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text:
How Genocides End
Colonial Legacy, Elite Dissension and the Making of Genocide: The Story of Biafra
by Sam Amadi	January 10, 2007
"The Nigeria civil war broke out on 6 July 1967. The war was the culmination of an uneasy peace and stability that had plagued the nation since independence in 1960. This situation had its genesis in the geography, culture and demography of Nigeria."
– Major Abubakar A Atofarati1Major Abubakar A. Atofarati "The Nigerian Civil War: Causes, Strategies, and Lessons," Report, US Marine Command & Staff College (Academic Year 1991/92).
Between 1964 and 1970, the Ibos of eastern Nigeria were victims of mass violence. The violence occurred in two phases, first as a result of planned murderous assault by the Nigerian ruling elites, mainly of Hausa-Fulani ethnic origin in peacetime, and later in a full-blown civil war between Nigeria and Biafra. Biafra was an enclave that the Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, General Odumegwu Ojukwu, carved out and declared a sovereign state at the height of the genocidal attack against the Igbo. Ibos were the overwhelming majority in the new Biafran state. They shared the state with minority ethnic groups in Eastern Nigeria. Ojukwu declared Biafra as Governor of Eastern Nigeria, not necessarily as the representative of the Eastern minorities.
The "genocide" in Nigeria raises a number of questions. Did the government intend to wipe out the Ibos as suggested by the statements of some of the war generals, or to politically confine the Ibos to a position of inferiority and subordination as later events indicate? If the intention was to wipe out the Ibos, why did the Nigerian army stop short of accomplishing the goal immediately after the secessionists surrendered, when it had the upper hand? As I argue later, the plausible interpretation of these complex and conflicting data is that the political elites intended to politically subjugate the Igbo and the genocidal dimension arises from the psychological orientation of the politics of Igbo-phobia.2Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe attributes similar intention to the shadowy conspiratory group – "The Kaduna Mafia," whom he claims was behind the killings. The group intended by the killings to (a) expel Ibos in the civil service from their posts and Ibo industrialists and business from their enterprises, (b) destroy Ibo political influences, (c) achieve the secession of the "north" from Nigeria. See Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, The Biafran War: Nigeria and the Aftermath (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990) page 64.
Patterns of violence
Violence against Ibos occurred in phases. Significant "group-targeted" violence began as early as 1945, but the major and sustained phases began in 1966. About 30,000 Ibos, mostly civilians, were killed in three waves of genocidal attacks between May 29 and September 29, 1966. The killings were indiscriminate except that victims were Ibos, and they were killed for being Ibos. The killings were not outcomes of mob actions or riots. Evidence from survivors, victims and observers of the genocides prove that the various acts of violence against the Igbos were deliberated and coordinated by highly placed northern politicians with the connivance of some officers of the federal government.
The instigation for violence against Ibos in 1966 derived from various incitements by government functionaries who complained bitterly about Ibo dominance of commerce in the north. This complaint was extended to mean the existence of an Igbo conspiracy to become the new rulers of independent Nigeria.
The pattern of violence during the pogroms (May 29, July 29 and September 29, 1966) was similar to the attack against the Ibos during the civil war that would last for more than 3 years, between July 1967 and January 1970. Although official hostilities were declared between the federal and Biafran side, the conduct of the war by the federal troops in some instances offended the laws of war and invoked images of the pre-war violence against the Ibo. Even when Biafran strongholds were overrun by the federal side and there were no effective resistances, the genocidal dimensions of the war continued to manifest. Several foreign and local journalists reported cruel attacks on Ibos who were neither belligerents or in the way of battle.
There are many documented testimonies of victims and observers about the gross cruelty and barbarism of the Nigerian soldiers meted on Igbos civilians even after the surrender of Biafran rebel soldiers, acts that raised the question of a genocidal motivation. At least that was the conclusion of the Investigators of the International Commission of Jurists led by Dr. Mensah of Ghana. According to Dr. Mensah he received evidence from two witnesses about mass graves where dead, sick and wounded Biafrans were buried alive with some sucklings and "the cries and wailing of the sick, the wounded and the babies could be heard from a long distance away." In this testimony, it was also mentioned that, when these mass graves had been covered, the Federal soldiers danced native war dances over them. Dr Mensa concluded that "I am of the opinion that in many of these cases cited to me hatred of the Biafrans (mainly Igbos) and a wish to exterminate them was a foremost motivational factor."3Dr. Mensah, Report of the International Commission of Jurists, 1969.
There is no doubt from the evidence of international and local observers of the pogroms of 1966 and the three year civil war that Biafran civilians, especially Ibos, were victims of gross cruelty reminiscent of the Jewish genocide. There is sufficient evidence that the masterminds of these attacks were motivated, as Dr. Mensah put it in the ICJ Report, by a "wish to exterminate" the Ibos. But how does this motivation square up with the policy and politics of the war? Is it really the fact that other ethnic groups, especially the Hausa-Fulani in northern Nigeria, wanted the Ibos completely wiped out or driven out of Nigeria?
The difficulty in understanding the genocidal behavior derives mainly from the nature of the civil war: how to reconcile the genocidal intent with the determination to keep Biafrans in Nigeria? It will appear that rather than other Nigerian ethnic groups wanting the Igbo outside the federation, they wanted them inside. Given that genocide usually involves determination to drive the victimized ethnic or religious group out of the territorial space, how do we understand the sort of genocide that wants the victims inside rather than outside?
The political economy of escalation: History, institutions, and leadership
"Northerners" and "Southerners"
The ordinary fact of colonialism, as heinous and ruinous as it was, does not adequately explain the tragic direction Nigerian politics took after independence. But the colonial legacy, in which colonialists conceived and birthed the idea of Nigeria to serve largely imperial interests, cannot be overstressed. The Nigerian erudite political thinker and one of the foremost nationalists, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, has described the idea of Nigeria as a "geographical expression." The various ethnic nations bounded together into the Niger-area by her majesty servants existed as a nation only in name.
The basic characteristic of British colonialism was that it assumed a "single model of customary authority in precolonial Africa…authority was considered an attribute of a personal despotism."4Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), page 39. Unlike French colonialists who strived to create French citizens out of Africans, the British retained Nigerians in their ethnic constitutions. But the worst is that British administrative policies created the binaries of citizens and subject and of native and settler.
This bifurcation of citizenship manifested physically in the ghettoization of Nigerians in places outside their so-called states of origin. In the case of northern Nigeria, there developed many "Sabon Gari" (strangers' quarters) in such major cities as Kano and Jos. The incessant incidences of ethnic attacks, often directed against the Ibos, could be explained by this ghettoization and the subsequent complex of "a stranger in his country." The British colonial system relied on manpower and resources from the south to run the north. This opened the way for immigration to northern Nigeria. But the problem remained: how to maintain northern cultural exceptionalism as well as allow for needed economic interdependence? The result of the tension was a nation that was administratively interdependent but culturally and politically differentiated. The colonial governor's wide-ranging powers were applied to demographically segregate Nigerians who managed to migrate to northern Nigeria in spite of dissuasion. Major cities in the north were organized around three categories: the walled city reserved for indigenous population; Tudun Wada housing non-indigenous northerners; and Sabon Gari for southerners.5Okwudibia Nnoli, Ethnic Politics in Nigeria (Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1978), pages 115-116.
The politics of "northerners" and "southerners" beclouds the realities of deeper ethnic and cultural diversities and, similarly, deep interrelatedness.6Nigeria is a nation-state of over two hundred and fifty ethnic nationalities who are different either in culture or language but also share many similarities arising from different degrees of interaction before and after the advent of colonialism. For general readings on the cultures of the peoples of Nigeria, see C.K. Meek, The Northern Tribes of Nigeria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925); P.A. Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria (London: Oxford University Press, 1926); Michael Crowther, The History of Nigeria; Kenneth Onwuka Dike, Trade and Politics in Niger Delta, 1830-1885: An Introduction to the Economic and Political History of Nigeria (Clarendon Press, 1956). The politics of indigene and stranger breeds a psychology of envy and resentment. The Ibos were special butts of resentment and envy. Because of economic considerations, Ibos were the most eager to leave their native land in search of "white man" jobs in northern Nigeria. Many of them became successful merchants living in "Sabon Garis." These pressures created an unhealthy competition in these cities between generally "northerners" and "southerners," and in most cases, specifically between the Ibos and the indigenous ethnic groups.
Failure of the rule of law institutions
As a result of minority disquiet, the colonial government commissioned a study of minority questions preparatory to independence, "The Willink Commission." It toured Nigeria and elicited ideas on the constitutional fundamentals of post-colonial Nigeria that could guarantee peace among the many ethnic groups. The commission rejected the demand for creation of more regions for the minorities, and instead recommended the entrenchment of fundamental human rights in the independent constitution as a protection for minorities.7The Minority Commission Report, 1958 Thus began Nigeria's constitutional democracy. In 1960, a bill of rights was entrenched in the independence constitution, and has remained a permanent fixture in Nigeria's many truncated, voided and breached constitutions.
The bill of rights guaranteed equality under the law and prohibited discriminatory treatment based on gender, membership or other affiliations with a religious or ethnic group. The problem was that whereas the constitution proclaimed citizenship rights for every Nigerian the colonial laws that regionalized and ethnicized access to privileges and rights remained effective. More importantly, political leaders did not take seriously the responsibility to protect those rights when they were breached in respect of any Nigerian. In May 1966, after the gruesome attack against Ibos, the Aguiyi Ironsi regime did nothing to ensure that those who fomented the crisis and directed violence against Ibos were prosecuted. Little wonder that the same genocidal attack was launched against the Ibos again on July 29, 1966.
The idea of common citizenship is the resource which keeps multiethnic states together. Where this idea is abandoned in practice, the empty platitudes of human rights or the institutions of the rule of law are incapable of protecting citizens from being victims. Hannah Arendt was right to have insisted on civil rights above human rights. For where the guarantees of citizenship are feeble or absent, as in Nigeria, common humanity means nothing; and the worst can be done against fellow citizens.8Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1951). Arendt argues "Not only did loss of national rights in all instances entail loss of human rights; the restoration of human rights, as the recent example of the State of Israel proves, has been achieved so far only through the restoration or establishment of national rights," page 299.
The failure of leadership: Elite dissension
Individual leadership flaws contributed both to the dynamics of conflict in Nigeria and the actual outbreak of violence. The personality conflict between Ojukwu and Gowon undermined efforts to peacefully settle the crisis that snow-balled into a war. Negotiations for the settlement of the secession crisis and the regaining of Ibo confidence in the idea of one nation fell through because neither Ojukwu nor Gowon could abandon hard positions.
