. Members and about which there has been little or no party political strife in the House.

I share the hon. Gentleman's view of the speech of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle), who, I know, has close contacts with Nigeria. It might have been fairer had he pointed out that, among those contacts, he has close business interests in Lagos which are bound to make him something less than an impartial observer of the scene.

When we place the right hon. Gentleman's speech in that context we see that it is a valuable contribution from that point of view, but he was entirely wrong to attempt to suggest that the rest of us, whatever our political affiliations, are here simply because we have been brainwashed by public relations firms. That is certainly not the position.

We begin with one basic difficulty. It is that Her Majesty's Government went wrong initially in this dispute in accepting that what was a colonial administrative convenience in the creation of the Federation of Nigeria must necessarily be the right and permanent solution for the country after independence. My feeling is that this was never really accepted by the Nigerian politicians.

Indeed, I have with me a quotation from a speech made by the late Sir Abubakar Balewa, in 1947, in a Legislative Council debate in which he said: Since the amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Provinces in 1914, Nigeria has existed as one country only on paper. It is still far from being united …". It was against that background that perhaps Her Majesty's Government should have more closely borne in mind the threat of cessation and the difficulties, which first seriously emerged last year, between the regions.

I hope that Nigeria will be able to get back to the position when it will be able to operate within some sort of Federal structure, but the basis for operating such a structure must be the recognition that each region desires to participate in such a structure. It may be a much looser federation working within something like the East African Common Services Organisation. Perhaps that is the type of set-up that is required.

I do not accept any of the theories put forward about the one thing that is absolutely essential being the maintenance of the total, 100 per cent. integrity of Nigeria, regardless of the wishes of the people of Nigeria. The really critical period in the dispute, and the point at which Her Majesty's Government went slightly astray in their policy, was the two months from March to May, 1967, shortly after the military coup, when the Eastern Region was faced with the problem of 2 million refugees following the Ibo massacres. The Eastern Government, after a great deal of squabble and dispute with the Federal Government, decided to block the revenues which were due to the Federal Government. The Federal Government then declared a blockade on the Eastern Region, following which we had the declaration of independence by the State of Biafra.

Those were, therefore, the two critical months and at that time several hon. Members were concerned at the deteriorating relations between the Federal Government and the Eastern Region. Several of us appreciated that if this was allowed to go on, civil war was inevitable. I recall that at one stage in our discussions with Ministers about this issue there was a proposal that a small all-party delegation from this House might visit Enugu and Lagos and talk to both sides there in an effort to stave off such a breakdown in relations.

The House should know that we were dissuaded from going by Her Majesty's Government. As one of the hon. Members involved, I now regret that we accepted this dissuasion. In our self-defence, it is fair to point out that we naturally assumed that the Government had superior knowledge of the situation. We accepted their view that the situation was delicate and that the matter was under constant review. We accepted their advice that it would be better if we did not go. I now believe that we were wrong and that the Government misjudged the situation during that critical two-month period.

I do not know the reasons for that misjudgment. When the history of this episode comes to be written, I believe that this will be one of the most important features of it. I do not know whether it was our different commercial interests in different parts of Nigeria. I hope that it was not. I do not know whether the advice which the Government were receiving from their officials in Enugu was being ignored by the office in London or was being overturned by the High Commission in Lagos. Whatever the reasons, that period before the war started, before public interest in this country was aroused, was the crucial time and is at the root of the difficulties from the point of view of Her Majesty's Government.

Inevitably, as we saw, civil war broke out, and the Government were wrong to start to increase shipments of arms to the Federal Government. It was based on a wrong appreciation of the situation in Nigeria at an earlier stage. They were wrong and, in a sense, they knew they were wrong because the operation was carried out in a hush-hush manner, with planes taking off in the dead of night— and the whole thing came to light only when they were found to be refuelling in Cyprus and elsewhere.

When representations were made by hon. Members individually and by groups of hon. Members to the Government, and even later, when Questions were asked, we did not receive satisfactory replies. In March I asked the then Minister of State for Commonwealth Affairs: The hon. Gentleman has used the phrase the supply of traditional arms'. Does 'traditional ' apply to the quantity of the arms as well as to their quality?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th March, 1968; Vol. 760, c. 215.] We have never really had a straight answer to that question. I refuse to believe that all that has happened in the past year is that the Government have continued to supply roughly the same scale, quantity and type of arms which they had been supplying since independence in 1960. I regret that we are not in the House of Commons in a position to demand more information about the supply of arms.

I accept that General Gowon did not intend that there should be massacres of the Ibo people, but there is ample evidence that the war got out of hand. One does not need to turn to exaggerated accounts by public relations firms about what has been, and is, going on in different parts of the country to learn about the situation. I prefer to consider, for example, an account by the Rev. David Craig, a Canadian missionary, following an incident in which he was involved: A group of Efik people (the local inhabitants) brought two young men in civilian dress to the soldiers. The young lads looked like secondary school students. With the Northern soldiers was an Efik-speaking soldier. It was his duty to question prisoners in the Efik language. His job was to see if any spoke Efik with an Ibo accent. These two young lads did. The soldiers took aim and they were shot on the spot. I made my way back to the house. After this incident he boarded a small coaster used for transport and he says: On board, I met a number of army and naval officers. Thev were interested in my experience but seemed not to share my views about the shooting of prisoners. I referred to the Geneva Convention and one laughed and said, ' They gave us a copy before we left, but I ripped up mine—never read it.' Another had burned his. That is an account not from a public relations firm, but from a credible missionary on the spot who has no interest in distorting the facts. The Government should have taken at an earlier stage some initiative to try to get peace talks going and, as a prerequisite, should have ceased to supply arms to Nigeria and perhaps have taken the initiative among other Governments in trying to get a wholesale ban on the supply of arms to Nigeria, since I accept the argument that a gesture on our part would not in itself have been wholly effective.

