China’s revolutionary flames in Africa 2
These background notes on China’s engagement in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s concentrates on what was seen as its revolutionary diplomacy. The initial spur, and borrowed title came from reading this article from China Reconstruct.
There are dated general overviews such as Hutchinson (1975), and more general discussion provided for a survey of China’s involvement with national liberation movements[i] .These plagiarised notes draw freely upon the thesis by Ismail Debeche (1987), Julia Lovell (2019) and Peking Review, and more overtly unsympathetic sources like Chau (2014), US Government and CIA reports, and localised focused expositions. Other sources read, and not always acknowledged can be found in the bibliography at the end.
Going around the compass, geographically (and roughly chronology) the main focus of Chinese engagement began in North Africa with transversion to, firstly West and central Africa, across to the eastern seaboard and then southwards
NORTH AFRICA
The focus post-Bundung was North Africa, initially Egypt where China’s first African embassy opened in 1956. China contributed annual funds to the AAPSO, Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization demonstrating its commitment to African nationalism. Its permanent secretariat was based in Cairo.
Before the end of the 1950s China had extended financial and other aid, plus training, to the Front de Liberation (F.L.N.) as support for revolutionary activity in Algeria received priority. Articles published in the Peking Review gave moral support to the Algerian cause. In November 1957 a public display of support saw China celebrated a “national day of solidarity with the Algerian people.” A resolution adopted at the rally pledged “full support for the just cause of the people of Algeria and of Africa as a whole in their efforts to secure and safeguard their national independence.”
China was the first Communist country to establish official diplomatic relations with the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (Gouvernement Provisionel de la République Algérienne) after its formation in the autumn of 1958. There was Support Algeria Week (5–11 April 1959) and in May 1959 the Algerian military delegation spent a month in China.
While more specific evidence would offer a detailed assessment of Chinese operations, clearly China was intent on providing the FLN with whatever support was needed—from weapons and equipment to funds and training—to achieve independence, which it did in 1962.
On 22 December 1963 an New China News Agency (NCN A) correspondent writing from Algiers “described how he had been left with the impression that Mao’s work enjoyed wide popularity among the people.” According to the correspondent, Mao’s works on guerrilla warfare circulated underground, in prison, and among FLN guerrillas. He also recalled how he had found four well-worn volumes of Mao’s Selected Works in French and a copy of Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War, copiously annotated in Arabic, in the political commissar’s office in a barracks near the Moroccan border
China’s success in Algeria “opened the gates”‘ for other African anti-imperialist forces and movements to follow suit. Not only revolutionary uprisings in the Congo (1960-65) Cameroun (1960-65) and Zanzibar (1964) but also the transformation of national independence movements in the Portuguese colonies and in southern Africa were inspired by the victory of FLN in Algeria.
Niger
To the south, Niger did not establish diplomatic relations with China until July 1974, a situation largely related to the latter’s support for the outlawed liberation party (Swabain opposition to the French-dominated regime of Diori. In February 1965, 23 Sawaba fighters were arrested, according to a government announcement. The previous autumn of 1964 saw many Sawaba members executed in public. The president of Niger, Hamani Diori, accuse it, and Peking, of subversion.
The domestic roots of the conflict were often under reported in the attempt to reinforce and prove a tie-in with the Chinese and emphasis an international communist subversion in Africa.
While militants had been trained by Chinese experts in Ghana, Algeria (after the latter’s independence in July 1962), and at Nanjing in China. The public denunciations proved part of the anti-communist Cold War offensive with the American ambassador accusation that the China might certainly have been behind this assassination attempt on President Hamani in April 1965. [ii]The manipulation of news management has not just been a feature of the digital age with fake news being a feature of the propaganda offensive against an opponent as a practiced art. [ See fake news is not new]
Mali
Neighbouring Mali presents a contrasting picture. From 1960 (the year of its independence) until the overthrow of President Modibo Keita in 1968, Mali was perhaps the only African country which openly took China’s side as opposed to the Soviet Union’s on most international issues – and especially those concerning the best means of struggle against colonialism, imperialism and neo-colonialism.
The leaders of Mali have made numerous and long pro-Chinese statements. Among these we might single out the one statement which appears to be most significant and which was made by the Minister of Development of Mali, Seydu Badian Kuyate, on 10 July 1964, after his return from a visit to China:
“The help of the Chinese People’s Republic is the most valuable of all the help which Black Africa is getting currently. Africa is poor and Chinese aid fits perfectly into our needs and our local conditions. One could not possibly speak of Chinese neocolonialism in Africa. There is no more selfless aid than the aid of continental China.
On the other hand, this aid is also the most efficient and most interesting if we compare it with the aid from the other countries which costs us much more. At any rate, what Mali gets from the Western and socialist countries could not possibly measure up to what we get from China” [iii]
West Africa
| The experience in West Africa was a mixed bag. The observations of a Chinese journalist did see the publication of Glimpses of West Africa by Feng Chih-tan in the early stages of diplomatic engagement in 1963. However generally, China’s viewpoint can be found in the writings of Mao Zedong, and to a lesser extent in the record of Zhou Enlai’s 1964 African tour. They were made available in reports in Peking Review and in the 1964 Foreign Language Press publication, Afro-Asian Solidarity Against Imperialism: A Collection of Documents, Speeches and Press Interviews from the Visits of Chinese Leaders to Thirteen African and Asian Countries. |
Connections and relationship were built under the progressive regimes such as Nkrumah’s Ghana and Sekou Toure’s uncompromising and aggressive posture against colonialist and imperialist powers, and on the firm support given by his government to national liberation movements and revolutionary forces in the Cameroon, the Congo and other parts of Africa.
Ahmed Sekou Toure was the first African Head of State to visit -China (10-15 September 1960). GUINEA under Sekou Toure received 9.8% of China’s total aid to Sub-Saharan Africa during this period (1959-66). [iv]
Critical of the wavering support given by the Soviet Union, Sino-Guinean relations characterised Guinea as one of the leading progressive countries in Africa. Guinea’s support for China during the Cultural Revolution illustrated its militant relationship with China during this period. In 1967, Guinea itself launched its own ‘cultural revolution’ and formed its own version of the ‘Red Guards’ – Jeunesse du Rassemblement Democratique (JRDA).
The economic cooperation included a package of military aid for the liberation fighters of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.
The PAIGC – the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde – resistance forces led by Amilcar Cabral found the neighbouring Guinea, independent since 1958, prepared not only to allow it to have a base in its territory but also to facilitate external financial and military support. In Guinea, It was here that PAIGC’s first contact with China took place.
In July 1960, a PAIGC delegation visited China. From the following year, PAIGC guerrilla forces received training in China. In 1963 a group of PAIGC guerrilla fighters went to China for advanced training after undertaking their initial training in Ghana. In October 1964, Aristedes Perreira, a member of the Political Bureau and Deputy General Secretary of PAIGC visited China where he attended China’s National Day (1 October).
