Education in Exile: International Scholarships, Cold War Politics, and Conflicts among SWAPO Members in Tanzania, 1961–1968

Abstract

This article explores education in exile through a discussion of Namibians’ search for scholarships outside their national borders and of the locations where most studied abroad during the 1960s. These sites include Kurasini International Education Centre and Nkumbi International College, secondary schools established by the African-American Institute in Dar es Salaam and Kabwe, respectively, and Kongwa camp, the site in central Tanzania where the South West Africa People’s Organisation’s (SWAPO) first guerrillas embarked on military training and English and mathematics classes. I argue that Kurasini, Nkumbi, and Kongwa were key sites in SWAPO’s 1960s exile landscape. They channelled prior dialogue about education among Namibians and produced conflicts within the liberation movement that reverberated over later decades. These locations also draw attention to a broader political field. The places in which Namibian exiles lived, and the circumstances in which they lived there, shaped what ‘the Cold War’ meant and how its language was mobilised by competing groups within SWAPO. Such a perspective remains unexplored in historical literature, including literature on the Cold War in southern Africa, which highlights how global powers engaged with African nationalist movements without considering the manner in which liberation movement members used such interventions for other ends. This view should be developed through historical work focused on places where exiles lived and on how they became embedded within both transnational and intra-national politics.

Notes

¹ Here and elsewhere, I use ‘South West Africa’ to denote the country in a period prior to that in which the international community began to refer to ‘Namibia’. Otherwise, the terms ‘Namibia’ and ‘Namibians’ are used.

² For secondary literature covering Namibians’ early years in exile, see P. Katjavivi, A History of Resistance in Namibia (Trenton, Africa World Press, 1988); L. Dobell, Swapo’s Struggle for Namibia, 1960–1991: War by Other Means (Basel, P. Schlettwein Publishing, 1991); C. Leys and J.S. Saul, ‘SWAPO: The Politics of Exile’, in C. Leys and J.S. Saul (eds), Namibia’s Liberation Struggle: The Two-Edged Sword (London, James Currey, 1995); T. Emmett, Popular Resistance and the Roots of Nationalism in Namibia, 1915–1966 (Basel, P. Schlettwein Publishing, 1999); M. Wallace, A History of Namibia (New York, Columbia University Press, 2011); J. Müller, The Inevitable Pipeline into Exile: Botswana’s Role in the Namibian Liberation Struggle (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2012); C. Williams, National Liberation in Postcolonial Southern Africa: A Historical Ethnography of SWAPO’s Exile Camps (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2015).

³ Only Emmett (Popular Resistance, p. 332) and I (Williams, National Liberation, pp. 76–82) have discussed the importance of education for 1960s-generation Namibian exiles. For more on Emmett, see the ‘Conclusion’ below.

⁴ Many texts that discuss conflicts within southern Africa’s liberation movements in exile touch on the issue of education. Texts that draw particular attention to conflicts over education include D.B. Moore, ‘Democracy, Violence, and Identity in the Zimbabwean War of National Liberation: Reflections from the Realms of Dissent’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 29, 3 (1995), pp. 375–402; S. Morrow, B. Maaba, and L. Pulumani, Education in Exile: SOMAFCO, the African National Congress School in Tanzania, 1978 to 1992, pp. 168–72; M. Panzer, ‘The Pedagogy of Revolution: Youth, Generational Conflict and Education in the Development of Mozambican Nationalism and the State, 1962–1970’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 35, 4 (2009), pp. 803–20. For a discussion of education as a motivation for young Zimbabwean men going into exile during the 1960s, see L. White, ‘Students, ZAPU, and Special Branch in Francistown, 1964–1972’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 40, 6 (2014), pp. 1289–1303.

⁵ Relevant works include: S. Ellis and T. Sechaba, Comrades against Apartheid: The ANC and the South African Communist Party in Exile (London, James Currey, 1992); P. Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa 1959–1976 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2002); O. Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005); P. Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria and the Struggle for Southern Africa (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2012).

⁶ Justin Pearce makes a similar point in his monograph Political Identity and Conflict in Central Angola: 1975–2002 (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 3–4. For more on Pearce’s work, see the ‘Conclusion’ below.

⁷ Katjavivi, A History of Resistance, p. 27.

⁸ For references to the reception and implementation of Bantu Education in Namibia, see Katjavivi, A History of Resistance, p. 28; E. Amukugo, Education and Politics in Namibia (Windhoek, Gamsberg and Macmillan, 1995); C. Cohen, Administering Education in Namibia: The Colonial Period to the Present (Windhoek, Namibia Scientific Society, 1994); C. Williams, ‘Student Political Consciousness: Lessons from a Namibian Mission School’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 30, 3 (2004), pp. 543–4.

⁹ St. Mary’s, Odibo, was a notable exception. Classes here were conducted in English.

¹⁰ Katjavivi, A History of Resistance, pp. 29–30, 41–2; S. Maseko, ‘The Namibian Student Movement: Its Role and Effects’, in Leys and Saul, Namibia’s Liberation Struggle, p. 116; Wallace, A History of Namibia, pp. 247–9.

¹¹ Katjavivi, A History of Resistance, pp. 29–30; Wallace, A History of Namibia, p. 248.

¹² Katjavivi, A History of Resistance, p. 30.

¹³ Ibid., p. 39; Dobell, Swapo’s Struggle for Namibia, p. 29; Maseko, ‘The Namibian Student Movement’, p. 116; Wallace, A History of Namibia, pp. 247–9. Despite mentioning Kerina, these texts (with the partial exception of Maseko) make no reference to the timing or circumstances in which Kerina took up studies at Lincoln. For detailed information on this topic, see Interview with M. Kerina, 31 May, 2008, pp. 1–2, and Interview with P. Helmuth, 13 July 2007, pp. 2–3. All interviews for this article were conducted by the author. Interview page numbers correspond with paginated transcriptions in the author’s files.

¹⁴ Interview with Kerina, 31 May 2008, p. 4; Interview with Helmuth, 13 July 2007, pp. 2–3. Although Namibian scholars date the OPC to 1957, Kerina and Helmuth both date the organisation to 1956. The collection of people that founded the OPC were meeting in Cape Town from at least 1955.

¹⁵ Interviews with Helmuth, 13 July 2007, p. 7; 10 August 2007, p. 34; 24 March 2016.

¹⁶ Katjavivi, A History of Resistance, p. 39; S. Nujoma, Where Others Wavered: The Autobiography of Sam Nujoma (London, Panaf Books, 2001), p. 50; H. Beukes, Long Road to Liberation: An Exiled Namibian Activist’s Perspective (Johannesburg, Porcupine Press, 2014). It should be noted that Kozonguizi was a student activist himself and the first Namibian to graduate from Fort Hare University. He also studied in London, but only later in his career.

¹⁷ The United Nations adopted a resolution on 19 December 1961, allocating funds for Namibians to study in a foreign country. See Müller, The Inevitable Pipeline, p. 122; M. Akawa, The Gender Politics of the Namibian Liberation Struggle (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2014), p. 163. From 1966, the UN granted scholarships via the UN Council for South West Africa (Katjavivi, A History of Resistance, p. 58; Wallace, A History of Namibia, p. 261).

¹⁸ T. Sellström, Liberation in Southern Africa: Regional and Swedish Voices (Stockholm, Elanders Gotab, 2002), pp. 75–6, 92; Müller, The Inevitable Pipeline, p. 122.

¹⁹ Interviews with Helmuth, 13 July 2007, p. 2; 24 March 2016. Helmuth was one of five SWAPO officials sent to the Soviet Union to study international relations in 1962. Most SWAPO members sent to the Soviet Union and other Eastern-bloc countries during the 1960s participated not in secondary or tertiary education, but rather in military training.

²⁰ In the case of Jacob Kuhangua, he travelled in 1960 to the United States, where he petitioned at the UN and later enrolled at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. On the circumstances of Kuhangua’s initial travel to the US, see Sheldon G. Weeks, ‘55 Years of My African Education’, 18 September 2005 (unpublished document in the author’s possession).

²¹ It should be noted that, prior to 1974, SWAPO’s exile membership was almost entirely male. Notable exceptions include Putuse Appolus (a South African by birth and wife to SWAPO’s first secretary of information and publicity, Emil Appolus), Libertine Amathila (who spent most of the 1960s studying medicine in Poland), and Mukwanangobe ‘Mukwahepo’ ya Immanuel (the only Namibian woman to live at Kongwa camp in the 1960s).

²² Samson Ndeikwila discusses students recruited from Oshigambo and Ongwediva in The Agony of Truth: Autobiography of Samson Tobias Ndeikwila (Windhoek, Kuiseb Publishers, 2014), pp. 7, 17, and in our interviews (for example, 21 July 2007, pp. 50–51). Many research participants narrated SWAPO officials’ visits to St. Mary’s Mission School in Odibo.

²³ Williams, National Liberation, pp. 82–3. Most of these students were enrolled at Holy Family Mission School in Katima Mulilo.

²⁴ Interview with H. Shityuwete, 24 July 2007, pp. 33–4; interview with T. Ashipala, 25 July 2007, p. 30; E. Namhila, Mukwahepo: Woman Soldier Mother (Windhoek, UNAM Press, 2013), pp. 31–2.

²⁵ Interview with Ashipala, 25 July 2007, p. 33; interview with S. Hangula (pseudonym), 18 June 2011; interview with S. Nashilongo, 11 December 2010, p. 26; interviews with S. Shikongo, 16 March 2007, pp. 2–3; 26 July 2007, pp. 20–21; interview with Shityuwete, 24 July 2007, pp. 33–4; Nujoma, Where Others Wavered, p. 126. At the time of their visits to Odibo, Pohamba and Nanyemba were both representing SWAPO in the liberation movement’s Dar es Salaam office.

²⁶ Interview with Ndeikwila, 21 July 2007, pp. 48–9.

²⁷ Tanganyika was renamed Tanzania in 1964 following the incorporation of Zanzibar. Henceforth, I refer to ‘Tanzania’ when discussing the country in the 1960s.

²⁸ WENELA recruited workers from all over southern Africa for the South African mines. Workers were registered in various WENELA offices and flown to Francistown, from where they were transported by train to the Witwatersrand.

²⁹ See Müller, The Inevitable Pipeline, pp. 152–6 and my interviews with Ndeikwila, 9 February 2007; 2 March 2007; 21 July 2007; Shikongo, 16 March 2007; K. Nepelilo, 4 August 2007. It should be noted that not only contract workers, but also students recruited inside Namibia frequently travelled into exile while masquerading as labourers for WENELA.

³⁰ As Emmett has argued, SWAPO officials recruited contract workers by appealing to a ‘tradition of mobility’, through which southern African men had, over generations, found ways to use the migrant labour system to access resources and opportunities otherwise denied to them. See Emmett, Popular Resistance, p. 332 and Williams, National Liberation, pp. 76–7.

³¹ In my interviews with Namibian former exiles, they often used the English word ‘abroad’ or the expression ‘going abroad’ regardless of the language in which the interview was conducted.

³² Interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007; Hangula, 18 June 2011; N. Kati, 11 August 2007; Ndeikwila, 9 February 2007; Nepelilo, 4 August 2007; Shityuwete, 24 July 2007. Müller is the only historian of Namibia to discuss the importance of SWAPO’s Francistown office in recruiting and transporting most Namibian exiles during the 1960s (The Inevitable Pipeline, pp. 148–69). He does not, however, consider the significance of education in motivating SWAPO members to leave Namibia and suggests, misleadingly, that it was only SWANU members who sought education and were uninterested in military training (p. 122).

³³ See, for example, interview with Ndeikwila, 21 July 2007, pp. 55–6. For discussion of the political idealism associated with 1960s Tanzania among supporters of Africa’s liberation struggles globally, see A. Ivaska, Cultured States: Youth, Gender, and Modern Style in 1960s Dar es Salaam (Durham, Duke University Press, 2013).

³⁴ Emmet, Popular Resistance, p. 332. Interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007; Hangula, 18 June 2011; Nepelilo, 4 August 2007; Shikongo, 16 March 2007.

³⁵ Tanganyika achieved independence from the United Kingdom in December 1961. For an account of Nyerere’s personal role in allocating SWAPO its own office, see my interview with Helmuth, 13 July 2007, pp. 1–2.

³⁶ Interview with Shityuwete, 24 July 2007, p. 18; V. Shubin, ANC: A View from Moscow (Johannesburg, Jacana, 1999), p. 54.

³⁷ ‘African-American Institute, 1957–67’, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, United States National Student Association, International Commission Records, Box 265.

³⁸ ‘African-American Institute’, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, American Council on Education, Box 1127. (References below to ‘African-American Institute’ are to this document.)

³⁹ J. Tague, ‘A War to Build the Nation: Mozambican Refugees, Rural Development and State Sovereignty in Tanzania, 1964–1975’ (PhD thesis, University of California, Davis, 2012), p. 95.

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 96. Project Tanganyika was the name of the programme initiated by houses at Harvard University and Radcliffe College that recruited undergraduate students to teach in Tanganyika.

⁴¹ ‘Kurasini International Education Centre’, ANC Morogoro Papers, Fort Hare University, Box 11, Folder 96, p. 2; Tague, ‘A War to Build the Nation’, p. 96.

⁴² ‘Kurasini International Education Centre’, p. 2; Tague, ‘A War to Build the Nation’, p. 96.

⁴³ Tague, ‘A War to Build the Nation’, p. 97.

⁴⁴ Ibid.

⁴⁵ Ibid., pp. 97–8; interview with Shityuwete, 24 July 2007, pp. 31–2. Shityuwete was 30 when he arrived in exile in 1964 and indicates that he and other prospective Namibian students above the age of 25 were denied admission to Kurasini on that basis.

⁴⁶ ‘Kurasini International Education Centre’, p. 1.

⁴⁷ Ibid., p. 2.

⁴⁸ Tague, ‘A War to Build the Nation’, p. 98; ‘Kurasini International Education Centre’, p. 2; ‘African-American Institute’, p. 12.

⁴⁹ ‘Kurasini International Education Centre’, p. 4.

⁵⁰ Tague, ‘A War to Build the Nation’, pp. 97–8; ‘Kurasini International Education Centre’, pp. 2–3; ‘African-American Institute’, p. 12.

⁵¹ Interview with Kati, 11 August 2007, pp. 4–5; Ndeikwila, The Agony of Truth, pp. 17–18.

⁵² Interview with Kati, 11 August 2007, p. 28. During 1967, the flow of Namibians into exile came to a virtual standstill due to the imprisonment of most of SWAPO’s internal leadership. I discuss the circumstances of SWAPO’s exile community in 1967 and 1968 further below.

⁵³ ‘African-American Institute’, pp. 6, 12; interview with Ndeikwila, 2 March 2007, pp. 20, 23.

⁵⁴ Interview with Ndeikwila, 2 March 2007, p. 23.

⁵⁵ For example, Mose Tjitenderu (Diploma, Kurasini; BA, Lincoln University; MA and PhD, University of Massachusetts), Nahas Angula (Diploma, Nkumbi; BA, University of Zambia; MA, Columbia University) and Nangoloh Mbumba (Diploma, Nkumbi; BA, Connecticut College). Other previously mentioned SWAPO leaders who studied in the United States had already completed their secondary schooling upon entering exile or managed to complete high school coursework in the US.

⁵⁶ Interviews with Ndeikwila, 2 March 2007, p. 23; Hangula, 18 June 2011; Nashilongo, 11 December 2010.

⁵⁷ Interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007; Hangula, 18 June 2011; Kati, 11 August 2007; Ndeikwila, 9 February 2007; Nepelilo, 4 August 2007; Shityuwete, 24 July 2007. Interestingly, former exiles share stories of misrepresenting their ages so that they could qualify for studies. Some were also uncertain of their own ages and picked dates of birth that might allow them to take the Kurasini and Nkumbi admission tests or qualify for other scholarships (see, for example, interviews with Nashilongo, 11 December 2007, p. 26; Helmuth, 13 July 2007, p. 2)

⁵⁸ Research participants suggest that even before ‘sponsorship of a recognised political party’ became a formal admission requirement noted in AAI’s published literature (January 1967), it was a de facto requirement for Namibians seeking to attend Kurasini and Nkumbi.

⁵⁹ As both Namibian and Tanzanian research participants have noted, rumours were widespread in 1960s Tanzania about the political nature of supposedly humanitarian work done by American organisations in the country, especially the Peace Corps. See interview with H. Shityuwete, 5 June 2008, p. 60; interview with M. Mbijima, O. Boma and J. Madeba, 8 August 2012.

⁶⁰ Ndeikwila, The Agony of Truth, pp. 23–4; interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007, pp. 1–2; Hangula, 18 June 2011, pp. 13–14; Shikongo, 26 July, 2007, p. 36; Shityuwete, 24 July, pp. 14–15.

⁶¹ Interviews with Shikongo, 16 March 2007; 26 July 2007; Kati, 11 August 2007, p. 5; 8 December 2007, p. 28; Ndeikwila, The Agony of Truth, p. 18.

⁶² For example, ‘African-American Institute’, p. 14.

⁶³ According to inhabitants of Kongwa village, the railway station was built by the British in the late 1940s in conjunction with the East African Groundnut Scheme and was abandoned a few years later when the Groundnut Scheme failed (interview with White Zuberi Mwanzalila and Gauden Kitomoi, 9 August 2012).

⁶⁴ For further detail and references on the formation of liberation movements’ camps at Kongwa, see Williams, National Liberation, pp. 68–72. Many of the citations pertaining to Kongwa below may also be found in C. Williams, ‘Living in Exile: Daily Life and International Relations at SWAPO’s Kongwa Camp’, Kronos, 37, 1 (2011), pp. 60–86.

⁶⁵ Interview with Shityuwete, 24 July 2007, p. 18; Shubin, ANC, p. 54. Shityuwete suggests that the impetus for these regulations in 1964 was the January coup attempt against Nyerere’s government.

⁶⁶ The estimates of SWAPO’s numbers draw primarily from H. Shityuwete, Never Follow the Wolf (London,Kliptown Books, 1990), pp. 99–100; interview with Shityuwete, 24 July 2007, pp. 1–2. Shityuwete was responsible for keeping records in the SWAPO camp office in 1965.

⁶⁷ Interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007, p. 7; Ndeikwila, 21 July 2007, p. 25; Shityuwete, 24 July 2007, p. 6.

⁶⁸ After four years running SWAPO’s operations in Francistown, Maxton Joseph was sent to China for military training in 1965 (Müller, The Inevitable Pipeline, p. 163). Thereafter, he was assigned to Kongwa as a political commissar (interviews with Shityuwete, 24 July 2007, pp. 48–9; Ashipala, 25 July 2007, pp. 48–9; Nepelilo, 4 August 2007, p. 22). By the middle of 1967, Nghaamwa appears to have replaced Joseph as commissar, although Joseph remained in the camp as a SWAPO official (interview with Ndeikwila, 20 July 2012, pp. 1–2; 30–31; 35–6). None of my research participants indicates that there were foreign instructors in the camp during the 1960s.

⁶⁹ Interviews with Shityuwete, 24 July 2007, pp. 48–9; Ashipala, 25 July 2007, pp. 48–9; Nepelilo, 4 August 2007, p. 22; Ndeikwila, 20 July 2012, pp. 1–2; 30–31; 35–6.

⁷⁰ Interview with Ndeikwila, 20 July 2012, pp. 28–32.

⁷¹ Ibid., pp. 7, 28–32; 35–6. For the direct citation, see p. 31. As my book (Williams, National Liberation) suggests, there was a tendency for political education in SWAPO camps to focus on the repetition of political doctrine and to avoid critical thinking and debate.

⁷² Interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007; 25 July 2007; Nashilongo, 11 December 2010; S. Hangula, 18 June 2011.

⁷³ According to Sam Nujoma, the first group of SWALA guerrillas, or G1, departed from Kongwa en route to Namibia on 4 March 1965 (Nujoma, Where Others Wavered, p. 160). The beginning of the armed struggle is usually dated to 26 August 1966, when the South African Police attacked Omgulumbashe, a SWALA base established by G1.

⁷⁴ Interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007, p. 1; Shikongo, 22 July 2007, pp. 35–6; Ndeikwila, The Agony of Truth, p. 23.

⁷⁵ Interview with Ashipala, 25 July 2007, p. 46. Hage Geingob is the current President of Namibia.

⁷⁶ Interview with Ashipala, 16 March 2007, p. 1.

⁷⁷ Ndeikwila, The Agony of Truth, pp. 23–4; interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007, pp. 1–2, 25; Hangula, 18 June 2011, pp. 13–14.

⁷⁸ Interview with S. Kaukungwa, 25 August, 2012, pp. 2–3.

⁷⁹ One research participant, Silas Shikongo, suggests that Sam Nujoma announced this list at the camp personally in late 1965 (interview with Shikongo, 22 July 2007, pp. 39–40), while others refer more generally to a message sent from SWAPO’s Dar es Salaam office to Kongwa (for example, Ndeikwila, The Agony of Truth, p. 25).

⁸⁰ Interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007; 26 July 2007; Hangula, 18 June 2011, p. 7. Mbeya was a likely choice for AAI officials to administer a Kurasini admissions test, since it was the first urban area that many exiles/refugees passed through when entering Tanzania.

⁸¹ In late 1965 or early 1966, Kuhangua and Nelegani fought at the house that they shared in Dar es Salaam. During the fight, Nelengani stabbed Kuhangua, leaving him permanently paralysed and resulting in Nelengani’s suspension as SWAPO vice-president. For accounts of the conflict between Kuhangua and Nelegani, see Katjavivi, A History of Resistance, p. 62; Nujoma, Where Others Wavered, pp. 146–7; interview with Shityuwete, 24 July 2007, pp. 7, 14–15; Ndeikwila, The Agony of Truth, pp. 23–4.

⁸² Some Kongwa inhabitants who later left the camp for studies cite their feeling of vulnerability as the reason why they did not add their names to the list of students and why the number was not larger. See, for example, interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007; 25 July 2007.

⁸³ Interviews with Nashilongo, 11 December 2010, p. 4; Hangula, 18 June 2011, pp. 3, 7; Ndeikwila, The Agony of Truth, p. 25.

⁸⁴ Interviews with Nashilongo, 11 December 2010, p. 7; Hangula, 18 June 2011, pp. 3, 8.

⁸⁵ Interviews with Nashilongo, 11 December 2010, pp. 6, 7; Hangula, 18 June 2011, pp. 8–9. Nashilongo and Hangula maintain that the Tanzanians had intended to return them to Kongwa, but when they resisted this, they were sent to Keko.

⁸⁶ These individuals included Andimba Toivo Ya Toivo and 36 others who were tried in the Terrorism Trial of 1967–68. For Ya Toivo’s role in facilitating Namibians’ flight into exile, see interview with A. Toivo Ya Toivo, 3 July 2008.

⁸⁷ The UN General Assembly created the UN Council for South West Africa in October 1966. Through it, the UN granted scholarships and other assistance to exiled Namibians. In Tanzania, this assistance passed primarily through SWAPO, but in Kenya and other countries where government ties to SWAPO were not strong, Namibians could access these resources directly through UN officials.

⁸⁸ Interviews with Kati, 11 August 2007, p. 5; 8 December 2007, p. 28; Ndeikwila, The Agony of Truth, p. 18.

⁸⁹ Interview with Kati, 11 August 2007.

⁹⁰ Interview with Kati, 8 December 2007, p. 27.

⁹¹ This analysis clearly resonated with a prominent discourse in Tanzania at this time, linking city life with decadence and rural life with civic duty. See Ivaska, Cultured States, pp. 5–6, 17; J. Brennan, ‘Exploitation and Urban Citizenship in the Nationalist Political Thought of Tanzania, 1958–1975’, Journal of African History, 47, 3 (2006), pp. 389–413.

⁹² Interview with Ndeikwila, 20 July 2012, p. 8.

⁹³ For further discussion of the contradictions between official camp discourse and the commanders’ behaviour, see Williams, National Liberation, p. 68.

⁹⁴ For further details about suspicions surrounding ‘Castro’, see Williams, National Liberation, pp. 87–90.

⁹⁵ Interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007, p. 7; Ndeikwila, 9 February 2007, p. 5; 20 July 2012, p. 41; Ndeikwila, The Agony of Truth, p. 30. According to Ndeikwila, Petrus Shimbonde was the first Namibian to teach English classes at Kongwa, but the classes were dropped after Shimbonde received a scholarship to study in Canada. After Ndeikwila arrived at Kongwa in 1967, some of Shimbonde’s former students approached him and asked if he could take up these classes.

⁹⁶ Interviews with Ashipala, 16 March 2007, p. 7; Ndeikwila, 20 July 2012, p. 4.

⁹⁷ G. Orwell, Animal Farm (New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1946).

⁹⁸ Interview with Ndeikwila, 20 July 2012, pp. 42–3.

⁹⁹ Interviews with Kati, 11 August 2007, p. 7; Ndeikwila, 9 February 2007, p. 5; 20 July 2012, p. 46.

¹⁰⁰ Interview with Ndeikwila, 20 July 2012, p. 42.

¹⁰¹ Ibid.

¹⁰² Interview with Kati, 11 August 2007, p. 7.

¹⁰³ One of the seven guerrillas who returned from China, Paul Kanyemba, did not sign the memorandum (or later resignation letter), but Samson Ndeikwila did. Thus, the Comrades’ number did ultimately level off at seven (Leys and Saul, ‘The Politics of Exile’, p. 59; interviews with Ndeikwila, 9 February 2007; Kati, 11 August 2007).

¹⁰⁴ Ndeikwila, The Agony of Truth, p. 33. See also interviews with Ndeikwila, 2 March 2007, p. 28; Kati, 11 August 2007, p. 13.

¹⁰⁵ For further details on the Seven Comrades’ memorandum and detention (known in Namibian historiography as ‘the Kongwa Crisis’), see Williams, National Liberation, pp. 90–93.

¹⁰⁶ Emmett, Popular Resistance, p. 332.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid.

¹⁰⁸ Leys and Saul, ‘The Politics of Exile’, p. 42.

¹⁰⁹ For a discussion of the significance of SWALA in SWAPO’s efforts to gain international recognition during the early and mid 1960s, see Dobell, Swapo’s Struggle for Namibia, p. 35; Leys and Saul, ‘The Politics of Exile’, pp. 41–2. For discussion of how this recognition related to SWALA commanders’ power over other Namibians in the camp, see Williams, National Liberation, pp. 72–6.

¹¹⁰ For further details and references, see Williams, National Liberation, pp. 94–122; C.A. Williams ‘Ordering the Nation: SWAPO in Zambia, 1974–1976’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 37, 4 (2011), pp. 693–713.

¹¹¹ For further details and references, see Williams, National Liberation, pp. 123–46. As Leys and Saul note in their account of the 1980s at Lubango and as my research confirms, Hage Geingob and Mose Tjitendero were repeatedly targeted in interrogations, though never detained (Leys and Saul, ‘The Politics of Exile’, p. 65).

¹¹² Pearce, Political Identity and Conflict, pp. 3–4. See also J. Pearce, ‘Global Ideologies, Local Politics: The Cold War as Seen from Central Angola’, elsewhere in this issue.

¹¹³ This point complicates Dobell’s thesis about SWAPO’s relationship to ideology. She argues that ‘the only constant in the documents and statements produced [by SWAPO during the liberation struggle] is the demand for independence – all else was negotiable, it seems, and depended on the intended [external] audience’ (p. 22). Yet, as I have argued here, ideological language had much significance for SWAPO members in their conversations with one another.