In the statement which the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary made to the House yesterday he seemed to imply that the Government were taking the opportunity to talk to Sir Louis Mbanefo because he happened to be in London and that this was a useful time to talk to him. That is not, of course, the entire picture. Sir Louis was in London almost a year ago and he came and spoke to a group of Members in one of the Committee Rooms upstairs. He gave us an account of the situation as he saw it, from the Biafran side. He was here not as a politician or a military man, but as a distinguished Judge of the International Court. Some of us tried to arrange for him to be seen by Her Majesty's Ministers, if not officially, at the Commonwealth Office, at least privately and informally. No one would talk to him or see him and this attitude prevailed right up to yesterday.

I hope that the statement we had yesterday marks a change of policy and that following this change of policy the Government will listen to the demands made throughout the country for the cessation of the supply of arms. Among many people who have been to see me or have written to me, particularly Church of Scotland personnel, who were widespread in that region in the Church of Scotland missions, Doctor Clyne Shepherd, who has now returned to Biafra and is working there, wrote to me the other day. He said: Something like one-third of the population are now displaced persons…. About 95 per cent. of the children we deal with are suffering from protein and vitamin deficiency conditions. Many people do not see solid food for days, and deaths are rising alarmingly. I do not believe that it is up to individual Members of the House to try to put forward glib solutions to what is a really difficult problem; but we do ask, and this would surely be the role of the House in using our procedure under Standing Order 9, that, following this debate, the Government will take account of our representations and make a thorough change in the policy which they have followed so mistakenly over the last two years.

4.35 p.m.

Mr. Frank Allaun (Salford, East)

I would like to echo the last few words of the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel). In the war in Nigeria atrocities are being sufferel by both sides, but even more devastating is the famine which is following in the wake of the war and affecting hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. The Sun this morning carried some photographs which most effectively brought home the results of this famine. These children may have black skins, but it hurts their parents as much as it would hurt us to see our children suffering in this way. The fighting in Nigeria may be thousands of miles away, but our Government have great influence in this sphere. And not only great influence. They are deeply involved, because so long as we are sending arms we are partly responsible for the bloodshed.

We are supplying 25 per cent. of the Federal Government's arms. This figure was given to me from an indisputable source. It is 25 per cent. and not 15 per cent., as has been said in some quarters. Even if it were only 1 per cent., it would be 1 per cent. too much for me. British Ferret vehicles are the main instrument of dscimation. The whole traffic in arms is, as it has always been, an encouragement to war.

But my main point today is not to press for a unilateral stopping of arms supplies, even though I personally believe that this would be the best way to influence the four other countries who are mainly involved. My main object is to press Her Majesty's Government to get a collective arms ban, to take the initiative in approaching the other Governments to stop exports of arms, whether from Government or private sources.

There are powerful reasons for taking this course. First, it would end the mass slaughter which these modern weapons bring about. Secondly, it would put Pritain in a position where she could be respected by both sides as a mediator— which is clearly impossible when she is arming the Federal Government. Thirdly, there are grounds for believing that if we took this lead the Russians, in particular, who are doing just the same as we are, would agree to stop their arms supplies, too, as Czechoslovakia and Holland have already done.

When I put a question on this to the Foreign Secretary at Question Time yesterday he replied that this might be done if it would be agreeable to both sides".— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th June, 1968; Vol. 766, c. 37.] But the right hon. Gentleman knew very well that the Federal side would be unwilling to agree to a suspension of the arms traffic which gives it an overwhelming advantage. In other words, it would have to be done by the main suppliers of arms, whether or not it was welcomed with enthusiasm by either of the contending parties.

A fortnight ago I led an all-party deputation of Members of Parliament to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs, a man for whom I have great respect, a man of compassion and understanding with long experience in African matters. I wish that he could be here today, but we understand that a previous engagement made it impossible. His arguments on that occasion were so weak, so thin and so unconvincing that I left that interview with the view that he did not believe them himself and that he was rationalising to cover up for a policy decided earlier by the Government.

I do not like to say what I am about to allege. I am deeply suspicious that there is a most unworthy motive for our continuing to sell arms to the Federal Government and for our refusal to work for a collective ban. If I am wrong —and I only hope that I am—then I ask the Foreign Secretary immediately and categorically to deny that there is any truth in what I am saying. It is the suspicion that Her Majesty's Government believe that the Federal Government will win and that, as a result, they would be in a position to place big commercial orders in due course.

It is feared that if at any time Her Majesty's Government offended the Federal Government they might lose the chance of these orders—even if it is doing the wrong thing. It is also keeping in with the Federal Government because of British property interests in Nigeria. But humanity must come first, even before orders and property interests.

Oxfam would like it to be known that it is having great difficulty in getting desperately needed food supplies into Nigeria, especially into the area of fighting where starvation is rife. Only a little can be flown in, and at great cost. It urgently needs sea passage preferably through Port Harcourt. On humanitarian grounds alone, could not the British Government press for this free passage?

Lastly, I would make a comment on the British High Commissioner in Lagos. It would be unfair for a Member of Parliament to criticise a civil servant in this House, so I shall not do so. Instead, I shall lay the blame on the Foreign Secretary for allowing things to happen that should not have happened. I remind the House that, during the Crimean War, Lord Cardigan did not travel to the theatre of battle with his troops. He went on an extended cruise with his mistress, calling in at several ports on the Mediterranean on the way.