Cameroon
Cameroon was the first instance of a country in Africa in which China openly took the side of a national liberation movement led by militant party Union des Populations du Cameroon (UPC) against the established government. the Soviet Union urged compromise, supported the government of Ahidjo and urged UPC leaders to give up their armed struggle and join the central government.
In pro-Western and pro-imperialist government of Ahmadou Ahidjo was opposed by the UPC with its radical character and communist inclinations.
UPC’s armed struggle against French colonial rule (from 1958 onwards) had seen more than 80,000 French troops were sent to the colony. Over 50,000 Cameroonians were thrown into concentration camps.
In 1958, Ernest Ounadie the Vice President of UPC paid his first visit to China where he was promised its continuing and resolute support.: In February 1959, Jean Paul Sende, a UPC leader, visited China where he attended a mass rally in Beijing organised by the Chinese Committee for Afro- Asian Solidarity to commemorate ‘Cameroon Day’ (18 February).
In January 1960, Ahmadou Ahidjo, the UNC leader, was made the first President of the French occupied eastern region of Cameroon, A year later (October 1961), the British-administered southern part was integrated with the eastern Cameroon into the newly established Federal Republic of Cameroon.
UPC’s headquarters moved from Cairo to Accra, a location which was strategically better suited to the organisation and meant guerrilla operations and armed activities were undertaken easier. The Chinese had continued to help the Cameroun U.P.C. based in Accra. Their aid had partly been channelled through the Afro-Asian Solidarity Fund and partly had consisted of the training of Cameroonians in guerrilla tactics in China.
GHANA
In Ghana, Nkrumah’s ideology encompassed both Socialist and pan-African beliefs. Nkrumah’s interest in supporting African national liberation movements, for example, at the end of 1957 Nkrumah invited the Cameroonian guerrilla movement Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (Union des Populations du Cameroun, or UPC) to move its headquarters from Cairo to Accra.
August 1960 two Chinese diplomats and five officials arrived in Accra to open the first Chinese embassy in Ghana. Treaty of Friendship between China and Ghana that was signed in Beijing in 1961 was followed, In October 1962, with the protocol of the agreement on economic and technical cooperation
Chinese activity in Ghana continued in earnest after codification of another
agreement, this one with strategic ramifications across Africa. In 1964 “the two countries signed a secret agreement for the provision of military equipment and advisers for Ghana’s ‘freedom fighters.’”
Following a coup against Nkhrumah, documentary evidence, published by the Ministry of Information, in two brochures in November 1966 provided a detailed information and an account of the operation of the camps – A copy of the Protocol Agreement for Chinese military experts working in Ghana signed by Huang Hua, was included as Appendix B .[v]
The evidence from the files of the Bureau of African Affairs confirmed Ghana under Nkrumah had been host to training freedom fighters since 1961. Nkrumah had authorised the setting up and used three successive camps for this purpose. Soviet instructors had originally staffed the camps but were replaced by Chinese instructors in September 1964. The formal agreement between the governments of Ghana and China covering the assignment of guerrilla warfare instructors in Ghana was signed in August 1965.
Back in September 1961 Peking Review had published a brief article entitled “China and Africa.” It read in full,
“Chinese and African peoples have established a militant friendship in the struggle against their common enemy, imperialism. The Chinese people have always shown the deepest sympathy for and resolutely supported the African peoples in their patriotic struggle for national liberation against imperialism and colonialism. They have demonstrated these sentiments in various ways.”
The suspicion in the West framed the issue as if China was furthering Ghana as its base of operations from whence it could support liberation and guerrilla movements across Africa. The problem with this pictured was the assumption of China as masterminding this onslaught in a controlling and directing rather than supportive manner. China was legally active in Ghana by agreement of the two governments, but the activity focused mainly on the training and arming of African fighters. The agency was African revolutionary sentiments not some bureaucratic planning in downtown Beijing. Aid and assistance were provided to the willing.
October 1964 a five-member team of Chinese guerrilla warfare experts arrived at a training camp in Half Assini, a village near the Ghana–Ivory Coast border. They inaugurated a twenty-day course that consisted of training in the manufacture and use of explosives, guerrilla tactics, and basic guiding and thinking on armed struggle.
Camp Half Assini was closed down due to its proximity to the border, distance from Accra, and poor lines of communications—specifically, the condition of the roads. At the same time, a replacement camp was created at Obenemasi, the site of an abandoned goldmine.
Training at Camp Obenemasi included guerrilla warfare, explosives, and weapons, but also the use of telecommunications equipment and battlefield first aid. By January 1965 multiple sources reported that Camp Obenemasi had 210 students and 17 Chinese instructors. In May 1965 a new course at Camp Obenemasi started with fifty students from Niger.
The Chinese program in Ghana attracted Africans from many parts of the continent, including Angola, Cameroon, Congo-Kinshasa, Gabon, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso), and Zambia.
Conversely, a large, disparate number of African youths were trained in China at three secret training centres: Harbin in Manchuria, Nanjing on the Yangtze River, and in Shantung Province on the North China coast. Africans were from Algeria, Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Kinshasa, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zanzibar. The guerrilla warfare course in China lasted from 7 October 1964 until 13 February 1965 and was described by one of the participants from Ghana as “a 90-day course in theory and practice . . . arduous and intensive.” Ghana had become a base of operations for African radicals and guerrilla groups.
In 1965 Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso) accused President Nkrumah of sending “subversives” to neighbouring countries, while President Diori Hamani of Niger charged China with trying to smuggled [Communist-trained Africans] into Niger by way of Ghana and that his country would seek outside aid if the Communist infiltration increases.
Amplified by western sources was the idea that China was targeting West Africa through Ghana—to further its political interests in Africa. What was exaggerated was the influence of Chinese doctrine and tactics, as if Nkrumah’s programme for training guerilla fighters from independent African countries organised through Accra’s Bureau of African Affairs was controlled and master -minded by the Chinese Communists. The charge was of exporting ‘revolution’ to West and Central Africa implied a directing hand with a Pan-African strategy and the questionable accusation was presented as plausible and subsequently accepted as true.
On 24 February 1966 a coup d’état removed Nkrumah from power and changed the country’s foreign and security policy. Over 1,000 Russians, East Europeans, and Chinese (even though the Chinese personnel, including guerrilla instructors, were in Ghana at the request and signed agreement of a legal and popular government) were promptly expelled after the coup.
– Look at the numbers involved: The Peking Review later reported that a group of Chinese experts and embassy staff, numbering 125, returned to China on 5 March. Four days after the coup, moreover, Ghana sent a diplomatic note to the Chinese embassy requesting all Chinese technical experts working in Ghana to leave immediately. As a result, Ghana expelled 665 Soviet and 430 Chinese nationals, including three intelligence officers and thirteen guerrilla instructors who were training liberation fighters. [vi]
An aide-mémoire dated 20 October from the Ghanaian ministry of foreign affairs had informed the Chinese embassy that Ghana was suspending relation ns between the two countries. All embassy staff would withdraw by 5 November 1966. It was not until February 1972 that China and Ghana issued a joint press communiqué on the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Nigeria
China’s relations with neighbouring Nigeria were far different to those with Ghana. In the later stages of the Nigerian civil war, China gave its moral support to the Biafran separatist movement against the Federal government in Lagos. A delegation from Biafra which went to China (October 1967) seeking military support had returned empty-handed.
China’s recognition of Biafra (23 September 1968) came at a time (after the Soviet invasion in August of Czechoslovakia) when Sino-Soviet relations were fast deteriorating and the Soviet Union had established itself as the major supplier of military aid to the Federal Government of Nigeria. China viewed the Soviet Union’s association with the Federal Government of Nigeria as clear evidence of what China had begun to characterise (from 1968 onwards) as ‘Soviet social imperialism’.
China’s decision to recognise Biafra was perhaps also influenced to a degree by its friendly relations with Tanzania and Zambia, which – along with the Ivory Coast and Gabon – were the only African countries to recognise (April-May 1968) Biafra. The Federal government had not yet established diplomatic relations with China.
Ismail Debeche thought that,
“China’s justification of its stand on Biafra seemed to stem from humanitarian grounds rather than political grounds. China accepted the assessment that the mass of the Biafran people were being oppressed and massacred by the federal troops.” [vii]
Congo
The Congo had become independent from Belgium in June 1960. There were two countries called Congo delineated by their respective capitals: Leopoldville and Brazzaville .[viii]
Under PatriceLumumba, the first legally elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a political leader committed to a non-tribal nationalist ideology, insisted on a centralised government, and who, in his speeches and statements, made no secret of his antiimperialist and nationalist inclinations. [ix]
The Congo (Leopoldville) Crisis 1960-65 saw a separatist rebellion in a southern province and Belgian military intervention in the country.
The central government requested (11 July 1960) UN to intervene. The Leopoldville government hoped that UN troops would put an end to both Katanga’s separatism under Moïse Tshombe, and foreign intervention however the Western powers as well as Lumumba’s internal enemies conspired for his removal through a military coup. Mobutu, the Chief of Staff, was chosen to lead the coup. The UN forces in Leopoldville under Kettani, a Moroccan General, provided the financial and military help with which a coup was organised to take place 14 September 1960.
Lumumba was captured and then murdered by Belgian-led Katangese troops on 17 January 1961, and eventually Mobutu made himself President in November 1965. [x]
The resistance continued, led byPierre Mulele (1929 – 1968) who had been minister of education in Patrice Lumumba‘s cabinet. In China in 1963 to received military training, Pierre Mulelle also took a group of Congolese youths with him, who received training in guerrilla tactics. Mulele had returned to the Congo, where he formed a Youth Movement (Jeunesse Mouvement) in Kwilu Province (South-Western Congo – East Leopoldville). Mulele’s movement was influenced by China’s strategy of people’s war and Mao’s classic ‘Eight simple and straightforward rules’ of military behaviour.
China was able to supply military and financial aid to the anti-government forces led by Mulele and Gbenye. Chinese military were active in training Congolese guerrilla forces in Tanzania and neighbouring Congo (Brazzaville).
The western press had reports of collusion, that many Chinese communist advisors have visited the zone under rebel control; Le Monde reported the presence of Chinese officials in the regions of Impfondo, Gambona and Fort Rousset, where training camps were set up for the Congo rebels. These camps were directed by young Congolese trained in Peking.[xi]
The intervention of Belgian troops came when rebels who had seized Stanleyville (later renamed Kisangani) were suppressed by central government troops officered by foreign mercenaries. The landing of Belgian paratroopers in November 1964, from five United States Air Force C-130 transports dropped 350 Belgian paratroopers of the Paracommando Regiment onto the airfield at Stanleyville to rescue European hostage between 1,500 and 2,000, many of them missionaries and teachers. Most of the captives were Belgians, but they included a significant number of Americans and other nationalities. Tshombe, echoing the western narrative said: “I have absolute proof of communist participation in the rebellion in the Congo,” charging Peking with “trying to create a permanent center of subversion on African soil and a new international trouble spot.”
According to the “Solider of Fortune”[xii]
“The Reds wanted the vast mineral wealth of the Congo, but America in the form of the CIA stepped in and, assisted by Belgium, funded a mercenary army whose objective was to keep the Congo aligned to Western interests. It was Prime Minister Moise Tshombe who called in white soldiers of fortune, mainly South Africans” mercenary soldiers under the leadership of Lt Colonel Mike Hoare. “
August 1964. Prime Minister Moise Tshombe showed the press “weapons, explosives, and documents” which had been captured and which had come from the UAR, Algeria, and China. He accused the Chinese Embassy in Brazzaville of helping the CNL [National Liberation Committee] for the purpose of engaging in subversion. He once again attacked the use of Burundi and Congo (Brazzaville) by China as “helpers in China’s subversion campaign against the Congo.”
Such was the obsession with Chinese infiltration, for good measure, another accusation was added; the missionary Father Josef Scheonen, who lived in Kivu for 10 years, testified that China was supplying arms, opium, and heroin to the Congolese rebels.
Fake news is not just a feature of today’s politics.
In October 1968, after mediation by the Soviet Union and the Congo (B), Mobutu lured Pierre Mulele out of exile under a guarantee of safe conduct and amnesty. Mulele returned to Congo-Kinshasa. A Wikipedia entry notes:
“he was publicly tortured and executed: his eyes were pulled from their sockets, his genitals were ripped off, and his limbs were amputated one by one, all while he was alive. What was left was dumped in the Congo River.”
The Belgian Maoist leader Ludo Martens wrote extensively on Pierre Mulelle who led a maoist faction in the Kwilu Province and rebel activity in the Simba rebellion of 1964.
China’s 1964 statements “In Support of the People of the Congo (Leopoldville) Against US Imperialism”.
CONGO (Brazzaville)
In January 1966 China agreed to construct a broadcasting station in the Congo(B). Within a short period (March 1967), the project was completed. It was named ‘The Voice of the Congolese(B) Revolution’. This station was to be used for revolutionary campaigning in support of liberation forces in the Congo(K), Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique and other countries in southern Africa.
Congo(B) announced in 1967 the creation of a militia, the –Jeunesse du Mouvement do la Revolution (JMNR) China was invited to train and arm the militia which ‘openly professed admiration for Chairman Mao’. At the same time, China was already involved in training African guerrilla forces in the camps of Bouanga, Dombona and Ipfonda in the Congo(B).
