Students, ZAPU, and Special Branch in Francistown, 1964–1972
2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 40; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/03057070.2014.964908
ISSN1465-3893
Autores Tópico(s)Race, History, and American Society
ResumoAbstractThis article is not about a specific country or political party; it is about the process by which young men – some already established freedom fighters, others wanting to join the struggle – manage to cross borders and go on to another country to be mobilised or trained to infiltrate the country from which they came. At the district headquarters in Francistown, Botswana, the interaction of seasoned cadres, students, and Special Branch interrogators constituted a middle ground for a few years, a space of interaction between states and liberation movements that was reinforced by the illegal status of Rhodesia. During interrogations at Francistown, ideas about guerrilla struggle and who should participate in it were exchanged, mediated and established. These ideas did not have a one-to-one correlation with events in the guerrilla struggle; they developed over time and in fits and starts, as young men seeking to go on to Zambia for guerrilla training honed their stories, and Special Branch interrogators drew on their experience to decide which claims were legitimate and which were not. A close examination of the processes and procedures in the middle ground of Francistown adds another dimension to the history of national liberation movements in the region: it shows the mechanics of border crossing, who can cross, who can stay, and who can be sent on for guerrilla training. Notes 1 I take these questions from S. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 13, and B. Chalfin, Neoliberal Frontiers: An Ethnography of Sovereignty in West Africa (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2010), pp. 55–7. 2 I am grateful to one of the anonymous readers for clarifying this. 3 J. McGregor, Crossing the Zambezi: The Politics of Landscape on a Central African Frontier (Harare, Weaver Press, 2009); see also H. Macmillan, The Lusaka Years: The ANC in Exile in Zambia 1963–1994 (Johannesburg, Jacana, 2013), p. 39. 4 Chalfin, Neoliberal Frontiers, p. 30. 5 R. White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991), especially pp. 50–93. 6 Botswana National Archives (hereafter BNA), Office of the President (hereafter OP) 55/66, Saboteurs Policy: Permanent Secretary (hereafter PS) Home Affairs to Commissioner of Police, Bechuanaland Protectorate (hereafter BP), 9 September 1965; N. Parsons, 'The Pipeline: Botswana's Reception of Refugees, 1956–68', Social Dynamics, 34, 1 (2008), pp. 19–23; Macmillan, Lusaka Years, p. 35. 7 BNA, Queen's commissioner (hereafter HMC) to PS, Home Affairs, 9 March 1965, OP55/67 Saboteurs/Returning Refugees (Individual Cases); Central Intelligence Agency, Zambia and Its Refugee Nationalist Program, 7, National Security Files (US – hereafter NSF) 102/1, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas; Parsons, 'Pipeline', pp. 18–23; P. Mackay, We Have Tomorrow: Stirrings in Africa 1959–1967 (Wilby, Michael Russell, 2008), pp. 256–67, 272–80; J. Alexander and J. McGregor, 'War Stories: Guerrilla Narratives of Zimbabwe's Liberation War', History Workshop Journal, 57 (2004), p. 87. 8 Alexander and McGregor, 'War Stories,' pp. 79–100. 9 S. Hynes, A Soldier's Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War (New York, Penguin, 1997), pp. 48, 108–10.10 In 1968 the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), had a camp in Zambia called Da Nang, presumably named after the US base in Vietnam, from which they entered Rhodesia. S. Davis, 'Cosmopolitans in Close Quarters: Everyday Life in Umkhonto we Sizwe (1961–present)' (PhD thesis, University of Florida, 2010), p. 111.11 McGregor, Crossing the Zambezi, pp. 146–48.12 BNA, OP 55/67, Saboteurs/Returning Refugees (individual cases): SS Colonial Office, London to HMC, BP, 1 May 1965; HMC Bechuananland to CO, London, 4 May 1965; HC, Lusaka, to H.R.E. Browne, CRO, 14 May 1965.13 A.V. Tilbury, Attorney General to Commissioner of Police