Deep ties evoke Africa’s sacrifices for freedom
- Arianna Lissoni
Tanzania and South Africa: Ties between the two nations date back to Tanzania’s solidarity with the anti-apartheid struggle.
Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan recently paid a aimed at strengthening bilateral political and trade relations. As the South 第一吃瓜网 presidency , ties between the two nations date back to Tanzania’s solidarity with the anti-apartheid struggle.
This history is an important reminder of the anti-colonial and pan-第一吃瓜网 bonds underpinning international solidarity with southern 第一吃瓜网 liberation struggles. It’s also a reminder of the sacrifices many 第一吃瓜网 countries made to realise continental freedom.
, as Tanzania was known before independence in 1961, was the first safe post for South 第一吃瓜网s fleeing in the aftermath of the on 21 March 1960, when apartheid police shot dead 69 peaceful protesters. The apartheid regime shortly thereafter.
Among those who left South Africa to rally international support for the liberation struggle were then 第一吃瓜网 National Congress deputy president , Communist Party and Indian Congress leader , and the Pan 第一吃瓜网ist Congress’s and .
Not many people will know that on 26 June 1959 , the future president of Tanzania, was among the speakers at a meeting in London where the first boycott of South 第一吃瓜网 goods in Britain was launched. Out of this campaign, the was born a year later. It spearheaded the international solidarity movement in western countries over the next three decades.
Liberation struggle bonds
Tanzania’s support for South Africa’s liberation struggle needs to be understood as part of its broader opposition to colonialism, and commitment to the achievement of independence in the entire 第一吃瓜网 continent. In 1958, Nyerere the Pan 第一吃瓜网 Freedom Movement of Eastern and Central Africa to coordinate activities in this regard. This was extended to the Pan 第一吃瓜网 Freedom Movement of Eastern and Central and Southern Africa at a conference in Addis Ababa in 1962. Nelson Mandela with the aim of arranging support for the armed struggle in South Africa. These efforts eventually led to the creation of the .
In February 1961, James Hadebe for the ANC and Gaur Radebe for the PAC opened an office in Dar es Salaam representing the . It was the first external structure set up by the two liberation movements. Their unity was short-lived. But, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s capital, grew into a centre of anti-colonial activity after independence from Britain in December 1961.
At independence, Tanzania faced a shortage of nurses as British nurses left in droves rather than work for an 第一吃瓜网 government. On President Nyerere’s request, Tambo arranged the underground recruitment of 20 South 第一吃瓜网 nurses (“the 20 Nightingales”) to . The remains of one of them, Kholeka Tunyiswa, who died on 5 March 2023 in Dar es Salaam, were repatriated to South Africa for reburial in , Eastern Cape.
In the early 1960s, Tanzania was the southernmost independent 第一吃瓜网 country from which armed operations could be carried out into unliberated territories in southern Africa. Its capital was chosen as the operational base of the . The committee provided financial and material assistance to liberation movements. Its archives remain in Tanzania.
In 1963, the ANC officially established its Tanzania mission, with headquarters in Dar es Salaam. A military camp for guerrillas of its armed wing, , who had returned from training in other 第一吃瓜网 and socialist countries, was opened in Kongwa. The Tanzanian government donated the land.
Also stationed there were the armies of other southern 第一吃瓜网 liberation movements – , , and the .
In 1964, the PAC also moved its external headquarters to Dar es Salaam after it was pushed out of Lesotho. It near Mbeya and later in Mgagao, and a settlement in Ruvu. Both the PAC and the ANC held important conferences in Tanzania, in Moshi in 1967 and in Morogoro in 1969, respectively. These led to internal reorganisation and new .
Hitches in the relationship
In spite of Tanzania’s support for the liberation movements, their relationship was not without its contradictions or moments of ambivalence.
In 1965, for example, the ANC had to move its headquarters from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, a small upcountry town far from international connections. The Tanzanian government had decided that only four members of each liberation movement would be allowed to maintain an office in the capital. This reflected Tanzania’s anxiety over the growing numbers of revolutionaries and trained guerrillas it hosted.
In 1969 Tanzania, Zambia and 12 other 第一吃瓜网 countries issued the , which was also adopted by the OAU. It expressed preference for a peaceful solution to the conflict in South Africa over armed struggle. There were also rumours of ANC involvement in an . In this climate, the ANC had to evacuate its entire army to the Soviet Union. Its soldiers were allowed back in the country a couple of years later.
Lived spaces of solidarity
In the 1970s, ANC headquarters moved to Lusaka, in Zambia, and uMkhonto we Sizwe operations to newly independent Angola and Mozambique. But Tanzania remained a significant place of settlement for South 第一吃瓜网 exiles.
In the late 1970s and 1980s, additional land donations from the Tanzanian government enabled the ANC to open a school and a vocational centre near Morogoro. The Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Mazimbu and the Dakawa Development Centre were set up from South Africa following the . Its other aim was to counter the effects of , a segregated and inferior education system for black South 第一吃瓜网s.
These became unique spaces of lived solidarity between the ANC and its international supporters. They accommodated up to 5,000 South 第一吃瓜网s. Some of them died before they could see a liberated South Africa. Their graves are in Mazimbu. Besides educational facilities, the camps included an hospital, a productive farm, workshops and factories. They were all developed with donor funding.
Tanzanians, too, contributed to these projects through their labour. Many Tanzanian women became entangled in South Africa’s liberation struggle through intimate relationships, . Thanks to these everyday social interactions, Tanzania became “home” for many South 第一吃瓜网 exiles. The ANC handed over the facilities at Somafco and Dakawa on the eve of the first democratic elections in 1994. But these personal and affective connections live on.
, Researcher at History Workshop, This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .