title: Java

text: Java has been Indonesia's most developed island since the Dutch East Indies era and continues to be so today in the modern Republic of Indonesia. The road transportation networks that have existed since ancient times were connected and perfected with the construction of Java Great Post Road by Daendels in the early 19th century. It became the backbone of Java's road infrastructure and laid the base of Java North Coast Road (). The need to transport commercial produces such as coffee from plantations in the interior of the island to the harbour on the coast spurred the construction of railway networks in Java. Today, industry, business, trade and services flourished in major cities of Java, such as Jakarta, Surabaya, Semarang, and Bandung; while some traditional Sultanate cities such as Yogyakarta, Surakarta, and Cirebon preserved its royal legacy and has become the centre of art, culture and tourism. Industrial estates are also growing in towns on northern coast of Java, especially around Cilegon, Tangerang, Bekasi, Karawang, Gresik and Sidoarjo. The toll road highway networks was built and expanded since the New Order until the present day, connecting major urban centres and surrounding areas, such as in and around Jakarta and Bandung; also the ones in Cirebon, Semarang and Surabaya. In addition to these motorways, Java has 16 national highways.


title: Java

text: Based on the statistical data by the year of 2021 released by Statistics Indonesia ("Badan Pusat Statistik"), Java alone contributes around 60% of Indonesia's GDP or equivalent to US$686 billion (int$2.0 trillion, PPP).


title: Mestizo

text: ' (; ; fem. ') is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ancestors are not. The term was used as an ethnic/racial category for mixed-race that evolved during the Spanish Empire. Although, broadly speaking, means someone of mixed European/Indigenous heritage, the term did not have a fixed meaning in the colonial period. It was a formal label for individuals in official documents, such as censuses, parish registers, Inquisition trials, and others. Priests and royal officials might have classified persons as mestizos, but individuals also used the term in self-identification.


title: Mestizo

text: The noun , derived from the adjective , is a term for racial mixing that did not come into usage until the twentieth century; it was not a colonial-era term. In the modern era, "mestizaje" is used by scholars such as Gloria Anzaldúa as a synonym for miscegenation, but with positive connotations.


title: Mestizo

text: In the modern era, particularly in Latin America, has become more of a cultural term, with the term "Indigenous" being reserved exclusively for people who have maintained a separate Indigenous ethnic and cultural identity, language, tribal affiliation, community engagement, etc. In late 19th- and early 20th-century Peru, for instance, "mestizaje" denoted those peoples with evidence of Euro-indigenous ethno-racial "descent" and accessusually monetary access, but not alwaysto secondary educational institutions. Similarly, well before the twentieth century, Euramerican "descent" did not necessarily denote Spanish American ancestry or solely Spanish American ancestry, especially in Andean regions re-infrastructured by Euramerican "modernities" and buffeted by mining labor practices. This conception changed by the 1920s, especially after the national advancement and cultural economics of .


title: Mestizo

text: To avoid confusion with the original usage of the term , mixed people started to be referred to collectively as . In some Latin American countries, such as Mexico, the concept of the Mestizo became central to the formation of a new independent identity that was neither wholly Spanish nor wholly Indigenous. The word acquired another meaning in the 1930 census, being used by the government to refer to all Mexicans who did not speak Indigenous languages regardless of ancestry.


title: Mestizo

text: During the colonial era of Mexico, the category Mestizo was used rather flexibly to register births in local parishes and its use did not follow any strict genealogical pattern. With Mexican independence, in academic circles created by the ""mestizaje"" or "Cosmic Race" ideology, scholars asserted that Mestizos are the result of the mixing of all the races. After the Mexican Revolution the government, in its attempts to create an unified Mexican identity with no racial distinctions, adopted and actively promoted the "mestizaje" ideology.


title: Mestizo

text: The Spanish word is from Latin "mixticius", meaning mixed. Its usage was documented as early as 1275, to refer to the offspring of an Egyptian/Afro Hamite and a Semite/Afro Asiatic. This term was first documented in English in 1582.


title: Mestizo

text: ( ), (, ), ( ), (), (), (), (), "mestee" (), and mixed (English) are all cognates of the Latin word "mixticius".


title: Mestizo

text: The Portuguese cognate, , historically referred to any mixture of Portuguese and local populations in the Portuguese colonies. In colonial Brazil, most of the non-enslaved population was initially , i.e. mixed Portuguese and Native Brazilian. There was no descent-based casta system, and children of upper-class Portuguese landlord males and enslaved females enjoyed privileges higher than those given to the lower classes, such as formal education. Such cases were not so common and the children of enslaved women tended not to be allowed to inherit property. This right of inheritance was generally given to children of free women, who tended to be legitimate offspring in cases of concubinage (this was a common practice in certain American Indian and African cultures). In the Portuguese-speaking world, the contemporary sense has been the closest to the historical usage from the Middle Ages. Because of important linguistic and historical differences, (mixed, mixed-ethnicity, miscegenation, etc.) is separated altogether from (which refers to any kind of brown people) and (brown people originally of European–Indigenous American admixture, or assimilated Indigenous American). The term can also refer to fully African or East Asian in their full definition (thus not brown). One does not need to be a to be classified as pardo or caboclo.


title: Mestizo

text: In Brazil specifically, at least in modern times, all non-Indigenous people are considered to be a single ethnicity (. Lines between ethnic groups are historically fluid); since the earliest years of the Brazilian colony, the (, , ) group has been the most numerous among the free people. As explained above, the concept of should not be confused with "mestizo" as used in either the Spanish-speaking world or the English-speaking one. It does not relate to being of American Indian ancestry, and is not used interchangeably with , literally "brown people." (There are among all major groups of the country: Indigenous, Asian, , and African, and they likely constitute the majority in the three latter groups.)


title: Mestizo

text: In English-speaking Canada, Canadian Métis (capitalized), as a loanword from French, refers to persons of mixed French or European and Indigenous ancestry, who were part of a particular ethnic group. French-speaking Canadians, when using the word "métis", are referring to Canadian Métis ethnicity, and all persons of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry. Many were involved in the fur trade with Canadian First Nations peoples (especially Cree and Anishinaabeg). Over generations, they developed a separate culture of hunters and trappers, and were concentrated in the Red River Valley and speak the Michif language.


title: Mestizo

text: In Saint Barthélemy, the term "mestizo" refers to people of mixed European (usually French) and East Asian ancestry. This reflects a different colonial era, when the French recruited East Asians as workers.


title: Mestizo

text: In the Spanish East Indies, which were Spain’s overseas possessions comprising the Captaincy-General of what is now the Philippines and other Pacific island nations ruled through the Viceroyalty of New Spain (today Mexico), the term "mestizo" was used to refer to a person with any foreign ancestry, and in some islands usually shortened as . In the Philippines, the word "mestizo" usually refers to a Filipino with combined Indigenous and European ancestry. Occasionally it is used for a Filipino with apparent Chinese ancestry, who will also be referred to as 'chinito'. The latter was officially listed as a ""mestizo de sangley"" in birth records of the 19th century, with 'sangley' referring to the Hokkienese word for business, 'seng-li'.


title: Mestizo

text: In the Spanish colonial period, the Spanish developed a complex set of racial terms and ways to describe difference. Although this has been conceived of as a "system," and often called the "sistema de castas" or "sociedad de castas", archival research shows that racial labels were not fixed throughout a person's life. Artwork created mainly in eighteenth-century Mexico, "casta paintings," show groupings of racial types in hierarchical order, which has influenced the way that modern scholars have conceived of social difference in Spanish America.


title: Mestizo

text: During the initial period of colonization of the Americas by the Spanish, there were three chief categories of ethnicities: Spaniard ("español"), American Indian ("indio"), and African ("negro"). Throughout the territories of the Spanish Empire in the Americas, ways of differentiating individuals in a racial hierarchy, often called in the modern era the "sistema de castas" or the "sociedad de castas", developed where society was divided based on color, "calidad" (status), and other factors.


title: Mestizo

text: In theory, and as depicted in some eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings, the offspring of a castizo/a [mixed Spanish - Mestizo] and an Español/a could be considered Español/a, or "returned" to that status.


title: Mestizo

text: In the early colonial period, the children of Spaniards and American Indians were raised either in the Hispanic world, if the father recognized the offspring as his natural child; or the child was raised in the Indigenous world of the mother if he did not. As early as 1533, Charles V mandated the high court (Audiencia) to take the children of Spanish men and Indigenous women from their mothers and educate them in the Spanish sphere. This mixed group born out of Christian wedlock increased in numbers, generally living in their mother's Indigenous communities.


title: Mestizo

text: Mestizos were the first group in the colonial era to be designated as a separate category from the Spanish (Españoles) and enslaved African blacks ("Negros") and were included in the designation of "vagabonds" ("vagabundos") in 1543 in Mexico. Although Mestizos were often classified as "castas", they had a higher standing than any mixed-race person since they did not have to pay tribute, the men could be ordained as priests, and they could be licensed to carry weapons, in contrast to "negros", mulattoes, and other castas. Unlike Blacks and mulattoes, Mestizos had no African ancestors. Intermarriage between Españoles and Mestizos resulted in offspring designated "Castizos" ("three-quarters white"), and the marriage of a castizo/a to an Español/a resulted in the restoration of Español/a status to the offspring. Don Alonso O’Crouley observed in Mexico (1774), "If the mixed-blood is the offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian, the stigma [of race mixture] disappears at the third step in descent because it is held as systematic that a Spaniard and an Indian produce a "mestizo"; a "mestizo" and a Spaniard, a "castizo"; and a "castizo" and a Spaniard, a Spaniard. The admixture of Indian blood should not indeed be regarded as a blemish, since the provisions of law give the Indian all that he could wish for, and Philip II granted to "mestizos" the privilege of becoming priests. On this consideration is based the common estimation of descent from a union of Indian and European or creole Spaniard."  O’Crouley states that the same process of restoration of racial purity does not occur over generations for European-African offspring marrying whites. “From the union of a Spaniard and a Negro the mixed-blood retains the stigma for generations without losing the original quality of a mulato."