In June 1968, a high-level military delegation visited the Congo (B) from China to attend the 4th annual celebration of the Congolese (B) People’s Army Day (22 June 1968). In July, a military delegation visited China from the Congo(B).
East Africa
Tanzania
In the western driven narrative, the East African state of Tanzania was regarded as heavily influenced by the People’s Republic of China. Under the leadership of the African National Union and President Julius Nyerere, the country issued the Arusha Declaration in 1967. The theme of the Arusha Declaration was to place emphasis on national self-reliance, the uplifting and empowerment of the peasantry as well as the realization of socialism based on the concrete conditions existing in Tanzania.
Following Nyerere’s visit to China in February 1965, the newspaper Nationalist printed an editorial stating,
The Chinese people support us Africans in the struggle to oppose imperialism and colonialism, new and old, and to win and safeguard out national independence…They support the Africans policy of peace, neutrality and nonalignment. They support Africa’s desire to achieve unity and solidarity in a manner of its own choice as well as its efforts to settle its own internal disputes through peaceful consultations…Above all, the Chinese have expressed their respect for the sovereignty of the African countries and have undertaken to avoid encroachment or interference in our political affairs.[xiii]
Interestingly in was neighbouring Zanzibar that first drew the ire of western propagandists.
The Cold War warriors would point to Abdul Rahman Mohamed (popularly known as “Babu” (1924 –1996), a Zanzibar-born Marxist and pan-Africanist nationalist, who played an important role in the 1964 Zanzibar revolution, served as a minister under Julius Nyerere after the island was merged with mainland Tanganyika to form Tanzania. [xiv]
Zanibar
The idea of Chinese experience being relevant in Africa was not a Chinese opinion alone as African radicals regarded It as providing both inspiration and a model for a host of anticolonial struggles across Africa and Asia. Abdul Rahman Mohamed (also known as “Babu”), secretary general of the Zanzibar Nationalist Party ZNP, visited China in January 1960. His opponents regarded him a Chinese agent of influence. Others saw him, as he saw himself, as an African revolutionary.
Amrit Wilson noted that Babu, was also, like many other young Africans and Asians of the period, inspired by the Chinese revolution. He had studied it in detail, but particularly for its relevance to Africa. China’s socialist revolution, he wrote:
“was an extension of its own liberation struggle and consequently there was a very thin dividing line between her nationalism and socialism. This dual loyalty to the two great movements of the period, enabled the Chinese to share more intimately the sentiments and aspirations of Africa’s liberation struggles and the struggle for national reconstruction both of which were Africa’s top priority.” [xv]
Babu had visited Mao Zedong’s China in 1959. and built close relations with the Chinese leadership , viewed by the British as “the best known Sinophile” in the area. Babu had a key role to play in the establishment of the TAZARA Railway ,offering both freight and passenger transportation services between and within Tanzania and Zambia, with the help of Chinese aid. Babu was among the progressive, leftist members of the Zanzibari government who was retained in the new joint Cabinet Dar es Salaam when the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar occurred on 26 April 1964 resulting in the creation of Tanzania
His connections to China continued, and his ideological affinity and work with the New China News Agency made him a good channel of communication with Beijing. He had an international profile attending in July 1964 at the second summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Cairo and meeting and became friends with, as well as arguably influencing, people like Malcolm X.
Abdul Rahman Babu was one of Africa’s foremost thinkers and analysts. A leader of the anti-colonial struggle in Zanzibar and of the Zanzibar revolution, Babu was seen as a threat by the US government and his approach would bring him into sharp contradiction with Nyerere’s perspective on African Socialism.[xvi]
According to the US representative in the country, Petterson,
“Babu did not confine his revolutionary Marxism to words. In June 1962, he fomented the burning of the British Information Office and was accused of other acts of sabotage. He was convicted of sedition and spent fifteen months in jail. It was believed that he was behind an arson attempt against the American consulate in August 1961” [xvii]
The UK intelligence agencies had been keeping an eye on Babu from his early days in Britain. The UK Foreign Office noted, for example, on February 23, 1962:
The subject has a long record of Communist activity dating back to 1951 … he is believed to be a member of the British Communist Party and … to have lectured at their school in Hastings on the ‘Problems of Imperialism’… quickly established contact with the WFTU and other Communist organizations …. He became the principal East Africa correspondent for the New China News Agency, the editor of ZaNews, a particularly scurrilous pro-Communist news sheet and most significantly General Secretary of the ZNP …. Was largely instrumental in setting up the ZNP Cairo office as a staging point for students travelling along the iron curtain countries pipeline …. Subject attended an anti-atom bomb conference in Japan in July 1961, and strongly supported a resolution that none of the countries present should allow American consulates or bases in their countries. Shortly after his return an abortive attempt was made to set fire to the American Consulate in Zanzibar. [xviii]
Petterson repeated the political smear that it was well known “that Babu and his Umma Party are bought and sold by Peking. Chicoms have furnished Babu with New China News Agency material, duplicating equipment, vehicles, propaganda material, tickets for tours and scholarships for [a] number of years.” [xix]
He stated that
“The U.S. government strictly enjoined American officials abroad from any contact with the Chinese, because the United States did not recognize Communist China. Perhaps an added reason for shunning the Chinese was that in the American line up of Cold War villains, Communist China was seen as particularly nefarious” [xx]
The cold war scenario meant that the United States was convinced that China, or the ‘Chicoms’ as the Americans called the Chinese, were behind every change in the weather. Despite the absence of any tangible evidence, China’s big initial success, according to Western intelligence, in Africa was in helping to stage a revolution in Zanzibar in 1964. China recognized the revolutionary government of the People’s Republic of Zanzibar on 17 January 1964
‘Although documentary proof not available, circumstantial evidence of Chicom involvement in [the] Zanzibar revolt … points strongly to Chicom participation in financing and planning the coup … there is no hard evidence yet’
In that casual colonialist racist frame-of-mind, the explanation from Lord Colyton, a former junior minister in the Colonial Office in the House of Lords, suggested that Beijing had planned the whole revolution. British officials read it wrong thinking Peking had designed to turn the island into a centre of revolutionary subversion in the newly independent countries of Africa.
It was not only the Chinese put into the frame: false rumours of direct Cuban involvement surrounded intelligence-fed press coverage; The Sunday Telegraph 19th January 1964 furnished “proof” that the Chinese newspaperman Kao Liang was the instigator of the revolt in Zanzibar! Being a confirmative source, US ambassador Leonhart referred to revolutionary Zanzibar “as the Cuba of Africa” analogy, spoke of its use as a base for subversion on the mainland, and called for U.S. military intervention.
