World: NIGERIA'S CIVIL WAR: HATE, HUNGER AND THE WILL TO SURVIVE

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kind of psychological advantage that the Nigerians are determined to prevent, and they may well let the Biafrans starve rather than make concessions. (Some of the federal officers frankly prefer starvation to fighting as an offensive weapon anyway.) At the same time, Ojukwu is equally willing to let his fellow Biafrans starve, unless he can get food on his own terms. It is a chilling standoff, and one in which it is both dangerous and difficult for outsiders to assess blame.

The world finds it hard to understand why some powerful nation, particularly the U.S., cannot announce that it will send food to Biafra, and simply do it. In fact, the Administration has privately agonized over Biafra's suffering for a long time, but concluded that nothing short of military muscle would get supplies through, and it is certainly unwilling to risk that. An unauthorized airlift might endanger the lives of 5,000 Americans now living in federal Nigeria, and it would bring howls of outrage from most governments in Africa, which have served notice that they want to handle the Nigerian civil war in their own way.

The absence of neighborly compassion among the tribes is a fact of African life. But the Nigerian government is caught in a special dilemma. If Biafra succeeds in its secession, a Nigerian federation will be doomed. On the other hand, if the Ibos are decimated and permanently embittered, the federation may be doomed in another way. Nigeria's rulers are talking unity, while at the same time conducting a form of tribal warfare that may make unity impossible at best and unnecessary at worst. By granting Ojukwu his demand for airborne relief, the Nigerians would show minimal concern for 8 million people who remain, by their own definition, Nigerian citizens.

African Product. On the larger issue of the war, both sides have a case—as in most serious conflicts. For ordinary Africans, the fate of Biafra evokes all their own fears about tribal survival, and from the beginning they and much of Africa's press have shown concern for Biafra's cause. Moreover, Biafra is an African product, and that arouses admiration. "We are Africa's first real nationalist state," says Ojukwu. "We constitute a warning to other states that oppression of minorities cannot go unpunished." This argument has had considerable effect on the four African heads of state who now recognize Biafra. "You cannot kill thousands of people and keep killing more in the name of unity," says Tanzania's Julius Nyerere. "There is no unity between the dead and those who killed them."

On the other hand, the Organization of African Unity, which can agree on few things, has gone on record as supporting Nigerian sovereignty over Biafra. Its members, the national leaders of Black Africa, can only view the precedent of tribal breakaway with profound dismay, for each must cope with tribal divisions in his own country. "It was the Congo and Tshombe yesterday, and it is Nigeria and Ojukwu today," warns Gowon. "Who knows what African country will be the next victim?"

Food that Kills. This African domino theory would not necessarily work quite that automatically. For one thing, most of Africa's tribes feel as remote from the Ibos as they do from Tibet. Still, Biafra's victory and emergence as an independent country might take