title: Mestizo

text: The Spanish colonial regime divided groups into two basic legal categories, the Republic of Indians ("República de Indios") and the Republic of Spaniards ("República de Españoles") comprised the Spanish (Españoles) and all other non-Native peoples. Indians were free vassals of the crown, whose commoners paid tribute while Indigenous elites were considered nobles and tribute exempt, as were Mestizos. Indians were nominally protected by the crown, with non-Indians (Mestizos, blacks, and mulattoes) forbidden to live in Indigenous communities. Mestizos and Indians in Mexico habitually held each other in mutual antipathy. This was particularly the case with commoner American Indians against Mestizos, some of whom infiltrated their communities and became part of the ruling elite. Spanish authorities turned a blind eye to the Mestizos' presence, since they collected commoners' tribute for the crown and came to hold offices. They were useful intermediaries for the colonial state between the Republic of Spaniards and the Republic of Indians.


title: Mestizo

text: A person's legal racial classification in colonial Spanish America was closely tied to social status, wealth, culture, and language use. Wealthy people paid to change or obscure their actual ancestry. Many Indigenous people left their traditional villages and sought to be counted as Mestizos to avoid tribute payments to the Spanish. Many Indigenous people, and sometimes those with partial African descent, were classified as Mestizo if they spoke Spanish and lived as Mestizos.


title: Mestizo

text: In colonial Venezuela, was more commonly used instead of . means being mixed without specifying which mixture; it was used to describe anyone born in the Americas whose ancestry was a mixture of European, Indigenous American, and African.


title: Mestizo

text: When the First Mexican Republic was established in 1824, legal racial categories ceased to exist. The production of casta paintings in New Spain ceased at the same juncture, after almost a century as a genre.


title: Mestizo

text: Because the term had taken on a myriad of meanings, the designation "Mestizo" was actively removed from census counts in Mexico and is no longer in official nor governmental use.


title: Mestizo

text: Around 50-90% of Mexicans can be classified as "mestizos", meaning in modern Mexican usage that they identify fully neither with any European heritage nor with an Indigenous culture, but rather identify as having cultural traits incorporating both European and Indigenous elements. In Mexico, mestizo has become a blanket term which not only refers to mixed Mexicans but includes all Mexican citizens who do not speak Indigenous languages even Asian Mexicans and Afro-Mexicans.


title: Mestizo

text: Sometimes, particularly outside of Mexico, the word "mestizo" is used with the meaning of Mexican persons with mixed Indigenous and European blood. This usage does not conform to the Mexican social reality where a person of pure Indigenous genetic heritage would be considered mestizo either by rejecting his Indigenous culture or by not speaking an Indigenous language, and a person with none or very low percentage of Indigenous genetic heritage would be considered fully Indigenous either by speaking an Indigenous language or by identifying with a particular Indigenous cultural heritage. In the Yucatán peninsula the word mestizo has a different meaning to the one used in the rest of Mexico, being used to refer to the Maya-speaking populations living in traditional communities, because during the caste war of the late 19th century those Maya who did not join the rebellion were classified as mestizos. In Chiapas, the term "Ladino" is used instead of Mestizo.


title: Mestizo

text: Due to the extensiveness of the modern definition of mestizo, various publications offer different estimations of this group, some try to use a biological, racial perspective and calculate the mestizo population in contemporary Mexico as being around a half and two thirds of the population, while others use the culture-based definition, and estimate the percentage of mestizos as high as 90% of the Mexican population, several others mix-up both due lack of knowledge in regards to the modern definition and assert that mixed ethnicity Mexicans are as much as 93% of Mexico's population.


title: Mestizo

text: Paradoxically to its wide definition, the word mestizo has long been dropped of popular Mexican vocabulary, with the word even having pejorative connotations, which further complicates attempts to quantify mestizos via self-identification.


title: Mestizo

text: While for most of its history the concept of mestizo and mestizaje has been lauded by Mexico's intellectual circles, in recent times the concept has been target of criticism, with its detractors claiming that it delegitimizes the importance of ethnicity in Mexico under the idea of "(racism) not existing here (in Mexico), as everybody is mestizo." In general, author Federico Navarrete concludes that Mexico introducing a real racial classification and accepting itself as a multicultural country opposed to a monolithic mestizo country would bring benefits to the Mexican society as a whole.


title: Mestizo

text: A 2012 study published by the Journal of Human Genetics found that the Y-chromosome (paternal) ancestry of the average Mexican mestizo was predominantly European (64.9%), followed by Native American (30.8%), and African (4.2%). The European ancestry was more prevalent in the north and west (66.7–95%) and Native American ancestry increased in the centre and south-east (37–50%), the African ancestry was low and relatively homogeneous (0–8.8%). The states that participated in this study were Aguascalientes, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guerrero, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Veracruz and Yucatán.


title: Mestizo

text: A study of 104 mestizos from Sonora, Yucatán, Guerrero, Zacatecas, Veracruz, and Guanajuato by Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine, reported that mestizo Mexicans are 58.96% European, 31.05% Native American, and 10.03% African. Sonora shows the highest European contribution (70.63%) and Guerrero the lowest (51.98%) which also has the highest Native American contribution (37.17%). African contribution ranges from 2.8% in Sonora to 11.13% in Veracruz. 80% of the Mexican population was classed as mestizo (defined as "being racially mixed in some degree").


title: Mestizo

text: In May 2009, the same institution (Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine) issued a report on a genomic study of 300 mestizos from those same states. The study found that the mestizo population of these Mexican states were on average 55% of Indigenous ancestry followed by 41.8% of European, 1.8% of African, and 1.2% of East Asian ancestry. The study also noted that whereas mestizo individuals from the southern state of Guerrero showed on average 66% of Indigenous ancestry, those from the northern state of Sonora displayed about 61.6% European ancestry. The study found that there was an increase in Indigenous ancestry as one traveled towards to the Southern states in Mexico, while the Indigenous ancestry declined as one traveled to the Northern states in the country, such as Sonora.


title: Mestizo

text: The Ladino people are a mix of Mestizo or Hispanicized peoples in Latin America, principally in Central America. The demonym "Ladino" is a Spanish word that derives from "Latino". "Ladino" is an exonym dating to the colonial era to refer to those Spanish-speakers who were not colonial elites (Peninsulares and Criollos), or Indigenous peoples.


title: Mestizo

text: most Costa Ricans are primarily of Spanish or Mestizo ancestry with minorities of German, Italian, Jamaican and Greek ancestry.


title: Mestizo

text: European migrants used Costa Rica to get across the isthmus of Central America as well to reach the USA West Coast (California) in the late 19th century and until the 1910s (before the Panama Canal opened). Other ethnic groups known to live in Costa Rica include Nicaraguan, Colombians, Venezuelans, Peruvian, Brazilians, Portuguese, Palestinians, Caribbeans, Turks, Armenians and Georgians.


title: Mestizo

text: Many of the first Spanish colonists in Costa Rica may have been Jewish converts to Christianity who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and fled to colonial backwaters to avoid the Inquisition. The first sizable group of self-identified Jews immigrated from Poland, beginning in 1929. From the 1930s to the early 1950s, journalistic and official anti-Semitic campaigns fueled harassment of Jews; however, by the 1950s and 1960s, the immigrants won greater acceptance. Most of the 3,500 Costa Rican Jews today are not highly observant, but they remain largely endogamous.


title: Mestizo

text: Costa Rica has four small minority groups: Mulattos, Afro, Indigenous Costa Ricas, and Asians. About 8% of the population is of African descent or Mulatto (mix of European and African) who are called Afro-Costa Ricans, English-speaking descendants of 19th century Afro-Jamaican immigrant workers.


title: Mestizo

text: By the late twentieth century, allusions in textbooks and political discourse to "whiteness," or to Spain as the "mother country" of all Costa Ricans, were diminishing, replaced with a recognition of the multiplicity of peoples that make up the nation.


title: Mestizo

text: In Central America, intermarriage by European men with Indigenous women, typically of Lenca, Cacaopera and Pipil backgrounds in what is now El Salvador happened almost immediately after the arrival of the Spaniards led by Pedro de Alvarado. Other Indigenous groups in the country such as Maya Poqomam people, Maya Ch'orti' people, Alaguilac, Xinca people, Mixe and Mangue language people became culturally extinct due to the Mestizo process or diseases brought by the Spaniards. Mestizo culture quickly became the most successful and dominant culture in El Salvador. The majority of Salvadorans in modern El Salvador identify themselves as 86.3% Mestizo roots.


title: Mestizo

text: Historical evidence and census supports the explanation of "strong sexual asymmetry", as a result of a strong bias favoring children born to European man and Indigenous women, and to the important Indigenous male mortality during the conquest. The genetics thus suggests the Native men were sharply reduced in numbers due to the war and disease. Large numbers of Spaniard men settled in the region and married or forced themselves with the local women. The Natives were forced to adopt Spanish names, language, and religion, and in this way, the Lencas and Pipil women and children were Hispanicized. This has made El Salvador one of the worlds most highly mixed race nations.


title: Mestizo

text: In 1932, ruthless dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez was responsible for La Matanza ("The Slaughter"), known as the 1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre in which the Indigenous people were murdered in an effort to wipe out the Indigenous people in El Salvador during the 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising. Indigenous peoples, mostly of Lenca, Cacaopera and Pipil descent are still present in El Salvador in several communities, conserving their languages, customs, and traditions.


