Tim Stapleton

Extra-territorial African police and soldiers in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) 1897-1965

During the early and mid-twentieth century, the security forces of colonial Southern Rhodesia were dominated by African men from neighbouring territories such as Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Portuguese East Africa who had entered the regional migrant labour system. This included many with previous military experience. As the British South Africa Police (BSAP) evolved from a paramilitary occupation force into a professional law enforcement organisation, extra-territorial recruits were phased out in favour of local men fluent in local languages with western-style education. Despite this, African police from other territories continued to have a disproportionate impact on the force as many became longserving and accomplished members, who dominated the paramilitary African Police Platoon and served as drill instructors for all recruits. During the First World War, most African soldiers in the Rhodesia Native Regiment (RNR) were migrant workers recruited directly from Southern Rhodesia’s mines. During the Second World War, just under half of the Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR) originated from other territories. The recruiting of extra-territorial African soldiers declined further in the 1950s and early 1960s as military conditions of service in their respective homes improved, the Masvingo-Gutu area became a dependable source of local recruits and eventually newly independent black-ruled states came into conflict with white-ruled Rhodesia.

‘Tracking, tracking and more tracking was their motto’: bush tracking and warfare in late twentieth-century Southern Africa

Tracking, the skill of following a subject by signs left behind in the environment, dominated the experience of state forces and insurgents during Southern Africa’s late twentieth-century guerilla conflicts; particularly in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) from 1965 to 1980 and South African occupied South-West Africa (now Namibia) from 1966 to 1989. Rhodesian and South African forces emphasised tracking to locate and eliminate their elusive enemies, and learned that the only way to do this was by using horses, motor vehicles or helicopters to gain ground. Both security forces established tracking training institutions and specialist tracker units. However, only the South Africans were able to create large and highly effective tracking units in the context of a specific environment and the mobilisation of indigenous communities. In response, insurgents in both conflicts shifted their activities to areas less conducive to tracking and developed anti-tracking techniques. Despite the failure of these counter-insurgency campaigns to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the civilian African majority, their attempts to use tracking to engage insurgents can provide useful lessons.

Slaves of fortune: Sudanese soldiers and the River War 1896–1898

which present at times a rather pessimistic view of the intentions and consequences of the change in discourse to include women in security discourse throughout the continent. In the introduction, the editors comment on how post-conflict countries offer a unique opportunity to reconsider the structure and definition of security governance with women as a central part of that process, as opposed to an afterthought: “We found conflict-affected environments particularly attractive because of the opportunities they offer for comprehensive governance reform and a chance to examine these processes” (xii). The three cases studies do show potential – that in the midst of complete destruction it is possible to rebuild with greater equality and protection for women as a cornerstone of the post-conflict state. However, this enthusiasm for the unique opportunities offered in postconflict states relies on the rock-bottom starting point for women in these war-torn societies. The lack of case studies from non-post-conflict states narrows the applicability and range of the book, and raises unanswered questions about ways in which women’s situations in such countries, which make up the majority of the states in Africa today, can be improved and better integrated into security governance at all levels. The book also appears to miss one of the major lessons of the second section of the book: the most effective examples of integration of women’s issues into the security governance discourse resulted from the agency and actions of women. Sections one and three are quite focused on formal structures and institutions and their efforts to include women in security governance considerations. Section three in particular focuses on the African Union and ECOWAS, highlighting areas where the formal structures have failed and how these same structures would need to be changed to ensure better outcomes for women, while the case studies presented in section two highlight more informal remedies to the challenges facing women, where women are not solely reliant on others to make those changes for them. The book also fails to ask a question which the introduction itself hints at: in light of the ever growing interest in the specific needs of women, and the NGOs and lobbying groups which have sprouted up to press for and address these needs, why have they not been more successful? The authors appear to have aimed this book at a specific audience – namely policymakers, development groups, advocates and activists. The collection’s strength lies in its collaboration of Afro-centric writers and perspectives, and the incorporation of policy and non-policy people.

Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation or MK)

Threatened by black advancement, South Africas white electorate voted in a National Party government in 1948 that initiated thorough racial segregation called apartheid. During the 1950s the African National Congress (ANC), evolved from moderate elite group to mass movement, embarked on passive resistance. In March 1960 Sharpeville police killed 69 by shooting into a crowd of protesters. For the ANC nonviolent civil disobedience seemed futile against a state responding with deadly force. Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu introduced the armed option to the ANC national executive and in July 1961, after some opposition, they received permission to establish a separate military organization to engage in controlled violence and avoid injury. Named “Umkhonto we Sizwe” (Spear of the Nation or MK), it was led by a high command made up of Mandela, Sisulu, Joe Slovo, and Raymond Mhlaba and regional commands based in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and Durban. Keywords: twentieth century; Africa; Southern Africa; violence

Congo Wars (1960s–2000s)