General Gowon and his cabinet focused more on breaking the political power of the Ibos of Eastern Nigeria instead of reassuring and compensating them for the grievous wrong suffered in a year-long massacre. In the face of the threats of chaos and disintegration, these leaders could not rise to the requirements of forthrightness and selflessness. However, based on official statements, we can give the benefit of doubt to Gowon and conclude that in spite of brutality and violence against civilians, acts that contravened the Geneva Conventions, the policy for taking arms against Biafra was to crush Ojukwu's rebellion and maintain the federation. But this conclusion has to explain such egregious violence against ordinary Ibos and statements by Nigeria war commanders like Benjamin Adekunle, a.k.a. "Black Scorpion," that "I want to see no Red Cross, no Caritas, no World Council of Churches, no Pope, no missionary and no UN delegation. I want to prevent even one Ibo from having even one piece to eat before their capitulation. We shoot at everything that moves and when our troops march into the center of Ibo territory, we shoot at everything even at things that do not move…"9Quoted by Dr. Philip Emeagwali, "After the Biafran War Was Over". See www.emeagwali.com/photos/biafra/photo-essay-on-biafra.html pages 15-6. Is such statement part of the conduct of a dirty war or does it evince a "motivation" to genocide? At a minimum, we can argue that there was strong hatred and demonization of the Ibos, which made such cruelty and gory killing of civilians conceivable and tolerable, even in the context of a civil war.
General Odumegwu Ojukwu has been faulted, notably by Ken Saro-Wiwa and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, for rejecting peace overtures from the federal government. Both Saro-Wiwa and Azikiwe believe that Ojukwu stage-managed the Eastern Region Constituent Assembly to authorize him to declare secession. The decision to declare Biafra was a product not of deliberative reasoning in the face of odds but of cajolery, bribery, coercion and sophistry tinged with elements of repression of dissent.
The feuding generals had an opportunity to reverse the momentum to war when the Ghanaian Head of State, Gen Ankra, hosted a peace meeting in Aburi, Ghana. An accord was reached at Aburi whose exact terms became a matter of renewed aggression between the federal government and the Biafran government. Ojukwu's account of the agreement differed from the federal government interpretation on the extent of power and responsibility of the federal executive council vis-à-vis the regions. Ojukwu absented himself from a meeting called to implement the accord. In his absence the meeting approved Decree No.8 enacted by the federal government to implement the agreement. Ojukwu did not accept the decree because it compromised his position by not granting the regions complete authority in dealing with certain issues that concern their sovereignty.10Decree No.8 of 1967 vests in the Supreme Military Council the legislative and executive powers which are exercised with the concurrence of the regional military governors on issues like trade, industry, Armed Forces, the police, and the territorial integrity of the regions. The London-based West Africa magazine of March 28, 1967 described the decree as entrenching a "pseudo- confederacy." See Nnamdi Azikiwe, Origins of the Nigerian Civil War(Apapa: Nigerian National Press, 1969), pages 8-9. Azikiwe faults Ojukwu's rejection of the decree as in service of greed for power and an attempt to "continue a calculated gambit which has led to the civil war."11Azikiwe, page 8.
Even as secession was declared the damage could still have been controlled but for the peculiar interplay of arrogance, ambition and naiveté. Ojukwu had boasted about the Biafran capability to face-down federal soldiers; that he had long planned for the crucial moment and that he knew that by starting the war he was "carving his name in History"; and that he had built the largest army in black Africa.12Saro-Wiwa, On a Darkling Plain: An Account of the Nigerian Civil War (London: Saros International Publishers, 1989), page 83. The propaganda machines on both sides of the war were merciless in their prevarication and embellishment. They overrated their little successes in battle and diminished the scale of human tragedy in Biafra. Ojukwu and his war generals reluctantly admitted the huge loss the young republic was suffering for fear of demoralizing the people who were volunteering and being conscripted for battle. Propaganda helped to blind the people to the fact that the war could and ought to be avoided. It has been alleged that many deaths occurred because of policies by both the federal government and rebels to block food or medical supplies or to prioritize arms delivery above humanitarian aid. By certain perverse incentives the Biafran army was alleged to be compounding the human suffering in Biafra as a ploy to whip up sentiment against Nigeria and in favor of the Biafran republic.13"The issues in this war were relegated to the background and the human and humanitarian aspects came to the fore. Most of them were genuine in their contributions were used to purchase arms and ammunition which prolonged the war and thereby increased and heightened the sufferings of those who were dying." Abubakar Atofarati
De-escalation: What factors delayed and led to the end of violence
One characteristic of the Ibo massacres between 1967 and 1970 that made them come short of genocide, that is, to be near-genocides, is that they were brought to a halt by the aggressors themselves. Neither the United Nations nor the Organization of African Unity sent troops to stop the killings and keep the peace. The Ibo (Eastern Nigeria) secessionists did not win on the battlefield. As gallant as they were in the battle they were out-gunned by the more formidable Nigerian army equipped and helped by foreign powers. By the late 1969, when the Nigerian army had overrun the Ibo heartland, the civilian population was at the mercy of the Nigerian troops. Although trigger-happy and genocidal federal soldiers shot and killed civilians in conditions of surrender, on the whole the Head of State, General Gowon, was able to accept the surrender of the Eastern Nigeria (Biafra) and graciously proclaimed "no victor, no vanquished." Although this policy was implemented more in default, it helped to avert open predation of Ibos when they returned back to the federation.
Gowon as a factor of de-escalation
The Nigeria civil war is the best example of a civil war that ended without open post-war recrimination. Evidence of how quickly the Ibos reentered the Nigerian federation they had exited with belligerence is that in the 1979 general elections, nine years after the civil war, an Ibo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, was on the Presidential ballot on the ticket of a predominantly Ibo party.14Apart from Azikiwe, another Ibo was the Vice-President of the two other major parties and one of them, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, became the Vice-President from 1979 to 1983 under the ticket of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). The Ibos grew influential, although still marginalized and repressed, largely due to the permissible environment of the policy of "no victor no vanquished." Their dynamism and resilience contributed immensely to their quick re-integration. But, if they had been made easy game for predators they would not have thrived. One man who can rightly take credit for conducting a largely decent war, promoting reconciliation and staving off post-war recriminations, is General Gowon.
Gowon's background as an ethnic and religious minority in northern Nigeria probably influenced his disposition to be less vengeful and spiteful against Ibos. He was a Christian in a predominantly Muslim north and also a Tiv, a minority tribe in northern Nigeria that suffered grave repression both at the hands of the colonialists and Hausa-Fulani feudalists. In spite of Nigeria's overwhelming military advantage over Biafra, especially when more Ibo cities fell to the control of the federal soldiers, Gowon's lack of murderous spite against the Ibos ensured that the war did not end as a war of extermination as some of his war generals like Benjamin Adekunle, who vowed to shoot every moveable or immovable thing in Biafran, wanted. Throughout the conflict Gowon allowed the possibility of pull-backs by creating incentives for negotiations. Although these opportunities were not well used because of his moral weakness and Ojukwu's hawkish nature, the opportunities made it possible for leaders on both sides to intervene.
Gowon's overall congeniality helped to smooth surrender and the reintegration of the Ibos, as can be seen from his speech accepting the terms of surrender from the rebel second-in-command, Major General Philip Effiong. After gladly accepting the surrender he painted the psychology of the war thus: "On our side we fought the war with great caution, not in anger or hatred, but always in the hope that common sense would prevail. Many times we sought a negotiated settlement, not out of wickedness, but in order to minimize the problems of reintegration, reconciliation and reconstruction. We know that however the war ended, in the battlefield or in the conference room, our brothers fighting under other colors must rejoin us and that we must together build the nation anew." Most likely Gowon believed what he said, even as some of his commanders believed it was a war of extermination.
The role of charismatic and ideological leaders in fomenting and perpetuating conflict is well noted in the literature of conflict.15For a recent book dealing with ethnic violence and treating the role of charismatic leaders and elite manipulation in exhorting to violence see Monica Duffy Toft, The Geography of Ethnic Violence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). It follows that well meaning and reconciliatory leaders equally help to end violent conflict earlier than predicted. In the case of the Nigerian civil war, Gowon's lack of manifest residual hatred for the Ibos acted as incentive for Ojukwu's lieutenants to turn to reconciliation when the tide turned against them.
The role of civil society leaders
What did important elites who were directly engaged in the secession crisis and the governance questions that triggered the later violence against the Easterners do to stop the violence and settle the conflict? Pretty little. In the context of Nigeria of the 1960s it is difficult to define who constituted civil society. There were no organized human rights or civil society groups apart from many tribal and cultural-cum-intellectual organizations. Even at that, these latter groups were not directly involved in political governance. Actually, it was ethno-religious organizations that played influential roles in governance. This started with colonial government who favored traditional rulers and traditional institutions against the newly emerging intellectual and academic class. The reason the colonialists disfavored the latter class was because they were prone to nationalistic fervor and agitation. Soldiers were made to perceive themselves as disciplined, while the chattering academics were unruly. So, the dynamism was set in motion for the impoverishment of civil advocacy.
But, nevertheless, one or two individuals played important roles in raising a different consciousness about the violence and the war and helped to stimulate non-partisan concerns about the horrors of the war. Notably among individuals outside the government who played key roles is Professor Wole Soyinka. Soyinka's intervention in the violence dated from his engagement with the political crisis in Western Nigeria. He shocked the nation when as a young lecturer he stormed the Western Region Broadcasting Corporation to denounce the electoral fraud and the political manipulation in the region. It became known as the "Mystery Gun-man" saga.
Soyinka's major contribution to de-escalation is in focusing attention on the stupidity and inhumanity of the war and increasing public scrutiny of the political process for the formation of the war. In the midst of war rhetoric and preparations, Soyinka opened up contact with the rebel leader to better appreciate the concerns of the government of Eastern Nigeria. He opted for a third way which neither supported the federal or eastern side of the conflict, but rather advocated for the rule of law and social justice for the Ibos and other persecuted people as the foundation for peace.
The impact Soyinka's activism had on the crisis could be said to be minimal. The Gowon government perceived him to be a radical who was sympathetic to the rebel Biafra and imprisoned him. But, the moral stance he took against the regime and its war machine contributed to more transparent engagement with the process of decision making about the political crisis and helped to whip up more interventions for peace. One means of continuing mass violence is to enshroud the human misery in cloaks of dogmatism. Soyinka's sharp wit demystified the ideology of war and brought home the human misery caused by elite contention for power.
Another major and influential intervention to defuse the war took place in May 1967 by a group of eminent Nigerians from different walks of life called the National Reconciliation Committee. This was a group of largely self-appointed interveners who desired to break the diplomatic impasse between the federal and rebel sides. Members of the committee included Chief Obafemi Awolowo (the leader of the Action Group who later became Minister of Finance), Professor Aluko (an economist famous for intellectual critique of government policies), Chief Rotimi William (Nigeria's most eminent lawyer), Sir Kashim Ibrahim (a federal minister from the north) and many other notable politicians and academics. The group met with Ojukwu in Enugu, the Eastern Region capital, and canvassed a negotiated end to the stalemate between Ojukwu and Gowon.
The committee largely failed in its peace mission because Ojukwu objected both to its constitution and its terms of reference. The issue of representation was an albatross that drowned the committee's peace efforts. Ojukwu had objected to certain members of the committee from the north on the grounds that their impartiality was compromised since the north was a party to the dispute. He also objected to the Eastern representative who was not his own appointee. As much as it tried, the committee could not convince Ojukwu to overlook the credibility of some of the members and the grievances of the past to give it a chance to break the impasse between him and Gowon. But the committee succeeded in convincing Gowon to relax (even if momentarily) the federal blockage of Eastern Nigeria that was already resulting in grave sufferings.
Apart from this, the success of the committee was merely symbolic. But, this symbolism is important for de-frosting the relationship between the East and the rest of the federation and making it possible for members of the rebel government dissatisfied with the war to reach out to their compatriots outside the rebel territory. This bridge assisted in putting pressure on Gowon to negotiate and ultimate accept the fall of Biafra on good terms.16A full transcript of the meeting of the committee with Ojukwu can be found in Awolowo, Awo on Nigerian Civil War (Lagos: John West Publication, 1981).
Another Nigerian whose clear minded opposition to the war contributed to nudging the international community to see the war from the lens of human tragedy rather than of internal sovereignty is Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first Governor-General of Nigeria and the first President of the republican government toppled by the January 1966 coup. Zik, as he is fondly called, had a love-hate relationship with General Ojukwu, a fellow Ibo. The rivalry between them dates from the removal of Azikiwe as the Chancellor of University of Nigeria when Ojukwu was Military Governor of Eastern Region. Whether from resentment or not, Zik mounted a very spirited campaign to expose the foolishness of the war. He implored Ojukwu and Gowon to "listen to the voice of humanity and stop this senseless war… (they) together with those who counsel them, should now have second thoughts and suspend hostilities. They should proceed to the conference table to negotiate a rapprochement which would safeguard the lives and liberties of innocent citizens."17Peace Proposals for Ending the Nigerian Civil War (London: Colusco Limited, 1969), page 22.
Zik did not restrict his advocacy for peace within Nigeria. He internationalized the campaign for peace. Zik was the first to locate the possibility of settlement of the crisis on a direct and decisive intervention of the United Nations through the Security Council. In an address delivered at Rhodes House, Oxford on February 16, 1969, Zik appealed to the UN to intervene because it is "the forum of last resort" when every other effort has failed. He proposed for a UN committee of nineteen to ensure "total arms embargo; armistice embracing cessation of hostilities on land, sea and air; revocation of blockages including economic and administrative sanctions; establishment of an international peace force, to act for and on behalf of the Security Council to assume administration of the war zones, to demobilize troops engaged in war zones,… to conduct a plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the inhabitants of the war zones whether they want one Nigeria or a divided Nigeria."18Published as Peace Proposals for Ending the Nigerian Civil War, 1969 supra. These proposals were pretty revolutionary in cold war international relations of non-interference. If it was in the post-cold war period, they would have been possible action plans.
The OAU and international community
Whether the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the United Nation played an important role in de-escalating the conflict is arguable. What is unarguable is that both organizations did not act as decisively as they could and when they ought. Of course, the political climate of international relations when the Biafran-Nigerian conflict occurred is important to understanding the organizations' dilly-dalliance. Particularly for the OAU, the conflict occurred when the fundamental policy of the organization was the maintenance of the sanctity of the borders of post-colonial states. The leaders of Africa, as part of a policy of fighting neo-colonial interference after grim battles against European colonialialism, affirmed to each other respect for internal sovereignty. There is a rich, and still growing, literature on this ill-fated policy and how it induced the collapse of African states under the twin strike forces of arbitrary rule and weak civil society.19For samplers, see Francis Deng, et al., Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa (Washington D.C.: Brookings, 1996); Obiora Okafor, "After Martyrdom: International Law, Sub-state Groups and the Construction of Legitimate Statehood in Africa," Harvard International Law Journal Vol. 41 No.2 Spring 2000; Deng & Lyon "Promoting Responsible Sovereignty in Africa" in Deng and Lyon (eds.), African Reckoning: A Quest for Good Governance (Washington D.C.: Brookings, 1998).
The OAU made efforts to resolve the crisis before it degenerated into war. But these efforts were sometimes half-hearted, and every time paralyzed by the politics of internal sovereignty. Once military hostilities were declared between Eastern Nigeria and the federal government, Gowon let it be known that any country that recognized Biafra as an independent sovereign state would be viewed by his government as interfering in the internal affairs of the Nigeria. This reduced the organization's intervention to mere exhortation to peace.
On July 8, 1968, the Presidents of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia made joint appeal to both sides to cease hostilities. The Head of State of Lesotho brought a motion in the OAU for members to consider ways and means of ending the conflict. In a September 1967 session in Kinshasa, African Heads of States succeeded in persuading Nigeria to agree that the issue be discussed at the floor of the General Assembly on condition that they would not interfere with its internal affairs. They formed a committee to go to the Head of State of Nigeria "to assure him of the Assembly's desire for territorial integrity, unity and peace of Nigeria." In its resolution the Assembly affirmed its adherence to the "principles of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states, condemns secession" and the right of the Nigerian government to determine the nature of OAU's involvement.20See C. O. C. Amate, Inside the OAU: Pan-Africanism in Practice (London: Macmillan, 1986) for a detailed study of the record of the OAU in settling disputes internal disputes and conflicts in African countries.
In several other meetings and peace conferences the organization was crippled by lack of moral authority and the weakness of its voice on behalf of the suffering Ibo civilians. It almost demanded that the Biafrans call off military resistance before the federal government stopped aggression. A few Presidents felt the need for a more proactive engagement with peace and justice in the Biafran question, but the organization was too bogged down in its neo-colonial nightmares to act decisively as required by the conflict. In the midst of this misstep a few countries like Tanzania, Zambia, Gabon and Ivory Coast recognized the right of Biafra and further depleted the leadership resources of the organization. President Nyerere of Tanzania was so incensed by the religious commitment to internal sovereignty to the detriment of human life that he accused African Heads of State of "callously watching the massacre of tens of thousands of people for the sake of upholding territorial integrity of Nigeria."21Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Peace Proposasl for Ending the Nigerian Civil War (London: Colusco Limited, 1969), pages 6-7.
The record of the United Nation in de-escalating the conflict is even more dismal. The United Nation as a body failed to intervene in any significant manner. It deferred leadership and responsibility to the Organization of African Unity, and supported the latter's affirmation of the supremacy of internal sovereignty and the principle of non-interference. Like the leaders of the OAU, the then Secretary-General of the UN, U Thant, expressed concern at the worsening fate of the people of Eastern Nigeria but hoped that the Kinshasa peace initiative of the OAU would lead to quick resolution of the crisis. The deference to regional initiative may seem very sensible and well meaning in the geo-politics of that period. But, in the face of the huge human tragedy and the precedent of the Vietnam case, the Secretary General could have done more to move the United Nations to intervene to pressure the Nigerian government to reconsider its position and accept better terms of peace.
The Secretary-General laid the responsibility on important members of the UN Security Council or the General Assembly to table the issue for international action. However, most of the western countries that had both the diplomatic resources and stakes to effectively intervene were entangled in the conflict and could not find a neutral voice. Britain, being the former colonial ruler of Nigeria, had sufficient standing to intervene in the peace process. But she was already intervening in supplying arms and technical support to the federal side. The Russians were also supplying firearms to Nigeria. Not to be beaten, France allegedly granted Biafra a loan of 8 million pounds in return for a concession to French oil companies. The war was sustained by the involvement of western countries as arm suppliers and oil importers.
Equally, the war played into the cold war calculations of the world powers. It was obvious that these powers suspected the implication of the revolutionary moment unfolding in Nigeria and preferred to remain committed to the original Nigeria. They did nothing serious to end the war. On January 8, 1969, Radio Prague commented that "the great power rivalry is thus transferring the old West-East dispute into a particular hot part of Africa, and neither Nigeria nor Biafra can possibly benefit from it. For the matter now is no longer Nigeria or Biafra alone; the really big fight is over great power influence and over establishing new spheres of influence, and that is the biggest tragedy of the present Nigerian crisis."22Cited in Azikiwe, Peace Proposals for Ending the Nigerian Civil War page 4. With the possible exception of the United States, most western powers had economic interests to protect and hedged in making commitment or denouncing the massacres of the Ibos.
The British government notoriously declined to take a resolute stand in favor of ending the misery of millions of Easterners. The Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, expressed doubts that arm supplies to the warring parties could cease. In his words, "I know of no mediation that will be successful in ending this tragic fighting. I think the general recognition is that it need take an African solution." Michael Stewart, the Labour Foreign Minister justified British continuous supply of arms to Nigeria in similar terms: "It would have been quite easy for me to say: this is going to be difficult – let's cut off all connection with the Nigerian government. If I'd done that I should have known that I was encouraging in Africa the principle of tribal secession – with all the misery that could bring to Africa in the future." The British diplomatic machine refused to grind into action, in spite of the remonstration of humanists like Lord Bertrand Russell, who argued that the doctrine of non-interference in situations like the Biafran civil war leads to much evil.23Azikiwe, page 8.
The role of humanitarian organizations and famous stars
When the United Nations foot-dragged and the OAU was belabored by its burden of history, some well-meaning individuals and organizations set out to reduce human suffering in the war. The Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), formed as a result of the human suffering of the dead and wounded, and did much to help humanitarian relief, as did the Red Cross. These groups, in addition to helping the wounded and the hungry, also lent their voices for calls to end the war. The reports on the suffering of Biafran civilians, especially the genocidal attack on sleepy villages and fleeing women and children, helped to thaw the ice of the politics of "internal conflict" and present the picture of a genocidal attack. These insights drove global revulsion against the war and helped to put pressure on the Nigerian government to conduct the war with fewer violations of the Geneva Conventions.
