African independence movements
Encyclopedia
The African Independence Movements took place in the 20th century, when a wave of struggles for independence in European-ruled African territories were witnessed.
Notable militant independence of black or Arab majority rule movements took place: (former French Algeria
), see Algerian War (former Portuguese Angola), see Portuguese Colonial War
(former Portuguese Guinea
), see Portuguese Colonial War
(former British Kenya), see Mau Mau Uprising
(former Portuguese Mozambique), see Portuguese Colonial War
(former South West Africa
) – against South Africa
, see Namibian War of Independence
and South African Border War
– against local white minority rule in the independent country. (former Southern Rhodesia
) – against local white minority rule in the unrecognized country
, see Rhodesian Bush War
by Kenya
n rebels against the British colonialist
rule. The core of the resistance was formed by members of the Kikuyu ethnic group
, along with smaller numbers of Embu and Meru
. The uprising hastened Kenyan independence in 1963.
Algerians felt all the more unfair that their votes were not equal to the other Algerians especially after 1947 when the Algerian Assembly was created. This assembly was composed of 120 members. Muslim Algerians who represented about 9 million people could designate 50% of the Assembly members while 900,000 non-Muslim Algerians could designate the other half. Moreover, a massacre occurred in Sétif
May 8, 1945. It opposed Algerians who were demonstrating for their national claim to the French Army
. After skirmishes with police, Algerians killed about 100 ethnic French. The French army retaliated harshly. 45,000 Algerians probably died. It triggered a radicalization of Algerian nationalists and it can be considered the beginning of the Algerian War.
In 1956, about 512,000 French soldiers were in Algeria. No resolution was imaginable in the short term. A overwhelming majority of French politicians were opposed to the idea of independence while independence was gaining ground in Muslim Algerians' mind. France was mired and the Fourth Republic collapsed on this issue. In 1958, Charles de Gaulle
's return to power was supposed to bring back Algeria in the bosom of France as thought French generals in Algeria. But pragmatism impelled De Gaulle to consent independence in 1962 after an aborted military coup in Algeria.
. Portuguese overseas expansion began in the 15th century, thanks to several factors that gave the small coastal nation an advantage over its larger European neighbors. First, in the 14th century, Portuguese shipbuilders invented several new techniques that made sailing in the stormy Atlantic Ocean more practical. They combined elements of different types of ships to construct stronger, roomier and more maneuverable caravel
s. They also took advantage of more reliable compasses for navigation
, and benefitted from the school for navigation created by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) at Sagres
in 1419. Starting with voyages to Madeira
and the Azores
(islands in the Atlantic) in the first part of the 14th century, the Portuguese systematically extended their explorations as far as Japan by the 16th century. In the process, they established forts and settlements along the West and East African coasts. In the 16th through 18th centuries, the Portuguese lost their lead to other European nations, notably England and France, but played a major role in the slave trade to satisfy the demand for labor in Brazil
and other American markets. By the beginning of the 19th century, Portugal controlled outposts at six locations in Africa. One was the Cape Verde
Islands, located about 700 miles due west of Dakar
, Senegal
. Claimed for Portugal by Diogo Gomes
about 1458, this archipelago of eight major islands was devoted to sugar
cultivation using slaves taken from the African mainland. The Portuguese once had extensive claims on the West African coast—since they were the first Europeans to explore it systematically—but by 1800 they were left with only a few ports at the mouth of the Rio Geba in what is now known as the Guinea-Bissau
. To the east, the Portuguese controlled the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe
, located south of the mouth of the Niger River. Like the Cape Verde Islands, they were converted to sugar production in the early 16th century using slaves acquired on the mainland in the vicinity of the Congo River. By the end of the 19th century, Portuguese landowners had successfully introduced cocoa production using forced African labor. Further south, the Portuguese claimed both sides of the mouth of the Congo River, as well as the Atlantic coast as far south as the Rio Cunene. In practical terms, Portugal controlled port cities like those of Cabinda
(north of the Congo River mouth), Ambriz
(south of the Congo's mouth), Luanda
and Benguela
(on the Angolan coast) plus some river towns in the Angolan interior.
The last area claimed by Portugal in Africa was along the southeast coast on either side of the mouth of the Zambezi River. After reaching this area, known as the Swahili Coast, at the end of the 15th century, the Portuguese came to dominate most of it by the end of the 16th century. During the 17th century, they lost control of everything north of Cape Delgado
to Arabs from Oman
(who established the Sultanate of Zanzibar), leaving them with major ports at Mozambique
, Quelimane
, and Lourenço Marques
, plus settlements along the Zambezi and other rivers.
Despite these holdings, the Portuguese hold in Africa was problematic. The first cause was the small size of Portugal's population, coupled with the lack of popular support for overseas empire. Exploration and conquest began as an enterprise supported by the nobility
, and Portuguese peasants rarely participated unless forced to do so. When the common people of Portugal did chose to emigrate, they were much more likely to head to Brazil and other territories than to Africa. To induce Europeans to move to its African holdings, the Portuguese government resorted to releasing degradados—convicted criminals—from prison in exchange for accepting what amounted to exile in Africa. Angola, in particular, gained a reputation as a Portuguese penal colony. Also, since the European population remained almost entirely male, the Portuguese birth rate was negligible, although plenty of "Afro-Lusitanians" were born to African mothers. As a result, the European population of Portugal's African settlements was never very large, and community leaders were just as likely to owe their loyalty to local African governments as they did to the distant Portuguese government.
A second cause of weakness in Portuguese Africa was the effects of three centuries of Atlantic slave trade
which had roots in the older African slave trade
. Once the Atlantic triangular trade got underway, many Portuguese (including many Brazilian traders) in Africa found little incentive to engage in any other kind of profitable economic activity. The economies of Guinea, Angola and Mozambique became almost entirely devoted to the export of slaves to the New World
(plus gold and ivory where they were available) while on the islands, slaves were used to grow sugar for export. Colonial authorities did nothing to stop the slave trade, which had sympathizers even among the several native African tribes, and many became wealthy by supporting it, while the traders themselves generated huge profits with which they secured allies in Africa and Portugal.
Although anti-slavery efforts became organized in Europe in the 18th century, the slave trade only came to an end in the early 19th century, thanks in large part to English efforts to block shipping to the French during the Napoleonic Wars. Portugal was one of the first countries in the world to outlaw slavery, and did it so in mainland Portugal during the 18th century. The Portuguese government ended colonial slavery in stages with a final decree in 1858 that outlawed slavery in the overseas empire. The gradual pace of abolition was due to the strength of pro-slavery forces in Portuguese politics, Brazil and in Africa, they interfered with colonial administrators who challenged long-established and powerful commercial interests.
The Napoleonic Wars
added a new force to the Portuguese political scene—republicanism—introduced as an alternative to the monarchy by French troops in 1807. The French invasion induced the Portuguese royal family to make the controversial decision to flee to Brazil (on English ships), from where they ruled until 1821. By the time King João VI returned to Lisbon, he faced a nobility divided in their support for him personally, plus a middle class that wanted a constitutional monarchy. During Joao VI's reign (1821–1826) and that of his successors—Peter IV (1826–1831), Maria (1833–1853), Peter V (1853–1861), Louis I (1861–1889), and Carlos (1889–1908)—there was a civil war that lasted from 1826 to 1834, a long period characterized by what one author called "ministerial instability and chronic insurrection" from 1834 to 1853, and finally the end of the monarchy when both Carlos and his heir were assassinated on February 1, 1908. Under those circumstances, colonial officials appointed by governments in Lisbon were more concerned with politics at home than with administering their African territories.
As it did everywhere else, the Industrial Revolution
stimulated change in Portuguese Africa. It created a demand for tropical raw materials like vegetable oils, cotton
, cocoa and rubber
, and it also created a need for markets to purchase the expanded quantity of goods issuing from factories. In Portugal's case, most of the factories were located in England, which had had a special relationship with Portugal ever since Philippa
, the daughter of England's John of Gaunt, married John of Avis, the founder of the Portuguese royal family. Prodded by Napoleon's invasion and English support for the royal family's escape to Brazil, King João and his successors eliminated tariffs, ended trade monopolies and generally opened the way for British merchants to become dominant in the Portuguese empire. At times, that caused friction, such as when both British and Portuguese explorers claimed the Shire Highlands
(located in modern Malawi
), but for the most part Great Britain supported the Portuguese position in exchange for incorporating Portugal's holdings into the British economic sphere.
With neither a large European population nor African wage earners, the Portuguese colonies offered poor markets for manufactured goods from the private sector. Consequently, industrialization arrived in the form of government programs designed to improve internal communications and increase the number of European settlers. During the late 1830s, the government headed by Marquis Sá da Bandeira tried to encourage Portuguese farmers to migrate to Angola, with little success. Between 1845 and 1900, the European population of Angola rose from 1,832 to only about 9,000. European migration to Mozambique showed slightly better results—about 11,000 in 1911—but many were British from South Africa rather than Portuguese. The other major force for change was the rivalries that developed between European nations in the century between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of World War I. Forbidden from fighting each other by the "balance of power" established by the Treaty of Vienna, they competed in other ways including scientific discoveries, athletic competitions, exploration and proxy wars. Although not a major power anymore, Portugal participated in the competition, especially by sending out explorers to solidify their claim to all of the land between Angola and Mozambique. That bought them into conflict with men like Cecil Rhodes, whose own vision of an empire from "Cape to Cairo" required that the British gain control over the same land (see British Ultimatum
).
European rivalries appeared most often as commercial competition, and in 19th century Africa, that included the right to move goods by steamboat along rivers. The British had a head start thanks to their early adoption of steam technology and their supremacy on the high seas. They became the strongest proponents of the principle of "free trade
" which prohibited countries from creating legal barriers to another country's merchants. Occasionally, Portuguese leaders resisted, but the British alliance provided sufficient benefits to convince various administrations to go along (although they faced revolts at home and in their colonies).
It was Portugal's claim to the land on either side of the mouth of the Congo River that triggered the events leading up to the Congress of Berlin
. That claim, which dated from Diogo Cão
's voyage in 1484, gave Portugal places from which naval patrols could control access to Africa's largest river system. The British eyed this arrangement with suspicion for years, but paid tariffs (like everyone else) for the right to trade there, mostly for slaves.
After the abolition of slavery got underway, the Portuguese dragged their heels, so in 1839 the British government declared its right to inspect Portuguese ships for evidence of slave trading with or without Portuguese consent. That stirred the Portuguese to action, and in a subsequent series of agreements made in the 1840s, the British acquired the right to land their ships to land where no Portuguese authorities were present. When the Portuguese refused to renew the agreement in 1853, the British ceased paying tariffs at the ports on either side of the Congo River mouth, claiming that Portugal's claim had expired because they had left the area unoccupied for too long. Portugal reoccupied the ports of Cabinda and Ambriz in 1855, and relations with Great Britain improved after that. The dispute set a precedent, however, that effective occupation was a prerequisite for recognition of colonial claims. The question continued to reappear until 1885 when it was enshrined in the agreements that emanated from the Congress of Berlin.
The final straw was the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty signed on February 26, 1884. It granted exclusive navigation rights on the Congo River to Britain in exchange for British guarantees of Portugal's control of the coast at the mouth of the Congo River. Most significantly, it prevented the French from taking advantage of treaties signed by one of its explorers (Savorgnan de Brazza) with Africans living along the north side of the Congo River. International protests forced the two countries to abandon the treaty in June 1884, and Bismarck
used the controversy to call the Congress of Berlin later that year.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to claim territory in sub-Saharan Africa, and their example inspired imitation from other European powers. For the British, the Portuguese were acceptable proxies in the competition with France, Russia and Germany for world domination. For Portuguese governments, the British alliance gave them influence that they could not command themselves, while the idea of a Portuguese empire offered something with which to distract domestic opponents from the struggles initiated by the Napoleonic Wars.
The issues that were raised by Portugal's claims in Africa and the efforts of other countries to whittle them down became the fundamental issues of the Congress of Berlin
. In the end, the Congress settled more than the future of Portugal's African holdings—it also set the rules for any European government which wished to establish an empire in Africa.
In the 1950s, after World War II, several African territories became independent from their European rulers, but the oldest Europe-ruled territories, those ruled by Portugal, were rebranded "Overseas Provinces" from the former designation as Portuguese colonies. This was a firm effort of Portugal's authorities to preserve its old African possessions abroad and refuse any claims of independence. This was followed by a wave of strong economic and social developments in all Portuguese Africa, in particular the overseas provinces of Angola and Mozambique.
By the 1960s, several organizations were founded to support independence's claims of the Portuguese overseas provinces in Africa. They were mostly entirely based and supported from outside Portugal's territories. Headquartered and managed in countries like Senegal
, Tanzania
, Algeria
, Guinea
and Ethiopia
, these guerrilla movements sought weapons, financing and political support in Eastern Bloc
's communist states and the People's Republic of China
. A Cold War
conflict in Portuguese Africa was about to start. Marxist-Leninist and Maoist ideologies, backed by countries like the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China
were behind the nationalist guerrilla movements created to attack Portuguese possessions and claim independence. The USA and other countries, in order to counter communist growing influence in the region also started to support some nationalist guerrillas in their fight against Portugal. The series of guerrilla wars involving Portugal and several armed nationalist groups from Africa in its overseas provinces of Angola, Guinea
, and Mozambique, become known as the Portuguese Colonial War
(Guerra Colonial or Guerra do Ultramar).
In Portuguese Angola, the rebellion of the ZSN was taken up by the União das Populações de Angola (UPA), which changed its name to Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA) in 1962. On February 4, 1961, the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola took credit for the attack on the prison of Luanda, where seven policemen were killed. On March 15, 1961, the UPA, in a tribal attack, started the massacre of white populations and black workers born in other regions of Angola. This region would be retaken by large military operations that, however, would not stop the spread of the guerrilla actions to other regions of Angola, such as Cabinda
, the east, the southeast and the central plateaus.
In Portuguese Guinea, the Marxist African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde
(PAIGC) started fighting in January 1963. Its guerrilla fighters attacked the Portuguese headquarters in Tite
, located to the south of Bissau
, the capital, near the Corubal river . Similar actions quickly spread across the entire colony, requiring a strong response from the Portuguese forces.
The war in Guinea placed face to face Amílcar Cabral
, the leader of PAIGC, and António de Spínola
, the Portuguese general responsible for the local military operations. In 1965 the war spread to the eastern part of the country and in that same year the PAIGC carried out attacks in the north of the country where at the time only the minor guerrilla movement, the Frente de Luta pela Independência Nacional da Guiné (FLING), was fighting. By that time, the PAIGC started receiving military support from the Socialist Bloc, mainly from Cuba
, a support that would last until the end of the war.
In Guinea the Portuguese troops mainly took a defensive position, limiting themselves to keeping the territories they already held. This kind of action was particularly devastating to the Portuguese troops who were constantly attacked by the forces of the PAIGC. They were also demoralized by the steady growth of the influence of the liberation supporters among the population that was being recruited in large numbers by the PAIGC.
With some strategic changes by António Spínola in the late 1960s, the Portuguese forces gained momentum and, taking the offensive, became a much more effective force. Between 1968 and 1972, the Portuguese forces took control of the situation and sometimes carried attacks against the PAIGC positions. At this time the Portuguese forces were also adopting subversive means to counter the insurgents, attacking the political structure of the nationalist movement. This strategy culminated in the assassination of Amílcar Cabral in January 1973. Nonetheless, the PAIGC continued to fight back and pushed the Portuguese forces to the limit. This became even more visible after PAIGC received anti-aircraft weapons provided by the Soviets, especially the SA-7 rocket launchers, thus undermining the Portuguese air superiority.
at the centre of the country. A report from Battalion No. 558 of the Portuguese army makes references to violent actions, also in Cabo Delgado, on August 21, 1964. On November 16 of the same year, the Portuguese troops suffered their first losses fighting in the north of the country, in the region of Xilama. By this time, the size of the guerrilla movement had substantially increased; this, along with the low numbers of Portuguese troops and colonists, allowed a steady increase in FRELIMO's strength. It quickly started moving south in the direction of Meponda and Mandimba, linking to Tete with the aid of Malawi
.
Until 1967 the FRELIMO showed less interest in Tete region, putting its efforts on the two northernmost districts of the country where the use of landmines became very common. In the region of Niassa, FRELIMO's intention was to create a free corridor to Zambézia. Until April 1970, the military activity of FRELIMO increased steadily, mainly due to the strategic work of Samora Machel in the region of Cabo Delgado. In the early 1970s, after the Portuguese Gordian Knot Operation
, the nationalist guerrilla was severely damaged.
The OAU established a committee based in Dar es Salaam
, with representatives from Ethiopia
, Algeria
, Uganda
, Egypt
, Tanzania
, Zaire
, Guinea
, Senegal
and Nigeria
, to support African liberation movements. The support provided by the committee included military training and weapon supplies. The OAU also took action in order to promote the international acknowledgment of the legitimacy of the Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile (GRAE), composed by the FNLA. This support was transferred to the MPLA and to its leader, Agostinho Neto
in 1967. In November 1972, both movements were recognized by the OAU in order to promote their merger. After 1964, the OAU recognized PAIGC as the legitimate representatives of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde and in 1965 recognised FRELIMO for Mozambique.
of March 21, 1960 caused many blacks to embrace the idea of violent resistance to apartheid. However, although the ANC's armed wing started its campaign in 1961, no victory was in sight by the time that Steve Biko
was a medical student in the late nineteen-sixties. Even as the nation's leading opposition groups like the ANC proclaimed a commitment to armed struggle, their leaders had failed to organize a credible military effort. If their commitment to revolution had inspired many, the success of the white regime in quashing it had dampened the spirits of many.