The British High Commissioner in Lagos has had two months' leave at this time, I understand, enjoying a holiday to which he is entitled. With his wife he spent a fortnight of his leave voyaging back to Nigeria by sea a few days ago. In my view, the Foreign Secretary should have told him in no uncertain manner to jump on the first plane to get back to his scene of duty.

Mr. John Lee

Is it not also true that the High Commissioner is married to a member of the Leventis family and very much tied up with the Federal Government?

Mr. Allaun

I do not want to enter into that, but I think that the Foreign Secretary has been rather lacking in this matter.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths) has put forward important suggestions for a solution of the problem. A very broad and important committee, of which Lord Brockway is a prominent member, has put forward four points for a solution which I have not time to go into now. The main and first point is that of a cease-fire.

Many hon. Members feel that the present policy of our Government in this matter is wrong and is prolonging and increasing the bloodshed. The purpose of this debate is to press the Government to change their policy. We will listen carefully to the Foreign Secretary's speech to hear whether there has been any effect of the speeches made from both sides of the House, any effect from the movement outside the House— whether there has been an effect in the direction for which we have asked. If not, I should like to back my words with my vote. That will largely depend on the reply by the Foreign Secretary.

Dr. John Dunwoody (Falmouth and Camborne)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I ask your advice. A series of documents have been circulated in the last 15 minutes to, I believe, every hon. Member in the Chamber.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke (Isle of Ely)

No.

Dr. Dunwoody

To nearly every hon. Member. The hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) will have his copy coming along soon.

There are two documents putting forward the Federal Government's views on some aspects of the subject we are discussing. One is a statement on Red Cross relief supplies and the other is a copy of an address by the Commissioner for External Affairs in Lagos on Monday last.

Is it normal practice, during a debate on a subject like this, for this sort of material to be circulated in the Chamber? I ask this because my envelope was posted outside the House. It has an outside postmark and was addressed to another hon. Member whose name has been crossed out and mine has been written in in pencil. There is no Speaker's stamp or anything of that sort on the envelope. Is this normal practice? Would you inquire how this situation has arisen?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher)

I think that the practice to which the hon. Member has drawn my attention is certainly unusual. I do not think that it is normal practice. I understand the practice and custom of the House is that anybody who wishes to pass communications to hon. Members is entitled to do so. Normally, they are delivered in the Lobby. There are occasions when communications addressed to hon. Members are marked "Urgent". In those cases, I understand that it is the custom for the messengers to try to find the hon. Member to whom the communication is addressed as a matter of urgency, the consideration for that being that it might be something which the hon. Member urgently desires.

I do not think that I have any power to stop the practice. If hon. Members receive these communications they can deal with them as they please, or they may ignore them. The hon. Member has drawn attention to the matter, but I do not think that I have any power to interfere.

Mr. Paul B. Rose (Manchester, Blackley)

Further to that point of order. Although these documents are marked "Urgent" they were addressed to other hon. Members. It is quite evident that someone has observed who has been present in the Chamber during this debate and subsequently altered the names, addressing the documents to those hon. Members who are in the Chamber. Therefore, this could not be urgent in the sense you meant, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I ask that this matter should be investigated.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I shall certainly have the matter investigated. It seems that there is someone attempting to put into the hands of hon. Members in the Chamber documents which they consider urgent. Whether they are urgent or of any importance, I do not know. I have just been given one, but I have not had an opportunity of considering it. Every hon. Member is entitled to consider for himself whether they are urgent or relevant. Some hon. Members may wish to read them, but I have no power to deal with them.

Mr. Charles Paunell (Leeds, West)

Further to that point of order. We surely should not spend much time on this. It cannot be improper to receive documents from either side. A great many hon. Members have never been to Nigeria. They have been to the Library to find out about it and are relying on hon. Members with greater knowledge. This is an emergency debate of which notice was given only yesterday and we have been furnished with documents. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am sorry. This is a point of order. What is at stake here is how the machinery of the Letter Board has been used, not the documents themselves. I have had a document handed to me from the board, but it has not my name on it. I wonder whether people are making too free use of the board, I do not think that we should complain about the subject matter in the documents.

Mr. W. A. Wilkins (Bristol, South)

Further to that point of order. Surely this is a more serious matter than has been suggested up to the moment. Obviously, these documents have come through the Members' Post Office. What right have I to the post of another hon. Member? Who has altered the name and readdressed the document to me?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I shall certainly have the matter investigated, but I agree with the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), as I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by pursuing the matter further at this stage.

4.48 p.m.

Mr. John Tilney (Liverpool, Wavertree)

Not all of us on this side of the House stood yesterday to support the Motion for a debate today for fear that our words might be taken out of context. However, if the careful choice of phrase about a free and independent member of the Commonwealth can produce some pressure for common sense to prevail we shall be grateful to the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Barnes). I should have added a cease-fire to common sense.

As I do not often find myself in agreement on any subject with the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun), I should like to put on record that as long ago as last August I had a passage of letters in the public Press with my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle) about the necessity of an embargo on arms from all countries, wherever they may be.

I remember that even before I knew a bit about Nigeria—and I have known Nigeria fairly well for 16 years and should declare an interest, being a director of a company with considerable trading interests there—I heard people argue that those in the North would never accept the Ibo people and that once independence came there would be civil war, particularly because of the dominance of one region.

