Tag Archives: Sao-Tome and Principe

The Biafran Airlift

FRIENDS OF SAO-TOME AND PRINCIPE – PRESERVING BIAFRA’S L1049H SUPER CONSTELLATIONS

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Mr. Xavier Munoz Torrent is a Geographer from Barcelona, who first came to Sao Tome and Principe in 1986. He is a member of Friends of Sao Tome and Principe, an association which was started 40 years after the Nigeria-Biafra war, and whose interest and work is in preserving the history of the island. http://www.saotomeprincipe.eu/caue_projetos/caue_activitats/caue_biafra2011.htm

Some of the cultural landmarks which are of interest to the association are the two Lockheed L 1049H Super Constellation air planes which were used in the airlift into Biafra. Friends of Sao Tome and Principe has launched a campaign to “officially recognize as inheritance and preserve as monument” these two air craft and have made a proposal to their government to this effect. In the meantime, a Sao Tomean businessman, Mr. David de Mata, has converted one of the planes to a restaurant and the other to a discotheque, the idea being that it would prevent the plane from further detoriation. In an article published here – https://www.telanon.info/suplemento/2019/02/04/28600/patrimonio-nacional-ruinas-e-sucata/ Mr. Xavier says:

“What’s more, worrying comments now come to us about the deterioration of the structures of the two imposing Lockheed L1049H Super Constellation (“Connies”) planes near Sao Tome airport, which for a time have been preserved by the direction of the “As Asas do Plane” restaurant, which constitute the last remnant of the Biafra relief bridge, a titanic effort undertaken by a handful of international NGOs in the late 1960s…The risk of final destruction causes us special sadness to those who, from all parts of the globe, call for its preservation and suggest its conversion into a center for the study of historical memory…Its disappearance would constitute a new attack on history and culture, even against the memory of the dead in Biafra, a new act of total lack of sensitivity.”

Photos are taken from Friends of Sao Tome and Principe website. They show the Super Constellations in their present state.

SAO TOME 2

sao tome 3

The Biafran Airlift, THE CHILDREN

EQUATORIAL CONSTELLATIONS

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The place and importance of the Biafran Airlift in the history of Sao Tome and, by extension, Portugal, cannot be over written.

For almost three years that the war lasted, this small island located in the Gulf of Guinea saw the influx of individuals from all over the world. Journalists, diplomats, aid workers, missionaries, clergy men, politicians, doctors, military personnel, mercenaries, business men and all sorts of people arrived the island on their way to and from Biafra. Consequently, hotels and guest houses, restaurants, shops and markets, beaches and other leisure spots, the aviation industry, etc, all benefited, in one way or the other, from the upsurge in commercial activity on the island. The governor of Sao Tome even tried to cash in on the windfall by imposing a fee for every child that was brought from Biafra into Sao Tome. But Father Tony Byrne, one of the initiators of the Air lift, resisted the move.

Born in Portugal in 1975, five years after the war and the Airlift ended, Silas Tiny is a Sao Tomean film maker whose interest in this monumental event led him into making a film about the airlift. The film is called ‘Equatorial Constellations.’ According to him, the goal of the film is “… not to narrate a past event but to display that very past through the present inner look of the ones involved in it 50 years ago. The film will, ‘…bring together former child refugees, Sao Tomeans, Joint Church Aid officials and volunteers who created the largest and riskiest relief effort that world has ever seen.’ He goes on – “Hundreds of children had been evacuated from their land, arrived in this island…escaping pain, slaughter and famine. Today, fifty years have passed, that memory remains an open wound, their names, faces and lives forgotten and their remembrances fade away…Where are these children, and what happened in their memories so far? What can they convey? Their stories are part of the universal memory and remain as living testimonies…”

Silas and I are looking for any of these ‘children’ because we think our projects will not be complete without their participation. We will appreciate any leads and references in this regard.

[The cover photo shows Silas Tiny]