Southern African Liberation Wars: The Halting Development of Tourism in Botswana, 1960s–1990s

Abstract

In recent years, tourism has attracted the attention of many scholars in development literature. In Botswana, as elsewhere, the dominant theme in the literature has, invariably, been the emphasis on the argument that the tourism industry is a conduit of development of the rural economies and also enables developing countries to participate in the global economy. While this is not in dispute, the literature is silent on the history of the development of the tourism industry in Botswana with specific reference to the impact on the nascent industry of the southern African liberation wars in the Chobe area. The article argues that the political violence resulting from the liberation wars between 1966 and 1980 delayed the development of the Botswana tourist industry as the Chobe tourist destination was turned into a theatre of war. In having to pay more attention to the security threat, the Botswana government gave less attention to tourism development. Meanwhile, the local and international media made headlines about the war incidents in the Chobe District, painting a gloomy picture on the potential of the industry and deterring tourists.

Key words:

• Southern African liberation wars
• South African Defence Force
• Rhodesian army
• Destabilisation
• Tourism Development
• Chobe District
• Botswana

Notes

1. S. Khama, ‘African-American Relations in the 1970s: Prospects and Problems’, in W. Roder, ed., Voices of Liberation in Southern Africa: The Perimeter of the White Bastion (Waltham: African Studies Association, 1972), 90–92. Khama was very critical of Republican American president Richard Nixon's opposition to the liberation products and industrial goods as well as harbours for international trade. As a result, while supporting economic sanctions on South Africa, Botswana could not itself apply the sanctions against the very lifeline of her economy. See among others, P. Hartland-Thunberg, Botswana: An African Growth Economy (Boulder: Westview Press, 1978), 1–10.

2. R. Dale, ‘Not Always So Placid a Place: Botswana Under Attack’, African Affairs, 86, 342 (1987), 90.

3. The Rhodesia Herald, Friday 16 October, 1964. It was named ‘Kasane Freedom Ferry’ because it carried victims of colonialism who committed themselves to bringing freedom to their countries through military training and waging the liberation wars against colonial domination. By crossing into Zambia they were also free from control by racist rule in their own countries.

4. L. I. Magole and O. Gojamang, ‘The Dynamics of Tourist Visitation to National Parks and Game Reserves in Botswana’, Botswana Notes and Records, 37 (2005), 80–96. See also B & T Directories, Botswana Review, 26th Edition (Gaborone: B&T Directories (Pty) Ltd., 2006), 61. Diamonds have been rated Botswana's highest export commodity. See also Government of Botswana, Tourism Policy (Gaborone: Government Printer, 1990).

5. P.T. Mgadla, ‘Forbidden Pastures: Private Social Clubs and Racial Discrimination in the Bechuanaland Protectorate on the Eve of Independence: Francistown Club and Others’, paper presented at History Seminar, University of Botswana, 21 November 2013.

6. See L. Pfotenhauer, ‘Introduction’, in L. Pfotenhauer, ed., Tourism in Botswana, Proceedings of a Symposium held in Gaborone, 15–19 October 1990 (Gaborone: The Botswana Society, 1991), 1.

7. K. Kulindwa, H. Solovele, and O. Mashindano, Tourism Growth for Sustainable Development in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam: Dar es Salaam University Press, 2001).

8. See among others, J. E. Mbaiwa, ‘The Socio-economic and Environmental Impacts of Tourism Development on the Okavango Delta, North-western Botswana’, Journal of Arid Environments, 53 (2003), 447–467, J.E. Mbaiwa and M.B.K. Darkoh, Tourism and Environment in the Okavango, Botswana (Gaborone: Pula Press, 2006).

9. Pfotenhauer, Tourism in Botswana.

10. M. Tjibae and I.K. Theophilus, ‘Analysis of Problem Animal Control and Compensation Scheme’, in F. Monggae, Proceedings of an National Conference on Conservation and Management of Wildlife in Botswana: Strategies for the Twenty First Century, 13th–17th October 1997 (Gaborone: The Kalahari Conservation Society, 1997), 285–291.

