Little can be done to save the lives of those bloat-bellied children of Biafra until the civil war in Nigeria is over. That is the heart of the matter; all else is peripheral. The pitiable pictures in the London press, the stricken conscience of the British people, the rush of volunteers to feed and nurse Biafran babies, the American powdered milk piling high on the docks of Lagos, the mad scrambling of relief workers to crack Nigerian inefficiency and push the supplies somewhere, somehow — all mean little as long as the war goes on.

Some idealists believe that the world’s indignation, outcry and shamed anger over the thousands dying in Biafra will force the two sides to end their war, in the name of decency and humanity, but that is doubtful. “No group can stop a war because people are dying,” said Alison Ayida, an influential Nigerian civil servant, in a meeting with foreign newsmen in Lagos recently. “It’s never been done in a war before, and it won’t be done in Nigeria — unless you stop the cause of the war. That’s what war is all about.” The federal government feels that it is about to crush the rebellion in Biafra, and it is in no mood to be cheated of this victory by pictures of starving children.

There is some hope that the war will come to an end through a negotiated settlement at the peace conference that opened in Addis Ababa August 5, But the hope rests mainly on a belief that the Biafrans have faced the hopelessness of their position and are ready to surrender. The federal government seems prepared to do little more at Addis Ababa than accept that surrender. It offers no concessions of its own, except for a few devices to help the Biafrans save face, and a few humanitarian gestures toward a defeated people.

If the Biafrans refuse to surrender, the federal armies are ready to march into what is left of Biafra and crush the heartland of the Ibo people, the main tribe of the secessionist state. Nigerian officials maintain they have been restraining their forces because of the world demand for a last try for peace. In the Nigerian view, Addis Ababa is the last chance; if it fails, slaughter begins.

Some Nigerians even insist that an invasion would be more merciful than all this talk and delay. They say that fewer people would die in a federal onslaught on the last three towns of Biafra than would die of starvation during weeks of negotiations. (The federals want to kill thousands of Biafrans in order to save thousands — a neat, simple and horrifying formula.)

There is a possibility that the invasion may come before the peace conference reaches any conclusions. The Nigerian field commanders, who are chafing under their restraints and disdainful of humanitarian do-gooders, are a powerful lot who sometimes act independently of their commander in chief, Major General Yakubu Gowon, the federal military ruler. These commanders, impatient with federal deliveries, have at times gone off to London and bought arms on their own. It is conceivable that they will go ahead and slaughter Ibos on their own.

In short, the Biafran rebellion is nearing its end, which will come either in the pomp of the Addis Ababa conference or the carnage of a federal onslaught.

In the name of a mythical Nigerian nation, the federal armies, equipped by the British, marched off more than a year ago to subdue a tribe that had suffered so greatly within this so-called state that it wanted to leave. Nigerians and the British (and, as a matter of fact the American embassy officers) saw this as a police action which would straighten matters out in a few weeks. Instead, it has taken all these months and cost thousands — some say 100,000 — dead of bombs, bullets and starvation. All for a fervid nationalism based on some lines that British imperialism drew arbitrarily on a map less than a century ago.