Their effort was dramatized and glamorized by famous actors and musicians who signed to the "Biafran" cause and raised money for the suffering in Biafra. In 1968, American folk singer Joan Baez and rock singer Jimi Hendrix performed in a Biafran Relief Benefit in Manhattan to raise money for the refugees of the Biafra-Nigeria war. Several such fund-raisers were organized across western societies by Ibos in Diaspora and by charitable persons and institutions. The allegation was that these charitable funds helped Ojukwu prolong the resistance instead of helping to end the war.24Atofarati comments that the great publicity given to the war and the images of Biafran starving children and ruined villages by Markpress elicited strong humanitarian feelings which drove the humanitarian intervention on behalf of Biafra. See Atofarati, page 31. This perverse incentive was unavoidable in the context of the war. In the end these interventions helped to limit the degree of human tragedy in Eastern Nigeria. The infamous starvation policy adopted by the Nigerian government as part of its war strategy contributed to the death of more Ibos than actual military hostility. But for the interventions of these organizations and individuals, extermination would have been a possibility in the war.
Defeat: The end of all things
Ultimately, Biafra lost the war. That was the saving grace for the Ibos and Nigerians in general. On 14th of January, 1970 Biafra formally surrendered and Gowon pronounced the end of the war. By the end of 1969 Biafra has lost all its strongholds. General Ojukwu jetted out of the republic in search of peace and handed power to General Philip Efiong, his deputy. As defeat stared him in the eyes, Effiong consulted with the strategy committee and surrendered. Chinua Achebe captured the battle fatigue in a Biafran camp in a story of a palm wine tapper who was asked to come down from his palm wine tree and join the army. The man after thanking the soldiers for their heroism, begged them to tell Ojukwu that he had acted like a man, he should now throw in the towel.25Chinua Achebe, Girls at War and Other Story (London: Heinemann, 1971) Better late than never. The war ended and reconstruction began.
Genocide usually ends by either of two ways – the victims are completely exterminated or their attackers are restrained or overcome. In the Biafran conflict none of this happened. Nigerian soldiers were not restrained by Biafran soldiers. No external forces aided the victims against the aggressors. When the aggressors overran the victims, they drew back the sword – meaning, "We did not intend genocide." For me this is the best evidence that what happened, at least between 1967 and 1970, was a misconceived war – a war waged on the ticket of egregious persecution of Ibos and senseless brinkmanship of arrogant and insensitive leaders. Although there were moments of genocidal madness among war generals and strategists, the war policy was, as Gowon, says, to keep Nigeria together; albeit, without addressing the structural injustice that led to the pogroms. The massacres of the Ibos in 1966 seem to carry the signature of ethnic cleaning of the mild type. It was promoted in order to weaken the political and administrative advantages enjoyed by Ibos, and it was conducted on the diabolical mobilization of northerners to believe that the Ibos wanted to enslave the rest of Nigerians.
After the violence: Old problems, new manifestations
The war ended and Gowon graciously proclaimed "no victor, no vanquished" and then came the tasks of reintegration, reconciliation and reconstruction. The scorecard is dismally poor on all three. The Ibos still feel marginalized, although some reintegration has occurred in the polity. The conflict between citizenship as a bundle of equal rights and indigeneity as a bundle of exclusive privileges is unresolved. Decades of military dictatorship – with its unaccountable use of power – have compounded the problem of ethnicity in politics. Added to the old problem of ethnic chauvinism is now religious fundamentalism. The result is that Nigeria suffers an average of three major ethno-religious and inter-communal violent events every year. Since 1999 more than 5,000 persons have been killed in these violent attacks.
The Ibos are still restless, but nothing near the disenchantment of 1966-1967 that drove them to the cold hands of death in a mismatched war. The Ohaneze Nd'Igbo, the Ibo umbrella cultural and social organization, in its petition to the Human Rights Violations Investigation Committee, alleged systematic marginalization of Ibos in the civil service and military agencies of the constitution. With the aid of statistics it has argued quite persuasively that a glass ceiling exists to stop the Ibos from occupying important and sensitive offices. Besides, it has alleged systematic and deliberate under-provision of social goods and infrastructure in Ibo states. With the notorious bad leadership in Nigeria it is difficult to know which proportion of this under-provision is ethnically constructed. But, the relief is that the Ibos are acting to regain their economic and political power through legitimate political activities.
There remains a significant proportion of Ibos, especially those in diaspora, who agitate for the resumption of the struggle for the Biafran Republic. An organization, the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), is championing this agenda. It has greatly scared the government by its open organizing of resentment against it. The movement has set up chapters in Europe and America and runs a mock embassy in Washington. It mock-heroism is paying off as disenchanted and unemployed and economically displaced Ibos are signing on to the dream of an Ibo state able to provide justice and prosperity. MASSOB's activities are in sync with other ethnic organizations eating away the nationalism from the distressed Nigerian state.
How these forces play out is uncharted. In November, 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa, a champion of the rights of minorities in Nigeria, was executed after a ruthless persecution of oil-rich Ogoni. Interestingly, Saro-Wiwa fought Biafra as administrator of Bonny for the federal government in the war period. Saro-Wiwa defended the economic rights of the Ogoni and alerted the world to what he termed genocide against Ogoni by the Nigerian Federal Military Government and Shell. In 1999 another oil community – Odi – was sacked by rampaging federal soldiers. It was called genocide. In 2004, Hausa (Muslim) and Indigenous (Christian) communities clashed in Plateau State in northern Nigeria leaving many dead and wounded. President Obasanjo, who led the conquering federal troops against Biafra in 1969, declared a state of emergency to save lives and property. The cause of the violence is conflict over rights to resources by those who claim to be natives and those they call settlers.
The war ended but the battle continues. When will the legacy of colonialism be overcome and transformed? Will elites overcome their brinkmanship? When will human rights provisions in the constitution be experienced as national rights alive in state institutions? Until then the Ibos of Nigeria will keep their festering wounds.
Major Abubakar A. Atofarati "The Nigerian Civil War: Causes, Strategies, and Lessons," Report, US Marine Command & Staff College (Academic Year 1991/92).
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe attributes similar intention to the shadowy conspiratory group – "The Kaduna Mafia," whom he claims was behind the killings. The group intended by the killings to (a) expel Ibos in the civil service from their posts and Ibo industrialists and business from their enterprises, (b) destroy Ibo political influences, (c) achieve the secession of the "north" from Nigeria. See Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, The Biafran War: Nigeria and the Aftermath (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990) page 64.
Dr. Mensah, Report of the International Commission of Jurists, 1969.
Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), page 39.
Okwudibia Nnoli, Ethnic Politics in Nigeria (Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1978), pages 115-116.
Nigeria is a nation-state of over two hundred and fifty ethnic nationalities who are different either in culture or language but also share many similarities arising from different degrees of interaction before and after the advent of colonialism. For general readings on the cultures of the peoples of Nigeria, see C.K. Meek, The Northern Tribes of Nigeria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925); P.A. Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria (London: Oxford University Press, 1926); Michael Crowther, The History of Nigeria; Kenneth Onwuka Dike, Trade and Politics in Niger Delta, 1830-1885: An Introduction to the Economic and Political History of Nigeria (Clarendon Press, 1956).
The Minority Commission Report, 1958
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1951). Arendt argues "Not only did loss of national rights in all instances entail loss of human rights; the restoration of human rights, as the recent example of the State of Israel proves, has been achieved so far only through the restoration or establishment of national rights," page 299.
Quoted by Dr. Philip Emeagwali, "After the Biafran War Was Over". See www.emeagwali.com/photos/biafra/photo-essay-on-biafra.html pages 15-6.
Decree No.8 of 1967 vests in the Supreme Military Council the legislative and executive powers which are exercised with the concurrence of the regional military governors on issues like trade, industry, Armed Forces, the police, and the territorial integrity of the regions. The London-based West Africa magazine of March 28, 1967 described the decree as entrenching a "pseudo- confederacy." See Nnamdi Azikiwe, Origins of the Nigerian Civil War(Apapa: Nigerian National Press, 1969), pages 8-9.
Azikiwe, page 8.
Saro-Wiwa, On a Darkling Plain: An Account of the Nigerian Civil War (London: Saros International Publishers, 1989), page 83.
"The issues in this war were relegated to the background and the human and humanitarian aspects came to the fore. Most of them were genuine in their contributions were used to purchase arms and ammunition which prolonged the war and thereby increased and heightened the sufferings of those who were dying." Abubakar Atofarati
Apart from Azikiwe, another Ibo was the Vice-President of the two other major parties and one of them, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, became the Vice-President from 1979 to 1983 under the ticket of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
For a recent book dealing with ethnic violence and treating the role of charismatic leaders and elite manipulation in exhorting to violence see Monica Duffy Toft, The Geography of Ethnic Violence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).
A full transcript of the meeting of the committee with Ojukwu can be found in Awolowo, Awo on Nigerian Civil War (Lagos: John West Publication, 1981).
Peace Proposals for Ending the Nigerian Civil War (London: Colusco Limited, 1969), page 22.
Published as Peace Proposals for Ending the Nigerian Civil War, 1969 supra.
For samplers, see Francis Deng, et al., Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa (Washington D.C.: Brookings, 1996); Obiora Okafor, "After Martyrdom: International Law, Sub-state Groups and the Construction of Legitimate Statehood in Africa," Harvard International Law Journal Vol. 41 No.2 Spring 2000; Deng & Lyon "Promoting Responsible Sovereignty in Africa" in Deng and Lyon (eds.), African Reckoning: A Quest for Good Governance (Washington D.C.: Brookings, 1998).
See C. O. C. Amate, Inside the OAU: Pan-Africanism in Practice (London: Macmillan, 1986) for a detailed study of the record of the OAU in settling disputes internal disputes and conflicts in African countries.
Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Peace Proposasl for Ending the Nigerian Civil War (London: Colusco Limited, 1969), pages 6-7.
Cited in Azikiwe, Peace Proposals for Ending the Nigerian Civil War page 4.
Atofarati comments that the great publicity given to the war and the images of Biafran starving children and ruined villages by Markpress elicited strong humanitarian feelings which drove the humanitarian intervention on behalf of Biafra. See Atofarati, page 31.
Chinua Achebe, Girls at War and Other Story (London: Heinemann, 1971)
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Posted on December 28, 2012 by magicminds network.	This entry was posted in Psychological Sciences and tagged Psychology ethics. Bookmark the permalink.
← Did you know there is a mathematic disorder?
The prison experiment is interesting cos there is a film based in it called 'the experiment! Staring forest Whitaker. It shows how things just broke down after 1 day into madness!
The last experiment involving the boy who's parents were convinced to do gender reassignment due to a botched circumcision is so sad.