It was in this context that black students, Biko most notable among them, began critiquing the liberal whites with whom they worked in anti-apartheid student groups, as well as the official non-racialism of the ANC. They saw progress towards power as requiring the development of black power distinct from supposedly "non-racial groups." They formed the South African Students' Organization in 1969, an all-black student group, and from this grew an increasingly militant Black Consciousness Movement, including the formation of a non-student organization, the Black People's Convention (BPC). This new Black Consciousness Movement not only called for resistance to the policy of Apartheid, freedom of speech
, and more rights for South African blacks who were oppressed by the white Apartheid regime
, but also black pride
and a readiness to make blackness, rather than simple liberal democracy, the rallying point of unapologetically black organizations. Importantly, the group defined black to include other "people of color" in South Africa, most notably the large number of South Africans of Indian
descent. The movement stirred many blacks to confront not only the legal but also the cultural and psychological realities of Apartheid, seeking "not black visibility but real black participation" in society and in political struggles.
The gains this movement made were widespread across South Africa. Many black people felt a new sense of pride about being black as the movement helped to expose and critique the inferiority complex felt by many blacks at the time. The group formed Formation Schools to provide leadership seminars, and placed a great importance on decentralization and autonomy, with no person serving as president for more than one year (although Biko was clearly the primary leader of the movement). Early leaders of the movement such as Bennie Khoapa
, Barney Pityana
, Mapetla Mohapi, and Mamphela Ramphele
joined Biko in establishing the Black Community Programmes (BCP) in 1970 as self-help groups for black communities, forming out of the South African Council of Churches
and the Christian Institute. They also published various journals, including the Black Review, Black Voice, Black Perspective, and Creativity in Development.
On top of building schools and day cares and taking part in other social projects, the BCM through the BCP was involved in the staging of the large scale protests and workers strikes which gripped the nation in 1972 and 1973, especially in Durban
. Indeed, in 1973 the government of South Africa began to clamp down on the movement, claiming that their ideas of black development were treasonous, and virtually the entire leadership of SASO and BPC were banned. In late August and September 1974, after holding rallies in support of the Frelimo government which had taken power in Mozambique
, many leaders of the BCM were arrested under the Terrorism Act and the Riotous Assemblies Act. Arrests under these laws allowed the suspension of the doctrine of habeas corpus
, and many of those arrested were not formally charged until the next year, resulting in the arrest of the "Pretoria Twelve" and conviction of the "SASO nine", which included Maitshe Mokoape and Patrick Lekota
. These were the most prominent among various public trials which gave a forum for members of the BCM to explain their philosophy and to describe the abuses that had been inflicted upon them. Far from crushing the movement, this led to its wider support among black and white South Africans.
in June 1976. The protests began when it was decreed that black students be forced to learn Afrikaans
, and that many secondary school classes were to be taught in that language. This was another encroachment against the black population, which generally spoke indigenous languages like Zulu
and Xhosa
at home, and saw English as offering more prospects for mobility and economic self-sufficiency than did Afrikaans
. And the notion that Afrikaans was to define the national identity stood directly against the BCM principle of the development of a unique black identity. The protest began as a non-violent demonstration before police opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds of youths. The government's efforts to suppress the growing movement led to the imprisonment of Steve Biko, who became a symbol of the struggle. Biko died in police custody on September 12, 1977. It should be noted that Steve Biko was a non-violent activist, even though the movement he helped start eventually took up violent resistance. White newspaper editor Donald Woods
supported the movement and Biko, whom he had befriended, by leaving South Africa and exposing the truth behind Biko's death at the hands of police by publishing the book Biko.
One month after Biko's death, the South African government declared 17 groups associated with the Black Consciousness Movement to be illegal. Following this, many members joined more concretely political and tightly-structured parties such as the ANC, which used underground cells to maintain their organizational integrity despite banning by the government. And it seemed to some that the key goals of Black Consciousness had been attained, in that black identity and psychological liberation were growing. Nonetheless, in the months following Biko's death, activists continued to hold meetings to discuss resistance. Along with members of the BCM, a new generation of activists who had been inspired by the Soweto riots and Biko's death were present, including Bishop Desmond Tutu
. Among the organizations that formed in these meetings to carry the torch of Black Consciousness was the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) which persists to this day. Almost immediately after the formation of AZAPO in 1978, its chairman, Ishmael Mkhabela, and secretary, Lybon Mabasa were detained under the Terrorism Act. In the following years, other groups sharing Black Consciousness principles formed, including the Azanian Confederation of Trade Unions (AZACTU), Congress of South African Students (COSAS), Azanian Student Organization (AZASO) and the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organization (PEBCO).
While many of these organizations still exist in some form, some evolved and could no longer be called parts of the Black Consciousness Movement. And as the influence of the Black Consciousness Movement itself waned, the ANC was returning to its role as the clearly leading force in the resistance to white rule. Still more former members of the Black Consciousness Movement continued to join the ANC, including Thozamile Botha
from PEBCO. Others formed new groups. For instance, in 1980, Pityana formed the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania (BCMA), an avowedly Marxist
group which used AZAPO as its political voice. Curtis Nkondo
from AZAPO and many members of AZASO and the Black Consciousness Media Workers Association joined the United Democratic Front
(UDF). Many groups published important newsletters and journals, such as the Kwasala of the Black Consciousness Media Workers and the London based BCMA journal, Solidarity. And beyond these groups and media outlets, the Black Consciousness Movement had an extremely broad legacy, even as the movement itself was no longer represented by a single organization. Indeed, while the Black Consciousness Movement itself spawned an array of smaller groups, many people who came of age as activists in the Black Consciousness Movement did not join them. Instead, they joined a plethora of other organizations, including the ANC, the Unity Movement, the Pan Africanist Congress, the United Democratic Front
and trade and civic unions.
sits on a strategic location along the Red Sea, between the Suez Canal
and the Bab-el-Mandeb
. Because of this and the tensions of the Cold War
Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia against the wishes of its population at the end of Word War II. This makes Eritrea to be the only African country that was under a European colonial rule that was denied the right of decolonization. Eritrea was an Italian colony from 1890-1941. On April 1, 1941, the British captured Asmara
defeating the Italians and Eritrea fell under the British Military Administration. This military rule lasted from 1941 until 1952. On December 2, 1950, the United Nations General Assembly, by UN Resolution 390 A(V) federated Eritrea with Ethiopia. The architect of this federal act was the United States. The federation went into effect September 11, 1952. However, the federation was a non-starter for feudal Ethiopia, and it started to systematically undermine it. On December 24, 1958—the Eritrean flag was replaced by the Ethiopian flag;
On May 17, 1960—The title "Government of Eritrea" of the Federation was changed to "Administration of Eritrea". Earlier Amharic was declared official language in Eritrea replacing Tigrinya and Arabic. Finally on November 14, 1962 -– Ethiopia officially annexed Eritrea as its 14th province.
The people of Eritrea, after finding out peaceful resistance against Ethiopia's rule was falling on deaf ears were forced to form the Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM) which was formed in 1958. The founders of these independence movement were: Mohammad Said Nawud, Saleh Ahmed Iyay, Yasin al-Gade, Mohammad al-Hassen and Said Sabr. ELM members were organized in secret cells of seven. The movement was known as Mahber Shewate in Tigrinya and as Harakat Atahrir al Eritrea in Arabic. On July 10, 1960, a second independence movement, the Eritrean Liberation Front
(ELF) was founded in Cairo. Among its founders were: Idris Mohammed Adem, President, Osman Salih Sabbe, Secretary General, and Idris Glawdewos as head of military affairs. These were among those who made up the highest political body known as the Supreme Council. On September 1, 1961, Hamid Idris Awate and his ELF unit attacked an Ethiopian police unit in western Eritrea (near Mt. Adal). This heralded the 30-year Eritrean war for independence. Between March and November 1970, three core groups that later made up the Eritrean People's Liberation Front
(EPLF) split from the ELF and established themselves as separate units.