and Office of the Prime Minister, 14 February 1966: extradition to Rhodesia, BNA/OP 55/58: Refugees: Peoples' Caretaker Council, ZAPU, and ZANU.14 'Refugees' are a broad legal category that, however useful, provides a limited field of enquiry. Why people cross borders and what they say to become refugees is often relegated to 'background information.' I am trying to use the term sparingly, since it often fails to reflect individual circumstance, nor is it appropriate for the young men who are the subject of this article. For a broader consideration of the term, see L.H. Malkki, 'Refugees and Exile: From 'Refugee Studies' to the National Order of Things', Annual Review of Anthropology, 24 (1995), pp. 495–523.15 Parsons, 'Pipeline', pp. 23–4.16 BNA OP 55/66. PS Home Affairs to Commissioner of Police, 9 September 1965. The PS thought the Zambian government was embarrassing itself by violating the Thompson convention in granting refugee status to men who had been given that status in Tanzania.17 BNA OP55/6. J.T.A. Bailey, Commissioner of Police to HMCBP, Saboteur Traffic Bechuanaland, 1 September 1966.18 BNA OP55/6, ZAPU and ZANU 1965–66, Director, Special Branch (North) to Commissioner of Police, Gaborone, 24 October 1965. For a different view of ZAPU's capabilities in this matter, see Macmillan, Lusaka Years, pp. 30–46.19 P.T. Mgadia, ''A Good Measure of Sacrifice': Botswana and the Liberation Struggles of Southern Africa (1965–1985)', Social Dynamics, 34, 1 (2008), p. 7.20 BNA OP55/59: G.D. Anderson, British High Commissioner, Rhodesian Freedom Fighters, Refugees, and Students, etc. in Botswana, 25 June 1970.21Ibid.22 See, for example, D. Lessing, Going Home (New York, Harper Collins, 1996 [1957]), pp. 79–82; J. Stonehouse, Prohibited Immigrant (London, Bodley Head, 1960), pp. 185–205; Terence Ranger, Writing Revolt: An Engagement with African Nationalism, 1957–67 (Harare, Weaver, 2013), pp. 144–5.23 For Maluleke, see M. Gelfand, A Non-Racial Island of Learning: A History of the University College of Rhodesia from its Inception to 1966 (Gwelo, Mambo Press, 1978), pp. 245, 271–3; T. Scarnecchia, The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfield 1940–1964 (Rochester, University of Rochester Press, 2008), pp. 112–16, 190n; BNA OP55/6. Interrogation report, Josiah Maluleke, 12 May 1966.24 BNA OP55/6. CO to HM Commissioner, BP, confidential telegrams, 18 May 1966 and 20 May 1966.25 BNA OP55/6, Interrogation report, Zvinowanda Takura, 7 June 1966.26 BNA OP55/6, Interrogation report, Aaron Ndlovu, 11 June 1966.27 BNA OP55/6, Interrogation report, Byron Hove, 21 July 1966.28 BNA OP55/6, Interrogation reports, Samuel Sibanda, 25 July 1966; John Makandika, 25 July 1966.29 Ibid.: Interrogation reports. 1966; Godwin Matabu, 25 July 1966; Elton Chawatama, 28 July 1966; Morgan Mupundu, 1 August 1966.30 Ibid.: Eshmael Mlambo, 3 August 1966.31 BNA OP55/6: ODM, London, to Queen's Commissioner, Bechaunaland, 18 August 1966.32 Ibid..: Telegram, Queen's Commissioner, Bechuanaland, to ODM, London, 17 August 1966.33 Ibid.: BNA OP55/6. ODM to Queen's Commissioner, Bechuanaland, 18 August 1966; MOD to BHC, Lusaka, 22 August 1966.34 Ibid.:. British High Commissioner, Lusaka to Commissioner of Police, Gaborone, Rhodesian Africans: education, 2 September 1966.35 Ibid.: Interrogation reports: William Benjamin Munetsi, Caleb Mungengatewa, 4 September 1966; Peter Nyamundande, 6 September 1966, 7–19 September 1966.36 Ibid.: Interrogation report, Samson Moyo, 15 August 1966.37 Ibid.: Robert Moyo, 3 September 1966.38 Ibid.: Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations to HMCBP, 22 September 1966; HMCBP to PSOP, Gaborone, 22 September 1966.39 Ibid.: Interrogation report: David Mongwa Moyo, 24 September 1966.40 BNA OP55/58: Interrogation report: Jo Dube, 24 September 1966.41 Ibid.: Interrogation report: Patrick Nyandoro, 17 March 1967.42 Ibid.: Interrogation report: Hubert Maposa, 13 December 1968.43 BNA OP55/59, Refugees ZANU and ZAPU 1968–69. Interrogation report: Solomon Mujuru, 17 April 1968.44 If it was not, it was just as well: after 1967, the Liberation Committee of the OAU required evidence of new