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ABSTRACT
This article examines the activities of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) in the former British Protectorate of Basutoland (Lesotho), where the organisation set up its first external headquarters from 1962 to 1965. Following a spell of disorientation in the aftermath of Sharpeville, the PAC leadership (under the command of general secretary P.K. Leballo) gradually regrouped in Maseru where they established a strategic base thanks to the fraternal and material support they received from Ntsu Mokhehle's Basutoland Congress Party (BCP). Here they began to plot a violent uprising in coordination with underground units in South Africa, first in 1963 and again in 1964. The reasons for the failure of both these attempts are analysed in terms of the PAC's exile politics with specific reference to the Basutoland political context. Lastly, the article considers both the immediate and long-term consequences of the Basutoland experience for the PAC exile history.