The hon. Member for Reading (Mr. John Lee) is a comparatively new Member, and does not remember the number of us on this side of the House who, when talking about the Federation before independence, argued that it would never really succeed because of the dominance of the North and because there were only three regions. I suspect that if some of us had had our way not only would the civil war not have taken place, but the South Cameroons might still be in the Commonwealth.

Mr. John Lee

I gladly accept the hon. Gentleman's strictures.

Mr. Tilney

I only wish that we had had our way and that my hon. Friends had prevailed, particularly on the Treasury, which always said that Nigeria could not afford more than three regions. Now it is suffering because of what has happened to the Federation.

It is no use spending much time over the past, but the moment I heard about the coup in January, 1966, when a very old friend of mine, the Sardauna of Sokoto and another friend, Sir Abubakar Tafewa Balewa, were brutally murdered and, unfortunately, from the historical point of view, the Premier of the Eastern Region survived, I remember saying to my wife that I should hate to be an Ibo in the Gabon Gari, in Kano, that night. I was wrong, for it was not for another six months that they suffered massacre.

Soon after I went to Nigeria and met Dr. Dike, whom many of us know well, a very eminent Vice-Chancellor of the Ibadan University. He had just returned from America laden with dollars he had collected for Nigeria and the university. I remember talking to Francis Nwokede, a very eminent civil servant and another Ibo, but I could convince neither of them that Britain did not still want to divide and rule. I did my best to convince them that our major interest was unity and peace in Nigeria.

I went on to see Colonel Ojukwu. At that time, although he appeared almost like a monarch, he still preached the unity of his country. But the killings then— I am talking about the summer of 1966 —were only just beginning. We had an Ibo driver who was sent up with some spare parts from Kaduna to Kano and he never got further than Zaria, where he was bumped on the head. I do not know whether he survived hospital treatment, but within half a mile of where I was staying there were one or two murders that night.

A northern Minister told me, "They have taken the sword. Heaven knows when it will be sheathed." It was a few months before the major massacres in the North. Whether 10,000, 20,000, or 30,000 were killed, it was a horror both for Nigeria and for the world. But despite all that provocation I believe that it was wrong for Ojukwu to secede. The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) spoke of how he was invited by Ojukwu, as I was, to go out there a few weeks before secession took place. We were advised not only by the Commonwealth Office, but by many others, with the exception of an eminent shipowner, whose advice I wish that I had taken, not to go. Therefore, one advised one's hon. Friends as well. We shall never know whether, if we had gone, we should have been used as political propaganda, or whether it is just possible that our advice would have been accepted.

The result of the secession has been, in the words of President Houphouet-Boigny, of the Ivory Coast, that more people have been killed in 10 months of the Biafran war than during the past three years in Vietnam. Yet until a few weeks ago there was very little in the Press about it. How many protest marches have there been in this country?

To argue today that the Biafran Government are more popular in their country than a military Government who came to power after two coups, to debate the sanctity of 19th century frontiers, or the knowledge that if African States fragment into mini Balkans it would be to the detriment of all, or even to question Her Majesty's Government's policy of supplying arms to a recognised Commonwealth Government, or to get together with other nations to impose an embargo, is, I believe, almost shadow-boxing. The decision between anarchy and common sense will be taken within the next few days, long before more arms can be shipped and even longer before all arms shipments can be stopped.

For once, we have a twelfth-hour chance. Kampala looked to be the only chance, but now we have it again behind the scenes in London. Therefore, let us concentrate on the present and the future and do not let us haggle over who was right or wrong in the past.

The present position is that Biafra as a military presence is much enfeebled. She made one massive bid for real power and was defeated at Ore, particularly because the Western Region then remained loyal to the Federation. But Biafra can be a strong danger to Nigerian prosperity for years. Countries that have helped her with arms, ammunition and money for their own selfish ends —and we know one or two—will do exactly the same for underground resistance movements, and they already visualise a kind of Biafran Vietcong. Therefore, unless we can get agreement prosperity may take a long time to return to Nigeria.

Anyway, whatever we do now over arms will not be binding on other countries. We may salve our consciences, but save very few lives. Yet it is a major British interest to stop this war for moral, cultural and materialistic reasons. Our interests converge for our mutual benefit and in the cause of peace.

The Ibos today face starvation. They have already faced massive unemployment. I only wish that their military prowess had been as good as their public relations. They are a hard-working imaginative race. They were already over-populated in the Eastern Region. They are now thrutched up in their own east-central State ripe for decimation by disease and the effects of war whatever the Federal Government now do. I say to them and to Colonel Ojukwu, "Surely, to be alive and productive in partnership is better than being independent and dead?". Paris was worth a mass to Henry of Navarre. Surely the survival of these people is worth a Federal or Confederal partnership to Colonel Ojukwu? I would much rather see help—medical supplies, nurses, and all means of rehabilitation—going to both sides rather than arms.

In all this, we in this country have a role because we are a considerable aid power. By civil war, Nigeria has thrown away so much of what she had been given in the past—and she got more per head than almost any other developing country. But let the rich Western nations forget that, and give more for rehabilitation. Let us take the lead in such a mission of mercy.

General Gowon, even though militarily victorious, can have no doubt about the fears of the Ibos and their feeling, as the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths) pointed out, that, if they are to be massacred anyhow, they might as well go on fighting. General Gowon might well say, "Come and look at the Ibos and how they are treated in Lagos and at what we have offered to them in Enugu and elsewhere." But it is not truth that matters in the immediate future but what is thought to be the truth.