11. A related near-war situation in the region was that of a territorial dispute between Botswana and Namibia over the Sedudu/Kasikili island on the Chobe River. War was averted by the submission of the case to the International Court of Justice which settled the dispute in favour of Botswana in 1999 and the threat on tourism was removed. See ‘International Court of Justice, Case concerning Kasikili-Sedudu Island (Botswana/Namibia), Summary of the Judgement of 13 December 1999’, www.icj-icj-org.

12. E. Neumayer, ‘The Impact of Political Violence’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 48, 2 (2004), 259–281.

13. The OP files were released to the public in 2008, the same time when this research was undertaken.

14. L.K. Richter, ‘Political Instability and Tourism in the Third World’, in D. Harrison, ed., Tourism and the Less Developed Countries (Chichester: Wiley, 1992), 35–46.

15. Government of Botswana, Discover Africa: Botswana Tourism Magazine (Gaborone: Department of Tourism, 2001), 28. See also The Rhodesia Bottle Store and Hotel Review, August 1961. Originally established and owned by a Rhodesian couple Colonel F. Trevor and wife Ethnee, the hotel has since changed hands and names. It is currently known as the Chobe Safari Lodge. The hotel catered exclusively for whites, in line with the racial norm across the region especially with racial segregation so pronounced in neighbouring states of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, apparently angering local Africans who soon pushed for reform in the Bechuanaland Protectorate.

16. Botswana National Archives (hereafter BNA) S. 568/13/4, ‘Letter from Chief Information Officer to British Overseas Airways Corporation, 9 October 1964.’ The delayed investment in tourism in the Chobe area compared to neighbouring countries can be understood from a historical context. Because there was neither fertile land for commercial agricultural purposes nor minerals to exploit, as compared to South Africa, Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia, the colonial British administration regarded the colony as a burden to the British purse and not worthy of any investment or economic development. The situation was not helped by recurrent droughts that decimated the country's livestock. At independence in 1966, Botswana was among the poorest countries in the world. It was only in the early 1960s that intrepid individuals from Southern Rhodesia and South Africa ventured into the hotel industry that prompted a semblance of tourist development amid poor infrastructure such as communication networks in the form of roads, transport and telecommunication systems. Both Southern and Northern Rhodesia and South Africa (the occupying power in colonial Namibia) had a relatively well developed infrastructural base which lured their investors into tourism development in these territories. The subsequent liberation wars further delayed the industry's take-off.

17. E.S. Sibanda, The Zimbabwe People's African Union, 1961–1987, A Political History of Insurgency in Southern Rhodesia (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2005), 105–106. The Wankie Campaign involved joint forces of liberation movements from Rhodesia and South Africa, that is, the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) of Joshua Nkomo and Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC) clashing with Rhodesian forces in the Wankie Game Reserve. MK cadres belonged to the Luthuli Detachment under the command of the erstwhile Chris Hani who was assassinated in South Africa in 1993. The cooperation between ZAPU and MK prompted Rhodesia to enlist South Africa's military which lasted up to 1980 when Zimbabwe gained independence. For more details see also, ‘The Wankie Campaign’ by Chris Hani, http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mk/wankie.html, accessed 20 November 2007. The South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) ‘invaded’ the Caprivi Strip at the same time as the ZAPU/MK Wankie Battle.

18. E. Mlambo, ‘Tensions in the White Redoubt: Southern Rhodesia’, Africa Today, 21, 2 (1974), 29–37. Mlambo argued that the decision to close the border had a ‘traumatic boomerang effect’ on the Rhodesian government as ‘Zambia received worldwide support while Smith [Rhodesian Prime Minister] received ridicule’: see pp. 36–37.

19. BNA OP 9/19, ‘Freedom Fighter Activity: Rhodesia’, W.B. Anderson, Officer Commanding, No. 7 District, Kasane, to Commissioner of Police, 9 January 1973.

20. BNA OP 9/19, ‘Freedom Fighter Activity: Rhodesia’, 9 January 1973.

21. BNA OP 28/13, ‘Commissioner of Police to Secretary External Affairs’, 25 October 1982.

22. BNA OP 28/13, ‘Border Incidents’, Statement by Mateo Lungu, Game Warden, Chobe National Park, Kasane.

23. BNA OP 9/19, ‘Potential Threat to Security’, A.B. Masalila, District Commissioner Kasane, to Permanent Secretary to the President, 9 July 1976. Masalila is the District Commissioner who conducted the wedding ceremony of celebrity film stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor at the Chobe National Park in Kasane in 1976. See Masalila's recollection of the wedding ceremony in ‘The Day I Married Liz Taylor’, Midweek Sun, 17 October 2007.

24. R. Dale, ‘The Challenges and Restraints of White Power for a Small African State: Botswana and its Neighbors’, Africa Today, 25, 3 (July–September 1978), 7–23.

25. Chobe Game Lodge belonged to the Southern Sun chain of hotels which were owned by casino and hotel magnet Sol Kerzner in association with the South African Breweries. Kezner's ‘empire’, the Southern Sun, was established in 1969, building many hotels in southern Africa including the Chobe Game Lodge, the only hotel inside the Chobe National Park; the controversial Sun City in 1979 in the then Bophuthatswana, one of South Africa's apartheid homelands, allegedly bribing the erstwhile homeland leaders Lucas Mangope and Transkei's George Mathanzima, squeezing out of them exclusive gambling rights. Kertzner then established the US$300 million Palace of the Lost City at Sun City in 1992: see Sunday Times, 29 March 2009. Nevertheless, despite the presence of a Southern Sun hotel in the Chobe area, the hotel did not have casino facilities to lure tourists into gambling in the 1970s, making wildlife the major tourism product in the area. Lately however, casinos have become synonymous with hotels in Botswana. Also, tourism development has grown to include ‘ethnic tourism’ where visits also target rural communities ‘in order to witness traditional activities, rituals, and customs. In some cases, ethnic tourists provide economic benefits to local people through purchasing handicrafts or paying various services': R.K. Hitchcock and R.L. Brandenburgh, ‘Tourism, Conservation and Culture in the Kalahari Desert, Botswana’, Cultural Survival Quarterly, 14, 2 (1990), 20–24.

26. BNA OP 9/19, ‘A.J. Roos & Lars Enar Nilson: Chobe Safari Lodge’, Commissioner of Police to Permanent Secretary to the President, 16 January 1973. This file contains series of correspondences between security personnel in Kasane the highest office of state administration, the State President, an indication of the threats posed to the country's security as well as undermining the tourist sector due to widespread publicity of some of the incidents in the Star newspaper and the Rhodesia Herald in neighbouring Southern Rhodesia.

27. BNA OP 9/19, 16 January 1973.

28. BNA OP 9/19, ‘Mr T.L.K. du Plessis’, W.B. Anderson, Officer Commanding, No. 7 District, Kasane, to Administrative Secretary, Office of the President, 23 October 1972.

29. BNA OP 9/19, ‘Designated Ports of Entry And Exit’, W.B. Anderson, Officer Commanding, No. 7 District, Kasane to Commissioner of Police, 31 January 1972.

30. D. Henk, The Botswana Defense Force in the Struggle for an African Environment (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 35.

31. BNA OP 18/5, ‘Smith Attacks Botswana Again’, Press Release from Office of the President, 16 June 1977.

32. BNA OP 18/5, 16 June 1977.

33. Daily News ‘Foreign Soldiers Pose as Tourists and Hunters’, 9 March 1978.

34. Henk, The Botswana Defense Force, 35.

35. N. Parsons, T. Tlou, and W. Henderson, Seretse Khama 1921–1980 (Gaborone: The Botswana Society, 1995), 353–355.

36. C.J. Makgala and M.L. Fisher, ‘The Impact of Zimbabwean Liberation Struggle on Botswana: The Case of Lesoma Ambush, 1978’, New Contree: A Journal of Historical and Human Sciences for Southern Africa, 57 (2009), 1–21, 17.

37. ‘Grief-stricken Batswana Meet Ambush Victims’, Daily News, 2 March 1978. See also, Daily News ‘Kazungula Border is Re-opened’, 23 March 1978. Lesoma village is on the fringes of Botswana's border with Zimbabwe. The government of Botswana built a monument at Lesoma in honour of the dead soldiers. The monument attained a historical and symbolic value as a heritage site. The monument bears the names of the ‘martyrs’. Among the dead was a young civilian resident of Lesoma who had been sent by the chief to alert the BDF on the presence of the Rhodesian forces. The government compensated his mother with a fully furnished house close to the monument. The Lesoma incident is testimony to Botswana's vulnerability during the anti-colonial wars, and that it negatively affected economic developments such as tourism with media coverage on the incident reverberating across the world. Neighbouring Zambia also suffered a series of air raids on various refugee camps in October and November 1978 in which more than 400 refugees (most of whom were young girls) were killed. See K. Woldring, ‘Aspects of Zambia's Foreign Policy in the Context of Southern Africa’, in Klaas Woldring (ed.), Beyond Political Independence: Zambia's Development Predicament in the 1980s (Berlin: Mouton Publishers, 1984), 233–247; see also, ‘17 Die at Lesoma in Rebel Ambush’, Daily News, 1 March 1978; ‘Kazungula Border is Reopened’, Daily News, 23 March 1978; ‘Lesoma Ambush: Serious Setback’, Daily News, 7 June 1978.

38. ‘Rhodesian War evokes Kasane Employment Cut’, Daily News, Monday 28 March 1977.

39. D.J. Timothy, Tourism and Political Boundaries (Oxon: Routledge, 2001), 20–21.

40. Government of Botswana, National Development Plan NDP 5, 1979–1985 (Gaborone: Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, 1978), 220.

41. R. Heath, ‘Tourism in Zimbabwe: Some Important Experiences during the Last Decade’, in Pfotenhauer, Tourism in Botswana, 116. Tourist visits in 1978 amounted to 110,000 while a record low of 60,000 was experienced in 1979 when the war in that country was at its peak.

42. B.J. Chebures ‘An Overview of Tourism in Kenya: The Last Decade’, in Pfotenhauer, Tourism in Botswana, 87–97.

43. Government of Botswana, National Development Plan NDP 5, 1979–1985 (Gaborone: Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, 1978), 220.

44. Government of Botswana, National Development Plan NDP 5, 1979–1985 (Gaborone: Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, 1978), 220.

45. W.G. Morapedi and B. Gumbo, ‘Schisms in Zimbabwean Anti-Colonial Movements in Botswana, 1959–1979’, paper presented at History Department seminar, University of Botswana, 7 March 2013.

46. Government of Botswana, National Development Plan 6, 1985–1991 (Gaborone: Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, 1985), 256.

47. Interview with Luckson Sankwasa, Councillor Chobe District Council, Kasane, 22 May 2008. Afrikaans was the lingua franca in the bars of most hotels and safari companies in Kasane due to the dominance of South African investors in and tourists to the area. Apart from white South Africans, Botswana received a significant influx of experienced safari investors and managers in the form of East African whites driven out by new hunting restrictions and declining wildlife in Tanzania and Kenya in the early 1960s. It is also notable that there is a generation of white children born in Botswana of ex-colonial British administration Botswana citizen parents who went into safari management, for example sons of Brian Egner, an ex-District Commissioner at Kasane. See H. Selby, ‘Hunting as a Component of Tourism in Botswana’, in Pfotenhauer, Tourism in Botswana, 370–374.

48. Interview with Tlhabologo Ndzinge, former Director, Department of Tourism, Gaborone, 14 May 2008.

49. M. Mowforth and I. Munt, Tourism and Sustainability: Development and New Tourism in the Third World (London: Routledge, 1998), 49.

50. The title ‘Navigating the way to development’ is borrowed from the editorial in Ben Turok (ed.), New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy, 31 (2008), 5.

51. Interview with Jonathan Gibson, 23 May 2008. Gibson, a former South African national himself has lived in Kasane for a very long time and even witnessed some of the war incidents in the wetlands. Although the bulk of tourists comprised South Africans and Namibians, there was a significant increase (59%) in European visitors, in 1988: see ‘Introduction’, in Government of Botswana, Tourism Statistics 1989 (Gaborone: Central Statistics Office, 1989).