text:
Evening Bell (Вечерний звон) is a popular Russian song written in 1828 by Ivan Kozlov and Alexander Alyabyev.  The lyrics are adapted from a Russian-themed verse by Thomas Moore.

Lyrics

English original
In 1818 Thomas Moore published his first collection of National Airs, a collection of songs which included his verses and musical scores by John Andrew Stevenson. The title of one verse from the Russian airs was Those Evening Bells with the subtitle Air: The bells of St.Petersburg. It starts with:
Those evening bells! Those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells,
Of youth, and home, and those sweet time,
When last I heard their soothing chime.
..

Moore mentioned that the verse was based on a Russian original, but all attempts to find the original failed. One hypothesis put forward in 1885 traced the source of the song to George the Hagiorite, an Orthodox monk and writer of the 11th century from the Iviron monastery on Mount Athos). Soviet researchers tried to prove the link, but found no traces of such a song.  The most likely conclusion is that the verse is Thomas Moore's original creation loosely based on Russian-related themes.

The verse was quite well known in the English-speaking world, e.g., it was satirised by Thomas Hood (Those Evening Bells, those Evening Bells, How many a tale their music tells, Of Yorkshire cakes and crumpets prime, And letters only just in time!. It was listed in the dictionary of familiar quotations from 1919.

Kozlov's translation
Kozlov was a Russian poet in his own right, but also a prolific translator of contemporary English poetry (translating Byron, Charles Wolfe and Thomas Moore). His Russian text published in 1828 is more like an adaptation of the English original, as Kozlov used six-line stanzas instead of  quatrains of the original, while being still faithful to the general mood and the rhythmic structure of the source (iambic tetrameter). His adaptation is credited with greater elaboration of the context, grounding the abstractness of the original with specific examples.

When Kozlov published this verse, the original text was not mentioned. Combined with the fact that Moore's text claimed to be based on a Russian original, this brought some erroneous attributions (as early as in 1831) that Moore's verse is a translation of Kozlov's.

Song
Soon after publication of the Russian translation, it was made into a song by Alexander Alyabyev, also in 1828. This music became immensely popular and resulted in variations on the same theme, as well as in completely different songs based on the same translation.

The English original itself was published with music composed by John Andrew Stevenson. It also resulted in several other songs:
 Harry Hill, (SSA, a cappella)
 Charles Edward Ives (in 1907)
 Harvey Worthington Loomis (in 1918, SSA, a cappella)
 Henri Ketten (1848–1883)

Other translations
There are two translations of the song into German (by Caroline Leonhardt Pierson and Henry Hugo Pierson, O Abendglocken, Abendhall, 1845), as well as into Polish (by Stanisław Moniuszko).

Sergei Taneyev and Antoni Grabowski translated Moore's original verse into Esperanto under the title Sonoriloj de vesper (Evening bells).

Cover versions
Cover versions include:
 "Nasdrovje womm" by Otto Waalkes
Otto teaches the song to the audience. It only contains the words "nastrovje" (A Russian word often incorrectly said to be "cheers") and "womm" (a meaningless word sounding similar to the original "zvon") so the audience can easily respond it.

 "Wij zijn niet bang" (Dutch) and  "Schlumpfies Boogie Woogie Show" by Vader Abraham  (German)
It can be found on the LP record "Vader Abraham in the Land of the Smurfs", issued at least in German and Dutch Language.

