Transnational Histories of Southern Africa’s Liberation Movements

Transnational Histories of Southern Africa’s Liberation Movements offers new perspectives on southern Africa’s wars of national liberation, drawing on extensive oral historical and archival research. Assuming neither the primacy of nationalist loyalties as they exist today nor any single path to liberation, the book unpicks any notion of a straightforward imposition of Cold War ideologies or strategic interests on liberation wars. This approach adds new dimensions to the rich literatures on the Global Cold War and on solidarity movements. The contributors trace the ways that ideas and practices were made, adopted, and circulated through time and space through a focus on African soldiers, politicians and diplomats. The book also asks what motivated the men and women who crossed borders to join liberation movements, how Cold War influences were acted upon, interpreted and used, and why certain moments, venues and relations took on exaggerated importance. The connections among liberation movements, between them and their hosts, and across an extraordinarily diverse set of external actors reveal surprising exchanges and lasting legacies that have too often been obscured by the assertion of monolithic national histories. Tracing an extraordinarily diverse set of interactions and exchanges, Transnational Histories of Southern Africa’s Liberation Movements will be of great interest to scholars of Southern Africa, Transnational History, the Cold Warand African Politics. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Southern African Studies.

Introduction The Transnational Histories of Southern African Liberation Movements Jocelyn Alexander, JoAnn McGregor and Blessing-Miles Tendi African Uses of the Cold War 1. Global Ideologies, Local Politics: The Cold War as Seen from Central Angola Justin Pearce 2. ‘Makers of Bonds and Ties’: Transnational Socialisation and National Liberation in Mozambique Daniel Kaiser 3. African Soldiers in the USSR: Oral Histories of ZAPU Intelligence Cadres’ Soviet Training, 1964–1979 Jocelyn Alexander and JoAnn McGregor African Diplomacy and International Connections 4. Mediators of Liberation: Eastern-Bloc Officials, Mozambican Diplomacy and the Origins of Soviet Support for Frelimo, 1958–1965 Natalia Telepneva 5. ZANU’s External Networks 1963–1979: An Appraisal Gerald Chikozho Mazarire 6. Front Line Diplomats: African Diplomatic Representations of the Zimbabwean Patriotic Front, 1976–1978 Timothy Scarnecchia Hosts, Allies and Enemies on the African Front Line 7. Education in Exile: International Scholarships, Cold War Politics, and Conflicts among SWAPO Members in Tanzania, 1961–1968 Christian A. Williams 8. Transnationalism, Contingency and Loyalty in African Liberation Armies: The Case of ZANU’s 1974–1975 Nhari Mutiny Blessing-Miles Tendi 9. Nationalism and Exile in an Age of Solidarity: Frelimo–ZANU Relations in Mozambique (1975–1980) Clinarete Victoria Luis Munguambe 10. ‘Past History Has Not Been Forgotten’: The ANC/ZAPU Alliance – the Second Phase, 1978–1980 Hugh Macmillan 11. Apartheid’s Transnational Soldiers: The Case of Black Namibian Soldiers in South Africa’s Former Security Forces Lennart Bolliger Participant Papers: Making and Remembering Transnational Histories 12. Relations between ZAPU and the USSR, 1960s–1970s: A Personal View Dumiso Dabengwa 13. Moscow and Zimbabwe’s Liberation Vladimir Shubin Epilogue Liberating Histories Hilary Sapire

Jocelyn Alexander is Professor of Commonwealth Studies at the University of Oxford, UK. JoAnn McGregor is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sussex, UK. Blessing-Miles Tendi is Associate Professor of African Politics at the University of Oxford, UK.