title: Mestizo

text: There is a significant Arab population (of about 100,000), mostly from Palestine (especially from the area of Bethlehem), but also from Lebanon. Salvadorans of Palestinian descent numbered around 70,000 individuals, while Salvadorans of Lebanese descent is around 27,000. There is also a small community of Jews who came to El Salvador from France, Germany, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey. Many of these Arab groups naturally mixed and contributed into the modern Salvadoran Mestizo population.


title: Mestizo

text: Pardo is the term that was used in colonial El Salvador to describe a person of tri-racial or Indigenous, European, and African descent. El Salvador is the only country in Central America that does not have a significant African population due to many factors including El Salvador not having a Caribbean coast, and because of president Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, who passed racial laws to keep people of African descent and others out of El Salvador, though Salvadorans with African ancestry, called Pardos, were already present in El Salvador, the majority are tri-racial Pardo Salvadorans who largely cluster with the Mestizo population. They have been mixed into and were naturally bred out by the general Mestizo population, which is a combination of a Mestizo majority and the minority of Pardo people, both of whom are racially mixed populations. A total of only 10,000 enslaved Africans were brought to El Salvador over the span of 75 years, starting around 1548, about 25 years after El Salvador's colonization. The enslaved Africans that were brought to El Salvador during the colonial times, eventually came to mix and merged into the much larger and vaster Mestizo mixed European Spanish/Native Indigenous population creating Pardo or Afromestizos who cluster with Mestizo people, contributing into the modern day Mestizo population in El Salvador, thus, there remains no significant extremes of African physiognomy among Salvadorans like there is in the other countries of Central America.


title: Mestizo

text: Today, many Salvadorans identify themselves as being culturally part of the majority Salvadoran mestizo population, even if they are racially European (especially Mediterranean), as well as Indigenous people in El Salvador who do not speak Indigenous languages nor have an Indigenous culture, and tri-racial/pardo Salvadorans or Arab Salvadorans.


title: Mestizo

text: The Ladino population in Guatemala is officially recognized as a distinct ethnic group, and the Ministry of Education of Guatemala uses the following definition:


title: Mestizo

text: "The Ladino population has been characterized as a heterogeneous population which expresses itself in the Spanish language as a maternal language, which possesses specific cultural traits of Hispanic origin mixed with Indigenous cultural elements, and dresses in a style commonly considered as western."


title: Mestizo

text: Initially colonial Argentina and Uruguay had a predominantly Mestizo population like the rest of the Spanish colonies, but due to a flood of European migration in the 19th century and the repeated intermarriage with Europeans, the Mestizo population became a so-called population. With more Europeans arriving in the early 20th century, the majority of these immigrants coming from Italy and Spain, the face of Argentina and Uruguay has overwhelmingly become European in culture and tradition. Because of this, the term Mestizo has fallen into disuse.


title: Mestizo

text: Argentine Northwest still has a predominantly Castizo population, especially in the provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Catamarca and La Rioja.


title: Mestizo

text: In Chile, from the time the Spanish soldiers with Pedro de Valdivia entered northern Chile, a process of 'mestizaje' began where Spaniards began to intermarry and reproduce with the local bellicose Mapuche population of Indigenous Chileans to produce an overwhelmingly Mestizo population during the first generation in all of the cities they founded. In Southern Chile, the Mapuche, were one of the only Indigenous tribes in the Americas that were in continuous conflict with the Spanish Empire and did not submit to a European power.


title: Mestizo

text: A public health book from the University of Chile states that 30% of the population is of only European origin; Mestizos are estimated to amount to a total of 65%, while Indigenous peoples comprise the remaining 5%. A genetic study by the same university showed that the average Chilean's genes in the Mestizo segment are 60% European and 40% Indigenous American.


title: Mestizo

text: Colombia whose land was named after explorer Christopher Columbus is the product of the interacting and mixing of the European conquistadors and colonist with the different Amerindian peoples of Colombia. With the arrival of Europeans came the arrival of the enslaved Africans, whose cultural element was mostly introduced into the coastal areas of Colombia. To this day, Afro-Colombians form a majority in several coastal regions of the country.


title: Mestizo

text: Over time Colombia has become a primarily Mestizo country due to limited immigration from Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the minorities being: the Mulattoes and Pardos, both mixed race groups of significant partial African ancestry who live primarily in coastal regions among other Afro-Colombians; and pockets of Amerindians living around the rural areas and the Amazonian Basin regions of the country.


title: Mestizo

text: An extraofficial estimate considers that the 49% of the Colombian population is Mestizo or of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry. Approximately 37% is of mainly European ancestry, although with an average of 24% native, (predominantly Spanish, and a part of Italian, French, and German) and of Middle Eastern ancestry. 10.6% is of African ancestry, though those of at least some* partial African ancestry raise the percentage to well over half of the entire country's population. Amerindians comprise 3.4% of the population. 0.01% of the population are Roma. The 2005 census reported that the "non-ethnic population", consisting of Europeans and Mestizos (those of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry), constituted 86% of the national population.


title: Mestizo

text: During the colonial era, the majority of Ecuadorians were Amerindians and the minorities were the Spanish Conquistadors, who came with Francisco Pizarro and Sebastián de Belalcázar. With the passage of time these Spanish conquerors and succeeding Spanish colonists sired offspring, largely nonconsensually, with the local Amerindian population, since Spanish immigration did not initially include many European females to the colonies. In a couple of generations a predominantly Mestizo population emerged in Ecuador with a drastically declining Amerindian population due to European diseases and wars.


title: Mestizo

text: Afro-Ecuadorians, (including Zambos and Mulattoes), are a significant minority in the country, and can be found mostly in the Esmeraldas Province and in the Valle del Chota of the Imbabura Province. They form a majority in both of those regions.


title: Mestizo

text: There are also small communities of Afro-Ecuadorians living along the coastal areas outside of the Esmeraldas province. However, significant numbers of Afro-Ecuadorians can be found in the countries' largest cities of Guayaquil and Quito, where they have been migrating to from their ancestral regions in search of better opportunities.


title: Mestizo

text: Mestizos are the largest of all the ethnic groups, and comprise 70% of the current population. The next 30% of the population is comprised by four ethnic groups with about 7.5% each, the Montubio (a term for Mestizos from the inland countryside of coastal Ecuador - who are culturally distinct from Mestizos from the rest of the country), Afro-Ecuadorian, Amerindians, and Europeans.


title: Mestizo

text: During the reign of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the first consul of Paraguay from 1811 to 1840, he imposed a law that no Spaniard may intermarry with another Spaniard, and that they may only wed Mestizos or Amerindians. This was introduced to eliminate any sense of racial superiority, and also to end the predominantly Spanish influence in Paraguay. De Francia himself was not a Mestizo (although his paternal grandfather was Afro-Brazilian), but feared that racial superiority would create class division which would threaten his absolute rule.


title: Mestizo

text: As a result of this, today 90% of Paraguay's population is Mestizo, and the main language is the native Guaraní, spoken by 60% of the population as a first language, with Spanish spoken as a first language by 40% of the population, and fluently spoken by 75%, making Paraguay one of the most bilingual countries in the world. After the tremendous decline of male population as a result of the War of the Triple Alliance, European male worker émigrés mixed with the female Mestizo population to create a middle-class of largely Mestizo background.


title: Mestizo

text: According to Alberto Flores Galindo, "By the 1940 census, the last that utilized racial categories, Mestizos were grouped with white, and the two constituted more than 53% of the population. Mestizos likely outnumbered Indians and were the largest population group."


title: Mestizo

text: Mestizos are the majority in Venezuela, accounting for 51.6% of the country's population. According to D'Ambrosio 57.1% of Mestizos have mostly European characteristics, 28.5% have mostly African characteristics and 14.2% have mostly Amerindian characteristics.


title: Mestizo

text: In Brazil, the word is used to describe individuals born from any mixture of different ethnicity, not specifying any relation to Amerindian or European descent whatsoever. The Mixed Ethnicty Day, or Mestico Day (Dia do Mestiço), on 27 June, is official event in States of Amazonas, Roraima e Paraíba and a holyday in two cities.


title: Mestizo

text: One of the most notorious group is the (brown people), also informally known as (tan skinned people; given its euphemism-like nature, it may be interpreted as offensive). They include mostly those of non-white skin color. Nevertheless, not all are . For example, an Amerindian (initially and most often , often more formally , rarely , an East Amerindian ()) or a Filipino may be initially described as (in opposition to , white, , Afro, and , yellow) if his or her ethnicity is unknown, and it is testified by the initial discovery reports of Portuguese navigators. In the same way, , a term used to describe anyone with any degree of miscegenation in one's blood line, may apply to all said groups (that in Portugal and its ex-colonies, always depended solely on phenotype, meaning a brown person may have a full sibling of all other basic phenotypes and thus ethnic groups).


title: Mestizo

text: Important groups in Brazil are the (largely contemporary usage) or (largely archaic usage), the , and the . The first group is composed of the culturally assimilated Amerindians as well as the "brown-skinned" descendants or children of both white or (swarthy) people of otherwise white phenotype and Amerindians. They are an important group in the Northern (Amazon Basin) region, but also relatively numerous on the Northeastern and Center-Western ones. Then, those, neither Afro- nor fair-skinned, whose origins come from the admixture between white or and Afros or . The last group is composed of descendants of Amerindians or and Afros or other . Finally, those whose origins possess a notorious level of European ancestry and in which neither Amerindian nor African phenotypical traces are much more present than each other are sometimes known as .


title: Mestizo

text: There are, however, important groups who are but not necessarily . People of East Asian and non-Asian descent combined are known as , from the Japanese "love (ai) child (ko)" (also used for all children of illegitimate birth. Mixed children are now largely referred to as "half" or hāfu), though often, for those without contact with the term, [East Asian nationality/ethnicity] may also be used. differ from at being fair-skinned (rather than brown-skinned), and having non-straight blond or red hair.


title: Mestizo

text: Other people who are not brown (and thus not ), but also their phenotypes by anything other than skin, hair and eye color do not match white ones but rather those of people of color may be just referred to as , without specification to skin color with an identitarian connotation (there are the distinctions, though, of , for the fair-skinned ones, and , for those of olive skin tones). In Brazilian censuses, those people may choose to identify mostly with (white) or (brown) or leave the question on ethnic/color blank.


title: Mestizo

text: The United States has a large Mestizo population, as many Latino Americans of Mexican or Central American or South American descent are technically Mestizo. The term "mestizo" is not used for official purposes, with Mexican Americans being classed in roughly equal proportions as "white" or "some other ethnicity".


title: Mestizo

text: A 2015 report by the Pew Research Center showed that "When asked if they identify as “mestizo,” “mulatto” or some other mixed-race combination, one-third of U.S. Hispanics say they do". These were more likely to be U.S. born, non-Mexican, and have a higher education attainment than those who do not so identify.


title: Mestizo

text: () is a term that came into usage in twentieth-century Latin America for racial mixing, not a colonial-era term. In the modern era, it is used to denote the positive unity of race mixtures in modern Latin America. This ideological stance is in contrast to the term "miscegenation", which usually has negative connotations. The main ideological advocate of "mestizaje" was José Vasconcelos (1882–1959), the Mexican Minister of Education in the 1920s. The term was in circulation in Mexico in the late nineteenth century, along with similar terms, "cruzamiento" ("crossing") and "mestización" (process of "Mestizo-izing"). In Spanish America, the colonial-era system of castas sought to differentiate between individuals and groups on the basis of a hierarchical classification by ancestry, skin color, and status ("calidad"), giving separate labels to the perceived categorical differences and privileging whiteness. In contrast, the idea of modern "mestizaje" is the positive unity of a nation's citizenry based on racial mixture. "Mestizaje placed greater emphasis [than the casta system] on commonality and hybridity to engineer order and unity... [it] operated within the context of the nation-state and sought to derive meaning from Latin America's own internal experiences rather than the dictates and necessities of empire... ultimately [it] embraced racial mixture."


title: Mestizo

text: At independence in Mexico, the casta classifications were abolished, but discrimination based on skin color and socioeconomic status continued. Liberal intellectuals grappled with the "Indian Problem", that is, the Amerindians' lack of cultural assimilation to Mexican national life as citizens of the nation, rather than members of their Indigenous communities. Urban elites spurned mixed-race urban plebeians and Amerindians along with their traditional popular culture. In the late nineteenth century during the rule of Porfirio Díaz, elites sought to be, act, and look like modern Europeans, that is, different from the majority of the Mexican population. Díaz was mixed-race himself, but powdered his dark skin to hide his Mixtec Indigenous ancestry. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, as social and economic tensions increased in Mexico, two major works by Mexican intellectuals sought to rehabilitate the assessment of the Mestizo. Díaz's Minister of Education, Justo Sierra published "The Political Evolution of the Mexican People" (1902), which situated Mexican identity in the mixing of European whites and Amerindians. Mexicans are "the sons of two peoples, of two races. [This fact] dominates our whole history; to this we owe our soul." Intellectual Andrés Molina Enríquez also took a revisionist stance on Mestizos in his work "Los grandes problemas nacionales" (The Great National Problems) (1909).


title: Mestizo

text: The Mexican state after the Mexican Revolution (1910–20) embraced the ideology of mestizaje as a nation-building tool, aimed at integrating Amerindians culturally and politically in the construction of national identity. As such it has meant a systematic effort to eliminate Indigenous culture, in the name of integrating them into a supposedly inclusive Mestizo identity. For Afro-Mexicans, the ideology has denied their historical contributions to Mexico and their current place in Mexican political life. Mexican politicians and reformers such as José Vasconcelos and Manuel Gamio were instrumental in building a Mexican national identity on the concept of "mestizaje" (the process of ethnic homogenization).


title: Mestizo

text: Cultural policies in early post-revolutionary Mexico were paternalistic towards the Indigenous people, with efforts designed to "help" Indigenous peoples achieve the same level of progress as the Mestizo society, eventually assimilating Indigenous peoples completely to mainstream Mexican culture, working toward the goal of eventually solving the "Indian problem" by transforming Indigenous communities into Mestizo communities.


title: Mestizo

text: In recent years, Mestizos' sole claim to Mexican national identity has begun to erode, at least rhetorically." A constitutional changes to Article 4 that now says that the "Mexican Nation has a pluricultural composition, originally based on its Indigenous peoples. The law will protect and promote the development of their languages, cultures, uses, customs, resources, and specific forms of social organization and will guarantee their members effective access to the jurisdiction of the State."


title: Mestizo

text: There has been considerable work on race and race mixture in various parts of Latin America in recent years. Including South America; Venezuela Brazil, Peru and Colombia.


title: Mestizo

text: Martín Cortés, son of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and of the Nahuatl–Maya Indigenous Mexican interpreter Malinche, was one of the first documented Mestizos to arrive in Spain. His first trip occurred in 1528, when he accompanied his father, Hernán Cortés, who sought to have him legitimized by Pope Clement VII, the Pope of Rome from 1523 to 1534.


title: Mestizo

text: There is also verified evidence of the grandchildren of Moctezuma II, Aztec emperor, whose royal descent the Spanish Crown acknowledged, willingly having set foot on European soil. Among these descendants are the Counts of Miravalle, and the Dukes of Moctezuma de Tultengo, who became part of the Spanish peerage and left many descendants in Europe. The Counts of Miravalle, residing in Andalucía, Spain, demanded in 2003 that the government of Mexico recommence payment of the so-called 'Moctezuma pensions' it had cancelled in 1934.


title: Mestizo

text: The Mestizo historian Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, son of Spanish conquistador Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega and of the Inca princess Isabel Chimpo Oclloun arrived in Spain from Peru. He lived in the town of Montilla, Andalucía, where he died in 1616. The Mestizo children of Francisco Pizarro were also military leaders because of their famous father. Starting in the early 19th and throughout the 1980s, France and Sweden saw the arrival of hundreds of Chileans, many of whom fled Chile during the dictatorial government of Augusto Pinochet.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970), also known as the Nigerian–Biafran War or the Biafran War, was a civil war fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence from Nigeria in 1967. Nigeria was led by General Yakubu Gowon, while Biafra was led by Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka "Emeka" Odumegwu Ojukwu. Biafra represented the nationalist aspirations of the Igbo ethnic group, whose leadership felt they could no longer coexist with the federal government dominated by the interests of the Muslim Hausa-Fulanis of Northern Nigeria. The conflict resulted from political, economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions which preceded the United Kingdom's formal decolonization of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963. Immediate causes of the war in 1966 included a military coup, a counter-coup, and anti-Igbo pogroms in Northern Nigeria. Control over the lucrative oil production in the Niger Delta also played a vital strategic role.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Within a year, the Federal Government troops surrounded Biafra, captured coastal oil facilities and the city of Port Harcourt. A blockade was imposed as a deliberate policy during the ensuing stalemate which led to mass starvation. During the two and half years of the war, there were about 100,000 overall military casualties, while between 500,000 and 2 million Biafran civilians died of starvation.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: In mid-1968, images of malnourished and starving Biafran children saturated the mass media of Western countries. The plight of the starving Biafrans became a "cause célèbre" in foreign countries, enabling a significant rise in the funding and prominence of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were the main supporters of the Nigerian government, while France, Israel (after 1968) and some other countries supported Biafra. The United States' official position was one of neutrality, considering Nigeria as "a responsibility of Britain", but some interpret the refusal to recognize Biafra as favouring the Nigerian government.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: This civil war can be connected to the colonial amalgamation in 1914 of Northern protectorate, Lagos Colony and Southern Nigeria protectorate (later renamed Eastern Nigeria), which was intended for better administration due to the close proximity of these protectorates . However, the change did not take into consideration the differences in the culture and religions of the people in each area. Competition for political and economic power exacerbated tensions.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on 1 October 1960, with a population of 45.2  million made up of more than 300 differing ethnic and cultural groups . When the colony of Nigeria had been created, its three largest ethnic groups were the Igbo, who formed about 60–70% of the population in the southeast; the Hausa-Fulani of the Sultanate of Sokoto, who formed about 67% of the population in the northern part of the territory; and the Yoruba, who formed about 75% of the population in the Southwestern part. Although these groups have their own homelands, by the 1960s, the people were dispersed across Nigeria, with all three ethnic groups represented substantially in major cities . When the war broke out in 1967, there were still 5,000 Igbos in Lagos.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The semi-feudal and Muslim Hausa-Fulani in the North were traditionally ruled by a conservative Islamic hierarchy consisting of emirs who in turn owed their ultimate allegiance to the Sultan of Sokoto. This Sultan was regarded as the source of all political power and religious authority.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The Yoruba political system in the southwest, like that of the Hausa-Fulani, also consisted of a series of monarchs, the Oba. The Yoruba monarchs, however, were less autocratic than those in the North. The political and social system of the Yoruba accordingly allowed for greater upward mobility, based on acquired rather than inherited wealth and title.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: In contrast to the two other groups, Igbos and the ethnic groups of the Niger Delta in the southeast lived mostly in autonomous, democratically organized communities, although there were E"ze" or monarchs in many of the ancient cities, such as the Kingdom of Nri. At its zenith, the Kingdom controlled most of Igbo land, including influence on the Anioma people, Arochukwu (which controlled slavery in Igbo), and Onitsha land. Unlike the other two regions, decisions within the Igbo communities were made by a general assembly in which men and women participated.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The differing political systems and structures reflected and produced divergent customs and values. The Hausa-Fulani commoners, having contact with the political system only through a village head designated by the Emir or one of his subordinates, did not view political leaders as amenable to influence. Political decisions were to be submitted. As with many other authoritarian religious and political systems, leadership positions were given to persons willing to be subservient and loyal to superiors. A chief function of this political system in this context was to maintain conservative values, which caused many Hausa-Fulani to view economic and social innovation as subversive or sacrilegious.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: In contrast to the Hausa-Fulani, the Igbos and other Biafrans often participated directly in the decisions which affected their lives. They had a lively awareness of the political system and regarded it as an instrument for achieving their personal goals. Status was acquired through the ability to arbitrate disputes that might arise in the village, and through acquiring rather than inheriting wealth. The Igbo had been substantially victimized in the Atlantic slave trade; in the year 1790, it was reported that of 20,000 people sold each year from Bonny, 16,000 were Igbo. With their emphasis upon social achievement and political participation, the Igbo adapted to and challenged colonial rule in innovative ways.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: These tradition-derived differences were perpetuated and perhaps enhanced by the colonial government in Nigeria. In the North, the colonial government found it convenient to rule indirectly through the Emirs, thus perpetuating rather than changing the indigenous authoritarian political system. Christian missionaries were excluded from the North, and the area thus remained virtually closed to European cultural influence. By contrast the richest of the Igbo often sent their sons to British universities, with the intention of preparing them to work with the British. During the ensuing years, the Northern Emirs maintained their traditional political and religious institutions, while reinforcing their social structure. At the time of independence in 1960, the North was by far the most underdeveloped area in Nigeria. It had an English literacy rate of 2%, as compared to 19.2% in the East (literacy in Ajami (local languages in Arabic script), learned in connection with religious education, was much higher). The West also enjoyed a much higher literacy level, as it was the first part of the country to have contact with western education, and established a free primary education program under the pre-independence Western Regional Government.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: In the West, the missionaries rapidly introduced Western forms of education. Consequently, the Yoruba were the first group in Nigeria to adopt Western bureaucratic social norms. They made up the first classes of African civil servants, doctors, lawyers, and other technicians and professionals.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Missionaries were introduced at a later date in Eastern areas because the British experienced difficulty establishing firm control over the highly autonomous communities. However, the Igbo and other Biafran people actively embraced Western education, and they overwhelmingly came to adopt Christianity. Population pressure in the Igbo homeland, combined with aspirations for monetary wages, drove thousands of Igbos to other parts of Nigeria in search of work. By the 1960s, Igbo political culture was more unified and the region relatively prosperous, with tradesmen and literate elites active not just in the traditionally Igbo East, but throughout Nigeria. By 1966, the traditional ethnic and religious differences between Northerners and the Igbo were exacerbated by new differences in education and economic class.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The colonial administration divided Nigeria into three regions—North, West and East—something which exacerbated the already well-developed economic, political, and social differences among Nigeria's different ethnic groups. The country was divided in such a way that the North had a slightly higher population than the other two regions combined. There were also widespread reports of fraud during Nigeria's first census, and even today population remains a highly political issue in Nigeria. On this basis, the Northern Region was allocated a majority of the seats in the Federal Legislature established by the colonial authorities. Within each of the three regions the dominant ethnic groups, the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo, respectively formed political parties that were largely regional and based on ethnic allegiances: the Northern People's Congress (NPC) in the North; the Action Group in the West (AG); and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in the East. Although these parties were not exclusively homogeneous in terms of their ethnic or regional make-up, the disintegration of Nigeria resulted largely from the fact that these parties were primarily based in one region and one tribe.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The basis of modern Nigeria formed in 1914 when the United Kingdom amalgamated the Northern and Southern protectorates. Beginning with the Northern Protectorate, the British implemented a system of indirect rule of which they exerted influence through alliances with local forces. This system worked so well, Colonial Governor Frederick Lugard successfully lobbied to extend it to the Southern Protectorate through amalgamation. In this way, a foreign and hierarchical system of governance was imposed on the Igbos. Intellectuals began to agitate for greater rights and independence. The size of this intellectual class increased significantly in the 1950s, with the massive expansion of the national education program. During the 1940s and 1950s, the Igbo and Yoruba parties were in the forefront of the campaign for independence from British rule. Northern leaders, fearful that independence would mean political and economic domination by the more Westernized elites in the South, preferred the continuation of British rule. As a condition for accepting independence, they demanded that the country continue to be divided into three regions with the North having a clear majority. Igbo and Yoruba leaders, anxious to obtain an independent country at all costs, accepted the Northern demands.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: However, the two Southern regions had significant cultural and ideological differences, leading to discord between the two Southern political parties. Firstly, the AG favoured a loose confederacy of regions in the emergent Nigerian nation whereby each region would be in total control of its own distinct territory. The status of Lagos was a sore point for the AG, which did not want Lagos, a Yoruba town situated in Western Nigeria (which was at that time the federal capital and seat of national government) to be designated as the capital of Nigeria, if it meant loss of Yoruba sovereignty. The AG insisted that Lagos must be completely recognized as a Yoruba town without any loss of identity, control or autonomy by the Yoruba. Contrary to this position, the NCNC was anxious to declare Lagos, by virtue of it being the "Federal Capital Territory" as "no man's land"—a declaration which as could be expected angered the AG, which offered to help fund the development of another territory in Nigeria as "Federal Capital Territory" and then threatened secession from Nigeria if it didn't get its way. The threat of secession by the AG was tabled, documented and recorded in numerous constitutional conferences, including the constitutional conference held in London in 1954 with the demand that a right of secession be enshrined in the constitution of the emerging Nigerian nation to allow any part of the emergent nation to opt out of Nigeria, should the need arise. This proposal for inclusion of right of secession by the regions in independent Nigeria by the AG was rejected and resisted by NCNC which vehemently argued for a tightly bound united/unitary structured nation because it viewed the provision of a secession clause as detrimental to the formation of a unitary Nigerian state. In the face of sustained opposition by the NCNC delegates, later joined by the NPC and backed by threats to view maintenance of the inclusion of secession by the AG as treasonable by the British, the AG was forced to renounce its position of inclusion of the right of secession a part of the Nigerian constitution. Had such a provision been made in the Nigerian constitution, later events which led to the Nigerian/Biafran civil war may have been avoided. The pre-independence alliance between the NCNC and the NPC against the aspirations of the AG would later set the tone for political governance of independent Nigeria by the NCNC/NPC and lead to disaster in later years in Nigeria.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Northern–Southern tension manifested firstly in the 1945 Jos Riot in which 300 Igbo people died and again on 1 May 1953, as fighting in the Northern city of Kano. The political parties tended to focus on building power in their own regions, resulting in an incoherent and disunified dynamic in the federal government.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: In 1946, the British divided the Southern Region into the Western Region and the Eastern Region. Each government was entitled to collect royalties from resources extracted within its area. This changed in 1956 when Shell-BP found large petroleum deposits in the Eastern region. A Commission led by Sir Jeremy Raisman and Ronald Tress determined that resource royalties would now enter a "Distributable Pools Account" with the money split between different parts of government (50% to region of origin, 20% to federal government, 30% to other regions). To ensure continuing influence, the British government promoted unity in the Northern bloc and secessionist sentiments among and within the two Southern regions. The Nigerian government, following independence, promoted discord in the West with the creation of a new Mid-Western Region in an area with oil potential. The new constitution of 1946 also proclaimed that "The entire property in and control of all mineral oils, in, under, or upon any lands, in Nigeria, and of all rivers, streams, and watercourses throughout Nigeria, is and shall be vested in, the Crown." The United Kingdom profited significantly from a fivefold rise in Nigerian exports amidst the post-war economic boom.