Maintaining the Frontline

On 15 January 1967, Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda wrote to the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lieutenant General Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, outlining the results of a policy rethink in Zambia. This reconsideration was based on an acknowledgement that the country was being drawn ever deeper into the war for southern Africa, despite its efforts to stay out.

The letter stated, “…For a long time now there have been a number of violations of Zambia’s territorial sovereignty through incursions by Portuguese troops who, on several occasions have destroyed villages and most recently shot some Zambian citizens near the border with Angola. At the moment, there is what amounts to a hit-and-run war”.

Kaunda continued, “I have yet another running sore on the Southern front – the Rhodesian and South West African minority and racialist regimes pose a continuous threat to our security. On the Eastern front I have the Mozambique problem. Our geographical location coupled with our own determination to do what we can for the freedom fighters in the liberation of their homelands from colonialism and racial oppression has placed us in a position where we must fight a war on three major fronts – West, South and East…This means that Zambia must continue to shoulder this burden.

Kaunda accordingly suggested the following division of labour: “The crisis in Rhodesia and the development in South West Africa consequent upon the United Nations Resolution terminating South Africa’s mandate over that territory demand that Zambia concentrates her future efforts in that direction. …My proposal is that in order to maximise our future effectiveness, we should share responsibilities in the present crisis. This would mean that you would be responsible for Angola, Tanzania for Mozambique, while Zambia concentrates its attention on Rhodesia, South and South West Africa.”

On the same day, Kaunda wrote the following to Julius Nyerere of Tanzania: “I am now following up our earlier discussions with a firm proposal that, while Zambia should continue her vigilance and the help she has rendered to freedom fighters in Southern Africa in general, her main preoccupation should be over Rhodesia, South West Africa and South Africa. The responsibility for Angola should be for the Congo (Kinshasa) and Mozambique should remain your major preoccupation while extending your assistance to Zambia in general.”

Following on from this exchange of letters, the heads of the Tanzania and Zambian security services met at Mbeya, Zambia, on 28 February and agreed to establish a system whereby guerrillas seeking to travel between the two countries were to be confirmed by the Coordinating Committee of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Liberation Committee in Dar es Salaam, as bona fide freedom fighters and members of the organisations as claimed. If positive confirmation was received from the OAU, the guerrillas would be provided with travel documents and allowed to proceed.

The agreement, was ratified by Presidents Kaunda and Nyerere, and the significance of the accord was that while liberation movements had previously operated clandestinely in Zambia trying to establish routes to their home territories, they could commence mass deployment of armed combatants. This left unresolved the question of African National Congress (ANC) infiltrations into South Africa, which lay beyond Zambia’s borders.

In a document distributed at the beginning of a meeting of the OAU Liberation Committee’s Standing Committee on Defence in Dar es Salaam on 14 April 1967, it was noted that “Nothing so far has been done by the ANC in the form of an armed struggle”. The meeting “further suggested that the ANC leaders be requested to integrate their training personnel into any fighting Liberation Movements in order to fight against the common enemy of Africa and to open their way to South Africa”.

Hence the 1967 to 1968 joint MK-ZIPRA (Umkhonto we Sizwe-Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army) Wankie and Sipolilo Campaigns.

Castro Khwela
Good morning fellow Compatriots!