Reflections On The Nigerian Civil War: Facing The Future

A comment on the First Edition from Lagos' Sunday Times: "The most unimpassioned account, to date, of the Nigerian civil War...Reflections is a book for any shelf..."

Raphael Chukwu Uwechue, 35, is a former Nigerian career diplomat who served in various capacities in Cameroun, Pakistan and Mali. In 1966, he came to Paris as charge d'affaires to open Nigeria's embassy in France. Strongly disagreeing with the federal government's handling of the situation produced by the massacres of September 1966, he decided to quit the federal service to help present the case of the Ibos to the french world. This he did with remarkable effect in his capacity as Biafra's's representative in France. when peace talks collapsed one after the other, he resigned that appointment in December 1968 in protest against the Biafran leaderships inflexible attitude towards absolute sovereignty.

Mr. Uwechue, who has since worked for two years as a UNESCO consultant on the "General History of Africa" project, has just been appointed (January 1971) editor-in chief of the new Paris based international magazine "AFRICA". He is a member of the editorial committee of the Paris review "PRESENCE AFRICAINE" and is a regular contributor to the paris weekly "JEUNE AFRIQUE". Many of his articles have also appeared in a variety of scholarly periodicals as well as major newspapers. He is the co-author of a new book in French: "Les assassinats politiques en Afrique".

An Ibo from the Midwest, Uwechue attended primary school in Sokoto and secondary school at St. John's College, Kaduna. Later, he went to the university College of Ibadan where he took an honours degree in modern history. He studied French and international law at the Geneva Africa Institute, Switzerland. He is married with five children.