Enugu and Onitsha remain ghost towns. The Ibos have left their villages and "gone bush". Many will die there, but those that survive will carry hatred of their overlords from one generation to another, and this will bode ill for the ultimate unity of Nigeria. We who misgoverned Ireland, and, therefore, have had great difficulty over the centuries about the unity of these islands, should know.

Could not General Gowon carve his way to fame by saying, "We regard the Ibos as full Nigerian citizens. I have split the North so that there is no need to fear that colossus any more. So that both sides need not fear a build-up of arms I am prepared to accept a Commonwealth peace-keeping force on Nigerian soil, to be stationed roughly along the cease-fire line and to check for newly supplied arms at all likely points of entry."? Such a force would only consist of four battalions or so and would, therefore, be a threat to none. The rain forest may not be ideal as a training ground and compare ill with Sinai or Cyprus, but by not forcing Federal troops to garrison Ibo territory and by using a Commonwealth force, as an agent of Lagos I believe that General Gowon would find a special place in the history books.

But I doubt whether such a force could be temporary. If the Ibos are prepared now to lay down their arms, they must be sure of their survival and it will not be easy to make them surrender even with the prospect of a Commonwealth peacekeeping force there. We all know how many words and treaties have been disregarded by man in our lifetime. Many of us who have witnessed what Europeans have done to each other have no right to say that Africans are any worse or that they are any better either.

The office of Secretary-General of the Commonwealth—and I want to pay tribute to him for his hard work behind the scenes and for his imagination—was brought into being at the suggestion of the African members of the Commonwealth. Having to organise such a peacekeeping force might consolidate that office if not increase its power. I believe that until an individually directly recruited force is brought into being, contingents from Commonwealth countries—and I hope that Britain would be one—would be accepted. General Gowon should be able, if need be, to refuse any particular national contingent.

But those countries supplying such contingents should not withdraw them except after very considerable notice. We do not want the same thing happening in Nigeria as happened with the United Nations force in the Congo. Ultimately, I hope that the national forces would give way to an integrated multi-racial, multicoloured corps d'élite, but that is for the future. The job for the Foreign Secretary now is to get a Commonwealth force on the ground. It would be paid for by the restoration of confidence and the re-expansion of trade, so let the maximum British pressure be used to that end.

5.5 p.m.

Mr. James Johnson (Kingston upon Hull, West)

I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) who made a moving speech. No one on the benches opposite knows so intimately the territory of Nigeria.

We have a very confused picture of the war situation. No one in Nigeria can be objective about it and no one appears to be. Many of us have old friends on both sides of the battle and all we can do is stand aside at a distance as calmly as we can and think what best can be done. We should be thinking not of what is best for Britain but of what is best for the Nigerian people.

It has been said that we should not drag in the past but I believe the conditions in Nigeria need some examination. This is a very complex situation. I have a daughter out there working for the Lagos Government. She has told me in intimate and graphic detail of some of the massacres of 1966 and they are horrifying. There is no doubt that the Ibos have had a terrible time and it is obvious that there was political inspiration behind all this slaughter. But, of course, when this sort of thing occurs, whether it be in Chicago or in Paris or in Nigeria, hooligans and villains move in with looting of property and the butchering of people.

The Ibos are not a usual type of African. They have in many ways the attributes of the Jews and the Lebanese. Their chief export is men and they have gone all over Nigeria. They have not been popular in the past. It is not just a simple issue of the attitude of the Moslems of the North. There is more to it than that.

I was in Nigeria a year or two ago trying to organise African workers in municipal Government. We could form trade unions in the south with the Ibos and other tribes. They could organise on British lines and have a T.U.C. in Lagos. But it was a different matter in the North. There, the Ibos were ostracised as union organisers and, among the Hausas—the elite—there were the house and staff associations. The Ibos were not living quite in ghettoes but they were physically ostracised and lived without the city walls, in the Sabon Gari.

So the history of the North and the South in Nigeria is complex. This was not so in the mid-West—or in Lagos and Ibadan. This is why I intervened earlier to ask why in the mid-West and in Lagos there are tens of thousands of Ibos mixing with Westerners and Northerners and working together with them trying to build up one Nigeria to a better set-up than they had previously.

The Lagos Government are a fellow Government in the Commonwealth. They came to power by military coup. But we recognise such Governments constitutionally. No one denies that the Ghana Government are a fellow Government of the Commonwealth and entitled to have help in any difficulty, internally or externally.

The Government in Lagos—let us make no bones about this—are facing a secessionist movement by any judgment. I do not think Colonel Ojukwu should have seceded. I will be quite open and honest about this. The Ibos belong to Nigeria, I believe in one Nigeria, and I think that he made a mistake in seceding in this way.

I have listened both in this House and outside to spokesmen for both sides. Outside the House we have had some first-class public relations officers for the Ibos. They have mounted a massive campaign; they have been efficient; and the image in the minds of many of my colleagues both inside and outside the House is of a Biafra which is facing total extermination. That image has been built up by speeches, efficient speeches, inspired speeches, impassioned speeches by leaders in Eastern Nigeria, Iboland. They have had an effective machine outside. But we have listened in this Chamber today to some very efficient exercises on the other side too—by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle). I do not blame him for doing this. The balance has been slightly adjusted.

I have listened to both sides, to the former Chief Justice Mbanefo, and to the former Federal High Commissioner, Chief Toye Coker, who was with us at the beginning of independence. I certainly believe that General Gowon and Lagos are willing to give concessions to keep Iboland, or Biafra, call it what we may—indeed, the East Central Province—within the Mother State of Nigeria; and I think we ought to attempt to do this and not take sides, as apparently some people do, quite rightly, in this terribly sad tragedy for literally millions of people in Nigeria.