In September 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown by a military coup in Ethiopia. The military committee that took power in Ethiopia is better known by its Amharic name the Derg
. After the military coup the Derg broke ties with the U.S. and realigned itself with the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and the USSR and its eastern bloc allies replaced America as patrons of Ethiopia's aggression against Eritrea. Between January and July 1977, the ELF and EPLF armies had liberated 95% of Eritrea capturing all but 4 towns. However, in 1978-79, Ethiopia mounted a series of five massive Soviet-backed offensives and reoccupied almost all of Eritrea's major towns and cities, except for Nakfa. The EPLF withdrew to a mountain base in northern Eritrea, around the town of Nakfa
. In 1980 the EPLF had offered a proposal for referendum to end the war, however, Ethiopia, thinking it had a military upper hand, rejected the offer and war continued. In February–June 1982, The EPLF managed to repulse Ethiopia's much heralded four-month "Red Star" campaign (aka the 6th offensive by Eritreans) inflicting more than 31,000 Ethiopian casualties. In 1984 the EPLF started its counter-offensive and cleared the Ethiopian from the North-eastern Sahil front. In March 1988 the EPLF demolished the Ethiopian front at Afabet in a major offensive the British Historian Basil Davidson
compared to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu
. In February 1990 the EPLF liberated the strategic port of Massawa and in the process destroyed the Ethiopian navy. A year later the war came to conclusion on May 24, 1991 when the Ethiopian army in Eritrea surrendered. Thus Eritrea's 30-year war crowned with victory.
On May 24, 1993, after a UN-supervised referendum on April 23–25, 1993, in which the Eritrean people overwhelmingly, 99.8%, voted for independence, Eritrea officially declared its independence and gained international recognition.
Notable militant independence of black or Arab majority rule movements took place: (former French Algeria
French Algeria
French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...
), see Algerian War (former Portuguese Angola), see Portuguese Colonial War
Portuguese Colonial War
The Portuguese Colonial War , also known in Portugal as the Overseas War or in the former colonies as the War of liberation , was fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974, when the Portuguese regime was...
(former Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea was the name for what is today Guinea-Bissau from 1446 to September 10, 1974.-History:...
), see Portuguese Colonial War
Portuguese Colonial War
The Portuguese Colonial War , also known in Portugal as the Overseas War or in the former colonies as the War of liberation , was fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974, when the Portuguese regime was...
(former British Kenya), see Mau Mau Uprising
Mau Mau Uprising
The Mau Mau Uprising was a military conflict that took place in Kenya between 1952 and 1960...
(former Portuguese Mozambique), see Portuguese Colonial War
Portuguese Colonial War
The Portuguese Colonial War , also known in Portugal as the Overseas War or in the former colonies as the War of liberation , was fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974, when the Portuguese regime was...
(former South West Africa
South West Africa
South-West Africa was the name that was used for the modern day Republic of Namibia during the earlier eras when the territory was controlled by the German Empire and later by South Africa....
) – against South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, see Namibian War of Independence
Namibian War of Independence
See also South African Border War.The Namibian War of Independence, also known as the South African Border War, which lasted from 1966 to 1988, was a guerrilla war, which the nationalist South-West Africa People's Organization and others, fought against the apartheid government in South...
and South African Border War
South African Border War
The South African Border War, commonly referred to as the Angolan Bush War in South Africa, was a conflict that took place from 1966 to 1989 in South-West Africa and Angola between South Africa and its allied forces on the one side and the Angolan government, South-West Africa People's...
– against local white minority rule in the independent country. (former Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was the name of the British colony situated north of the Limpopo River and the Union of South Africa. From its independence in 1965 until its extinction in 1980, it was known as Rhodesia...
) – against local white minority rule in the unrecognized country
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
, see Rhodesian Bush War
Rhodesian Bush War
The Rhodesian Bush War – also known as the Second Chimurenga or the Zimbabwe War of Liberation – was a civil war which took place between July 1964 and December 1979 in the unrecognised country of Rhodesia...
British Kenya
British-ruled Kenya was the place of pro-independence rebellion from 1952 to 1960, an insurgencyInsurgency
An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
by Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
n rebels against the British colonialist
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
rule. The core of the resistance was formed by members of the Kikuyu ethnic group
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
, along with smaller numbers of Embu and Meru
Ameru
The Meru people, or Ameru, are a Bantu ethnic group who mainly inhabit the Meru region of Kenya. They speak Kimîîru language.The Meru people of Kenya should not be mistaken with the Meru of neighboring Tanzania, or Wameru.-Location:...
. The uprising hastened Kenyan independence in 1963.
French Algeria
Many Algerians had fought as French soldiers during the Second World War. Thus MuslimMuslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
Algerians felt all the more unfair that their votes were not equal to the other Algerians especially after 1947 when the Algerian Assembly was created. This assembly was composed of 120 members. Muslim Algerians who represented about 9 million people could designate 50% of the Assembly members while 900,000 non-Muslim Algerians could designate the other half. Moreover, a massacre occurred in Sétif
Sétif
Sétif |Colonia]]) is a town in northeastern Algeria. It is the capital of Sétif Province and it has a population of 239,195 inhabitants as of the 1998 census. Setif is located to the east of Algiers and is the second most important Wilaya after the country's capital. It is 1,096 meters above sea...
May 8, 1945. It opposed Algerians who were demonstrating for their national claim to the French Army
French Army
The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...
. After skirmishes with police, Algerians killed about 100 ethnic French. The French army retaliated harshly. 45,000 Algerians probably died. It triggered a radicalization of Algerian nationalists and it can be considered the beginning of the Algerian War.
In 1956, about 512,000 French soldiers were in Algeria. No resolution was imaginable in the short term. A overwhelming majority of French politicians were opposed to the idea of independence while independence was gaining ground in Muslim Algerians' mind. France was mired and the Fourth Republic collapsed on this issue. In 1958, Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
's return to power was supposed to bring back Algeria in the bosom of France as thought French generals in Algeria. But pragmatism impelled De Gaulle to consent independence in 1962 after an aborted military coup in Algeria.
Portuguese overseas territories
Portugal built a five-century-long global empirePortuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...
. Portuguese overseas expansion began in the 15th century, thanks to several factors that gave the small coastal nation an advantage over its larger European neighbors. First, in the 14th century, Portuguese shipbuilders invented several new techniques that made sailing in the stormy Atlantic Ocean more practical. They combined elements of different types of ships to construct stronger, roomier and more maneuverable caravel
Caravel
A caravel is a small, highly maneuverable sailing ship developed in the 15th century by the Portuguese to explore along the West African coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. The lateen sails gave her speed and the capacity for sailing to windward...
s. They also took advantage of more reliable compasses for navigation
Navigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
, and benefitted from the school for navigation created by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) at Sagres
Sagres, Portugal
Sagres is a town located in the municipality of Vila do Bispo, Algarve, Portugal. It has a surface of 34,28 km² and a population of 1 939 . Sagres Point, historically connected to the Portuguese Age of Discovery, is located there....
in 1419. Starting with voyages to Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
and the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
(islands in the Atlantic) in the first part of the 14th century, the Portuguese systematically extended their explorations as far as Japan by the 16th century. In the process, they established forts and settlements along the West and East African coasts. In the 16th through 18th centuries, the Portuguese lost their lead to other European nations, notably England and France, but played a major role in the slave trade to satisfy the demand for labor in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and other American markets. By the beginning of the 19th century, Portugal controlled outposts at six locations in Africa. One was the Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
Islands, located about 700 miles due west of Dakar
Dakar
Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...
, Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
. Claimed for Portugal by Diogo Gomes
Diogo Gomes
Diogo Gomes , was a Portuguese navigator, explorer and writer.Diogo Gomes was a servant and explorer of Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator. His memoirs were dictated late in his life to Martin Behaim...
about 1458, this archipelago of eight major islands was devoted to sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
cultivation using slaves taken from the African mainland. The Portuguese once had extensive claims on the West African coast—since they were the first Europeans to explore it systematically—but by 1800 they were left with only a few ports at the mouth of the Rio Geba in what is now known as the Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....
. To the east, the Portuguese controlled the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe, officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two islands: São Tomé and Príncipe, located about apart and about , respectively, off...
, located south of the mouth of the Niger River. Like the Cape Verde Islands, they were converted to sugar production in the early 16th century using slaves acquired on the mainland in the vicinity of the Congo River. By the end of the 19th century, Portuguese landowners had successfully introduced cocoa production using forced African labor. Further south, the Portuguese claimed both sides of the mouth of the Congo River, as well as the Atlantic coast as far south as the Rio Cunene. In practical terms, Portugal controlled port cities like those of Cabinda
Cabinda (city)
Cabinda or Tchiowa, as it is called by the Cabindans, is a city that is located in the Cabinda Province, an exclave of Angola. Angolan sovereignty over Cabinda is disputed by the Republic of Cabinda...
(north of the Congo River mouth), Ambriz
Ambriz
Ambriz is a city, commune and municipality in Bengo Province, Angola.The population of Ambriz is majority Bakongo, with some Portuguese descedents.Also, the population also includes Ovimbundu and Kimbundu....
(south of the Congo's mouth), Luanda
Luanda
Luanda, formerly named São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda, is the capital and largest city of Angola. Located on Angola's coast with the Atlantic Ocean, Luanda is both Angola's chief seaport and its administrative center. It has a population of at least 5 million...
and Benguela
Benguela
Benguela is a city in western Angola, south of Luanda, and capital of Benguela Province. It lies on a bay of the same name, in 12° 33’ S., 13° 25’ E...
(on the Angolan coast) plus some river towns in the Angolan interior.
The last area claimed by Portugal in Africa was along the southeast coast on either side of the mouth of the Zambezi River. After reaching this area, known as the Swahili Coast, at the end of the 15th century, the Portuguese came to dominate most of it by the end of the 16th century. During the 17th century, they lost control of everything north of Cape Delgado
Cape Delgado
Cape Delgado, Portuguese Cabo Delgado , is a coastal promontory on the border of Mozambique and Tanzania, and is the northernmost point in Mozambique....
to Arabs from Oman
Oman
Oman , officially called the Sultanate of Oman , is an Arab state in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by the United Arab Emirates to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the west, and Yemen to the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the...
(who established the Sultanate of Zanzibar), leaving them with major ports at Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
, Quelimane
Quelimane
Quelimane is a seaport in Mozambique. It is the administrative capital of the Zambezia Province and the province's largest city, and stands 25 km from the mouth of the Rio dos Bons Sinais . The river was named when Vasco da Gama, on his way to India, reached it and saw "good signs" that he was on...
, and Lourenço Marques
Maputo
Maputo, also known as Lourenço Marques, is the capital and largest city of Mozambique. It is known as the City of Acacias in reference to acacia trees commonly found along its avenues and the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. It was famous for the inscription "This is Portugal" on the walkway of its...
, plus settlements along the Zambezi and other rivers.
Despite these holdings, the Portuguese hold in Africa was problematic. The first cause was the small size of Portugal's population, coupled with the lack of popular support for overseas empire. Exploration and conquest began as an enterprise supported by the nobility
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
, and Portuguese peasants rarely participated unless forced to do so. When the common people of Portugal did chose to emigrate, they were much more likely to head to Brazil and other territories than to Africa. To induce Europeans to move to its African holdings, the Portuguese government resorted to releasing degradados—convicted criminals—from prison in exchange for accepting what amounted to exile in Africa. Angola, in particular, gained a reputation as a Portuguese penal colony. Also, since the European population remained almost entirely male, the Portuguese birth rate was negligible, although plenty of "Afro-Lusitanians" were born to African mothers. As a result, the European population of Portugal's African settlements was never very large, and community leaders were just as likely to owe their loyalty to local African governments as they did to the distant Portuguese government.
A second cause of weakness in Portuguese Africa was the effects of three centuries of Atlantic slave trade
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...
which had roots in the older African slave trade
African slave trade
Systems of servitude and slavery were common in many parts of Africa, as they were in much of the ancient world. In some African societies, the enslaved people were also indentured servants and fully integrated; in others, they were treated much worse...
. Once the Atlantic triangular trade got underway, many Portuguese (including many Brazilian traders) in Africa found little incentive to engage in any other kind of profitable economic activity. The economies of Guinea, Angola and Mozambique became almost entirely devoted to the export of slaves to the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
(plus gold and ivory where they were available) while on the islands, slaves were used to grow sugar for export. Colonial authorities did nothing to stop the slave trade, which had sympathizers even among the several native African tribes, and many became wealthy by supporting it, while the traders themselves generated huge profits with which they secured allies in Africa and Portugal.
Although anti-slavery efforts became organized in Europe in the 18th century, the slave trade only came to an end in the early 19th century, thanks in large part to English efforts to block shipping to the French during the Napoleonic Wars. Portugal was one of the first countries in the world to outlaw slavery, and did it so in mainland Portugal during the 18th century. The Portuguese government ended colonial slavery in stages with a final decree in 1858 that outlawed slavery in the overseas empire. The gradual pace of abolition was due to the strength of pro-slavery forces in Portuguese politics, Brazil and in Africa, they interfered with colonial administrators who challenged long-established and powerful commercial interests.
The Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
added a new force to the Portuguese political scene—republicanism—introduced as an alternative to the monarchy by French troops in 1807. The French invasion induced the Portuguese royal family to make the controversial decision to flee to Brazil (on English ships), from where they ruled until 1821. By the time King João VI returned to Lisbon, he faced a nobility divided in their support for him personally, plus a middle class that wanted a constitutional monarchy. During Joao VI's reign (1821–1826) and that of his successors—Peter IV (1826–1831), Maria (1833–1853), Peter V (1853–1861), Louis I (1861–1889), and Carlos (1889–1908)—there was a civil war that lasted from 1826 to 1834, a long period characterized by what one author called "ministerial instability and chronic insurrection" from 1834 to 1853, and finally the end of the monarchy when both Carlos and his heir were assassinated on February 1, 1908. Under those circumstances, colonial officials appointed by governments in Lisbon were more concerned with politics at home than with administering their African territories.
As it did everywhere else, the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
stimulated change in Portuguese Africa. It created a demand for tropical raw materials like vegetable oils, cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
, cocoa and rubber
Rubber
Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...
, and it also created a need for markets to purchase the expanded quantity of goods issuing from factories. In Portugal's case, most of the factories were located in England, which had had a special relationship with Portugal ever since Philippa
Philippa
Philippa is a given name meaning "lover of horses" or "horses' friend". Common alternative spellings include Filippa, Phillipa and, less often, Phillippa. It is the feminine form of the masculine name Philip...
, the daughter of England's John of Gaunt, married John of Avis, the founder of the Portuguese royal family. Prodded by Napoleon's invasion and English support for the royal family's escape to Brazil, King João and his successors eliminated tariffs, ended trade monopolies and generally opened the way for British merchants to become dominant in the Portuguese empire. At times, that caused friction, such as when both British and Portuguese explorers claimed the Shire Highlands
Shire Highlands
The Shire Highlands are a plateau in southern Malawi, located east of the Shire River. Ranging in elevation from 2,000 to 4,000 feet, it is a major agricultural area and the most densely-populated part of the country....
(located in modern Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
), but for the most part Great Britain supported the Portuguese position in exchange for incorporating Portugal's holdings into the British economic sphere.
With neither a large European population nor African wage earners, the Portuguese colonies offered poor markets for manufactured goods from the private sector. Consequently, industrialization arrived in the form of government programs designed to improve internal communications and increase the number of European settlers. During the late 1830s, the government headed by Marquis Sá da Bandeira tried to encourage Portuguese farmers to migrate to Angola, with little success. Between 1845 and 1900, the European population of Angola rose from 1,832 to only about 9,000. European migration to Mozambique showed slightly better results—about 11,000 in 1911—but many were British from South Africa rather than Portuguese. The other major force for change was the rivalries that developed between European nations in the century between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of World War I. Forbidden from fighting each other by the "balance of power" established by the Treaty of Vienna, they competed in other ways including scientific discoveries, athletic competitions, exploration and proxy wars. Although not a major power anymore, Portugal participated in the competition, especially by sending out explorers to solidify their claim to all of the land between Angola and Mozambique. That bought them into conflict with men like Cecil Rhodes, whose own vision of an empire from "Cape to Cairo" required that the British gain control over the same land (see British Ultimatum
British Ultimatum
The 1890 British Ultimatum was an ultimatum by the British government delivered on 11 January 1890 to Portugal in breach of the Treaty of Windsor of 1386...
).
European rivalries appeared most often as commercial competition, and in 19th century Africa, that included the right to move goods by steamboat along rivers. The British had a head start thanks to their early adoption of steam technology and their supremacy on the high seas. They became the strongest proponents of the principle of "free trade
Free trade
Under a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...
" which prohibited countries from creating legal barriers to another country's merchants. Occasionally, Portuguese leaders resisted, but the British alliance provided sufficient benefits to convince various administrations to go along (although they faced revolts at home and in their colonies).
It was Portugal's claim to the land on either side of the mouth of the Congo River that triggered the events leading up to the Congress of Berlin
Congress of Berlin
The Congress of Berlin was a meeting of the European Great Powers' and the Ottoman Empire's leading statesmen in Berlin in 1878. In the wake of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the meeting's aim was to reorganize the countries of the Balkans...
. That claim, which dated from Diogo Cão
Diogo Cão
Diogo Cão was a Portuguese explorer and one of the most remarkable navigators of the Age of Discovery, who made two voyages sailing along the west coast of Africa to Namibia in the 1480s.-Early life and family:...
