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BIAFRA STORY: The Making of an African Legend

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Forsyth is known for his later works the "Day of the Jackal", "Odessa File" and "Dogs of War". This though is his first book and in many ways superior to the rest.

A non-fiction detailed description of the Biafran war, Forsyth pulls no punches describing the valiant but fruitless fight by the Ibo tribe to secede from Nigeria. Outnumbered, outgunned and out financed by the central government, the Ibo finally fell because of the support of the European powers for Nigeria.

Forsyth does a wonderful job in giving us a journalist eye view of the conflict which eventually became known more for the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Ibo. A long forgotten classic that has never been outdone by his later novels.

I have read most of Forsyth's books and this is the first book where he treated a major conflict, especially one that is not of the western world. Overall it was very insightful and life DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL, it gives the reader the opportunity to understand African conflicts and the pattern of genocides that have taken place or taking place in the continent.

Mr. Forsyth in this book became the voice of millions of suffering Biafrans whose sin was a determination to exist against all odds.

His analysis captured the brutality of the Nigerian soldiers while the rest of the world fell victim to the deceit of the pronouncements of the Commander of the Nigerian Armed Forces...General Yakubu Gowon.

It's hard imagining a holocaust going on at the same time as the Age of Aquarius, but that's what a young Frederick Forsyth presents in this, his first book and to date only non-fiction effort. It details the systematic massacre of the people of Biafra from 1967-1969 as they attempted, ultimately unsuccessfully, to break away from Nigeria. Originally published in 1969 as the conflict still raged, "The Biafra Story" was re-released in 2001 with a new afterward.

Forsyth's effort, however noble in intention, is a far cry from the pulse-pounding prose he soon perfected as a writer of spy fiction. As a longtime Forsyth fan who knew about the book from reading the author's bio in book flaps, I was definitely curious about it, and perhaps too expectant of excellence. After all, Forsyth not only had a compelling human drama here, he was on the ground as a journalist in Biafra and Nigeria for much of it. Expecting a real-life horror tale to read like a Forsyth thriller may be perverse, but it beats the bland recitation of dates and casualty numbers you get here.

The war, as Forsyth tells it, was largely between two tribes that found themselves together in the new country of Nigeria after the British gave them their sovereignty: the enlightened, educated, industrious Christianized Ibos and the shiftless, nasty Mecca-gazing Hausas, who persecuted the Ibos until they had enough and tried to carve out a country of their own, Biafra, on Nigeria's eastern coast.

Why the hatred from the Hausas? Forsyth ascribes it to rank jealousy, though a more logical explanation may lie in the fact when the Europeans came, the Hausas found themselves being shipped off to slavery while the Ibos prospered. That may be a generalization as unfair as Forsyth's, but a problem with "The Biafra Story" is you get little else but generalizations.

Forsyth presents what amounts to a prosecutorial screed, delivered in the ponderous style of a bewigged magistrate rather than a sweat-stained reporter in the field. "In war there are bound to be innocent victims, occasional excesses, here and there a wanton brutality conducted by soldiers of a low level," he writes. "But seldom has such a remarkable pattern of bestality [sic] been established over such a wide territory by such diverse army units."

It's hard to be objective with a slaughter like this, but Forsyth doesn't try. He presents the Biafran leader, Colonel Ojukwu, as a study in perfection, never mind his failures on the battlefield and on the diplomatic front. He goes after the then-government of his own Great Britain, who supported Nigeria unreservedly, at great length and at cost to the focus of the story. As he goes on in this vein a while, you wonder which he is more bent on: saving Biafra or bringing down the Harold Wilson regime in London?

Occasionally you get a glimmer of the real human face of the suffering of Biafra, as in a Time magazine account Forsyth quotes. But most of the time Forsyth gets bogged down writing about mercenary etiquette and the politics of airlifting food to starving Biafrans.

Perhaps the fact Forsyth was so close to the suffering made it hard for him to write objectively or dispassionately, which is a point for him as a person. But his raging against the machine grows tired and tinny, and the fact his cause is so just only makes one feel guilty getting bored reading it.

Written shortly after the break up of Biafra and Nigeria in 1967-8, this book presents in understandable language the stark truth of what really happened and the parts the British and U.S. governments played in bringing about the devastating results. Forsyth minces no words and he makes his point.