This chapter was worth the wait, Hagre. No need to apologize, hope you recover well!
Sheba's Sons - Haile Selassie goes to Tokyo
- Thread starter Hagre
- Start date
Thank you! I plan on updating soon, with the next chapter focusing on the fate of East and South Africa.
No clue whether both are already a thing in OTL Ethiopia though would Japanizer and West African / Liberian influences have lead to the popularity of Noodles and Peanut stew / Peanut soup respectively in ATL Ethiopia, perhaps even a fusion of both to create a local Berbere seasoned equivalent of Kare-kare with noodles or simply Peanut butter noodles?
Yep, this has definitely happened with TTL's level of intermixing with Japan and Liberia, both before and after the Second World War.
Seems the localized ATL Noodles would largely be Wheat/Millet-based if OTL Agriculture in Ethiopia is any guide, though seems to be possible to make pasta / noodles from Teff and Sorghum flour.
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In Between
In Between
Excerpt from A History of African Radicalism by Paul Gilroy
Excerpt from A History of African Radicalism by Paul Gilroy
Just like West Africa, East Africa too experienced a wave of anti-colonial nationalism in the 1960s that led Tanganyika to become the first East African country to gain independence in December 1961. In rapid succession, the Ugandans, Rwandans, Burundians, and Kenyans followed Tanganyika's example in acquiring their own independence. However, this process was not by any means smooth nor did these states remain peaceful after forming an independent government - Zanzibar was the first example to fall into violence and ethnic cleansing when John Okello ousted Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah and proclaimed a people's republic in January 1964. This was soon the case in which the African revolutionaries massacred those of South Asian and Arab descent, killing some 20,000 and forcing thousands more abroad. In Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta's government ruthlessly repressed an insurgency in the predominantly Somali North Eastern Province that was backed by Mogadishu, utilizing Kenya's General Service Units and Ethiopian assistance to crack down on Somali dissent as the region was forcibly urbanized. That conflict only ended in October 1967 with Zambian and Ethiopian mediation, but it wouldn't compare to the ethnic tensions and clashes in Rwanda and Burundi.
Owing to Belgian colonial policy and Rwanda's ethnic/caste stratification, the country had inherited a legacy of harsh ethnic divide between the Hutu and Tutsi. The rise of Rwanda's educated Hutu elite, with Catholic support, only served to facilitated this divide when the former started to clash with the Tutsi elite who advocated for immediate independence. King Mutara III Rudahigwa attempted to ease the tensions by decreeing the client system of ubuhake [1] abolished, having little effect in reality. Sensing the growth of Hutu influence, the Tutsi elite, and even Rudahigwa, continued to demand immediate independence with the Mwami demanded independence for it from Brussels on Rwandan terms and were incensed when educated Hutus drafted the Bahutu Manifesto in March 1957 before establishing the Hutu Social Movement (Parmehutu). It denounced exploitation by the Tutsis as the oppressive arm of Belgium and begun rapid militarization. In response, Tutsi elites and royalists established the Rwandese National Union (UNAR) in September 1959, doing nothing to help the Hutu-Tutsi divide as UNAR, radically anti-European and anti-Catholic, continued to espouse vigorous Rwandan nationalist rhetoric and earned the ire of the Catholic Church in the process.
Before any more damage could be done, King Kigeli V utilized Belgian support to crack down on the UNAR and secured his control over the royalists [2] to establish it as his party. Adopting a much more moderate position and showing restraint by Kigeli's orders, it rolled back its more radical anti-European and anti-Catholic sentiment to attempt to find an ally in Msgr. André Perraudin. Despite his sudden ascendance in July 1959, Kigeli was turning out to be a favorite of the Tutsi elite, Rwandan royalists, Hutu nationalists, and even the Catholic clergy with considerable optimism in Rwanda. Nevertheless, Jean-Paul Harroy's colonial administration had lost its influence in Rwanda's domestic affairs - something that wasn't lost on Kigeli or his supporters - and this was used as the catalyst for the Rwandan Revolution in November 1959. Grégoire Kayibanda attempted to mobilize the support of a particularly incensed Hutu populace in Gitarama province where his cells exploited anti-Tutsi sentiment against local administration that ended in Hutu militias slaughtering Tutsis in an uprising. Alarmed, Kigeli ordered that a loyalist militia of his, numbering in the high thousands, be mobilized to crack down on the violence and request Belgian assistance to help restore civil order.