's voyage in 1484, gave Portugal places from which naval patrols could control access to Africa's largest river system. The British eyed this arrangement with suspicion for years, but paid tariffs (like everyone else) for the right to trade there, mostly for slaves.
After the abolition of slavery got underway, the Portuguese dragged their heels, so in 1839 the British government declared its right to inspect Portuguese ships for evidence of slave trading with or without Portuguese consent. That stirred the Portuguese to action, and in a subsequent series of agreements made in the 1840s, the British acquired the right to land their ships to land where no Portuguese authorities were present. When the Portuguese refused to renew the agreement in 1853, the British ceased paying tariffs at the ports on either side of the Congo River mouth, claiming that Portugal's claim had expired because they had left the area unoccupied for too long. Portugal reoccupied the ports of Cabinda and Ambriz in 1855, and relations with Great Britain improved after that. The dispute set a precedent, however, that effective occupation was a prerequisite for recognition of colonial claims. The question continued to reappear until 1885 when it was enshrined in the agreements that emanated from the Congress of Berlin.
The final straw was the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty signed on February 26, 1884. It granted exclusive navigation rights on the Congo River to Britain in exchange for British guarantees of Portugal's control of the coast at the mouth of the Congo River. Most significantly, it prevented the French from taking advantage of treaties signed by one of its explorers (Savorgnan de Brazza) with Africans living along the north side of the Congo River. International protests forced the two countries to abandon the treaty in June 1884, and Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
used the controversy to call the Congress of Berlin later that year.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to claim territory in sub-Saharan Africa, and their example inspired imitation from other European powers. For the British, the Portuguese were acceptable proxies in the competition with France, Russia and Germany for world domination. For Portuguese governments, the British alliance gave them influence that they could not command themselves, while the idea of a Portuguese empire offered something with which to distract domestic opponents from the struggles initiated by the Napoleonic Wars.
The issues that were raised by Portugal's claims in Africa and the efforts of other countries to whittle them down became the fundamental issues of the Congress of Berlin
Congress of Berlin
The Congress of Berlin was a meeting of the European Great Powers' and the Ottoman Empire's leading statesmen in Berlin in 1878. In the wake of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the meeting's aim was to reorganize the countries of the Balkans...
. In the end, the Congress settled more than the future of Portugal's African holdings—it also set the rules for any European government which wished to establish an empire in Africa.
In the 1950s, after World War II, several African territories became independent from their European rulers, but the oldest Europe-ruled territories, those ruled by Portugal, were rebranded "Overseas Provinces" from the former designation as Portuguese colonies. This was a firm effort of Portugal's authorities to preserve its old African possessions abroad and refuse any claims of independence. This was followed by a wave of strong economic and social developments in all Portuguese Africa, in particular the overseas provinces of Angola and Mozambique.
By the 1960s, several organizations were founded to support independence's claims of the Portuguese overseas provinces in Africa. They were mostly entirely based and supported from outside Portugal's territories. Headquartered and managed in countries like Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
, Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
, Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
, Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
and Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, these guerrilla movements sought weapons, financing and political support in Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
's communist states and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
. A Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
conflict in Portuguese Africa was about to start. Marxist-Leninist and Maoist ideologies, backed by countries like the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
were behind the nationalist guerrilla movements created to attack Portuguese possessions and claim independence. The USA and other countries, in order to counter communist growing influence in the region also started to support some nationalist guerrillas in their fight against Portugal. The series of guerrilla wars involving Portugal and several armed nationalist groups from Africa in its overseas provinces of Angola, Guinea
Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea was the name for what is today Guinea-Bissau from 1446 to September 10, 1974.-History:...
, and Mozambique, become known as the Portuguese Colonial War
Portuguese Colonial War
The Portuguese Colonial War , also known in Portugal as the Overseas War or in the former colonies as the War of liberation , was fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974, when the Portuguese regime was...
(Guerra Colonial or Guerra do Ultramar).
Portuguese Angola
Cabinda (province)
Cabinda is an exclave and province of Angola, a status that has been disputed by many political organizations in the territory. The capital city is also called Cabinda. The province is divided into four municipalities - Belize, Buco Zau, Cabinda and Cacongo.Modern Cabinda is the result of a fusion...
, the east, the southeast and the central plateaus.
Portuguese Guinea
African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde
The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde or PAIGC is a political party that governed Guinea-Bissau from the independence of the then Portuguese Guinea in 1974, until the late 1990s, and from 2004 to 2005. Currently it is the party with the largest number of seats in the...
(PAIGC) started fighting in January 1963. Its guerrilla fighters attacked the Portuguese headquarters in Tite
Tite
Tite may refer to:People:*Tite Curet Alonso , Puerto Rican composer of salsa songs*Tite Kubo , Japanese manga artist*Tite Margwelaschwili, Georgian philosopher and writer...
, located to the south of Bissau
Bissau
Bissau is the capital city of Guinea-Bissau. The city's borders are conterminous with the Bissau Autonomous Sector. In 2007, the city had an estimated population of 407,424 according to the Instituto Nacional de Estatística e Censos...
, the capital, near the Corubal river . Similar actions quickly spread across the entire colony, requiring a strong response from the Portuguese forces.
The war in Guinea placed face to face Amílcar Cabral
Amílcar Cabral
Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral was a Guinea-Bissauan and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, writer, and a nationalist thinker and politician. Also known by his nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing war of independence...
, the leader of PAIGC, and António de Spínola
António de Spínola
António Sebastião Ribeiro de Spínola , GCTE, ComA was a Portuguese soldier, conservative politician and author, who was important in the transition to democracy following the Portuguese Carnation...
, the Portuguese general responsible for the local military operations. In 1965 the war spread to the eastern part of the country and in that same year the PAIGC carried out attacks in the north of the country where at the time only the minor guerrilla movement, the Frente de Luta pela Independência Nacional da Guiné (FLING), was fighting. By that time, the PAIGC started receiving military support from the Socialist Bloc, mainly from Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, a support that would last until the end of the war.
In Guinea the Portuguese troops mainly took a defensive position, limiting themselves to keeping the territories they already held. This kind of action was particularly devastating to the Portuguese troops who were constantly attacked by the forces of the PAIGC. They were also demoralized by the steady growth of the influence of the liberation supporters among the population that was being recruited in large numbers by the PAIGC.
With some strategic changes by António Spínola in the late 1960s, the Portuguese forces gained momentum and, taking the offensive, became a much more effective force. Between 1968 and 1972, the Portuguese forces took control of the situation and sometimes carried attacks against the PAIGC positions. At this time the Portuguese forces were also adopting subversive means to counter the insurgents, attacking the political structure of the nationalist movement. This strategy culminated in the assassination of Amílcar Cabral in January 1973. Nonetheless, the PAIGC continued to fight back and pushed the Portuguese forces to the limit. This became even more visible after PAIGC received anti-aircraft weapons provided by the Soviets, especially the SA-7 rocket launchers, thus undermining the Portuguese air superiority.
Portuguese Mozambique
Portuguese Mozambique was the last territory to start the war of liberation. Its nationalist movement was led by the Marxist-Leninist Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO), which carried out the first attack against Portuguese targets on September 24, 1964, in Chai, province of Cabo Delgado. The fighting later spread to Niassa, TeteTete
-External links:* *...
at the centre of the country. A report from Battalion No. 558 of the Portuguese army makes references to violent actions, also in Cabo Delgado, on August 21, 1964. On November 16 of the same year, the Portuguese troops suffered their first losses fighting in the north of the country, in the region of Xilama. By this time, the size of the guerrilla movement had substantially increased; this, along with the low numbers of Portuguese troops and colonists, allowed a steady increase in FRELIMO's strength. It quickly started moving south in the direction of Meponda and Mandimba, linking to Tete with the aid of Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
.
Until 1967 the FRELIMO showed less interest in Tete region, putting its efforts on the two northernmost districts of the country where the use of landmines became very common. In the region of Niassa, FRELIMO's intention was to create a free corridor to Zambézia. Until April 1970, the military activity of FRELIMO increased steadily, mainly due to the strategic work of Samora Machel in the region of Cabo Delgado. In the early 1970s, after the Portuguese Gordian Knot Operation
Gordian Knot Operation
The Operation Gordian Knot was the largest and most expensive Portuguese military campaign in the Portuguese overseas province of Mozambique, East Africa. It was performed in 1970, during the Portuguese Colonial War...
, the nationalist guerrilla was severely damaged.