I want to be as calm about this as I possibly can, and I am faced with the conclusion that Biafra will make no concessions at all. Let us look at it as clearly as we can, for the former Chief Justice Mbanefo left the Kampala talks. I would be the first in this Chamber to attack Colonel Hassan or any other fanatical Moslem leader out of Kano who goes into the mid-West and loses control of his battalion or company so that they commit atrocities. This has happened, I know, in the field. There are battalion and company commanders who have lost effective control of their men. There can be no doubt about it whatever. They are not conscripts in the Nigerian Army, but are volunteers, and, perhaps, this sometimes makes it even worse.

I put this to the former High Commissioner, Chief Coker. He says, "They are not all of this calibre, and General Gowon has not lost liaison and not lost touch with his commanders in the field". He will go on to say, indeed, that many of the Nigerian Army are genuine Nigerian men—that is, they are men who do not take sides with the Hausa Moslems against the Christian leaders of the south, but are Tivs and Middle Belt men, who are attempting to build up one Nigeria; one State. But there is no doubt whatever that there is a sad lack of discipline, and there are things happening in the field which in other theatres of war would not be tolerated for a moment, at least where we the British had any influence at all. The Ibo people have experienced bloody behaviour on the part of the Hausa Muslims. We are faced with the position that Colonel Ojukwu, the leader of the Ibos, is convinced that his people have no hope of survival and that they must fight to the bitter end. They are now fleeing into the bush.

I am a little perplexed at the position taken at the moment by Zambia and by Tanzania in their recognition of Biafra. We have not recognised Biafra. Why are they doing this? Why are they supporting Ojukwu? It is very significant for us in this Chamber this afternoon. Formerly, no African leader would ever dare openly to support any secessionist movement, any claim to a territory which was left to the independent nationalist State at the time when the imperial Power left: because once that starts and secession is allowed and accepted, and boundaries are changed; the whole of Africa is on the move, on the slide. Indeed, Kenneth Kaunda, whom many of us claim as a personal friend, two years ago was making speeches saying, "No one shall secede in Zambia, and if secession starts I will put it down". Now we are in the position that African leaders, whom we all support, are now accepting secession by Eastern Nigeria; by the Ibos of Biafra. Why is this? I suggest that the reason is that they have now come to accept, as Africans who know their own continent, that there are certain problems one cannot solve by war. If millions of Ibos will take to the bush and fight on and on to save themselves from extermination, African leaders like Kenneth Kaunda deem the lesser of two evils to be the political recognition of those people. Indeed, they would have us in this Parliament also move towards that position.

I have not moved that distance yet, and I am hoping that the talks now in London will be fruitful. We must do our best to get the two sides together, whatever Colonel Ojukwo may say in his beleaguered territory to lift up the morale of his own people. The position is not quite so simple as is sometimes stated, with a head-on collision likely between 10 million or 12 million Ibos facing the north and the west.

In the same way as we are lobbied by the Ibo peoples about their difficulties and the dreadful massacres by the Federal forces, in the same way one is lobbied by minorities in the twelfth State, the Rivers State. These are the peoples of Calabar, Ijawes, Efiks and others right down in the south near Port Harcourt, who are now claiming that they wish to be out of Biafra if Biafra becomes a sovereign State in the future. So it is a very difficult and complex position indeed. I have much sympathy with these people who lobby me against Eastern Nigeria, in the same way as I have sympathy with Ibo people who lobby me against the Lagos Government, and protest against the bloody behaviour of the Hausa Moslem soldiers in the field. We are all aghast at the continuing slaughter which is going on of tens of thousands. I am even more aghast at the fact that there are millions who are; starving, suffering malnutrition of the worst kind, leading to the disease of kwashikor as they live on starchy foods in the bush in Eastern Nigeria. It is a terrible future to contemplate.

No white man can tell an African what the solution must be. All I hope is that my Government will do their very best to bring together the two men now in London negotiating, and I hope that in some way we can bridge the gap. I firmly believe there should be a moratorium on arms. Some of us have asked for this for some time—that we should have a moratorium while the peace talks are going on. If our Government cannot say they will stop it completely, I think they should at least allow the two leaders, Mbanefo and Enahoro, to have a climate of opinion here during a moratorium to allow them at least to think more calmly, and to come together for the future of Nigeria.

5.20 p.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke (Isle of Ely)

I should like to thank the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Barnes) for having set such a sober tone to the debate and having kept his speech short so that others may take part.

I cannot claim the special knowledge of many hon. Members who have spoken. The last time I spoke on Nigeria was in connection with Enahoro and deciding what should happen about his legal position. On that occasion I took a line not altogether in complete tune with that of my party. It seems that just as in that case there was a strong matter of principle involved, so today there is a very important principle that has had all too little attention paid to it in the course of the debate.

I believe that one of the keystones of constitutional government is that in our relations overseas we deal with the de facto and preferably the de jure Governments of the different countries. We recognise that the de jure and the de facto Government is the accredited Government which we must regard as representing the sovereignty of the country concerned.

If we were to follow completely the view put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) without qualification we would be in grave danger of compromising that principle. So long as the Federation can claim to be the Government of Nigeria we have to be very careful before we start treating it as though it were not. This to me is the cardinal constitutional issue that is raised by the debate.