References

External links
Three different versions of the song performed by Nicolai Gedda, Ivan Rebroff, and Yuri Wichniakov:

Russian songs

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text:
Q: Empty browser window still exist even HttpServletResponse committed Window1 -> one.jsp, from this jsp , we are calling one more jsp (Window2) to generate pdf by window.open("two.jsp?x=y"). By doing this it opens Two.jsp and generate the pdf as well , finally that window2 get closed. But the scenario is, the copy of Window1 still exist in the view with empty content even HttpServletResponse gets committed.
Code in Two.jsp:
File NewFile=new File(outpath);
byte[] fileData = new byte[(int)NewFile.length()];
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(NewFile);
fis.read(fileData);
response.reset();
response.setContentType("application/pdf");
response.setContentLength(fileData.length);
response.setHeader("Content-Disposition","attachment;filename=\"Sample.pdf\"");
ServletOutputStream outputStream = response.getOutputStream();
outputStream.write(fileData);
outputStream.flush();
outputStream.close();
fis.close();

Currently we are migrating from JBOSS 4.0.2 to JBOSS 6.0 , The above code is working fine in JBOSS 4.0.2. Is this issue related to JBOSS 6.0? Kindly help us to come out from this issue.
Expecting your valuable suggetions.

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WANNA FLY FIRST CLASS LIKE AN OWNER?
Fly first class like an owner, paying less than corporate CEO's crammed back in coach.
Not to be confused with "SPRINGTIME IN GERMANY" but certaintly insired by THE PRODUCERS.
Once Dewalt in Batavia realized we only wanted to buy his company for CHEAP FIRST CLASS OWNER tickets, he renegged.


I am a member of the St. Louis Master Gardener program and I do some of my volunteer work at Litzinger Road Ecology Center. LREC offers enrichment and training sessions for volunteers to increase our knowledge. Sometimes we get to take part in fun "crafty" activities that have an ecological benefit. We made bird suet cakes one day at LREC and later I also experimented with making some at home.
Feeding birds in our backyards is a way to get a good look at birds up close while providing them with a nutritional food bonus to make their lives a little easier. Suet and fats are good foods for many birds when it is late winter and natural food sources are low – fats are also most likely to attract birds who eat a lot of insects, the kind of birds you particulary want in your yard to provide free pest control services. At the time I am writing this we may be done with freezing temperatures during the day but we may still have some below freezing temperatures at night. You know how our weather is in the St. Louis area – it could be 85 degrees or 25 degrees tomorrow (or both) and no one would be shocked! Suet and fats can melt and turn rancid in warm weather but if you double-render the fat you can place suet outdoors in temperatures over 70 degrees F, according to the book "The All-Season Backyard Birdwatcher" by Marcus H. Schneck.
Before beginning to heat the fat, please read the safety precautions in my article Make Old Wax Candles Into New Candles. Any safety issues that might come up while melting fat are pretty much the same as with wax. I'm not sure if the melting temperatures are the same. Keep a close watch on your fat to make sure it doesn't overheat. If you've ever had an unexpected flare-up from hot bacon grease you know hot fat is something to treat with care!
In my example I used bacon fat and some beef fat trimmings that the butcher at Whole Foods gave to me. I had gone to Whole Foods with the intent of buying some suet but they didn't have any. Suet is a type of fat that comes from around the kidneys. Just plain beef fat will work too.
I experimented with a couple of different ways of rendering the beef fat. First I chopped it into smaller pieces then I put some of it in a food processor to partially grind. A meat grinder would be better for this but I don't have one. I put the ground fat in the double boiler to melt down. A double boiler is used to heat things that scorch or burn easily. At home many of us use such a setup to melt things like wax and candy. Place a saucepan on top of the stove and partly fill it with water. Set a glass heat-resistant measuring cup containing the fat in the pan of water and slowly heat the water until the fat melts.
I also experimented with putting some fat pieces into a glass temperature-resistant measuring cup and microwaving the pieces for about a minute to a minute and a half at a time. Either way the fat melted fine and I strained out and discarded the tough pieces and little meat pieces that were left behind and poured the fat into a glass dish to harden.
I let the fat cool until it was hard, then I re-melted it. The hardening and remelting makes it double-rendered and ready for warmer spring temperatures.
After the fat is melted, you can mix things in it that are tasty treats for birds – leftover baked goods, grains, nuts, chopped dried fruits, cereal, dried mealworms, and of course, bird seed. I molded my cakes in cleaned used food containers and popped them out after they were hard. You can buy pre-made suet cakes (at Schnarr's!) that are made to go into a pre-made metal mesh holder with a hanger. When you make your own suet cakes, you have to work out a way to hang them. I drilled holes through the middles with a long thin knife and threaded twine through the holes to tie the cakes in place outdoors.
The remaining photos were taken at Litzinger Road Ecology Center on the day we made suet cakes. We were all asked to bring in stuff from our pantries to add to the bird food mixture.
At LREC, we had a quantity of donated food containers to use so we made holes in the sides of them to accomodate a hanging string.
You can easily make holes in plastic by heating a nail in a candle flame. Hold the nail in a pair of pliers to keep from burning your hands and be careful around open flames!
We made knots in the strings to keep them from slipping through the hole. Before filling the containers with food mixture, for extra security we pulled the stings in slightly so the fat mixture would harden around the string and help hold it in place.
After filling with food mixture, all we had to do was wait for the fat to harden. Then our suet feeders were ready to hang outdoors!
This is the time of year when small lakes, ponds and water gardens sometimes get green "pea soup" water or mats of algae floating on the surface. The limiting factors for algae growth are mainly food and sunlight. If you can reduce the amount of sunlight and nutrients getting into the water, you can reduce algae growth in your water feature.
First lets look at possible food sources for the algae.
Is runoff from your lawn or garden getting into the water? Try reducing the use of artificial fertilizers in those areas. If that is not possible, try creating a rain garden or bioswale in a place that interrupts the water before it reaches the body of water you want to protect. Plants will help take up the extra nutrients before they pollute your water feature.
Are leaves or other dead plant material decaying in the water? Remove plant debris that falls in ASAP.
If you have fish in your pond, do you have too many fish for the size of your water feature? Do the fish get too much food? If you overcrowd the water or overfeed your aquatic animals, you will help feed algae as well as cause health problems for the animals. Uneaten food in the water is even worse for water quality than fish waste because it has more nutrients in it. Birds are another source of waste in the water. I have a small water garden specifically intended to attract birds. They bathe in it and sometimes dunk their food in the water to moisten it. Despite that activity, my water garden contains clean-looking, clear water. If you want wild birds to make use of your water feature, that doesn't automatically mean you have to put up with water that looks like pea soup.
Once you have addressed the sources of excess nutrients in the water, I recommend you next take a look at how the water is being filtered. Aquatic plants are great natural filters. Add more marginal and submerged plants to the water, and you will help starve out the algae. Areas around the water that support bog or marsh plants not only help filter water but they give your water feature a more natural appearance.
Artificial filters* are a great help too. I use one in my small water garden and it plays a role in keeping my water garden clean. There are lots of different kinds of filters. Follow the recommendations of the manufacturer of your filter for proper maintenance and cleaning schedules. If you have a type of filter that uses media that you rinse out, rather than replace, rinse the filter media in chlorine free water (such as old pond water that you've removed during water changes) so that you don't kill the beneficial bacteria that live in the filter media. Beneficial bacteria that break down waste grow on just about every surface in the water, but are most numerous where there is porous material and the water flow is swift – conditions that exist inside a filter. These bacteria are what make most filters function. This is called biological filtration. Other types of filtration include chemical and mechanical. Many filter designs, including the sponge filter that I use, combine mechanical and biological filtration. For example the sponge picks up large particles and takes them out of circulation while the bacteria that live in the tiny holes in the sponge digest the water pollutants and turn them into less toxic substances. It's a good idea to know which kind of filter you have and understand how it works – that will help you understand what to clean and when. For example if I squeeze out my filter's sponge in a pail of chlorine-free water to remove the debris it's collected and put the old sponge back in the filter, I'm doing a good thing for the water quality. If I dunked the filter parts in chlorinated water and scrubbed off the thin film that is all over the parts, I would be doing harm to my water quality because I would be removing beneficial bacteria that are helping and not in the way. This is why aquaria and bodies of water that are established and "seasoned" are much easier to keep clean. In the aquarium world, this "seasoning" is called "cycling". If you are not familiar with cycling, learning more about how it works will help you troubleshoot your water quality.
Don't forget – the rinse water from cleaning your filter media makes wonderful plant fertilizer!
If you've done everything you can to reduce the amount of nutrients in your water, next see if there is a way you can cut down on the amount of sunlight that reaches the water. If you have a small water garden like mine that is portable when empty, you can move it from full sun to part shade and use it for growing part-shade aquatic plants. If you can't move your water feature, what can you do?
Grow some plants around the edges of the pond that will help cast some shade on the water, if not for a whole day, just part of the day. You could use small trees, bushes, rushes, big annuals with large leaves and many others. Choose plants that can tolerate waterlogged areas or having "wet feet" or add some container plants around the margins.
Water lilies, lotus, water lettuce, water hyacinth, duckweed and many other lovely plants either float right on the surface or emerge at the surface and help provide shade. If you are experimenting with plants that are not native, make sure they don't get discarded in natural bodies of water. Some floating plants can cause other problems if they cover the entire surface of the water – no more than 50% of the water surface should be covered with plants. Duckweed is an example of a plant that sometimes can blanket the entire surface. This inhibits the exchange of gasses at the water's surface and can compromise the amount of oxygen in the water. Remove the excess growth and use it as mulch or put it in the compost! That way any overgrowth will be a boon to your garden instead of a nuisance.
Speaking of oxygen, if possible try to increase the amount of oxygen in the water. The addition of a bubbler, fountain or waterfall will help agitate water at the surface and bring in more oxygen. Oxygen is important for the health of the aquatic community as a whole, including the aerobic bacteria that are doing most of the work of keeping the water clean. At Schnarr's we sell pumps* that can be used to power waterfalls and fountains.
Small fish like minnows eat some of the algae and as a bonus keep mosquito larvae out of the water as well. Their small size means they produce small amounts of fish waste. Koi or goldfish are wonderful animals with many good qualities but they produce a lot of waste and need a lot of space and clean water to thrive.
A friend of mine struggled with algae in his koi pond until he added a UV sterilizer to his recirculating waterfall. It was effective. He might have been able to avoid the expense by stocking his fish at more reasonable levels but he liked a LOT of fish and was willing to do the extra maintenance required.
You can purchase an algaecide* to kill the algae. This will likely be a short-lived solution because the dead algae will decay and add more dead organic matter to the water which will probably cause either another outbreak of algae later, a drop in oxygen, a toxic ammonia spike or all of those conditions. Addressing the reason the algae is there in the first place is more effective in the long run but it may take some time to notice improvement. An algaecide might work well in a situation where you need a quick fix now but later conditions are not that important. I don't recommend you use algaecide if you have fish or other aquatic animals that you care about in the water because a sudden deterioration in water quality can cause a die-off. Algaecide makes more sense in something like a small decorative water fountain or other feature that is not intended to support aquatic life.
If practical, perform a 20% water change while vacuuming the bottom with a gravel washer device. This is very easy to do for small water gardens like mine, not possible in a large pond or lake. Use of Clear-Water Pond Clay* 24 hours before you vacuum the gravel will help small particles fall to the bottom where they can be picked up.
Clean filter medium if you have a filter or add a filter.
If practical add a bubbler or some device to agitate water surface.
If you have floating mats of "hair" algae, rake off if possible and use in compost.
Inoculate the water feature with a live culture of beneficial bacteria – this may not work if you are using a UV sterilizer or if the water is not well aerated. You can buy wet and dry bacteria cultures designed for ponds or request some used gravel from a friend who has an established freshwater aquarium or pond.
Get some terra cotta plant pots* and scrub well with plain water, no soap or bleach. Do not use if they have ever been used with chemicals that are not pond safe.
Fill plant pots with rinsed lava rock*.
Place pots in pond and stack almost to water level to use as a plant stand.
Set a planter* containing aquatic plants on top of the stack. These could be fully aquatic plants or bog plants as long as the roots can reach the water to take nutrients out of it. Use pots to adjust the water level to what the particular plant needs.
If you don't want to bother with plants, just add permeable, pond-safe containers of lava rock and if possible place them in a spot where the current is faster. Lava rock is a terrific natural filter medium because it contains many tiny holes for beneficial bacteria to live. Give the bacteria a good home and they will do a lot of your filtration for you.
Late winter and early spring are good seasons to attract desirable bird species to your yard. Birds are not brooding eggs yet because they need to wait until later in spring when there is enough insect food to feed their young. However, they are now engaged in, well, getting engaged! In other words many birds are scouting out nest sites and selecting mates if they haven't done that already.
You can entice birds to think your property is a good place to raise families by managing it with good bird habitat in mind – some ideas are in my previous article "Gardening for the Birds". Some of the most sought-after backyard bird species are heavy insect eaters. Many dried and live mealworms are purchased to attract Eastern Bluebirds. Although they tend to be rare in urban and suburban areas, I saw one at the Litzinger Road Ecology Center a couple of weeks ago, so I know they are present in Ladue in places where the habitat is suitable.
Dried mealworms, which can be purchased at Schnarr's, are more convenient than live mealworms and possibly more acceptable to those who are squeamish. If you would like to try raising your own however, I'll tell you how. It's so easy, I started raising mealworms by accident! For years I've raised plenty for my pet birds, newt and fish and there are enough left over to share with the outdoor birds also.
Mealworms are not actually worms. They are larvae of a species of beetle, usually Tenebrio molitor L. My indoor and outdoor birds will happily consume all three forms of the beetle – adult, pupae, and larvae. When you purchase live mealworms in a store, they are usually larvae only and they are refrigerated to slow down their development into pupae and adults. To get adults who will lay eggs and make more mealworms, you need only to store the larvae at room temperature and give them food and a little moisture!
To begin, acquire a container that is steep sided so the adult beetles can't escape. An unused 10-gallon aquarium is ideal. Place an inch or so of some kind of "meal" product on the floor of the aquarium. I use a combination of oatmeal, chicken food, and flaxseed meal. These creatures are not that picky so you can use what is cheap and available – I've seen an exhibit at the zoo of mealworm beetles consuming styrofoam!
Place a couple of pieces of bark or wood on top of the meal for hiding places. You don't need a light, they don't like it. I only use a light to see when it's time to harvest some larvae. Nor do you need a lid because the adult beetles don't fly. Buy a container of live mealworms and dump the contents into your mealworm container. Every couple of days, add a little more food and something with moisture that the larvae can "drink" from. Good choices are a piece of carrot or potato, or leftover pieces and rinds from fruits and vegetables that aren't too odoriferous. You can also buy a special gelatin-like product that is designed for "watering" crickets. Avoid a dish of water because the insects might fall in and drown. If the substrate gets wet and moldy, replace with dry substrate.
