“Biafrans Are Not Nazis:” The Biafran Humanitarian Disaster and Trudeau’s Analogies

Abstract

During the Nigeria-Biafra War, the Nigerian government employed shooting and economic blockade as powerful instruments of uniting the country and defending its territorial integrity. Starvation as a potent weapon was of a magnitude that arguably made it the worst catastrophe since the Second World War. The tension was between sovereignty and human rights. Public opinion in Canada strongly favored humanitarian support for Biafra, but the Canadian government argued that humanitarian aid for Biafra might be offensive to the Nigerian government. This article examines the attitude of Pierre Trudeau to the Biafran humanitarian crisis. It argues that Trudeau’s analogical arguments did not represent the true situation of the war. Although Trudeau’s reliance on information from the Commonwealth secretariat affected his understanding of the crisis, his policies were largely influenced by domestic political issues, particularly the Quebec separatist movement. The paper concludes that Canada’s foreign policy reviews that coincided with the Nigeria–Biafra War informed Trudeau’s kneejerk response to the Biafran humanitarian crisis.