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Nigeria gained independence on 1 October 1960, and the First Republic came to be on 1 October 1963. The first prime minister of Nigeria, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, was a northerner and co-founder of the Northern People's Congress. He formed an alliance with the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons party, and its popular nationalist leader Nnamdi "Zik" Azikiwe, who became Governor General and then President. The Yoruba-aligned Action Group, the third major party, played the opposition role.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Workers became increasingly aggrieved by low wages and bad conditions, especially when they compared their lot to the lifestyles of politicians in Lagos. Most wage earners lived in the Lagos area, and many lived in overcrowded dangerous housing. Labour activity including strikes intensified in 1963, culminating in a nationwide general strike in June 1964. Strikers disobeyed an ultimatum to return to work and at one point were dispersed by riot police. Eventually, they did win wage increases. The strike included people from all ethnic groups. Retired Brigadier General H. M. Njoku later wrote that the general strike heavily exacerbated tensions between the Army and ordinary civilians, and put pressure on the Army to take action against a government which was widely perceived as corrupt.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The 1964 elections, which involved heavy campaigning all year, brought ethnic and regional divisions into focus. Resentment of politicians ran high and many campaigners feared for their safety while touring the country. The Army was repeatedly deployed to Tiv Division, killing hundreds and arresting thousands of Tiv people agitating for self-determination.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Widespread reports of fraud tarnished the election's legitimacy. Westerners especially resented the political domination of the Northern People's Congress, many of whose candidates ran unopposed in the election. Violence spread throughout the country and some began to flee the North and West, some to Dahomey. The apparent domination of the political system by the North, and the chaos breaking out across the country, motivated elements within the military to consider decisive action.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: In addition to Shell-BP, the British reaped profits from mining and commerce. The British-owned United Africa Company alone controlled 41.3% of all Nigeria's foreign trade. At 516,000 barrels per day, Nigeria had become the tenth-biggest oil exporter in the world.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Though the Nigeria Regiment had fought for the United Kingdom in both the First and Second World Wars, the army Nigeria inherited upon independence in 1960 was an internal security force designed and trained to assist the police in putting down challenges to authority rather than to fight a war. The Indian historian Pradeep Barua called the Nigerian Army in 1960 "a glorified police force", and even after independence, the Nigerian military retained the role it held under the British in the 1950s. The Nigerian Army did not conduct field training, and notably lacked heavy weapons. Before 1948, Nigerians were not allowed to hold officer's commissions, and only in 1948 were certain promising Nigerian recruits allowed to attend Sandhurst for officer training while at the same time Nigerian NCOs were allowed to become officers if they completed a course in officer training at Mons Hall or Eaton Hall in England. Despite the reforms, only an average of two Nigerians per year were awarded officers' commissions between 1948–55 and only seven per year from 1955 to 1960. At the time of independence in 1960, of the 257 officers commanding the Nigeria Regiment which became the Nigerian Army, only 57 were Nigerians.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Using the "martial races" theory first developed under the Raj in 19th-century India, the colonial government had decided that peoples from northern Nigeria such as the Hausa, Kiv, and Kanuri were the hard "martial races" whose recruitment was encouraged while the peoples from southern Nigeria such as the Igbos and the Yoruba were viewed as too soft to make for good soldiers and hence their recruitment was discouraged. As a result, by 1958, men from northern Nigeria made up 62% of the Nigeria Regiment while men from the south and the west made up only 36%. In 1958, the policy was changed: henceforward men from the north would make up only 50% of the soldiers while men from the southeast and southwest were each to make up 25%. The new policy was retained after independence. The previously favored northerners whose egos had been stoked by being told by their officers that they were the tough and hardy "martial races" greatly resented the change in recruitment policies, all the more as after independence in 1960 there were opportunities for Nigerian men to serve as officers that had not existed prior to independence. As men from the southeast and southwest were generally much better educated than men from the north, they were much more likely to be promoted to officers in the newly founded Nigerian Army, which provoked further resentment from the northerners. At the same time, as a part of Nigerianisation policy, it was government policy to send home the British officers who had been retained after independence, by promoting as many Nigerians as possible until by 1966 there were no more British officers. As part of the Nigerianisation policy, educational standards for officers were drastically lowered with only a high school diploma being necessary for an officer's commission while at the same time Nigerianisation resulted in an extremely youthful officer corps, full of ambitious men who disliked the Sandhurst graduates who served in the high command as blocking further chances for promotion. A group of Igbo officers formed a conspiracy to overthrow the government, seeing the northern prime minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, as allegedly plundering the oil wealth of the southeast.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: On 15 January 1966, Major Chukuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, and other junior Army officers (mostly majors and captains) attempted a coup d'état. The two major political leaders of the north, the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the Premier of the northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello were executed by Major Nzeogwu. Also murdered was Sir Ahmadu Bello's wife and officers of Northern extraction. The President, Sir Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo, was on an extended vacation in the West Indies. He did not return until days after the coup. There was widespread suspicion that the Igbo coup plotters had tipped him and other Igbo leaders off regarding the pending coup. In addition to the killings of the Northern political leaders, the Premier of the Western region, Ladoke Akintola and Yoruba senior military officers were also killed. The coup, also referred to as "The Coup of the Five Majors", has been described in some quarters as Nigeria's only revolutionary coup. This was the first coup in the short life of Nigeria's nascent second democracy. Claims of electoral fraud were one of the reasons given by the coup plotters. Besides killing much of Nigeria's elite, the "Majors' Coup" also saw much of the leadership of the Nigerian Federal Army killed with seven officers holding the rank above colonel killed. Of the seven officers killed, four were northerners, two were from the southeast and one was from the Midwest. Only one was a Igbo.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: This coup was, however, not seen as a revolutionary coup by other sections of Nigerians, especially in the Northern and Western sections and by later revisionists of Nigerian coups. Some alleged, mostly from Eastern part of Nigeria, that the majors sought to spring Action Group leader Obafemi Awolowo out of jail and make him head of the new government. Their intention was to dismantle the Northern-dominated power structure but their efforts to take power were unsuccessful. Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo and loyalist head of the Nigerian Army, suppressed coup operations in the South and he was declared head of state on 16 January after the surrender of the majors.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: In the end though, the majors were not in the position to embark on this political goal. While their 15th January coup succeeded in seizing political control in the north, it failed in the south, especially in the Lagos-Ibadan-Abeokuta military district where loyalist troops led by army commander Johnson Aguyi-Ironsi succeeded in crushing the revolt. Apart from Ifeajuna who fled the country after the collapse of their coup, the other two January Majors, and the rest of the military officers involved in the revolt, later surrendered to the loyalist High Command and were subsequently detained as a federal investigation of the event began.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Aguyi-Ironsi suspended the constitution and dissolved parliament. He abolished the regional confederated form of government and pursued unitary policies favoured by the NCNC, having apparently been influenced by NCNC political philosophy. He, however, appointed Colonel Hassan Katsina, son of Katsina emir Usman Nagogo, to govern the Northern Region, indicating some willingness to maintain cooperation with this bloc. He also preferentially released northern politicians from jail (enabling them to plan his forthcoming overthrow). Aguyi-Ironsi rejected a British offer of military support but promised to protect British interests.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Ironsi fatally did not bring the failed plotters to trial as required by then-military law and as advised by most northern and western officers, rather, coup plotters were maintained in the military on full pay, and some were even promoted while awaiting trial. The coup, despite its failures, was widely seen as primarily benefiting the Igbo peoples, as the plotters received no repercussions for their actions and no significant Igbo political leaders were affected. While those that executed the coup were mostly Northern, most of the known plotters were Igbo and the military and political leadership of Western and Northern regions had been largely bloodily eliminated while the Eastern military/political leadership was largely untouched. However, Ironsi, himself an Igbo, was thought to have made numerous attempts to please Northerners. The other events that also fuelled suspicions of a so-called "Igbo conspiracy" were the killing of Northern leaders, and the killing of the Brigadier-General Ademulegun's pregnant wife by the coup executioners.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Despite the overwhelming contradictions of the coup being executed by mostly Northern soldiers (such as John Atom Kpera, later military governor of Benue State), the killing of Igbo soldier Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Unegbe by coup executioners, and Ironsi's termination of an Igbo-led coup, the ease by which Ironsi stopped the coup led to suspicion that the Igbo coup plotters planned all along to pave the way for Ironsi to take the reins of power in Nigeria.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu became military governor of the Eastern Region at this time. On 24 May 1966, the military government issued Unification Decree #34, which would have replaced the federation with a more centralised system. The Northern bloc found this decree intolerable.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: In the face of provocation from the Eastern media which repeatedly showed humiliating posters and cartoons of the slain northern politicians, on the night of 29 July 1966, northern soldiers at Abeokuta barracks mutinied, thus precipitating a counter-coup, which had already been in the planning stages. Ironsi was on a visit to Ibadan during their mutiny and there he was killed (along with his host, Adekunle Fajuyi). The counter-coup led to the installation of Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon as Supreme Commander of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Gowon was chosen as a compromise candidate. He was a Northerner, a Christian, from a minority tribe, and had a good reputation within the army.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: It seems that Gowon immediately faced not only a potential standoff with the East, but secession threats from the Northern and even the Western region. The counter-coup plotters had considered using the opportunity to withdraw from the federation themselves. Ambassadors from the United Kingdom and the United States, however, urged Gowon to maintain control over the whole country. Gowon followed this plan, repealing the Unification Decree, announcing a return to the federal system.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: From June through October 1966, pogroms in the North killed an estimated 8,000 to 30,000 Igbo, half of them children, and caused more than a million to two million to flee to the Eastern Region. 29 September 1966 became known as 'Black Thursday', as it was considered the worst day of the massacres.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The pogroms I witnessed in Makurdi, Nigeria (late Sept. 1966) were foreshadowed by months of intensive anti-Igbo and anti-Eastern conversations among Tiv, Idoma, Hausa and other Northerners resident in Makurdi, and, fitting a pattern replicated in city after city, the massacres were led by the Nigerian army. Before, during and after the slaughter, Col. Gowon could be heard over the radio issuing 'guarantees of safety' to all Easterners, all citizens of Nigeria, but the intent of the soldiers, the only power that counts in Nigeria now or then, was painfully clear. After counting the disembowelled bodies along the Makurdi road I was escorted back to the city by soldiers who apologised for the stench and explained politely that they were doing me and the world a great favour by eliminating Igbos.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The Federal Military Government also laid the groundwork for the economic blockade of the Eastern Region which went into full effect in 1967.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The deluge of refugees in Eastern Nigeria created a difficult situation. Extensive negotiations took place between Ojukwu, representing Eastern Nigeria, and Gowon, representing the Nigerian Federal military government. In the Aburi Accord, finally signed at Aburi, Ghana, the parties agreed that a looser Nigerian federation would be implemented. Gowon delayed announcement of the agreement and eventually reneged.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: On 27 May 1967, Gowon proclaimed the division of Nigeria into twelve states. This decree carved the Eastern Region in three parts: South Eastern State, Rivers State, and East Central State. Now the Igbos, concentrated in the East Central State, would lose control over most of the petroleum, located in the other two areas.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The Federal Military Government immediately placed an embargo on all shipping to and from Biafra—but not on oil tankers. Biafra quickly moved to collect oil royalties from oil companies doing business within its borders. When Shell-BP acquiesced to this request at the end of June, the Federal Government extended its blockade to include oil. The blockade, which most foreign actors accepted, played a decisive role in putting Biafra at a disadvantage from the beginning of the war.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Although the very young nation had a chronic shortage of weapons to go to war, it was determined to defend itself. Although there was much sympathy in Europe and elsewhere, only five countries (Tanzania, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Zambia, and Haiti) officially recognised the new republic. The United Kingdom supplied heavy weapons and ammunition to the Nigerian side because of its desire to preserve the country it had created. The Biafra side received arms and ammunition from France, even though the French government denied sponsoring Biafra. An article in "Paris Match" of 20 November 1968 claimed that French arms were reaching Biafra through neighbouring countries such as Gabon. The heavy supply of weapons by the United Kingdom was the biggest factor in determining the outcome of the war.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Several peace accords were held, with the most notable one held at Aburi, Ghana (the Aburi Accord). There were different accounts of what took place in Aburi. Ojukwu accused the federal government of going back on their promises while the federal government accused Ojukwu of distortion and half-truths. Ojukwu gained agreement to a confederation for Nigeria, rather than a federation. He was warned by his advisers that Gowon did not understand the difference and would renege upon the agreement.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: When this happened, Ojukwu regarded it as both a failure by Gowon to keep to the spirit of the Aburi agreement and a lack of integrity on the side of the Nigerian Military Government in the negotiations toward a united Nigeria. Gowon's advisers, to the contrary, felt that he had enacted as much as was politically feasible in fulfilment of the spirit of Aburi. The Eastern Region was very ill-equipped for war, outmanned and outgunned by the Nigerians, but had the advantages of fighting in their homeland, support of most Easterners, determination, and use of limited resources.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The UK, which still maintained the highest level of influence over Nigeria's highly valued oil industry through Shell-BP, and the Soviet Union supported the Nigerian government, especially by military supplies.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The Nigerian Army in 1967 was completely unready for war. The Nigerian Army had no training or experience of war on the operational level, still being primarily an internal security force. Most Nigerian officers were more concerned with their social lives than military training, spending a disproportionate amount of their time on partying, drinking, hunting and playing games. Social status in the Army was extremely important and officers devoted an excessive amount of time to ensure their uniforms were always immaculate while there was a competition to own the most expensive automobiles and homes. The killings and purges perpetuated during the two coups of 1966 had killed most of the Sandhurst graduates. By July 1966, all of the officers holding the rank above colonel had been either killed or discharged while only 5 officers holding the rank of lieutenant colonel were still alive and on duty. Almost all of the junior officers had received their commissions after 1960 and most were heavily dependent on the more experienced NCOs to provide the necessary leadership. The same problems that afflicted the Federal Army also affected the Biafran Army even more whose officer corps was based around former Federal Igbo officers. The shortage of experienced officers was a major problem for the Biafran Army, made worse by a climate of paranoia and suspicion within Biafra as Ojukwu believed that other former Federal officers were plotting against him.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Shortly after extending its blockade to include oil, the Nigerian government launched a "police action" to retake the secessionist territory. The war began on the early hours of 6 July 1967 when Nigerian Federal troops advanced in two columns into Biafra. The Biafra strategy had succeeded: the federal government had started the war, and the East was defending itself. The Nigerian Army offensive was through the north of Biafra led by Colonel Mohammed Shuwa and the local military units were formed as the 1st Infantry Division. The division was led mostly by northern officers. After facing unexpectedly fierce resistance and high casualties, the western Nigerian column advanced on the town of Nsukka, which fell on 14 July, while the eastern column made for Garkem, which was captured on 12 July.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The Biafrans responded with an offensive of their own. On 9 August, Biafran forces crossed their western border and the Niger river into the MidWestern state of Nigeria. Passing through the state capital of Benin City, the Biafrans advanced west until 21 August, when they were stopped at Ore in present-day Ondo State, east of the Nigerian capital of Lagos. The Biafran attack was led by Lt. Col. Banjo, a Yoruba man , with the Biafran rank of brigadier. The attack met little resistance and the MidWestern state was easily taken over. This was due to the pre-secession arrangement that all soldiers should return to their regions to stop the spate of killings, in which Igbo soldiers had been major victims. The Nigerian soldiers who were supposed to defend the MidWestern state were mostly Igbo from that state and, while some were in touch with their Biafran counterparts, others resisted the invasion. General Gowon responded by asking Colonel Murtala Mohammed (who later became head of state in 1975) to form another division (the 2nd Infantry Division) to expel the Biafrans from the MidWestern state, to defend the border of the Western state and to attack Biafra. At the same time, Gowon declared "total war" and announced the Federal government would mobilise the entire population of Nigeria for the war effort. From the summer of 1967 to the spring of 1969, the Federal Army grew from a force of 7,000 to a force of 200,000 men organised in three divisions. Biafra began the war with only 240 soldiers at Enugu, which grew to two battalions by August 1967, which soon were expanded into two brigades, the 51st and 52nd which became the core of the Biafran Army. By 1969, the Biafrans were to field 90,000 soldiers formed into five undermanned divisions together with a number of independent units.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: As Nigerian forces retook the MidWestern state, the Biafran military administrator declared it to be the Republic of Benin on 19 September, though it ceased to exist the next day. The present country of Benin, west of Nigeria, was still named Dahomey at that time.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Although Benin City was retaken by the Nigerians on 22 September, the Biafrans succeeded in their primary objective by tying down as many Nigerian Federal troops as they could. Gen. Gowon also launched an offensive into Biafra south from the Niger Delta to the riverine area, using the bulk of the Lagos Garrison command under Colonel Benjamin Adekunle (called the Black Scorpion) to form the 3rd Infantry Division (which was later renamed as the 3rd Marine Commando). As the war continued, the Nigerian Army recruited amongst a wider area, including the Yoruba, Itshekiri, Urhobo, Edo, Ijaw, etc.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The command was divided into two brigades with three battalions each. The 1st Brigade advanced on the axis of the Ogugu–Ogunga–Nsukka road while the 2nd Brigade advanced on the axis of the Gakem–Obudu–Ogoja road. By 10 July 1967, the 1st Brigade had conquered all its assigned territories. By 12 July the 2nd brigade had captured Gakem, Ogudu, and Ogoja. To assist Nigeria, Egypt sent six Ilyushin Il-28 bombers flown by Egyptian air crews. The habit of the Egyptians to bomb Red Cross hospitals together with schools, hospitals, and marketplaces did much to earn Biafra international sympathy.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Enugu became the hub of secession and rebellion, and the Nigerian government believed that once Enugu was captured, the drive for secession would end. The plans to conquer Enugu began on 12 September 1967. On 4 October, the Nigerian 1st Division captured Enugu. Ojukwu was asleep in the Biafran State House when the federal troops attacked and narrowly escaped by disguising himself as a servant. Many Nigerians hoped that Enugu's capture would convince the Igbos' traditional elite to end their support for secession, even if Ojukwu did not follow them. This did not occur. Ojukwu relocated his government without difficulty to Umuahia, a city positioned deep within traditional Igbo territory. The fall of Enugu contributed to a brief destabilisation of Biafran propaganda efforts, as the forced relocation of personnel left the Ministry of Information disorganised and the federal force's success undermined previous Biafran assertions that the Nigerian state could not withstand a protracted war. On 23 October the Biafran official radio declared in a broadcast that Ojukwu promised to continue resisting the federal government, and that he attributed the loss of Enugu to subversive actions.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Nigerian soldiers under Murtala Mohammed carried out a mass killing of 700 civilians when they captured Asaba on the River Niger. The Nigerians were repulsed three times as they attempted to cross the River Niger during October, resulting in the loss of thousands of troops, dozens of tanks and equipment. The first attempt by the 2nd Infantry Division on 12 October to cross the Niger from the town of Asaba to the Biafran city of Onitsha cost the Nigerian Federal Army over 5,000 soldiers killed, wounded, captured or missing. Operation Tiger Claw (17–20 October 1967) was a military conflict between Nigerian and Biafran military forces. On 17 October 1967 Nigerians invaded Calabar led by the "Black Scorpion", Benjamin Adekunle, while the Biafrans were led by Col. Ogbu Ogi, who was responsible for controlling the area between Calabar and Opobo, and Lynn Garrison, a foreign mercenary. The Biafrans came under immediate fire from the water and the air. For the next two days Biafran stations and military supplies were bombarded by the Nigerian air force. That same day Lynn Garrison reached Calabar but came under immediate fire by federal troops. By 20 October, Garrison's forces withdrew from the battle while Col. Ogi officially surrendered to Gen. Adekunle. On 19 May 1968 Port Harcourt was captured. With the capture of Enugu, Bonny, Calabar and Port Harcourt, the outside world was left in no doubt of the Federal supremacy in the war.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Biafran propaganda always blamed military defeats on "saboteurs" within the ranks of the Biafran officer, and both officers and the other ranks were encouraged to denounce suspected "saboteurs". Throughout the war, Biafran officers were far more likely to be executed by their own side than by the Federal Army as Ojukwu conducted purges and had officers who were merely accused of being "saboteurs" taken out and shot. Ojukwu did not trust the majority of the former Federal Igbo officers who had rallied to Biafra and saw them as potential rivals, thus leading to murderous purges that led to most of them being executed. Furthermore, Ojukwu needed scapegoats for Biafra's defeats and death was the usual punishment for a Biafran officers who lost a battle. Out of a fear of a coup, Ojukwu created several units such as the S Brigade commanded by himself and the 4th Commando Brigade commanded by the German mercenary Rolf Steiner that existed outside of the regular chain of command. Barua wrote that Ojukwu's leadership, especially his frequent executions of his own officers had a "disastrous impact" on the morale of the Biafran officer corps. The executions of officers also made it difficult for the Biafran officers to acquire the necessary experience to conduct military operations successfully as Barua noted the Biafran Army lacked both the "continuity and cohesion" to learn from the war.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Oil exploration in Nigeria was pioneered by the Shell-BP Petroleum Development Company in 1937. In a bid to control the oil in the eastern region, the Federal government placed a shipping embargo on the territory. This embargo did not include oil tankers. The leadership of Biafra wrote to Shell-BP demanding royalties for the oil that was being explored in their region. After much deliberation, Shell-BP decided to pay Biafra the sum of 250,000 pounds. The news of this payment reached the Federal government, which immediately extended the shipping embargo to oil tankers. The Nigerian government also made it clear to Shell-BP that it expected the company to pay all outstanding oil royalties immediately. With the stalling on the payment for Biafra, the government instructed Shell-BP to stop operations in Biafra and took over from the company.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Towards the end of July 1967, Nigerian federal troops and marines captured Bonny Island in the Niger Delta, thereby taking control of vital Shell-BP facilities. Operations began again in May 1968, when Nigeria captured Port Harcourt. Its facilities had been damaged and needed repair. Oil production and export continued, but at a lower level. The completion in 1969 of a new terminal at Forçados brought production up from 142,000 barrels/day in 1958 to 540,000 barrels/day in 1969. In 1970, this figure doubled to 1.08 million barrels/day. The royalties enabled Nigeria to buy more weapons, hire mercenaries, etc. Biafra proved unable to compete on this economic level.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The United Kingdom had planned to maintain and expand its supply of cheap high-quality oil from Nigeria. Therefore, it placed a high priority on maintenance of oil extraction and refining operations. The war broke out just a week before the Six-Day War in the Middle East led to the Suez Canal being blocked, forcing oil tankers from the Middle East to use the long route around the Cape of Good Hope, thereby increasing the cost of Middle Eastern oil. In turn, this increased the importance of Nigerian oil to the United Kingdom, because Nigerian oil was cheaper than Persian Gulf oil. Initially, when it was unclear which side would prevail, the United Kingdom took a "wait and see" approach before opting decisively for Nigeria. Nigeria had a navy of only 6 vessels, the largest of which was a frigate; an air force of 76 planes, none of which were fighters or bombers; and an army of 7,000 men with no tanks and a shortage of officers with command experience. Though Biafra was likewise similarly weak, the two sides appeared evenly matched at the beginning of the war, and Nigerian victory was by no means considered preordained.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The United Kingdom backed the Federal Government but, when the war broke out, cautioned them not to damage British oil installations in the East. These oilworks, under the control of the Shell-BP Petroleum Development Company (jointly owned by Shell and British Petroleum), controlled 84% of Nigeria's 580,000 barrels per day. Two-thirds of this oil came from the Eastern region, and another third from the newly created Mid-West region. Two-fifths of all Nigerian oil ended up in the United Kingdom. In 1967, 30% of the oil being imported into the United Kingdom came from Nigeria.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Shell-BP therefore considered carefully a request by the Federal Government that it refuse to pay the royalties demanded by Biafra. Its lawyers advised that payment to Biafra would be appropriate if this government did in fact maintain law and order in the region in question. The British government advised that paying Biafra could undermine the goodwill of the Federal Government. Shell-BP made the payment, and the government established a blockade on oil exports. Forced to choose a side, Shell-BP and the British government threw in their lot with the Federal Government in Lagos, apparently calculating that this side would be more likely to win the war. As the British High Commissioner in Lagos wrote to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs on 27 July 1967:


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Ojukwu, even victorious, will not be in a strong position. He will require all the international help and recognition he can get. The Federal Government would be much better placed both internationally and internally. They would have a cast iron case for the severest treatment of a company which has subsidised a rebel, and I feel fairly convinced they would press their case to the lengths of cancelling the Company's concessions and nationalising their installations. I conclude, therefore, if the company does change its mind and asks the British Government for advice, the best that could be given is for it to clamber hastily back on the Lagos side of the fence with cheque book at the ready."


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Shell-BP took this advice. It continued to quietly support Nigeria through the rest of the war, in one case advancing a royalty of £5.5 million to fund the purchase of more British weapons.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: It was not until Federal forces captured the ocean oil terminal at Bonny on 25 July 1967 that the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson decided to back Nigeria with military aid. After the Federal victory at Bonny, Wilson summoned David Hunt, the British high commissioner to Nigeria, for a meeting at 10 Downing Street in early August 1967 for his assessment of the situation. Hunt's view that the Federal forces were the better organised and would win because they could draw upon a greater population led Wilson to side with Nigeria.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: During the war, the United Kingdom covertly supplied Nigeria with weapons and military intelligence and may have also helped it to hire mercenaries. After the decision was made to back Nigeria, the BBC oriented its reporting to favour this side. Supplies provided to the Federal Military Government included two vessels and 60 vehicles.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: In the United Kingdom, the humanitarian campaign around Biafra began on 12 June 1968, with media coverage on ITV and in "The Sun". The charities Oxfam and Save the Children Fund were soon deployed, with large sums of money at their disposal.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: France provided weapons, mercenary fighters, and other assistance to Biafra and promoted its cause internationally, describing the situation as a genocide. President Charles de Gaulle referred to "Biafra's just and noble cause". However, France did not recognise Biafra diplomatically. Through Pierre Laureys, France had apparently provided two B-26s, Alouette helicopters, and pilots. France supplied Biafra with captured German and Italian weapons from World War II, sans serial numbers, delivered as part of regular shipments to Ivory Coast. France also sold Panhard armoured vehicles to the Nigerian federal government.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: French involvement in the war can be viewed in the context of its geopolitical strategy ("Françafrique") and competition with the British in West Africa. Nigeria represented a base of British influence in the predominantly French-aligned area. France and Portugal used nearby countries in their sphere of influence, especially Ivory Coast under President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, as waystations for shipments to Biafra. To some extent, also, France repeated its earlier policy from the Congo Crisis, when it supported the secession of the southern mining province Katanga.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Economically, France gained incentives through oil drilling contracts for the "Société Anonyme Française de Recherches et d'Exploitation de Pétrolières" (SAFRAP), apparently arranged with Eastern Nigeria in advance of its secession from the Nigerian Federation. SAFRAP laid claim to 7% of the Nigerian petroleum supply. In the assessment of a CIA analyst in 1970, France's "support was actually given to a handful of Biafran bourgeoisie in return for the oil. " Biafra, for its part, openly appreciated its relationship with France. Ojukwu suggested on 10 August 1967, that Biafra introduce compulsory French classes in secondary, technical and teacher training schools, in order to "benefit from the rich culture of the French-speaking world".


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: France led the way, internationally, for political support of Biafra. Portugal also sent weapons. These transactions were arranged through the "Biafran Historical Research Centre" in Paris. French-aligned Gabon and Ivory Coast recognised Biafra in May 1968. On 8 May 1968, De Gaulle personally contributed 30,000 francs to medicine purchases for the French Red Cross mission. Fairly widespread student-worker unrest diverted the government's attention only temporarily. The government declared an arms embargo but maintained arms shipments to Biafra under cover of humanitarian aid. In July the government redoubled its efforts to involve the public in a humanitarian approach to the conflict. Images of starving children and accusations of genocide filled French newspapers and television programs. Amidst this press blitz, on 31 July 1968, De Gaulle made an official statement in support of Biafra. Maurice Robert, head of "Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage" (SDECE, the French foreign intelligence service) African operations, wrote in 2004 that his agency supplied the press with details about the war and told them to use the word "genocide" in their reporting.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: France declared "Biafra Week" on 11–17 March 1969, centred on a 2-franc raffle held by the French Red Cross. Soon after, de Gaulle terminated arms shipments, then resigned on 27 April 1969. Interim president Alain Poher fired General Jacques Foccart, the lead coordinator of France's Africa policy. Georges Pompidou re-hired Foccart and resumed support for Biafra, including cooperation with the South African secret service to import more weapons.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The Soviet Union strongly backed the Nigerian government, emphasising the similarity with the Congo situation. Nigeria's need for more aircraft, which the United Kingdom and the United States refused to sell, led Gowon to accept a Soviet offer in the summer of 1967 to sell a squadron of 17 MiG-17 fighters. The British-trained Nigerian military tended to be distrustful of the Soviet Union, but the Soviet ambassador in Lagos, Alexander Romanov, a gregarious and friendly man as well as a shrewd diplomat, established an excellent rapport with Gowon and persuaded him that accepting Soviet weapons would not mean subjection to the Soviet Union. The first MiG-17s arrived in Nigeria in August 1967 together with some about 200 Soviet technicians to train the Nigerians in their use. Though the MiG-17s turned out to be too sophisticated for the Nigerians to use properly, requiring Egyptian Air Force pilots to fly them, the Soviet-Nigerian arms deal turned out to be one of the turning points of the war. Besides establishing an arms pipeline from the Soviet Union to Nigeria, the possibility that the Soviet Union would gain greater influence in Nigeria led the United Kingdom to increase its supply of arms to maintain its influence in Lagos while ruling out the possibility of either the United States or Britain recognizing Biafra.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: The Soviet Union consistently supplied Nigeria with weapons, with the diplomatic disclaimer that these were "strictly for cash on a commercial basis". In 1968, the USSR agreed to finance the Kainji Dam on the Niger (somewhat upriver from the Delta). Soviet media outlets initially accused the British of cynically supporting the Biafran secession, then had to adjust these claims later when it turned out that the United Kingdom was, in fact, supporting the Federal Government.


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: One explanation for Soviet sympathy with the Federal Military Government was a shared opposition to internal secessionist movements. Before the war, the Soviets had seemed sympathetic to the Igbos. But Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin stated to their chagrin in October 1967 that "the Soviet people fully understand" Nigeria's motives and its need "to prevent the country from being dismembered."


title: Nigerian Civil War

text: Reportedly, the war substantially improved Soviet-Nigerian diplomatic and trade relations, and Moskvitch cars began to make appearances around Lagos. The USSR became a competitive importer of Nigerian cacao.