Mark Curtis, author and historian, has accused the Labour Party in Britain of “liking genocide” as he criticised the party’s stance under Keir Starmer on the Palestine/Israeli conflict. He made this comment in a tweet by referring to the then Labour prime minister Harold Wilson, who backed the regime of Yakubu Gowon in the Nigerian civil war against the separatist Biafra region between 1967 and 1970.
These remain the latest tweets by senior Labour figures, who are clearly supporting Israel’s attack on Gaza.
Labour does like a bit of genocide. It connived with Indonesian generals as they slaughtered 800,000 in 1965 and then armed Nigeria as it killed 3m Biafrans in 1967-70. https://t.co/1UpeIsj9RQ
— Mark Curtis (@markcurtis30) October 14, 2023
Curtis has written five books, including Web of Deceit, Secret Affairs and Unpeople, in which goes to great lengths in exposing Britain’s real role in the world beyond what their propaganda says. He co-founded the investigative journalism website Declassified which has done more than most to expose British wrongdoing across the world.
In May 2020, on the 50th anniversary of the ending of the Nigerian civil war in 1970, Curtis published a detailed piece in Declassified titled “How Britain’s Labour government facilitated the massacre of Biafrans in Nigeria – to protect its oil interests”. In that report Curtis revealed: The then Labour government secretly provided large quantities of arms to the Nigerian federal government which, by early 1970, had crushed an attempt by the country’s eastern region of Biafra to gain independence, which it had declared in May 1967.
During the three years of war, up to three million people died, as Nigeria enforced a blockade on Biafra, causing widespread starvation amid considerable international opposition to the conflict.
British policy was mainly shaped by its oil interests, declassified government documents from the time show. “Our direct interests are trade and investment, including an important stake by Shell/BP in the eastern region,” the Foreign Office noted a few days before the outbreak of the war in 1967.
Investments by Shell/BP—then a joint company in Nigeria which was partly owned by the British government—amounted to around £200-million at the time. The company was the largest producer of oil in Nigeria, most of which was in Biafra.
Shell “have much to lose if the FMG [federal military government] do not achieve the expected victory,” George Thomas, Labour’s commonwealth minister, noted in August 1967. He added: “The sole immediate British interest in Nigeria is that the Nigerian economy should be brought back to a condition in which our substantial trade and investment in the country can be further developed, and particularly so we can regain access to important oil installations.”
UK supplies of arms — which eventually enabled the Nigerian government to win the war — included millions of rounds of ammunition, hundreds of machine guns and grenades, thousands of mortar and artillery bombs, aircraft and armoured personnel carriers.
These supplies were massively stepped up while Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson was telling parliament that Britain was supplying arms to Nigeria at the same level as before. He made the false claim that there was “no special provision” for the war.
The decisions to supply arms and ammunition were taken at a time when it was clear they were being used against civilians. Wilson’s agreement to supply patrol boats in 1967 was done in the knowledge that this would help the government maintain the sea blockade against Biafra.
It appears the agenda of putting profits above people is behind the current stance of the British government in the Palestine/Israel conflict.
