Kronos 37 (2011)http://hdl.handle.net/10566/6252024-03-28T14:04:16Z2024-03-28T14:04:16ZLiving in exile: daily life and international relations at SWAPO’s Kongwa CampWilliams, Christian A.http://hdl.handle.net/10566/10202016-08-30T19:47:05Z2011-01-01T00:00:00ZLiving in exile: daily life and international relations at SWAPO’s Kongwa Camp
Williams, Christian A.
From 1964, when it was first granted by the Tanzanian government to OAU recognized liberation movements, Kongwa camp has been a key site in southern Africa’s exile history. First SWAPO and FRELIMO, and later the ANC, MPLA and ZAPU, inhabited neighbouring sites near the town of Kongwa in central Tanzania, where they trained their respective members in guerrilla tactics and prepared to infiltrate their countries of origin. Despite the importance of Kongwa for any history of southern Africa’s liberation struggles, few secondary sources draw attention to Kongwa as a lived space, and none consider it beyond the historiography of a particular national movement. In contrast, this essay highlights the experiences of Namibians living in an international community at Kongwa during the 1960s. Drawing on taped interviews, published memoirs, the ANC’s Morogoro Papers, and Tanzanian historiography and ethnography, it argues that Kongwa shaped a social hierarchy among exiled Namibians determined by their differing abilities to form relationships with non-Namibians around the camp. The essay traces the formation of this hierarchy through histories of how Kongwa camp formed; of how Namibians related to Tanzanian officials, other liberation movement members, and local farmers there; and of how such relationships shaped the form and resolution of conflicts within SWAPO. I emphasize that these histories are obscured by
southern Africa’s national historiographies and that they demand a regional approach to exile which attends to the particular sites and kinds of spaces in which exiles lived.
2011-01-01T00:00:00ZReading and representing African refugees in New YorkField, Seanhttp://hdl.handle.net/10566/10192016-08-30T19:47:47Z2011-01-01T00:00:00ZReading and representing African refugees in New York
Field, Sean
Tracy Kidder and Jonny Steinberg have constructed evocative biographies of African refugees’ dislocation, journeys and struggles to settle in the USA. These books are reviewed through the lens of how South African readers might read these books given local imaginings of African refugees. The article describes how African refugee experiences are portrayed in both books and it critiques their representation of trauma and memory; and how each ‘author’ approached their relationships with the ‘authored’.
Kidder tended to be the ventriloquist for the Burundian refugee’s life story and while offering useful narrative analysis, his conclusions have a redemptive tone. In contrast, Steinberg shares his draft manuscript with two Liberian protagonists, which produces complex encounters between author and authored. Steinberg’s analysis of how the past Liberian civil war is mirrored in present conflicts within and amongst refugees in Little Liberia leads to a more complex account of refugee lives and of how memory and history intertwine.
Published version
2011-01-01T00:00:00ZThe South Africa-Angola talks, 1976-1984: a little-known cold war threadSaunders, Christopher (University of Cape Town)http://hdl.handle.net/10566/10182016-08-30T19:47:07Z2011-01-01T00:00:00ZThe South Africa-Angola talks, 1976-1984: a little-known cold war thread
Saunders, Christopher (University of Cape Town)
That South Africa invaded Angola in 1975, in an abortive attempt to prevent a Marxist government coming to power there, and that the South African Defence Force then repeatedly attacked Angola from 1978, is relatively well known. That representatives of the South African and Angolan governments met on many occasions from 1976 is a largely untold story. This article uses documentation from the archives of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, along with other sources, to analyse these talks and the Cold War context in which they took place.
Published version
2011-01-01T00:00:00ZRationalizing gukurahundi: cold war and South African foreign relations with Zimbabwe, 1981-1983Scarnecchia, Timothy (Kent State University)http://hdl.handle.net/10566/10172016-08-30T19:45:49Z2011-01-01T00:00:00ZRationalizing gukurahundi: cold war and South African foreign relations with Zimbabwe, 1981-1983
Scarnecchia, Timothy (Kent State University)
This article examines the role of diplomatic relations during the first stages of the
1983 Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe. Based on a preliminary reading of South African
Department of Foreign Affairs files for 1983, the article suggests that Cold War relations between Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom helped to provide cover for the Zimbabwean National Army’s Fifth Brigade’s campaign of terror. Similarly, American support for Mugabe’s claims to be a pro-Western leader committed to non-racialism helped provide international cover for the atrocities. At the same time, evidence shows high-ranking ZANU-PF officials negotiated with the South African Defense Forces in 1983 to cooperate in their efforts to keep ZAPU from supporting South African ANC operations in Zimbabwe. The 5th Brigade’s campaign therefore served the purposes of South Africa, even as ZANU-PF officials rationalized the Gukurahundi violence in international and anti-apartheid circles as a campaign against South African destabilization.
The article suggests that the diplomatic history of the Gukurahundi can provide a useful lens for understanding the tragedy in both regional and international Cold War contexts.
Published version
2011-01-01T00:00:00Z