The often reported key US manipulator and destabilizer of progressive governments, Frank Carlucci, had on January 12, 1964 arrived in Zanzibar. He had come directly from the Congo where the CIA had been deeply involved in the overthrow of Lumumba, and this perhaps shows just how seriously the Zanzibar revolution was being viewed by the State Department. The Congo had seen Carlucci’s record of destabilizations, that would include service in Brazil and Portugal. His aim now, in his own words, was to prevent Zanzibar becoming ‘an African Cuba from which sedition would have spread to the continent’ [xxi]
In Zanibar western claim that China’s was the hidden hand behind such a Revolution. Zhou Enlai during a visit to Somalia, explained that the revolution in Zanzibar was the outcome of the work of its people and not that of outside communists because revolution can neither be exported nor be imported; only when the people of the country have awakened can they drive the aggressors out and overthrow their oppressors. Of course we do not conceal the fact that we sympathise with and support the revolutionary struggles of the peoples. [xxii]
On 20 February 1964, China offered aid to Zanzibar in terms of “men, machines, and money.” In accepting this offer, the minister of Foreign Affairs Abdul Rahmam Maomed announced: “There are people who say that Zanzibar is the Cuba of Africa but nothing could be further from the truth”
In his pen portrait of Babu, Petterson speaks of his magnetic personality. [xxiii] Babu was intellectually and emotionally committed to Marxism then and remained so throughout his life. Babu had been in London in 1951 to study journalism at the Regent Street Polytechnic.
“At the outset of our conversation, Babu insisted that Zanzibar had no quarrel with the United States and wanted the friendship of the U.S. government. Zanzibar, he said, did not wish to be involved in “Cold War propaganda or activities.” Its foreign policy would be an African policy whose ultimate goal was African unity. Its domestic objective would be the elimination of poverty; to achieve this end, he said, Zanzibar had to become a socialist state, for it did not have the time that the United States and Britain had to develop their economies.” [xxiv]
Yet behind embassy walls there was discussions of how Babu’s power could be “drastically reduced or eliminated.” [xxv]
All the Communist missions offered scholarships and overseas training opportunities for young Zanzibaris. The Soviets had a military training unit and continued to provide arms and equipment. They bought a large amount of cloves. The Chinese interest-free loan was appreciated, as was their military training and agricultural technical assistance. The East Germans were slow to get off the mark on their housing project, but the promise of it kept the Zanzibari leaders happy for the time being. The East Germans were also developing a plan to build a radio transmitter.
—
In February 1964 Babu, the former correspondent of the NCNA who was at one point general secretary of the ZNP, became minister in the union government. In planning the new Zanzibar economy Babu had turned to China – a country which had not only confronted underdevelopment and imperialist plunder but was, at that time, the only third world country that had developed an economy independent of external resources. The economic relationship with Tanzania was symbolised by the build of the TAZARA Railway.
Babu remained in the union government until 1972, when he was dropped from the cabinet. Nyerere, by this time, had consolidated power and acted following Karume’s assassination, the President of Zanzibar, on April 7 1972, Karume was killed in Zanzibar by a man whose father he had murdered. Babu along with 40 other Umma Party members were arbitrarily incarcerated, jailed for alleged involvement, despite a lack of evidence, leading to death sentences three years later, but after an international campaign under the leadership of people like the Guyanese and Pan African freedom fighter Walter Rodney that Babu was released after six years.
After his release Babu remained a vocal critic of imperialism, authoritarian states and excessively statist (as well as private capitalist) development models. He came into conflict with the policies of ‘African socialism’ espoused by President Julius Nyerere. Babu’s well-known book Socialist Africa or African Socialism, was written in Ukonga prison in Dar es Salaam and the manuscript smuggled out :
“At this crucial historical juncture, anti-colonial nationalism has already exhausted its potential and run out of steam. Its limited objectives have led perilously to the bleak realm of graft, corruption and economic decline. Its former usefulness has actually turned into a negation of all that Africa has stood for and indeed fought for. Only through socialism, whose direction has already been pointed out by the Zanzibar revolution, it can re-emerge from the shackles of neo-colonialism and imperialists domination with their legacy of poverty, starvation and disease. Only socialism can put Africa once again on the road to rejuvenation and rekindle that post-independence mass enthusiasm which has now everywhere been replaced by cynicism. Only socialism can open the way towards turning the entire continent into a unified, progressive Africa, utilising its almost unlimited natural and human resources for the benefit of its people. Only socialism can turn Africa into a giant among giants today. That is the meaning and legacy of the Zanzibar revolution.”
In exile, Babu went to the United States, lecturing and teaching at Amherst College. Later in1984 Babu made London his home, teaching at Birkbeck College, University of London and doing freelance writing, until his death in 1996.
—
Tanzania drew concern because of its perceived priority was to support those still struggling for national independence against the remnants of colonial rule specifically in Southern Africa. It offered a home and organising base for national liberation movements and facilitated military training as had Nkrumah’s Ghana before them.
In 1964, Tanzania had an official Chinese military mission to train its army, as distinguished from the clandestine training of guerrilla forces in Ghana and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
In August 1964 the Tanzanian government invited a Chinese military mission of eleven instructors to teach in the use of Chinese weapons. The military mission consisted of seven instructors and four interpreters and arrived some time before 9 September. Aid was taken from where it was offered as Tanzania was host to other instructors from the Soviets and East Germans.
Whereas such miniscule presence was given prominence, less publicity or concern was expressed at Sandhurst trained military or those taught the art of coup d’etat by the Americans, French or Belgians.
There was assistance in other forms .In early December 1966 President Nyerere opened a $560,000 short wave radio transmitter built with aid from China. Marking the occasion, Ambassador Ho said, “This station will help in the liberation of Africa.” As did training guerrillas in southern Tanzania to fight in Mozambique and other areas of southern Africa. Geographically, Tanzania provided a crossing point for liberation fighters going to the battlefields of southern Africa. Through Tanzania with which it had friendly relations, China was able to provide financial and military support to FRELIMO, not only an anti-colonial but also an anti-imperialist movement. As far as FRELIMO was concerned, Portuguese colonialism could not be separated from its NATO allies in the Mozambican people’s struggle for national liberation.
In October 1964 the Portuguese reported that five groups of guerrillas had penetrated Portugal’s East African territory of Mozambique from (then) Tanganyika. In operations against the guerrillas, the Portuguese captured guerrilla general Lucas Fernandes, who “was said to have received his military training in Peking.”
According to additional Portuguese reports, the Soviet Union and China were aiding Algerians, Cubans, and Tanzanians to subvert Portuguese Africa. The New York Times reported that arms and munitions were landing in Tanzania , repeating CIA reports that Pointe Noire in Congo-Brazzaville and Mtwara in Tanzania were entry points for Chinese arms for liberation movements in Mozambique and Angola using Chinese trucks to transport weapons to the Congo and the Mozambique border
Dr. Eduardo Mondlarfe was able to mobilise Mozambican groups and parties in a national united front for Mozambique’s independence under the name of the Frente de Liberta cao de Mozambique (FRELIMO, June 1962).
China’s relations with FRELIMO began almost two years (January 1963) before the beginning of guerrilla warfare in Mozambique (September 1964). In 1963, five FRELIMO delegations visited China, one of which (January) was led by Mondlane himself. On his return from China, Mondlane described the Chinese model for national liberation as stimulating to the African people and that he was very much impressed by the enthusiasm of the Chinese people towards the national liberation movement in Africa and their willingness to support the African people’s struggle.
_______________________
Southern Africa
Angola
When Western reports spoke of landings of weapons from Chinese ships in the Congo, these weapons were earmarked for the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. Initial support for the MPLA became defined by Cold War politics. In 1962–1963, China stopped being a major supporter of the pro-Soviet MPLA. [xxvi]
China’s involvement followed Organization of Africa Unity’s recognition for the three major liberation movements in Anglo: the Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola (MPLA), Uniao Nacional para a Independencia Total de Angola (UNITA), and the Frente Nacional para Libertacao de Angola (FNLA).
In 1963, Holden Roberto of FNLA met with Foreign Minister Chen Yi in Nairobi, and China is reported to have agreed to provide most of their armaments. Likewise, in 1964, Jonas Savimbi of UNITA met with Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou En-lai in China, where he received military training and was referred to as a maoist in western reports.
In 1974, the FNLA received a 450-ton shipment of arms and benefited from the assistance of 112 Chinese instructors based in former Zaire. UNITA also was the recipient of Chinese largess. With the end of the Cultural Revolution in the early 1970s, China did provide military training to MPLA commanders and guerrillas but its relationship was unsteady.
Unjustly China was charged with supporting Apartheid South Africa and the United States against the Soviets and Cuba in the Angolan civil war. The Soviet-backed MPLA came to power declaring Angola independent in November 1975, and formal diplomatic relations between Beijing and Luanda were only established in 1983.
Zimbabwe
In support of the national independence movement in white-minority ruled Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe, China organised a Zimbabwe Day’ rally in Beijing (17 March 1963). The first group of five recruits for the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) went to China for six months training in military science on September 22 1963, led by Emmerson Mnangagwa.
It was followed by a second group, who had basic training in Ghana in 1964, went on to China in 1965 for advanced training as instructors.
China’s emphasis on the formation of united national front with the aim of engaging in concrete positive action against white minority rule. Thus, even though China appeared favourably inclined towards the more radical ZANU, it hoped publically that ZANU and ZAPU would unite in order to consolidate the national movement of Zimbabwe.
In February 1964 when James Robert, a ZAPU leader, visited China on his way to Moscow, China offered a financial contribution of $19,700 to ZAPU. In April 1966, five months after Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence, (UDI) ZANU was the first national liberation movement to launch a full-scale guerrilla war in Zimbabwe/Southern Rhodesia from its bases in Zambia. ZAPU denounced ZANU’s action as “irresponsible”.
China view UDI as an act of the white colonialist authorities to carry on a fascist rule.
ZANU guerrilla fighters trained in China played a leading role in the war.
During early 1966, ZANU sent its third group of guerrillas for training to China. Josiah Magama Tongogara led a group of 11 to the Nanjing Academy in Beijing where they trained in mass mobilisation, strategy and tactics, returning to Tanzania later the same year. Tongogara, who became Commander of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (Zanla), “learned in China that it was vital to mobilise the people, and it was that lesson which shaped future strategy”.
Reading from the Mao Tse-tung play book on peasant revolutions, the Zimbabwe National Liberation Army (ZANLA) concentrated a great deal of energy on winning over the masses in the rural areas. Attacks were planned and carried out on African collaborators, and just like the government, ZANLA used coercive methods to ensure compliance with the nationalist movement. Mao teachings also influenced battle tactics of the Zimbabwean liberation movement.
In January 1969, a team of eight Chinese instructors arrived at Itumbi in southern Tanzania to train the Zimbabwe African Liberation Army (ZANLA), ZANU’s military wing. One of these instructors, Comrade Li, the infantry expert, played a particularly important role in the evolution of the new strategy.
At Itumbi and other training camps, the recruits learned the meaning of “a people’s war, a people’s army, the objectives of the war and the basic teachings of Chairman Mao on guerrilla warfare . . .
“The Chinese, who by then had 20 instructors at Mgagao, believed that you have got to be matured politically in your head before you go and shoot,” one of the early recruits said later. “I learned that the decisive factor was not the weapons but the people.”
The illegal Rhodesia regime highlighted the communist support given to – the Zimbabwe African Peoples’ Union (ZAPU), and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), noting that since the early 1960’s the numerous visits to Moscow and Peking by leaders of the nationalist groups. The pattern that emerges here is of close links between ZAPU and the USSR and between ZANU and the PRC. Obviously there were para-military and sabotage training, and with the capture of Chinese made AK-47’s, the Smith regime pointed to
“Groups of Rhodesian African nationalists have been trained in camps near Peking and Nanking. Instruction has been given by Chinese military instructors in revolutionary tactics, arms, explosives, sabotage technique, communications and strategy. … Large groups of Rhodesian African nationalists were trained at Half Assini and Abenamadi Camps in Ghana during 1965. [xxvii]
Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) the military wing were supplied arms and provided advisors to train the cadres. Engaged in Chimurenga is a Shona language word for liberation, which entered common usage as they fought a protracted nearly 15 year bush war against the Rhodesian Security Forces drawing support largely from the adjacent African host countries of Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana and Angola (commonly referred to as the Front Line States)
The training of ZANU recruits has been carried out in the PRC at established military bases near Peking and Nanking. While the same para-military subjects are taught there as in the Soviet Union, great emphasis is placed on the ‘ideology’ of guerrilla warfare. The Chinese make much of the fact that they ‘won their liberation struggle’ by the same tactics being taught to the African trainees.
“all our militants also receive political training. They study Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, the history of Zimbabwe and writings on either revolutions, such as in Vietnam, Algeria, Cuba, or the Mau-Mau in Kenya. Whenever we can, we spend time on political education, since it is crucial in building and maintaining the morale and good comportment among our guerrillas.” [xxviii]
Josiah Tongogara, the commander of ZANU’s liberation army in Zimbabwe, trained at a guerilla camp at Nanjing’s Military Academy in 1966. The training included two months of education on the Chinese Revolution and communist ideology, months more of training in “mass mobilization, military intelligence, political science, mass media, and guerilla strategies.” More recently courses inside the PRC have been largely replaced by similar training and exercises in Tanzania under Chinese instructors. Also of late, emphasis in this training has been on defense against attack by aircraft and on mine laying and sabotage.