Role of the Organisation of African Unity
The Organization of African Unity (OAU) was founded May 1963. Its basic principles were co-operation between African nations and solidarity between African peoples. Another important objective of the OAU was an end to all forms of colonialism in Africa. This became the major objective of the organization in its first years and soon OAU pressure led to the situation in the Portuguese colonies being brought up at the UN Security Council.The OAU established a committee based in Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam , formerly Mzizima, is the largest city in Tanzania. It is also the country's richest city and a regionally important economic centre. Dar es Salaam is actually an administrative province within Tanzania, and consists of three local government areas or administrative districts: ...
, with representatives from Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
, Zaire
Zaire
The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...
, Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
, Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
and Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, to support African liberation movements. The support provided by the committee included military training and weapon supplies. The OAU also took action in order to promote the international acknowledgment of the legitimacy of the Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile (GRAE), composed by the FNLA. This support was transferred to the MPLA and to its leader, Agostinho Neto
Agostinho Neto
António Agostinho Neto served as the first President of Angola , leading the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola in the war for independence and the civil war...
in 1967. In November 1972, both movements were recognized by the OAU in order to promote their merger. After 1964, the OAU recognized PAIGC as the legitimate representatives of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde and in 1965 recognised FRELIMO for Mozambique.
Early years: 1960-1976
Although the ANC and others opposed to apartheid had initially focused on non-violent campaigns, the brutality of the Sharpeville MassacreSharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
of March 21, 1960 caused many blacks to embrace the idea of violent resistance to apartheid. However, although the ANC's armed wing started its campaign in 1961, no victory was in sight by the time that Steve Biko
Steve Biko
Stephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...
was a medical student in the late nineteen-sixties. Even as the nation's leading opposition groups like the ANC proclaimed a commitment to armed struggle, their leaders had failed to organize a credible military effort. If their commitment to revolution had inspired many, the success of the white regime in quashing it had dampened the spirits of many.
It was in this context that black students, Biko most notable among them, began critiquing the liberal whites with whom they worked in anti-apartheid student groups, as well as the official non-racialism of the ANC. They saw progress towards power as requiring the development of black power distinct from supposedly "non-racial groups." They formed the South African Students' Organization in 1969, an all-black student group, and from this grew an increasingly militant Black Consciousness Movement, including the formation of a non-student organization, the Black People's Convention (BPC). This new Black Consciousness Movement not only called for resistance to the policy of Apartheid, freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
, and more rights for South African blacks who were oppressed by the white Apartheid regime
Regime
The word regime refers to a set of conditions, most often of a political nature.-Politics:...
, but also black pride
Black pride
Black pride is a slogan indicating pride in being black. Related movements include black nationalism and Afrocentrism.The slogan has been used in the United States by African Americans to celebrate heritage and personal pride. The black pride movement is closely linked with the developments of the...
and a readiness to make blackness, rather than simple liberal democracy, the rallying point of unapologetically black organizations. Importantly, the group defined black to include other "people of color" in South Africa, most notably the large number of South Africans of Indian
Asians in South Africa
The majority of the Asian South African population is Indian in origin, most of them descended from indentured workers transported to work in the 19th century on the sugar plantations of the eastern coastal area, then known as Natal. They are largely English speaking, although many also retain the...
descent. The movement stirred many blacks to confront not only the legal but also the cultural and psychological realities of Apartheid, seeking "not black visibility but real black participation" in society and in political struggles.
The gains this movement made were widespread across South Africa. Many black people felt a new sense of pride about being black as the movement helped to expose and critique the inferiority complex felt by many blacks at the time. The group formed Formation Schools to provide leadership seminars, and placed a great importance on decentralization and autonomy, with no person serving as president for more than one year (although Biko was clearly the primary leader of the movement). Early leaders of the movement such as Bennie Khoapa
Bennie Khoapa
Bennie Khoapa was a social worker in South Africa during the 1960s and 1970s involved in the resistance to apartheid. He worked for the Young Men's Christian Association , and was supportive of the young activists of the time, especially the young Steve Biko...
, Barney Pityana
Barney Pityana
Nyameko Barney Pityana FKC is a human rights lawyer and theologian in South Africa. He is an exponent of Black theology....
, Mapetla Mohapi, and Mamphela Ramphele
Mamphela Ramphele
Mamphela Aletta Ramphele is a South African academic, businesswoman and medical doctor and was an anti-apartheid activist. She is a current trustee on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York.-Life and career:...
joined Biko in establishing the Black Community Programmes (BCP) in 1970 as self-help groups for black communities, forming out of the South African Council of Churches
South African Council of Churches
The South African Council of Churches is an interdenominational forum in South Africa. It was a prominent anti-apartheid organisation during the years of apartheid in South Africa. Its leaders have included Desmond Tutu, Beyers Naudé and Frank Chikane....
and the Christian Institute. They also published various journals, including the Black Review, Black Voice, Black Perspective, and Creativity in Development.
On top of building schools and day cares and taking part in other social projects, the BCM through the BCP was involved in the staging of the large scale protests and workers strikes which gripped the nation in 1972 and 1973, especially in Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
. Indeed, in 1973 the government of South Africa began to clamp down on the movement, claiming that their ideas of black development were treasonous, and virtually the entire leadership of SASO and BPC were banned. In late August and September 1974, after holding rallies in support of the Frelimo government which had taken power in Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
, many leaders of the BCM were arrested under the Terrorism Act and the Riotous Assemblies Act. Arrests under these laws allowed the suspension of the doctrine of habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
, and many of those arrested were not formally charged until the next year, resulting in the arrest of the "Pretoria Twelve" and conviction of the "SASO nine", which included Maitshe Mokoape and Patrick Lekota
Mosiuoa Lekota
Mosiuoa Gerard Patrick Lekota is a South African politician who currently serves as the President and Leader of the Congress of the People since 16 December 2008. Previously, under President Thabo Mbeki, he served in the Cabinet of South Africa as Minister of Defence from 17 June 1999 to 25...
. These were the most prominent among various public trials which gave a forum for members of the BCM to explain their philosophy and to describe the abuses that had been inflicted upon them. Far from crushing the movement, this led to its wider support among black and white South Africans.
Soweto riots and BCM trajectory
The Black Consciousness Movement heavily supported the protests against the policies of the apartheid regime which led to the Soweto riotsSoweto riots
The Soweto Uprising, also known as June 16, was a series of high school student-led protests in South Africa that began on the morning of June 16, 1976. Students from numerous Sowetan schools began to protest in the streets of Soweto, in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of...
in June 1976. The protests began when it was decreed that black students be forced to learn Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
, and that many secondary school classes were to be taught in that language. This was another encroachment against the black population, which generally spoke indigenous languages like Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
and Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
at home, and saw English as offering more prospects for mobility and economic self-sufficiency than did Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
. And the notion that Afrikaans was to define the national identity stood directly against the BCM principle of the development of a unique black identity. The protest began as a non-violent demonstration before police opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds of youths. The government's efforts to suppress the growing movement led to the imprisonment of Steve Biko, who became a symbol of the struggle. Biko died in police custody on September 12, 1977. It should be noted that Steve Biko was a non-violent activist, even though the movement he helped start eventually took up violent resistance. White newspaper editor Donald Woods
Donald Woods
Donald James Woods, CBE was a white South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist.As editor of the Daily Dispatch from 1965 to 1977, he befriended Steve Biko, leader of the anti-apartheid Black Consciousness Movement, and was banned by the government soon after Biko's death, which had been...
supported the movement and Biko, whom he had befriended, by leaving South Africa and exposing the truth behind Biko's death at the hands of police by publishing the book Biko.
One month after Biko's death, the South African government declared 17 groups associated with the Black Consciousness Movement to be illegal. Following this, many members joined more concretely political and tightly-structured parties such as the ANC, which used underground cells to maintain their organizational integrity despite banning by the government. And it seemed to some that the key goals of Black Consciousness had been attained, in that black identity and psychological liberation were growing. Nonetheless, in the months following Biko's death, activists continued to hold meetings to discuss resistance. Along with members of the BCM, a new generation of activists who had been inspired by the Soweto riots and Biko's death were present, including Bishop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
. Among the organizations that formed in these meetings to carry the torch of Black Consciousness was the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) which persists to this day. Almost immediately after the formation of AZAPO in 1978, its chairman, Ishmael Mkhabela, and secretary, Lybon Mabasa were detained under the Terrorism Act. In the following years, other groups sharing Black Consciousness principles formed, including the Azanian Confederation of Trade Unions (AZACTU), Congress of South African Students (COSAS), Azanian Student Organization (AZASO) and the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organization (PEBCO).