recruits before it would fund an army in exile. L. White, The Assassination of Herbert Chitepo: Texts and Politics in Zimbabwe (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2003), pp. 24, 113n.45 British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, 2001/086/221/142, Rhodesian Army Papers, Supt. Isemonger, BSAP HQ, Salisbury, Terrorist Tactics, 28 June 1977; C. Cocks, Fireforce: One Man's War in the Rhodesian Light Infantry, second edition (Weltevreden Park, Covos-Day, 1997), pp. 136–7; A. Trethowan, Delta Scout: Ground Coverage Operator (Johannesburg, 30 Degrees South, 2002), pp. 156–60; E. Bird, Special Branch War: Slaughter in the Rhodesian Bush Southern Matabeleland, 1976–1980 (Solihull, Helion, 2014), p. 125. Rhodesian Army trackers were less concerned with which guerrilla army they were following that with what that army was carrying, so they tended to read the depth of footprints more carefully than they read the tread.46 BNA OP55/6. A handwritten intelligence report from Lusaka dated 1 November 1966 reported that Oliver Tambo came to the Botswana High Commission in Lusaka to thank them for not sending political prisoners back to South Africa, and to make it clear that 'soon' black Africa would want to know how much of a refugee burden Botswana was prepared to shoulder. The High Commissioner regarded this as a veiled threat that the ANC would call Botswana 'unsympathetic' when they arrested men they called 'lawless bandits' fleeing South African authorities.47 Ibid.: OP Gaborone to OP Lusaka, 13 October 1966.48 BNA OP55/58, Peoples' Caretaker Council, ZAPU and ZANU. A.M. Mogwe to R. Manaothoka, Lusaka, 7 February 1967.49 Ibid.: Interrogation report: Israel Maduma, 12–13 July 1967.50 Ibid.: Interrogation report: Timothy Englebert Khanya, 22 September 1967.51 Ibid.: Interrogation report: Thema Ndlovu, 15 August 1967.52 Ibid.: PC Gaborone to OP, 23 March 1967; see also interrogation report: Morgan Nyathi, 10 February 1967.53 Ibid.: Interrogation report: Livingstone Mashengela, 12 February 1968.54 Ibid.: Interrogation report, Chikokota Dube, 4 March 1968.55 Ibid.: Interrogation report, Thaimoni Ncube, 21 May 1968.56 Ibid.: Interrogation reports: Cain Mathema, 10 April 1968; Bhekuzuly Khumalo, 10 April 1968.57 Ibid.: Interrogation report Dickson Majoma, 9 April 1969.58 Hugh Macmillan suggests this wariness began earlier: Lusaka Years, p. 33.59 W.G. Morapedi, 'The Dilemmas of Liberation in Southern Africa: The Case of Zimbabwean Liberation Movements and Botswana, 1960–1979,' JSAS 38, 1 (2012), p. 78 and p. 87. ZAPU did not have a permanent representative in Francistown until early 1974: see E.M. Sibanda, The Zimbabwe African People's Union 1961–87 (Trenton, Africa World Press, 2005), p. 174.60 BNA OP 55/41, ZANU and ZAPU 1972. Interrogation report: Raymond Wenyika, 1 January 1972.61 Ibid.: Interrogation report: Phillimon Masongo, 21 January 1972.62 Ibid.: Interrogation reports: Boniface Mazicke, 4 April 1972; Philip Kanuka and Simon Magodoro, 25 May 1972.63 Morapedi, 'Dilemmas,' pp. 74–78.64 BNA OP 55/59, Special Branch to HQ. Gaborone, Totomi or Tommy Ndebele, 3 February 1970.65 Ibid.66 Ibid.67 BNA OP 55/50:, Permanent Secretary Office of the President to Commissioner of Police, 6 February 1970; Commissioner of police to PS OP 16 February 1970; Botswana high commissioner, Lusaka, to PS OP 18 March 1970; SB to PS OP, 24 March 1970; Director of Prisons to PS OP, 31 March 1970.68 See L. White, 'The Traffic in Heads: Bodies, Borders, and the Articulation of Regional History', Journal of Southern African Studies, 23, 2 (1997), pp. 325–38.My research in Gaborone was funded by the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University and facilitated by the hospitality of Judy Butterman and Roger Tangri. I am grateful to the participants at the Sheffield workshop for their comments and suggestions and to Steve Davis, Miles Larmer, and two anonymous readers for close and critical readings.Additional informationNotes on contributorsLuise WhiteLuise WhiteDepartment of History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611–7320, USA. E-mail: lswhite@ufl.edu
Referência(s)