Belgian assistance came in the form of the arrival of the Congolese Force Publique, led by Colonel Guy Logiest, which helped to restore order. Although sympathetic to the Hutus' plight, Logiest was disgusted with the wanton violence of the Rwandan Revolution and in particular, Kayibanda's Parmehutu for starting the debacle. Aware of Logiest's close relationship with Harroy, Kigeli managed to gain Logiest's friendship and pointed out to him how much progress had been made to integrate the Hutu into Rwandan government, working behind the scenes to prevent the country coming under Hutu dominance. The Mwami wasn't incorrect either - under Rudahigwa, Hutu education and emancipation was kickstarted not just with the help of the Catholic Church but with his successful land reforms [3] in 1954 that provided Hutus with the chance to own land, albeit at the potential cost of having angered the Tutsi elite. Despite opposition from Tutsi elites, these reforms revitalized the declining popularity of the Rwandan Monarchy and set Rwanda on the path to a better future. Seizing their opportunity, Kigeli and the Council took the chance that Parmehutu's isolation provided and carried out ruthless purges of Hutu extremists, forcing their supporters abroad when Kayibanda fled to the Congo, all while lobbying for independence.
In July 1962, Kigeli, the Council, and UNAR got their wish - Rwanda formally became independent from Belgian rule. Similarly to neighboring Burundi, the Rwandan Monarchy had been preserved as the national institution as Kigeli retained control of executive powers and an elected legislature exerted control over legislative and judicial affairs in Kigali. After the January 1961 elections, UNAR rose to ascendance and saw Francois Rukeba become Prime Minister in much the same way that Burundian King Mwambutsa IV selected Prime Ministers of all backgrounds. Hoping to balance the issue of ethnicity, Kigeli and his UNAR government focused on elevating the Hutu royalists and scholars of UNAR to government positions that they were qualified for. Despite Kigeli's progressivism, the UNAR's success in making sure the Rwandan Monarchy remained in place after independence and their Tutsi elite in power was effectively confirmed, though it didn't mean it wasn't contested by aspiring middle class and elite Hutu officials. The Mwami made use of this squabbling, supplanting conservative Tutsi elites with Hutu of younger and modernist thought in according places to push through his policies. However, the Mwami would be lucky compared to his Ugandan counterpart, the Bugandan Kabaka (King).
In Uganda, Bugandan King Mutesa II found himself at odds with Milton Obote's Ugandan People's Congress that became the basis of an independent Ugandan government in 1962. Despite the UPC's alliance with the royalist Kabaka Yekka (KY), Obote sought to erode the autonomy that Buganda possessed and establish a unitary republic while he held all power. In fact, he did just that in March 1966. Suspending the constitution, Obote declared a state of emergency and concentrated executive powers in his hand, allowing him to detain several opposition members without charge. Mutesa was forced to flee to Burundi after Obote's attack on his palace, watching as the kingdoms of Uganda - particularly his own - were abolished and Uganda was proclaimed a republic in September 1967. The exiled Kabaka was further disgusted by Obote when he announced Uganda's commitment to African Socialism with the promulgation of 'The Common Man's Charter' in 1969/70, inspired by Julius Nyerere's Ujamaa model and Arusha Declaration. However, Obote's repressive rule did little to endear him to the Ugandan people and it was not at all surprising that so many Ugandans welcomed not just the coup in January 1971 but Idi Amin's ascendance as well.
Although initially popular, Uganda's new ruler would prove to be even more repressive and authoritarian than his predecessor. Just like Obote's government, Amin's stratocratic administration was characterized by infighting, having spread from the Uganda Army who had its own world of infighting that pitted various personalities against the other. It didn't help that Amin had a tendency of recruiting either from ethnic and religious minorities. The dominance of northerners in the Ugandan military only served to reinforce existing divides, especially those between Lugbara and Kakwa on one side and Acholi and Langi on the other. The Uganda Army's ranks swelled and a total of 25,000 soldiers were in active service by 1978, resembling Obote's own policies of relying on reinforcing the relatively small Ugandan military. The growth of the Uganda Army didn't particularly help the economy and only intensified the economic backlash that was the result of Kampala's decision to expel Uganda's 80,000 or so South Asians while redistributing their wealth, property, and businesses in what Amin called an economic war. It quickly reached a tipping point when a failed attack by Ugandan exiles based in Tanzania enraged Amin, leading him to endorse Ugandan attacks on Kagera and the annexation of the region in October 1978.