While many of these organizations still exist in some form, some evolved and could no longer be called parts of the Black Consciousness Movement. And as the influence of the Black Consciousness Movement itself waned, the ANC was returning to its role as the clearly leading force in the resistance to white rule. Still more former members of the Black Consciousness Movement continued to join the ANC, including Thozamile Botha
Thozamile Botha
Thozamile Botha is a South African politician. He started his political career as a trade unionist and was an executive member of the Congress of South African Trade Unions. Due to the apartheid government he went into exile in 1980 to Lesotho where he worked with Chris Hani...
from PEBCO. Others formed new groups. For instance, in 1980, Pityana formed the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania (BCMA), an avowedly Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
group which used AZAPO as its political voice. Curtis Nkondo
Curtis Nkondo
Curtis Nkondo was a South African diplomat, school teacher and politician with the African National Congress. Born in Louis Trichardt, Nkondo was a life-long activist with the ANC...
from AZAPO and many members of AZASO and the Black Consciousness Media Workers Association joined the United Democratic Front
United Democratic Front (South Africa)
The United Democratic Front was one of the most important anti-apartheid organisations of the 1980s. The non-racial coalition of about 400 civic, church, students', workers' and other organisations was formed in 1983, initially to fight the just-introduced idea of the Tricameral Parliament The...
(UDF). Many groups published important newsletters and journals, such as the Kwasala of the Black Consciousness Media Workers and the London based BCMA journal, Solidarity. And beyond these groups and media outlets, the Black Consciousness Movement had an extremely broad legacy, even as the movement itself was no longer represented by a single organization. Indeed, while the Black Consciousness Movement itself spawned an array of smaller groups, many people who came of age as activists in the Black Consciousness Movement did not join them. Instead, they joined a plethora of other organizations, including the ANC, the Unity Movement, the Pan Africanist Congress, the United Democratic Front
United Democratic Front (South Africa)
The United Democratic Front was one of the most important anti-apartheid organisations of the 1980s. The non-racial coalition of about 400 civic, church, students', workers' and other organisations was formed in 1983, initially to fight the just-introduced idea of the Tricameral Parliament The...
and trade and civic unions.
Eritrea
EritreaEritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
sits on a strategic location along the Red Sea, between the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
and the Bab-el-Mandeb
Bab-el-Mandeb
The Bab-el-Mandeb meaning "Gate of Grief" in Arabic , is a strait located between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, Djibouti and Eritrea, north of Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, and connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden...
. Because of this and the tensions of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia against the wishes of its population at the end of Word War II. This makes Eritrea to be the only African country that was under a European colonial rule that was denied the right of decolonization. Eritrea was an Italian colony from 1890-1941. On April 1, 1941, the British captured Asmara
Asmara
Asmara is the capital city and largest settlement in Eritrea, home to a population of around 579,000 people...
defeating the Italians and Eritrea fell under the British Military Administration. This military rule lasted from 1941 until 1952. On December 2, 1950, the United Nations General Assembly, by UN Resolution 390 A(V) federated Eritrea with Ethiopia. The architect of this federal act was the United States. The federation went into effect September 11, 1952. However, the federation was a non-starter for feudal Ethiopia, and it started to systematically undermine it. On December 24, 1958—the Eritrean flag was replaced by the Ethiopian flag;
On May 17, 1960—The title "Government of Eritrea" of the Federation was changed to "Administration of Eritrea". Earlier Amharic was declared official language in Eritrea replacing Tigrinya and Arabic. Finally on November 14, 1962 -– Ethiopia officially annexed Eritrea as its 14th province.
The people of Eritrea, after finding out peaceful resistance against Ethiopia's rule was falling on deaf ears were forced to form the Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM) which was formed in 1958. The founders of these independence movement were: Mohammad Said Nawud, Saleh Ahmed Iyay, Yasin al-Gade, Mohammad al-Hassen and Said Sabr. ELM members were organized in secret cells of seven. The movement was known as Mahber Shewate in Tigrinya and as Harakat Atahrir al Eritrea in Arabic. On July 10, 1960, a second independence movement, the Eritrean Liberation Front
Eritrean Liberation Front
The Eritrean Liberation Front was the main independence movement in Eritrea which sought Eritrea's independence from Ethiopia during the 1960s and 1970s. In the very late 1950s unorganized political movement seeking independence was secretly active as small cells...
(ELF) was founded in Cairo. Among its founders were: Idris Mohammed Adem, President, Osman Salih Sabbe, Secretary General, and Idris Glawdewos as head of military affairs. These were among those who made up the highest political body known as the Supreme Council. On September 1, 1961, Hamid Idris Awate and his ELF unit attacked an Ethiopian police unit in western Eritrea (near Mt. Adal). This heralded the 30-year Eritrean war for independence. Between March and November 1970, three core groups that later made up the Eritrean People's Liberation Front
Eritrean People's Liberation Front
The Eritrean People's Liberation Front was an armed organization that fought for the independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia. It emerged in 1970 as an intellectual left-wing group that split from the Eritrean Liberation Front .-Background:...
(EPLF) split from the ELF and established themselves as separate units.
In September 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown by a military coup in Ethiopia. The military committee that took power in Ethiopia is better known by its Amharic name the Derg
Derg
The Derg or Dergue was a Communist military junta that came to power in Ethiopia following the ousting of Haile Selassie I. Derg, which means "committee" or "council" in Ge'ez, is the short name of the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, a committee of...
. After the military coup the Derg broke ties with the U.S. and realigned itself with the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and the USSR and its eastern bloc allies replaced America as patrons of Ethiopia's aggression against Eritrea. Between January and July 1977, the ELF and EPLF armies had liberated 95% of Eritrea capturing all but 4 towns. However, in 1978-79, Ethiopia mounted a series of five massive Soviet-backed offensives and reoccupied almost all of Eritrea's major towns and cities, except for Nakfa. The EPLF withdrew to a mountain base in northern Eritrea, around the town of Nakfa
Nakfa, Eritrea
Nakfa is a town in northern Eritrea, after which the nakfa currency is named. It served as the base for the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, during the Eritrean War of Independence....
. In 1980 the EPLF had offered a proposal for referendum to end the war, however, Ethiopia, thinking it had a military upper hand, rejected the offer and war continued. In February–June 1982, The EPLF managed to repulse Ethiopia's much heralded four-month "Red Star" campaign (aka the 6th offensive by Eritreans) inflicting more than 31,000 Ethiopian casualties. In 1984 the EPLF started its counter-offensive and cleared the Ethiopian from the North-eastern Sahil front. In March 1988 the EPLF demolished the Ethiopian front at Afabet in a major offensive the British Historian Basil Davidson
Basil Davidson
Basil Risbridger Davidson MC was a British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution....
compared to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu
Dien Bien Phu
Điện Biên Phủ is a city in northwestern Vietnam. It is the capital of Dien Bien province, and is known for the events there during the First Indochina War, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, during which the region was a breadbasket for the Việt Minh.-Population:...
. In February 1990 the EPLF liberated the strategic port of Massawa and in the process destroyed the Ethiopian navy. A year later the war came to conclusion on May 24, 1991 when the Ethiopian army in Eritrea surrendered. Thus Eritrea's 30-year war crowned with victory.
On May 24, 1993, after a UN-supervised referendum on April 23–25, 1993, in which the Eritrean people overwhelmingly, 99.8%, voted for independence, Eritrea officially declared its independence and gained international recognition.
See also
- Scramble for AfricaScramble for AfricaThe Scramble for Africa, also known as the Race for Africa or Partition of Africa was a process of invasion, occupation, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers during the New Imperialism period, between 1881 and World War I in 1914...
- Portuguese EmpirePortuguese EmpireThe Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...
- Portuguese Colonial WarPortuguese Colonial WarThe Portuguese Colonial War , also known in Portugal as the Overseas War or in the former colonies as the War of liberation , was fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974, when the Portuguese regime was...
- Cold WarCold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
- Anti-imperialismAnti-imperialismAnti-imperialism, strictly speaking, is a term that may be applied to a movement opposed to any form of colonialism or imperialism. Anti-imperialism includes opposition to wars of conquest, particularly of non-contiguous territory or people with a different language or culture; it also includes...
- ImperialismImperialismImperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
- Italian Colonial Empire
- ColonialismColonialismColonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
- Civilising mission
- Pan-AfricanismPan-AfricanismPan-Africanism is a movement that seeks to unify African people or people living in Africa, into a "one African community". Differing types of Pan-Africanism seek different levels of economic, racial, social, or political unity...
- Black Consciousness MovementBlack Consciousness MovementThe Black Consciousness Movement was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress leadership after the Sharpeville Massacre in...
- List of national liberation movements recognized by intergovernmental organizations
External links
- Africa: 50 years of independence - Radio France InternationaleRadio France InternationaleRadio France Internationale was created in 1975 as part of Radio France by the Government of France, and replaced the Poste Colonial , Paris Mondial , Radio Paris , RTF Radio Paris and ORTF Radio Paris...