During the 1950s Belgian colonial rulers failed to prepare Congo for independence. The many Belgians in the civil service meant that few black Congolese gained administrative experience or western education. With much of the rest of Africa moving toward independence, Congolese political movements emerged along regional and ethnic lines. When the Belgians finally decided to decolonize, they did so with only six months preparation, intending that a weak Congo would be dependent upon their assistance. In 1960, the first independent government was led by Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, a PanAfricanist from the northeast, and President Joseph Kasavubu, a Bakongo irredentist from the west. Continued Belgian control of the army quickly led to mutiny, attacks on Belgian civilians, and Belgian withdrawal from the capital. Albert Kalongi declared the diamond mining area of Kasai independent, though this was suppressed by Lumumbas new army, transported in Soviet-supplied trucks and aircraft. In the mineral-rich southern province of Katanga, Moise Tshombe declared secession, supported by western mining interests and the Belgians. Belgian soldiers disarmed Congolese army units in the area and organized a Katanga military with Belgian, French, South African, and Rhodesian mercenaries. While Lumumba called for United Nations (UN) assistance, international peacekeepers undermined his authority by seizing the countrys airports, disarming soldiers loyal to him, and refusing to crush Katanga separation. Lumumba and Kasavubu dismissed each other, and the former was placed under house arrest by army commander Joseph Mobutu. Lumumba attempted escape but was recaptured and flown to Katanga where, in February 1961, he was killed on Tshombes orders. Keywords: twentieth century; twenty-first century; Africa; colonialism; Congo; genocide; Zaire

People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN)

During World War I (1914–1918) South Africa invaded neighboring German South West Africa and after the conflict Pretoria administered the territory as a mandate of the League of Nations. White settlers moved in and South Africa ruled the territory as a new province. In 1965 the South West African Peoples Organization (SWAPO), frustrated by years of futile non-violent protest and state oppression, formed the Peoples Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) to pursue an armed struggle against South African occupation. Based in the west of newly independent Zambia, PLAN insurgents infiltrated northern South West Africa. In August 1966 South African paratroopers and police destroyed a PLAN camp at Omgulumbashe in the first engagement of the “Border War.” In September 1966 PLAN attacked a border town and in March 1967 ambushed police in West Caprivi. PLAN commander Tobias Hanyeko, in May 1967, was killed in a skirmish with police near the Zambezi River. After two large groups crossed the border in October 1968 and were eliminated, PLAN began to use smaller units. PLAN launched a new offensive in early 1973, which prompted the South African Defense Force (SADF) to take over counterinsurgency from the police. Initially, the SADF used medical services and development projects to win “hearts and minds,” but as the conflict expanded South African counterinsurgency became increasingly brutal. Keywords: twentieth century; Africa; Southern Africa

Faku, the Mpondo and Colonial Advance in the Eastern Cape, 1834–53

In the history of colonial conquest in Africa it was common for invading European forces to enlist the assistance of one African state against another. This was certainly the case when the British Cape Colony waged three wars of conquest against neighbouring Xhosa chiefdoms during the mid-nineteenth century. However, it is curious that the Mpondo Kingdom, despite its alliance with the British and many calls to arms from Cape officials, avoided direct involvement in the Cape—Xhosa wars of this period. An important factor in this seems to have been the individual agency of Faku, the Mpondo king, who was attempting to maintain the security of his state, and Henry Francis Fynn, an adventurous colonial agent who was involved in various schemes to manipulate the Mpondo.

Introduction: John Flint and Agency in History

He is listed in the Canadian Who’s Who, in Who’s Who in America, and in the International Directory of Distinguished Leadership. In his 27 years at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, he supervised 30 PhD students and countless MAs. He is best known internationally as the scholar who unravelled the complexities (and simplicities) of those influential ‘agents’ of late nineteenth-century commercial empire,George Goldie and Cecil Rhodes. Although he has focused on significant figures of the colonial world — Kingsley, Lugard and Morel are others — John Flint, the man we (erstwhile students, former colleagues, Canadian Africanists) are honouring in these essays, has never been a disciple of what might be termed leadership dynamics; his ‘agents’ of empire may have held centre-stage but they have not controlled the play, the other actors or the audience, no matter how influential.

Status and Respectability in the Cape Colony 1750-1870: A Tragedy of Manners

1. Introduction 2. Under the VOC 3. English and Dutch 4. The content of respectability 5. Christianity, status and respectability 6. Outsiders 7. Acceptance and rejection 8. Conclusion.

Colonial South Africa and the Origins of the Racial Order

In this work of synthesis and reinterpretation, Timothy Keegan looks anew at the relatively neglected period of South African history before the mineral age - in particular the years of British rule up to the 1850s. For whereas a previous generation of historians saw the twentieth-century racial state emerging from the forces unleashed by the mineral revolution, Keegan argues that the roots lie in an earlier period, when the Cape was first integrated into the British empire of free trade of the early nineteenth century. Keegans canvas is wide, his grasp of the historical literature magisterial, and his narrative is both eminently readable and skilful in handling a story that is complex and many-stranded. It is a story too that is strong in notable events - slave emancipation, the arrival of the 1820 British settlers, a series of frontier wars, the Great Trek of Boer emigrants - as well as in striking personalities, among them Dr John Philip, Andries Stockenstrom, John Fairbairn, Moshoeshoe and Sir Harry Smith. In Keegans pages these familiar historical landmarks and characters emerge in entirely novel ways, the subject of fresh interpretation and original insights.