52. R. Heath, ‘Tourism in Zimbabwe’, in Pfotenhauer, Tourism in Botswana, 116.

53. The re-opening of the hotel resulted from efforts of Gibson, an intrepid entrepreneur who is the hotel's current managing director. When information leaked to the press in South Africa that he was negotiating the purchase of the closed hotel in the Chobe District, Gibson says he was branded a ‘mad man’ because he was taking risks in a war zone. His detractors reminded him of the war against SWAPO in the Caprivi, the civil war over ‘dissidents’ in Matebeleland in Zimbabwe in 1983. Gibson however maintained that he believed war would be over and tourism would be the future engine of growth for wetlands and Botswana as a whole.

54. A ‘developmental state’ is, among others, one that is ‘ideologically oriented to use resources to pursue development’ and is characterised by inter alia, ‘a committed elite, relative autonomy, a powerful, competent and insulated bureaucracy, a weak and subordinated civil society, effective management of non-state economic interests and repression, legitimacy and performance’: D. Sebudubudu, ‘The Institutional Framework of The Developmental State in Botswana’, in The Potentiality of ‘Developmental States’ in Africa: Botswana and Uganda Compared (Dakar: CODESRIA, 2005), 79–89. See also, A.I. Samatar, An African Miracle: State and Class Leadership and Colonial Legacy in Botswana Development (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1999).

55. O. Edighebi, O. Shaisana, and T. Masilela, ‘Envisioning a Democratic Developmental State in South Africa’, New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy, 31 (2008), 35–41.

56. J.S. Akama, ‘The Role of Government in the Development of Tourism in Kenya’, International Journal of Tourism Research, 4 (2002), 1–13.

57. Government of Botswana, Vision 2016, Towards Prosperity for All: Long Term Vision for Botswana (Gaborone: Presidential Task Group, September 1997), 47. See also M.M. Bolaane and A. Kanduza, ‘Critical Factors in Cultiural Tourism in Botswana’, Botswana Notes and Records, 39 (2008), 54–61.

58. HATAB, This is Botswana (Essex: Land & Marine, 2008): see Introduction, ‘Showcasing All that is Good about Botswana’ by Morongwe Ntloedibe-Disele, Chief Executive Officer, HATAB, 3.

59. D. Sebudubudu, ‘The Institutional Framework of the Developmental State in Botswana’, 85.

60. Government of Botswana, National Development Plan NDP 6, 1985–1991 (Gaborone: Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, December 1985), 259. The Department of Tourism was responsible for formulation of policies and laws regulating the tourist industry while the DWNP was responsible for the conservation of the natural habitat and biodiversity in the protected areas and enforcement of laws relating to wildlife resources. See Government of Botswana, National Development Plan NDP 8: 1997/98–2002/03 (Gaborone: Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, 1997), 259.

61. ‘HATAB’, http://www.hatab.bw/Documents, accessed 15 April 2010. HATAB also encouraged members in the hospitality sector to provide quality accommodation in order to attract quality clients. See Government of Botswana, National Development Plan NDP 7, 1991–1997 (Gaborone: Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, 1991), 298.

62. Government of Botswana, Tourism Policy. In 2000, park fees generated P7.7 million. See ‘Enterprising Ditshwane Ventures into Tourism Industry’, Daily News, 21 June 2001.

63. L.-R. Chetty, ‘A Vision for an African Infrastructure Agenda’, Mmegi, 30 April 2013.

64. Government of Botswana, Tourism Statistics 2006–2009 (Gaborone: Department of Tourism, 2009), 4–6.

65. ‘Pricey Botswana Lodges Stir Worry about Impact on Tourism’, Sunday Standard, 11–17 August 2013.

66. Larry A. Swatuk, ‘Toward a “New Tourism” for Southern Africa: Reflections on the Political Economy of Underdevelopment and Political, Legal and Institutional Mechanisms for Positive Change’, Botswana Notes and Records, 39 (2008), 125–137.

67. N. Mswete and F.T. Mavondo, ‘Problems Facing the Tourism Industry in Botswana’, Botswana Notes and Records, 35 (2003), 69–77.

68. K. Good, ‘The State and Extreme Poverty in Botswana: The San and Destitute’, The Journal of Modern African Studies, 37, 2 (1999), 185–205; M.M. Bolaane and A. Kanduza, ‘Critical Factors in Cultural Tourism in Botswana’, Botswana Notes and Records, 39 (2008), 53–61.