Nigeria: Talking Again

At the urging of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, the antagonists in Nigeria's 14-month-old civil war assembled in Addis Ababa last week to talk peace once again. Three previous meetings, the most recent three months ago in Kampala, had come to nothing. This time Ethiopia's venerable Lion of Judah told his guests, who represented the federal government in Lagos and the Biafra secessionists: "You cannot afford to fail. You must succeed. There is no alternative." Then he added: "We would like to appeal to you earnestly to refrain from polemics." Both appeals went...