| Biafra. The very name conjures up images of death, wanton
destruction and human suffering almost beyond description. And no white man sufers inwardly more with
each report of further devastation, starvation and sorrow in that benighted African land than the Rev. James
Ahern, a Catholic missionary priest now serving at St. Gregory's Church in San Mateo. Although Father
Ahern left Biafra, the secessionist state of Nigeria which has been at war with the federal government 14
months two years ago, he lamented that the situation has lately taken on a distinct aspect of genocide.
“It looks like Biafrans are faced with the possibility of total annihilation,” he said Thursday in an
interview at the St. Gregory's rectory. “You can't understand it if you haven't been there,” he
continued. “I don't even like to think about it. It's too horrifying.” According to the Red Cross,
the past several weeks in the civil war [the death toll?] has risen to more than 42,000 persons per week. A
large percentage of these are children. As Father Ahern put it, “It would be like California seceding
fro the rest of the Union and having the Union forces simply cut California off from the rest of the world
by blockade.”
The federal forces of Nigeria have done such a good job of isolating Biafra that there is virtually no way to
supply the eastern peoples with food, drugs, and other essentials. “It is difficult for people here [to]
believe that the federal forces won't allow Red Cross planes to fly in with food because they believe that
they will carry in guns or that the Biafrans won't allow the food in by land because they say the federals
will poison it, but these things are facts,” the 45-year-old member of the Irish Holy Ghost Fathers
pointed out. “On Wednesday, the federal government gave permission to the Red Cross to fly planes
for ten days to aid Biafra,” he continued. But it was obvious that that move would make only a small
dent in the pressing needs of those people.
According to Father Ahern, the nature of the conflict is tribal and has deep roots in the past. He noted that
the war can only be settled at the conference which once ruled Nigeria as a colony, has the power to get
table and that Great Britain, both sides to that table [sic]. However, Father Ahern, a former all-Irish football
player, added that Britain is still honoring its arms contract with the federal government and that fact has
caused the Biafrans to distrust Britain as well they might. “You can imagine the pride of these
people,” he explained, “as a couple of million of them will die for political reasons.”
The vast majority of Biafrans are members of the highly advanced Ibo tribe which had contributed greatly to
the economy of Nigeria prior to Biafra's secession last year. A major cause for the secession was the fact
that several hundred thousand Ibos were murdered in a northern province as alleged retribution for a
reported Ibo-inspired army coup in 1966. Details of these goings-on are hazy but the sad fact remains that
the result has been this bitter war. As far as the Catholic church is concerned, Father Ahern said that,
“there isn't any religious persecution there. Oddly, you are going to have a hierarchy and the priests
but no people. This is a real twist.” He noted that there are 109 Holy Ghost Fathers still in Biafra.
There were once over 306 of them there.
Reverend Ahern, a burly, barrel-chested man, added that one of the novelties of the church structure in
Biafra is the fact that there are seven black bishops out of nine and that the other two white bishops
“are just waiting to be replaced.” He said that, “We were lucky that we were just as
advanced as the political independence of the country.” Throughout his discussion of the problems of
the Biafrans Father Ahern always referred to the situation in terms of the first person. At one point he
exclaimed: “And we are just getting help now.” He is currently involved in a Bay Area effort to
raise that aid. He said that interested persons may write to “Bay Area Committee to Save Biafran
Children,” Box 5, Sausalito. According to a news release from that organization, “Donations
which are tax deductible, will be channeled through relief organizations presently getting food and
medical supplies into Biafran territory.”
Father Ahern, who came to this country seven months ago and was assigned to a parish in Sausalito, has
been at St. Gregory's for the past six weeks. He exclaimed that he keeps abreast of the doings in his
adopted African land through newspaper reports, press releases, magazine stories, and first-hand reports
from friends. As he talked he shook his head, toyed with a pencil, and revealed that, “In my 14 years
there I baptized about 15,000 children. So you wonder how many of them are alive. What has become
of them.” |
