THE KWALE INCIDENT
In the middle of the rainy season of 1969, Biafran military intelligence allegedly obtained information that foreign oilmen, particularly staff from the Italian government’s oil conglomerate, Eni (A branch of Agip oil and Gas Company), were aiding the Nigerian army. The foreign workers were allegedly providing sensitive military information to the federal forces- about Biafran troop positions, strategic military maneuvers, and training.
This information was quickly made available to the Biafran command, which swiftly sent soldiers on a stealth dawn operation during which they invaded Eni’s combine in Kwale, in the Niger River Delta’s oil reserve known as Okpai oil field. By the end of the “exercise”, eleven workers had been killed-ten of the dead were Italian and one was from Jordan. The Biafrans took Eni employees hostage. Fourteen were Italian, three were German, and one was Lebanese. What happened next would stir international outrage of epic proportions and threaten the fragile emotional and moral support that the Biafrans had developed during the course of the war.
The men were quickly detained on Biafran soil, tried and found guilty of supporting the enemy; the federal troops of Nigeria, to wage a war of genocide. Predictably, there was a spontaneous outcry and appeals for clemency from disparate groups and countries. The Vatican and the embassies of Italy, Germany, Portugal, and Biafra’s African supporters; Ivory Coast and Gabon, were at the vanguard of those asking for the release of the prisoners.
Ojukwu’s own radio pronouncement about the incident was equally irascible:
“For 18 white men, Europe is aroused. What have said about our millions? Eighteen white men assisting in the crime of genocide. What do they say about our murdered innocents? How many black dead make one missing white? Mathematicians, please answer me. Is it infinity?”
After Ojukwu received a private letter from the pope in June 1969, personally pleading for the release of the oilmen, many in Ojukwu’s inner circle were concerned about an international backlash. If the situation was not resolved swiftly, they feared, it could precipitate an instant sinking of Biafra’s international reputation and permanent loss of Vatican, Italian, indeed international humanitarian support.
Eventually, in late June 1969, the eighteen detained men were released and flown out of Biafra in the custody of diplomats from the Ivory Coast and Gabon. Later in 1969, Pope Paul VI, buoyed by the success of his emissaries in diffusing the Kwale incident, focused his energies next on procuring a lasting peace between the warring parties. Biafrans diplomats began to see some of the repercussions of the Kwale incident and the erosion of the goodwill that had been built up so successfully over the previous twenty-seven months.
-Extracted from Chinua Achebe’s There was a country.
