By Chuks Iloegbunam
There are two stories
to jump off from:
1) Sharpeville , South Africa ;
March 21, 1960.
A group
of between 5,000 and 10,000 people converged on the local police station in the
township of Sharpeville , offering themselves up for
arrest for not carrying their passbooks. The Sharpeville police were not
completely unprepared for the demonstration, as they had already been forced to
drive smaller groups of more militant activists away the previous night.
By
10:00, a large crowd had gathered, and the atmosphere was initially peaceful
and festive. Fewer than 20 police officers were present in the station at the
start of the protest. Later the crowd grew to about 20,000, and the mood was
described as “ugly”, prompting about 130 police reinforcements, supported by four
Saracen armoured personnel carriers. The police were armed with firearms,
including Sten submachine guns and Lee-Enfield rifles. There was no evidence
that anyone in the gathering was armed with anything other than rocks.
F-86
Sabre jets and Harvard Trainers approached to within a hundred feet of the
ground, flying low over the crowd in an attempt to scatter it. The protestors
responded by hurling a few stones and menacing the police barricades. Tear gas
proved ineffectual, and policemen elected to repel these advances with their
batons. At about 13:00 the police tried to arrest a protestor, resulting in a
scuffle, and the crowd surged forward. The shooting began shortly thereafter.
The official figure is that 69 people were killed, including 8 women and 10
children, and 180 injured, including 31 women and 19 children. Many were shot
in the back as they turned to flee.” (Quoted from Wikipedia.)
*Herbert Ekwe-ekwe |
2) Onitsha ; Aba ,
Nigeria ;
December 2015 – February 2016.
“The
current orgy of massacres of Biafrans by the Nigerian occupation genocidist
military, begun on Wednesday 2 December 2015 in Onicha, has continued unabated. On
Wednesday 9 February 2016, the genocidists positioned in Aba, commercial city
in southeast Biafra, shot dead 10 Biafrans attending a prayer session at the
National High School, Aba, for the release of Nnamdi Kanu, freedom broadcaster
of Radio Biafra and leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Vanguard,
Lagos, Friday 12 February 2016), illegally detained by the Nigerian regime in a
secret police facility in Abuja since mid-October. Scores of other
demonstrators were seriously wounded in the slaughter and several others seized
and taken away by the genocidists. This massacre is the second within three
weeks in Aba .
On Monday 18 January 2016, another marauding genocidist corps gunned down eight
peaceful Biafrans demonstrating for Nnamdi Kanu’s release and the restoration
of Biafran independence (Vanguard, Lagos , Tuesday 19 January 2016).”
(Quoted
from a report by Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe in http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/the-current-orgy-of-massacres-of.html
)