Letter to Tony Blair, copied to Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and John
Major.
Britain's Black Holocaust
I wish to let former Prime Ministers see the recent correspondence I have addressed to Government regarding British responsibility for the
destruction of democracy in Nigeria and its appalling consequences.
Forty years ago on the African continent, the leaders of our great parliamentary democracy brought forth a new nation, Nigeria, marking the
end of a trusteeship, honestly carried out, and dedicated to the principles of the United Nations Charter, freedom, liberty, equality and
democracy.
So soon after what is now seen as a faux Independence, a supposed civil war tested whether that nation, or any nation conceived and mired in a
treasonable conspiracy, could endure. The great battlefields of that evil war, where Britain's leaders employed its satraps to slaughter
three million trusting, innocent, Commonwealth citizens, are drenched in blood. The oil, which drove a former great Imperial power to despoil its
great principles and values, swamps and poisons not only Africa's green homelands, but also the souls of guilty and conscience-stricken British
leaders.
We now need to dedicate ourselves in this millennium year to accept responsibility for what took place on these bloody African battlefields,
where once British officials, teachers and missionaries made noble sacrifices and laid the foundations of splendid new communities and a
nation which aspired to become a great, law-abiding democracy. No blood was let in bringing Nigeria, this great African Empire of nations, to
the brink of independence and democracy, and it is fitting and proper that Britain should be proud of this wonderful and great - though
tragically flawed - achievement.
However, in a larger sense we cannot dedicate ourselves to more righteous conduct without first acknowledging that these honoured dead
laid down their lives for an independence and a democracy and liberty which had been cruelly denied them by powerful British politicians. The
world does not know what these trusting subjects of the Queen laid down their lives for. It is for us to dedicate ourselves to completing the
unfinished work of trusteeship, which took the lives of millions, who could not believe the Britain they loved could betray them.
There is a great task remaining before us, a lesson to be learned from this treason. The British people must dedicate themselves and resolve
that these innocent men, women and children did not die in vain. That these African peoples, under God, should have a new birth of freedom;
and that government of the people, by the people, for all the people of Nigeria, shall not be allowed to perish from the earth, because of the
treachery of renegade British politicians.
The Cold War is over. May we now return to civilised behaviour? We cannot be the only honest people around, but sometimes we wonder!
Sincerely - Harry Smith (Lawmaker, Nigeria 1955-1960)
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