No one dislikes war more than I do. I have seen quite enough of it. I have-enough personal experience to make me realise that some of those who assume that conventional war is paradise compared with what nuclear war might be perhaps do not always recognise the ghastly wounds that can be caused by conventional weapons. Never has this been more clearly displayed than in what has been happening in Nigeria over the last year.

We have also seen in the last year that sometimes it is not the colour of a man's skin so much as his tribal affiliation that can divide mankind. I am not sufficiently expert to know the rights and wrongs as between the Ibos and the other inhabitants of Nigeria. I have Nigerian friends living in London. Concerning the one that I know best, the most aggressive act that I have ever seen him perpetrate is to put an offertory plate in front of a retired Indian Army colonel. Of all the African people, from none did we expect a more peaceful development, when they got self-government, than the Nigerians. But I recollect that speeches made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney), whose knowledge of the conditions is considerable. I endorse the warnings which he gave of the difficulties which might arise following independence. Once we accept Nigeria as self-governing and that the Federal concept for Nigeria was to be embodied in a new sovereign State, recognised de facto and de jure as governing Nigeria, it seems to me that we must be very careful before we suddenly start behaving as though they were no longer in that position.

This war is vile, and it has to be stopped by every means open to us. In this paper which has been circulated today we have the Federal point of view about why the negotiations to bring about a truce broke down. This is not the time to start giving new evidence. But this paper is worth reading, because at least it gives one point of view. I hope that the Foreign Secretary will be in a position to comment on it when he replies to the debate.

As the debate has gone on I have become increasingly aware of one thing. I do not believe that either the Federal part of Nigeria or Biafra are in a position now to stop the supply of arms to Biafra. Therefore, the most valuable role that the United Kingdom can play is to offer her services here to negotiate—informally presumably—with those supplying arms to the Biafrans to see whether some sensible agreement can be reached to stop the supply of arms to enable a truce to begin. As long as either side assumes that if arms are cut off from it and the other side will go on getting supplies, I cannot see a truce being brought about very easily. Therefore, I think that the good offices we can still offer towards a truce would be of extreme value.

I support what was said earlier by the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths). I think we should do everything we can from the humanitarian point of view—through the Red Cross, Oxfam and other organisations—to ensure that every possible opportunity is given for rehabilitation to take place and for starvation to be prevented. Heaven knows, this risk is very great indeed. But I think we can do one more thing. We can try, through ordinary diplomatic channels, to stop the other side receiving arms as well. Who is supplying them? To the best of my information, it is largely France and Portugal. I do not know whether there are others. [An HON. MEMBER: "Russia and Czechoslovakia."] It may be that the Soviet Union is supplying arms. I do not know. The Government would probably know this better than most of us. I hope that we shall be told who are the principal suppliers of arms to Biafra. I would strongly urge that we offer our services, through ordinary diplomatic channels, to try to get an agreement between all the countries supplying arms to stop supplies until a truce has been achieved. We can then all think again, but let us hope that we go on a more peaceful basis from there.

I cannot believe, from what I know of the success that the rest of Nigeria is having in absorbing and giving good employment to the Ibos, that it is their desire to see the complete annihilation of the Ibo population. Reassurances on these matters can only be given as a result of a truce. What is said in advance of a truce will simply be pushed to one side and the battle go on. Therefore, I hope that Her Majesty's Government will do everything possible to try to bring about a truce by negotiating, through ordinary diplomatic channels, with a view to stopping the supply of arms to both sides. We must show ourselves ready to stop if the other side will stop.

Unless we do something like this we shall be in danger, by cutting off arms supplies ourselves without having made sure that the supply of arms to the other side also stops, of having said to the Federal Government of Nigeria, "You are no longer fit to be treated as the constitutional government of your country." This is a very dangerous step for us to take at this stage because it is making a deep inroad into the keystone of international relations as I have always understood them in a Parliamentary and democratic sense. Once we depart from recognising, with full rights, those who are de jure and de facto in control of their country, we are putting everything into the melting pot, and surely there is enough in the melting pot in Africa already without us doing that.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker (Derby, South)

I find myself in agreement with some of the things said by the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), but by no means all.

My main purpose this afternoon is to express the hope that the Government will change their whole approach to this problem Ever since the period of tension began a year ago I have felt unhappy about the policy they have pursued. They seem to have taken the view—and no doubt the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that the Federation of Nigeria as it existed in 1966 must at all costs be preserved; that Colonel Gowon is the constitutional leader—should we say the Prime Minister of Nigeria?—that Biafra's secession was an illegal rebellion against the constitution; that, therefore, it was right to support Colonel Gowon and to give him arms; that with these arms he would be able to crush the rebellion in a matter of weeks; and that if we did not give him arms we should lose all our influence with him to persuade him to agree to a peaceful settlement.

I think that nearly every point in that argument is wrong. But most wrong of all was the Government's acceptance of Colonel Gowon's assurance that he could wind the conflict up in a matter of weeks. I believe that that error could have been avoided if, as the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) said, the Ministers then at the Commonwealth Relations Office had been wise enough to meet Sir Louis Mbanefo, when he came to this country a year ago. He told me then that if war broke out it would be a long war, that Biafra could resist for many months, and that if their formal military resistance was beaten they would go into a guerrilla effort which would last indefinitely and cause appalling suffering not only to Biafrans but to all Nigerians as well. I wish that the Government had listened to Sir Louis Mbanefo, instead of refusing to meet him, as they did then.