In the final stages of the Zimbabwean struggle for independence in 1979, Tongogara related to a BBC reporter:
When we open a new area, we don’t just go and fight. First of all we make a study – investigation among the masses – they tell us their grievances, and those we exploit and use them…and we explain to them why we have come to them, why you are fighting this war. They have to understand it. [xxix]
Chinese aid extended to the supply of radio stations to Tanzania and Zambia for the purpose of broadcasting against the white-governed countries of Southern Africa, in support of Zimbabwe National Liberation Struggle.
Azania / South Africa
China’s early contact with Southern Africa was with ANC on the occasion of Walter Sisulu’s visit to China (1953). In an interview with the-then African National Congress leader Oliver Tambo in regard to China’s support for the armed struggle to end apartheid in the sub-continent, Tambo spoke on a visit saying that “It was the third time that the ANC has sent a delegation to the People’s Republic of China. The first time was in 1963. I was leading both. [xxx]
Testimony from an imprisoned black African fighter confirmed China’s practical assistance: Sometime in late 1963, according to the testimony, Beijing selected an African named Peter Metchane and sent him for military training in China. Metchane went to Bechuanaland (present-day Botswana) and from there flew to Tanganyika, India, Burma, and finally to China. He was enrolled in the military academy at Nanjing and was trained in the use of antitank mines and other equipment. South Africa sentenced Metchane and another black African to ten years imprisonment for their involvement in armed liberation movements, which was the ultimate purpose of their foreign training. During the trial Metchane testified that “four other Africans” had enrolled at the same time in Nanjing.
Two factors contributed to a more tepid relationship: that the ANC was much influenced by SACP which strictly followed the Soviet international line, and the assistance given by the Chinese to the Pan Africanist Congress, founded as a result of an ideological dispute within the leadership of ANC. Mangaliso Sobuke, PAC’s founder-leader, had been arrested in April 1960 following the Sharpeville massacre. In the early 1960s two PAC missions visited China and returned with $20,000 on each occasion and military training was offered.
Prior to Chinese aid, military training and camps of the Pan Africanist Congress military wing Pogo were based in Maseru in in the mountainous areas of Lesotho without the permission and knowledge of the Lesotho government. The authorities in Lesotho, at the time a British Protectorate, were closely allied with the South African government.
Eventually militants were to travel to the Congo, geographically the nearest independent country to South Africa, and it was here in 1963 that the Kinkuzu camp opened.
The PAC also sent its cadres for training in Botswana and Tanzania. In the early 1960s the PAC enjoyed the widespread sympathy of leaders in most of the newly-independent African countries largely because of the Sharpeville massacre of 1960.
A seven-member PAC “study delegation” (presumably a euphemism for military training) visited China in October 1964, another visit to China by the group under Ntantala followed in April 1967.
Training in China seems to have a significant impact on the PAC in general, and it’s military wing in particular, in that it is clear that the structure of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) was based closely on that of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In addition, the ideological training imparted to members of the PLA was also given to APLA members trained in China. Evidence of this grounding in Mao’s version of Marxist-Leninism was found, for instance, in APLA’s training Field Manual. In China, emphasis was placed on the ideological orientation of the cadres. In consequence, the PAC experienced a major shift in strategy, arguing that APLA cadres, armed with revolutionary propaganda, would carry out mobilisation work amongst the people along with attacks on enemy forces. Unlike the Poqo military phase that was by nature a localised insurrection, based on the Chinese model, APLA elevated its training and ideology and these became critical components of its warfare. Far from being a dedicated maoist formation, the radical hodge-potch of radicalism, Africanist and Marxist sentiments meant the disciplined focus insurrectional force was never constructed, and the PAC played second fiddle to the older ANC. [xxxi]
APLA camps in exile, 1970-1981
The camps in Tanzania were waiting camps to hold trained personnel of the liberation organisations of southern Africa”. The emphasis was on physical exercises and karate. The Chinese trainers provided training in the martial arts, as well as theoretical training. The camp was a joint camp with ZANU. [xxxii]
HoustonI et al argued that the leadership of the PAC, and in particular the conflicts that characterised its history for most of the exile period, were largely responsible for the limited attention the leadership gave to military training and operations, and for insufficient support from the international community for its armed struggle and military camps.
When the internal leadership squabbles occurred in the mid-1960s the young cadres were complaining that they were lost and … they did not know what was happening to the leadership.
It is quite apparent that there was no strategic direction behind the training provided to APLA cadres. The PAC simply took advantage of any offer of training, irrespective of whether it was relevant for strategic reasons.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, APLA cadres underwent training in Libya, Ghana, Guinea, Uganda, Nigeria, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Yugoslavia, China and Kampuchea (present day Cambodia).
Zebulon Mokoena underwent another training session in 1976 when he led a group of PAC cadres that were sent to China at the beginning of 1976 “for military training”.110 During the first month of the three-month course the cadres were provided with cultural and political training, including visits to all the relevant historical sites, where they were given lectures on the Chinese revolution and the work of the Communist Party of China. The group was then transferred to Guangzhou, where they were trained on how to establish an underground guerrilla army; to use light weapons manufactured in the East and light to medium weapons manufactured in the West; to manufacture home-made explosives using readily available material; and regimental drill. Mokoena later went to Libya with the SASO group that stayed in Libya for nine months; they were given a course in infantry. [xxxiii]
There were African Maoist groups, like the exiled based editorial team around Ikwezi (1975-1982) under the editorship of Bunsee Bunting and non-Party intellectuals who saw Maoism as a revolutionary universalism, rather than a nationalist ideology of Chinese exceptionalism. Bunting had joined the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in the early 1960s and was part of the first group that went to China for military training with other PAC stalwarts retaining an ideological affinity with Pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness in the post-apartheid period. [xxxiv]
IKWEZI was a pre-party publication based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought working at the stage of the Azania national democratic revolution. Working within the Pan Africanist and Black Consciousness movement, the struggle was seen as both a national and a class struggle against colonial and imperial domination. It was critical of revisionist influences within the mainstream liberation movement, the African National Congress ANC. Ikwezi took a firm stand against Russian social-imperialism regarding it as being the greater danger compared to American imperialism
Bunting returned to China in July 1979 as editor of an IKWEZI Delegation. The magazine subsequently published a talk given us by a member of the Liaison Department of the CPC on China’s Foreign Policy, and later published its critical assessment of the 1981 CPC’s Assessment of the Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong. [xxxv]
ENDNOTES
[i] [e.g. Snow, P., (1988). The Star Raft: China’s Encounter With Africa. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Pp. 76-87].
[ii] Drawing upon the analysis detailed in Debeche’s 1987 thesis
[iii] Diario de Noticias, 11 July 1964 quoted in Debeche’s 1987 thesis
[iv] Debeche (1987) p578.
[v] Draws on the postcoup publications of the Ghanaian government, Nkrumah’s Deception of Africa (1966) Accra-Tema: THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION (Ghana); and,Senate Internal Security Sub-committee (1972) Communist Global Subversion and American Security Volume 1 : The Attempted Communist Subversion of Africa Through Nkrumah’s Ghana. Washington: US Government Printing Office
[vi] See Peking Review #11 March 11 1966
[vii] Debeche (1987) p768
[viii] An aspect of that colonial experience covered in Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost: a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa
[ix] See: Lumumba Speaks; the speeches and writings of Patrice Lumumba, 1958-1961. (edited by Jean Van Lievade) 1968. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Available on archive.org.
[x] Investigation conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities, under the chairmanship of Senator Frank Church, in 1975. After extensive closed hearings, revealed in its report that the C.I.A. had plotted to assassinate Lumumba and several other foreign leaders and had engaged in a variety of other illegal activities at home and abroad – all this under four Presidents (two Republicans and two Democrats).
See ~ ASSASSINATION PLANNING AND THE PLOTS
The death of UN General Secretary, Dag Hammarskjold in a plane crash in September 1961, shrouded in secrets and lies, was explored in Susan Williams’ Who Killed Hammarskjold? The UN, the Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa (2011) London: Hurst & company.
[xi] Le Monde, weekly, No 845, 24-30 December 1964, p. 5
[xii] The Stanleyville Massacre – Soldier of Fortune Magazine (sofmag.com)
[xiii] “The Nationalist Hails CPR Support of Africans,” Peking NCNA International Service – 1965-01-29, Daily Report, Foreign Radio Broadcasts, FBIS-FRB-65-021.# Such rhetoric covered in reality a more cautious and conservative regime balancing its international relations.
[xiv] See https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/creating-cuba-africa-life-and-work-mohamed-babu
[xv] Salma Babu and Amrit Wilson (eds) (2002) The Future that Works: Selected writings of A.M. Babu. Trenton: Africa World Press.166)
[xvi] see Amrit Wilson, Abdul Rahman Mohamed Babu: Politician, Scholar and Revolutionary http://jpanafrican.org/docs/vol1no9/AbdulRahmanMohamedBabu.pdf
[xvii] Don Petterson (2002) Revolution in Zanzibar: An American’s Cold War Tale. Boulder Westview Press 2002: Page 109
The memoirs of the trials and tribulations of an American Foreign Service Officer , Don Petterson (2002) Revolution in Zanzibar: An American’s Cold War Tale. Boulder: Westview Press, is embroidered with both a defence (against some judgements in Clayton’s work, The Zanzibar Revolution and its aftermath. 1981 London: C. Hurst & Co. ) , an explanation of events from an American perspective and interests, and his own assessment of his experience at the time. Petterson “corrects” Adam Clayton’s assessment of Americans and their roles (Frank C.Carlucci, CIA? No! Highly regarded Foreign Service Officer. Just happened to be serving in Congo when Lumumba murdered and went onto serve as the United States Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989 under President Ronald Reagan, having been Deputy Director of the CIA from 1978 until 1981 and US ambassador in Portugal in 1974 following the Carnation Revolution).
US fears of China
During the Cold War in Zanzibar, and later in Tanzania, the US State Department was beset with the fear of ‘Chicoms’. An exploration of American anxieties about China and China’s relations with growing economic strength and burgeoning trade with African countries is for another time. Discussion on what is regarded as a footnote to Africa’s post-colonial history can be found in a few studies e.g.
Amrit Wilson (2013) The Threat of Liberation: Imperialism and Revolution in Zanzibar. London: Pluto Press
Clayton, Anthony (1981) Zanzibar, revolution and aftermath. London: C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd.
Don Petterson (2002) Revolution in Zanzibar: An American’s Cold War Tale. Boulder Westview Press 2002
Salma Babu and Amrit Wilson (eds), The Future that Works: Selected writings of A.M. Babu. Trenton: Africa World Press.
[xviii] Wilson 2013
[xix] Petterson (2002) 31
[xx] Petterson (2002) 168
[xxi] Wilson, 1987: 41
[xxii] Press conference February 3rd 1964 Peking Review #7 February 14 1964 p 12
[xxiii] Petterson (2002) pp108- 109
[xxiv] Petterson (2002) pp 109-110
[xxv] Petterson (2002) 173
[xxvi] China were not without their supporters: in 1963, Viriato de Cruz, then secretary-general of the MPLA and a key intellectual voice, split partly over the China issue and fled to Beijing, where he died in 1973.
[xxvii] Information Section , Ministry of Foreign Affairs COMMUNIST SUPPORT AND ASSISTANCE TO NATIONALIST POLITICAL GROUPS IN RHODESIA SLB/CGR 28 November 1975
[xxviii] Interview with Edward Ndhlovu, ZAPU Deputy National Secretary, Dec. 1974
[xxix] Portrait of a “Terrorist,” Nick Ross, rep., (BBC Two England, April 19, 1979), URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbU_lQMz7ko.
[xxx] Journal of African Marxists, No. 5, March 1984
[xxxi] Actual performance was disorganisation in the movement as well as a marked lack of resources explored in Military training and camps of the Pan Africanist Congress of South Africa, 1961-1981 by Gregory HoustonI; Thami ka PlaatjieII; Thozama April Historia vol.60 n.2 Durban Nov. 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2309-8392/2015/V60N2A2
[xxxii] When the PAC’s ally came to power in Zimbabwe in 1980, ZANU decided that it would not allow the South African liberation movements to use its territory as a springboard for operations, nor did it give permission for the establishment of military camps in Zimbabwe.
[xxxiii] A group of new recruits that arrived in early 1977 were sent for military training in China, followed by another group that went to Kampuchea. In June 1977 there were 21 cadres who left Tanzania for Khmer Rouge-ruled Kampuchea under the leadership of Ezrom Mokgakala. The group spent a few weeks in China, before proceeding to Kampuchea. Their initial challenge was to learn the Cambodian language before commencing with training. One member of the group, Sgubu Dube, recalled that:
We were a group of 23 … and spent six weeks in China on orientation on what to expect from Kampuchea because the country had just received independence in 1975. When we were about to start with the heavy machinery like tanks, airplanes and helicopters, the Vietnamese invaded Kampuchea and we had to move from the city to the countryside. That was a very good experience because all that we had been taught we had to put into practice: how to evacuate people … We marched for eight months from Kampuchea going down to Thailand” .
[xxxiv] See: https://woodsmokeblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/8-ikwezi/
[xxxv] Source: Ikwezi, Number 18, October 1981. https://emaoism.wordpress.com/2015/04/25/assessment-of-the-ccps-assessment-of-the-cultural-revolution-and-mao-zedong/amp/
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