When nutritious foods are fed to a prey animal like mealworms and crickets, that is called "gut loading". In theory, the better you feed your mealworms the more nutrition you'll be passing along to the eventual bird consumers. Cat food contains protein and amino acids that are very good for insectivorous and omnivorous birds. My two pet European Starlings' staple food is made from 1/3 chicken food and 2/3 cat food. They are picky about what size food particles they will eat so there are always lots of leftovers that are given to my mealworms and quickly devoured.
Eventually the larvae will develop into adult beetles that will lay eggs. Lift up the wood pieces periodically to see how many insects are hiding under there. When you think you have a high enough population to start harvesting, go ahead and take some. You will get a feel for how many you can take and how often over time.
If you get a fruit fly infestation, try moving the mealworm container to place where a few tiny flies are not that bothersome, like a garage. You can also set up a fruit fly trap (available at Schnarr's) near the mealworms to catch the flies.
Raising mealworms may seem "gross" at first but it's a great way to see and teach the life cycle of insects. If you have young family members they might be intrigued by this activity and develop an interest in animals and science. I started aquarium keeping when I was eight years old and I already liked bugs at that age. Besides fish I loved to keep lizards, toads and praying mantises. Seeing the mealworms I bought for my pets turn into pupae was really interesting! If you give a little squeeze to a pupa that is alive it will wiggle, which is an amazing thing for a kid to see!
I can tell by the amount of food and feeders that we sell that Schnarr's customers love their backyard birds! Many of us will encounter at some point a bird that is sick or injured or a baby that appears to be abandoned. Right now some birds are starting their second brood of the summer so baby bird season is not over yet!
Baby birds are very vulnerable if they fall or are pushed out of the nest. If you feel compelled to intervene, I totally understand why – that's how I came to be living with two European Starlings – it's a long story! Having been through the situation of finding a baby bird more than once, I've done a lot of reading and learning from experience and here is what I recommend.
First determine if the bird is a nestling or a fledgling. A nestling will not be fully feathered and will not be able to run away. It needs to be back in a nest ASAP. Try to put the bird back in the original nest if you can and if you know the parents are alive. It's a myth that the smell of humans will cause the parent birds to abandon it – most birds can't smell.
Sometimes it's not possible to put the bird back in the original nest – you can't find it, you can't reach it, or it's been destroyed. If that's the case you have the following options.
One plan is to make a makeshift nest and put it in a place where the parents can find it and it is safe from predators. If the bird is a species that nests in a cavity, you can look up nest box plans online specifically for that species and build one. I've been successful in getting a Starling family to move to a homemade nest box after the babies fell out of a dryer vent. Observe the nest to see if the parents find the baby and start feeding it. If they don't, take the bird to a wild bird rehab center. It's hard to say how long you should wait before giving up on the effort to re-involve the parents. The necessary feeding intervals of baby birds can vary depending on how old they are – if in doubt you could call a wild bird rehab center for advice. It's easy for baby birds to get dehydrated if they go too long without food because most of them don't drink liquids but get their moisture from their squishy bug diet. Don't attempt to give the baby bird water or liquids unless you know the right way – it's very easy to accidentally kill a baby bird by giving it water without knowledge of the correct procedure.
It's time-consuming to make and observe a makeshift nest – if you have the time, you might find it worthwhile to put in the effort. You'll learn a lot while doing it and it's very rewarding! If you don't have the time or the interest, just take the bird to the nearest wild bird rehab center right away. If it's one of the three species not protected by federal laws (Pigeons, House Sparrows or European Starlings) the rehabber might either euthanize it or refuse to accept it. In that case you will have a difficult choice to make and having been in that position, I wouldn't envy you! I chose to raise the five-day-old Starling I found in 2009 rather than let it be killed but everyone does not have the means or desire to take on the job of raising a baby bird. It can be done with the correct knowledge but it's a big commitment. Raising a baby bird and releasing it to the wild later sounds like a good idea but is not an option if the bird has been raised alone and if you want the bird to survive – it will not have learned survival skills from the parents. It may not know how to act around other wild birds and could fail to be accepted by a wild flock. A protected species (not one of the three mentioned) is not legal to keep without a permit and you must take it to a licensed rehabber to help it.
The baby birds on the left are nestlings and the other two examples are fledglings.
If the bird is fully feathered and can run away and perch, it's a fledgling. Most fledglings do not need any help. It's not uncommon for baby birds to leave the nest before they can fly well. The fledgling will be somewhat vulnerable until it can fully fly but the parents should be feeding it and trying to keep it away from danger. The best way to help it is to put it on a perch off the ground (if you can catch it). If you have cats or dogs keep them indoors for a week or so. It's not good for the health of pet cats to let them outside in any circumstances, but if you must let yours out try not to do so until the fledglings are flying.
If you find a bird that is sick or injured, it will need care no matter what age it is, so in that case try to get it to a rehabber as soon as possible. If a bird does not look sick but has been caught by a dog or cat, it needs antibiotics within a day or so or it is probably doomed. When birds are to the point of showing signs of illness or injury they are in bad shape – their instinct is to hide their infirmity as long as possible so they are not caught by predators or rejected by their flocks. Speaking of sick birds, it is my understanding is that a thorough hand-washing after handling is sufficient precaution in case the bird does have something a human can catch, like Salmonella. I am not a vet or a scientist so get more information on diseases if you are concerned. Many bird-borne diseases are species-specific and can't be caught by humans. However, if you have disposable gloves on hand it's smart to wear them for extra protection.
The best way to transport a bird to a rehabber is to put it in a box with soft nest-like materials and cover the box. Make sure it can breathe if it's boxed or wrapped. The bird will likely be terrified and if it's confined it will be less likely to injure itself. Handle it as little as possible and try not to expose it to loud noises.
If the bird is really large, like a hawk, heron, goose or pea fowl (which I once rescued believe it or not!), get advice from the Humane Society or other knowledgeable group before attempting to transport. My handling of the peahen I found went very smoothly but without good instructions and remembering to remain calm I might have had trouble! Some large birds can cause serious injuries with talons or beaks if not handled carefully. The peahen I transported had some mean-looking spurs but fortunately did not attempt to use them on me!
I Found A Baby Bird. What Do I Do?
It's becoming increasingly common to see structures called "Bug Houses" or "Insect Hotels" in gardens. Some people get squeamish at the mention of bugs or insects so perhaps the most appealing way to label such a structure is "Pollinator House". Such structures are provided as a nesting and sheltering area for beneficial insects.
Most people are familiar with the pollinating actions of honeybees, bumblebees and wasps. Social bees and wasps are beneficial to the garden in many ways, not only by pollinating but in the case of wasps eating garden pests.
It's understandable to be nervous about the idea of having colonies of stinging insects living in your garden because some of these species are very aggressive about defending their homes. If you want more pollinators in your garden fortunately there are other bees and wasps that are easier to co-exist with peacefully. If you fear you have attracted the wrong kind of bee or wasp to your garden, I recommend getting help from an expert before deciding how or if to deal with them.
I don't mind bees and wasps because I can identify them and know how close I can safely get to them. I also don't have any serious allergic reactions to stings. I work in the garden alongside Honeybees, Carpenter Bees, Bumblebees, Cicada Killers, Mud Daubers, Potter Wasps and others with little apprehension. Honeybees often land on me and I just stay still until they fly away. I steer clear of Yellow Jackets because I know from experience they will sting if you inadvertently disturb their nest (happened last summer in a client's garden). I don't attempt to eliminate them unless they are really in the way or other people are in danger. Even though I'm in the garden a lot I only get stung once every several years or so. The consequences for me are some brief anger, localized soreness and itching for a few days. The consequences for others could be far more serious and even deadly so use your best judgement.
Many of the solitary species of bees such as Mason and Leafcutter Bees like to nest in hollow plant stalks or holes in old wood. We take away many of these potential nesting sites by cleaning dead plants and old wood out of the garden. Some amount of cleanup is necessary for human safety, aesthetics and homeowners associations but we can mitigate the effects of a too-clean garden by building a Pollinator House. As an added benefit you may get other desirable insects such as ground beetles and butterflies hibernating in the structure.
The structure should be sturdily built to avoid toppling.
You can have a lot of fun designing your Pollinator House by creatively using materials, limited only by your imagination. I started a simple one for my Dad's garden, custom designed to solve two problems for him.
I bought 12 cinder blocks and used them to prop up the ailing fence. Then I filled some of the spaces with twigs and short segments of hollow, dead plant parts from the garden. I drilled some holes in some pieces of scrap wood. A variety of hole sizes and depths are good for different species. As we get more material we'll keep filling in the spaces in the blocks.
The result is practical and may not score high marks in the aesthetics department. However the fence is located in the middle of a mint patch (also a superb beneficial insect attractor) and it will be partially concealed by vegetation for much of the year. If Dad agrees I think I will add shelving to the top for containers of trailing plants which will help disguise the blocks. I will probably have to work on the bases of the cinder block towers to make them straighter since the ground here is soft and did some settling after I stacked the blocks.
Dad is pleased that his fence is at least upright again and he's happy to do his part for invertebrate conservation. Dad's garden was designed with wildlife in mind and already supports an abundant population of beneficial insects.
Hopefully my condo association will approve a Pollinator House in my garden. I don't know what my chances are but I do know that my Pollinator House is going to have to be pretty to even have a prayer of getting approved. I guess I will have to make it portable so I can sell it if they say no! They have previously said yes to a bird house but a bug house might be a harder sell. Stay tuned for a more aesthetically pleasing Pollinator House plan in a future newsletter!
Depending on what kind of water feature you have, there are some winter preparations you should have already made because we are well into the season for freezing temperatures. However, if you do what I do and keep your small water garden from freezing with a bird bath de-icer, there is not much winter preparation that is necessary. Winter maintenance may be a little different, however.
The de-icer I'm using does not keep the water at tropical temperatures, it just keeps it above freezing. I moved my live plants back inside in the fall because none of the ones I have would survive winter temperatures here. If you are warming the water in any way, you may see an increase in evaporation in the winter. Check your water feature frequently and top off with new water if needed.
My current water garden fish are native Missouri minnows so they don't need warm water – they just need at least part of the surface to be ice-free so they can get enough oxygen. If the water temperature is below 50 degrees, refrain from feeding your fish because they can't digest the food as well and the water may get polluted. Fish are more sluggish when it's cold and may be more vulnerable to predators – raccoons and several species of herons live in my neighborhood for example. If you don't have an area already where fish can hide from predators, you may want to add one. You could use driftwood, rocks, artificial plants, artificial floating rocks, planting pots or anything you have on hand that is aquarium safe to build an underwater shelter.
Keeping my water garden clean is very easy in the warm months – once a week I siphon debris off of the bottom with an aquarium gravel vacuum and change 20% of the water. As I do this I also rinse out the sponge filter. My water garden is small, only 30 gallons, so this is just as easy as maintaining an aquarium. Larger water gardens would need to be managed differently. In the cold months vacuuming the bottom is not a very pleasant job so I don't do it as often. It's probably not as necessary in winter with the fish eating less, but you should regularly clean the filter if you have one and if you run it in winter. Periodically sweep debris out if possible with a leaf skimmer or net. If birds like to drink and bathe in your water feature they can cause a water quality issue with their waste and by dropping food in it, as can decomposing leaves and plant parts that fall in.
If you have been doing any reading about gardening lately, you have probably encountered many articles urging people to plant milkweeds for Monarch butterflies whose numbers have declined at an alarming rate in recent years. At the risk of bringing up a topic again that is already well-covered, I will mention milkweeds because right now is a great time to plant them. Milkweed seeds need a period of cold in order to germinate. Last year I simulated that effect by cold-stratifying Common Milkweed and Swamp Milkweed seeds in the refrigerator – a successful effort that resulted in many new plants. This year I'm going to use nature to accomplish the task.
The photo above shows a Monarch caterpillar on the left and monarch chrysalis on the right on swamp milkweed in my garden. My proudest garden achievement of 2015!
The most recent issue of Missouri Conservationist has a timely article about planting milkweeds. They recommend planting the seeds outdoors in January or February in weed-free bare soil. Press the seeds into the soil. If planting into pots, sprinkle 1/4 inch of soil on top of the seeds and press down. Place the pot in a sunny exposed area and water regularly after the seeds sprout. Transplant after the plants have two to three sets of true leaves.
If you start milkweed seeds this winter you will probably not get any flowers from your milkweeds until next year, but caterpillars can still use them as a host plant until then. Try planting some annuals among them to add color and hide leaves that caterpillars have chewed until you get blooms. When they do flower, get ready for quite a show of winged visitors! Schnarr's carries three varieties of Milkweed seeds – pick some up now to improve your habitat!