I think it is right—and I am venturing on dangerous ground—to ask whether the Federation of Nigeria is really sacrosanct? We had the Central African Federation. The Government who made it had to break it up. It proved to be an unworkable failure. We had the West Indian Federation, but it was broken up. We had the Aden Federation, but it was totally destroyed in the form in which the Tory Government made it. Why should only the Nigerian Federation be sacrosanct today? And was the Federation in its previous form worth the appalling price of a war?

I venture to quote what was said by Dr. Azikwe, the first President of Nigeria, a man who more than anyone else won Nigerian independence.

In December, 1965, he said: If this embryo Republic must disintegrate, then, in the name of God, let the operation be a short and painless one. Let it not be featured by violence, which we shunned during the dark days of our national humiliation. And I have one advice to give our politicians—if they have decided to destroy our national unity, then they should summon a round-table conference to decide how our national assets should be divided before they seal their doom by satisfying their lust for office. I make this suggestion because it is better for us and for our many admirers abroad"— and they had many admirers— that we should disintegrate in peace and not in pieces. Should the politicians fail to heed this warning, then I venture the prediction that the experience of the … Congo will be child's play if it ever comes to our turn to play such a tragic role. I wish that the Government had acted a year ago in the spirit of Dr. Azikwe's statesmanlike appeal, and had used their influence, publicly as well as privately, to work if necessary for whatever arrangements were required to secure that the war should not take place.

I do not believe that it would have required a total separation. The Biafrans have never asked for that. They are still offering to remain in a confederation which will give them the right to assure the protection of their people from the injustices and oppression which they believe they have suffered in the past.

I ask, next, whether Col. Gowon is really the constitutional Government of Nigeria, whether he is the successor of the murdered Prime Minister. By what constitutional process did he come to power? Everybody remembers the cruel facts. In January, 1966, the Nigerian Prime Minister and three regional Ministers were murdered. General Ironisi took over. He was an eminent man. He had commanded a United. Nations force with distinction in the Congo. He took over the Government after the death of the Nigerian Prime Minister. He then formally abrogated the Constitution. That being so, I do not understand by what legal or constitutional obligations the Biafrans are now bound.

Perhaps if he had lived, General Ironisi would have been able to do what he planned. Perhaps he could have made a new constitution which would have brought unity with sufficient liberty and with peace. Alas, he did not live. Six months later, on July 29th, mutinous units of the Nigerian Army seized Major-General Ironisi and killed him. Col. Gowon then took over. I submit that that is the story of the constitutional authority which Col. Gowon wields today.

Then there happened the tragic massacre of the Ibos. At last Colonel Ojukwu declared Biafra's independence, with the overwhelming support of the people of the East. The Biafrans still offered negotiations. They still offered to stay in a looser confederation, to avoid moving towards a conflict. Colonel Gowon resolved to crush what he called the illegal rebellion, and then there arose at once the crucial question for Her Majesty's Government, the supply of arms from Britain.

I venture to read an extract from Keesing's Contemporary Archives about what happened 11 months ago. It says: The United States State Department disclosed on July 11 that it had refused a request by the Nigerian Government for military aid on the ground that the dispute with Biafra was a purely internal matter to be settled by the Nigerians themselves. At the same time the British Government was considering a Nigerian request to purchase arms from Britain as a commercial transaction. The British Government confirmed on August 9 that 'a small purchase' of arms was being sent to Nigeria by air. On August 15 two British aircraft flew arrns to Lagos, one with a consignment of 930 Belgian FN rifles from Birmingham, and the other with 60 mm. and 90 mm. ammunition made in France. Twelve newly arrived anti-aircraft guns (according to diplomatic sources also part of an arms consignment from Britain) were being emplaced around Lagos on August 10. Two Czechoslovak-built jet fighters were reported on August 8 to have left Accra for Lagos; on August 16 a Polish and a Norwegian ship were reported to be unloading five jet aircraft and supporting armaments from unknown sources at Lagos; while on August 19 a total of 15 Soviet Antonoy transport aircraft carrying inter alia six MIG fighters and six MIG trainers, were reported to have landed at Kano airport with about 170 Russian technicians for assembling the aircraft. The first paragraph is the important one: the U.S. had refused arms—

Mr. Cordle

But on 17th August, in Kaduna we were bombed by B26s of the Biafrans, so they had already bought their arms from another source. What were the Federal Government expected to do?

Mr. Noel-Baker

I am not saying that it is wrong to have anti-aircraft guns or fighters if one is being bombed, but that I wish that our Government had made it their major purpose to try to stop the supply of arms from all sources to both sides. That would have been a practical policy. If we had acted with the United States, and had said what they said, and had called on the Russians to join us, I believe they would have done so, which would have meant that the Czechs, the Poles and the Norwegians would have done so as well.

I find it very difficult to accept the Prime Minister's argument that, if we had refused to send these arms, we should have lost our influence with Colonel Gowon when we urged him to make a peaceful settlement. We have had no influence. Lagos has not listened to London. We could have had far greater influence had we acted with the United States and told both sides, "Our British people simply will not allow us to send arms to be used in a ghastly African civil war. There must be a settlement by peaceful means." That would have given us real influence for peace.

I venture to recall an experience through which I lived and which is relevant to the problem we face now. In 1932, there was a war between Bolivia and Paraguay. People will say that that was an international war and no analogy with Nigeria. But every war in Latin America is a civil war. In this Chaco war, the League of Nations did not at first intervene. It had lamentably failed to take any action about the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and people used the fatuous argument that what one could not do to Japan, one could not do to little nations like Bolivia and Paraguay —as though it were a great privilege to be allowed to make a war which was disastrous to all.

However, after some months, consciences began to st