The conflict soon escalated into outright war with the failed Ugandan invasion being met with a vigorous Tanzanian counterattack that drove Ugandan forces out by early January. This was followed up by Tanzanian attacks of a rising tempo all across the Ugandan border and Tanzania's seizure of the high ground at Mutukula in January 1979 with minimal losses. In addition to the increasing pressure, Dar es Salaam mobilized the Ugandan exiles and exploited popular dissent against Idi Amin's regime, providing financial and material aid to various Ugandan exile movements. Kikosi Maalum became the foremost exile movement receiving support from Dar es Salaam as the Tanzanian government made the decision to launch an invasion of Uganda in mid-February. The Tanzanian advance was steady and swept aside Ugandan resistance while the Ugandan state and military tore itself apart, owing to the heavy corruption and nepotism present in Idi Amin's Uganda as the country threatened to collapse into civil war. It was with this that the Bugandan King seized the opportunity to exploit the chaos by sneaking back into southeastern Uganda to foster a revolt against Amin's authority with the restored Kabaka Yekka at the helm, hoping to restore not just his Kingdom but potentially establish an independent state.
The KY joined the ranks of the Ugandan National Liberation Front and Front for National Salvation in the Tanzanian invasion, supporting Tanzania by delivering guerrilla support. Although Nyerere was uneasy about giving his technically ideologically opposed auxiliary the same support as the UNLF and FRONASA, their successes against Amin's forces forced him to look past ideology. Thus, Mutesa's KY received quite a bit of support from Tanzania and continued campaigning in Buganda until Tanzanian troops seized Kampala in April and de-facto ended the war. Remembering how Obote's government had cracked down on Bugandan autonomy and attempted to kill him with that attack on his palace, Mutesa was having none of this national unity business and harbored an intention to establish an independent Bugandan Kingdom with himself at the helm. An insurgency in the West Nile which was led by the remnants of Amin's loyalists provided the catalyst for the outbreak of the Ugandan Bush War in October 1980, something which Obote's government struggled with. Even as he begged the Tanzanians for aid of any type, Obote's requests were denied. Nyerere had little interest in spending more money on Uganda and pulled out Tanzanian forces entirely by June - Obote was on his own.
Uganda found herself mired in civil war as rebellion after rebellion continued to pop up across the country, especially in the West Nile and Buganda regions. It was only made worse by the fact that the violence in the former in 1981 spilled over into Juwama whose state-sponsored "Nilotic nationalism" and irredentist program were known all too well by Kampala. The state of Uganda's domestic, economic, and military situation by 1980-81 was well known to many inside and outside of Obote's government which knew that Uganda was in no state to pursue war with Juwama after the Tanzanians utterly smashed Idi Amin with only 400 casualties. Not to mention that they were facing the Juwaman military, a very well-trained and well-equipped force whose top officers were trained by Addis Ababa and Moscow. The Egyptian menace to the north ensured that Juba maintained a rather small but robust military machine that could operate against a larger neighbor - it would be a cakewalk for the Juwamans to march straight to Kampala - the Nilotes would certainly welcome them. Thus, Obote enlisted aid from nations like North Korea, North China and even Egypt to assist in the creation of an efficient force to suppress the rebellions as Juwama showed an active interest in the West Nile.
By December 1981, the KY had successfully occupied huge swathes of Buganda and southern Uganda while Obote's men were bogged down in the West Nile. The Ugandan Army's attempts at counterinsurgency had failed in Buganda and did little else then isolate the local population, turning it in favor of the KY's struggle which was bolstered by an influx of new recruits. They were joined by many in the UPC completely disillusioned with Obote in every regard, entering the ranks of the numerous rebel movements of the Ugandan Bush War which only intensified with the death of David Oyite-Ojok in December 1983 and Juwama's intervention. The West Nile region, in tandem with the other predominantly Nilotic insurgencies of northern Uganda, proclaimed the establishment of a West Nile Republic and made a request to join Juwama in a "Greater Nilotic State." Juba was happy to comply, dispatching 5,000 soldiers to intervene in northern Uganda and this gave Mutesa's men the opportunity to unleash the long planned, long awaited Mengo Offensive with the intention of completely wiping out Ugandan forces in southern Uganda as Obote, desperate to foster national unity, declared war on Juwama. With this, any semblance of stability and order that hadn't died with Oyite-Ojok collapsed by June 1984.
As the most well-equipped veteran force of the Ugandan Bush War, it's no surprise that the Mengo Offensive succeeded wildly beyond even Mutesa's dreams and ended with the fall of Kampala by July. Obote fled to Tanzania where, just like Amin, he moved on to Zambia and never returned to Uganda for the rest of his life. Wise enough not to press the issue, Mutesa's movement agreed to recognize Juwama's annexation of the Nilotic north and its new border with Uganda in the 1985 Kampala Accords. Mediated by an annoyed Tanzania and a bemused Ethiopia, the Kampala Accords established a tentative peace between several rebel groups and established a National Unity Government under Mutesa's leadership. After the deaths of approximately 650,000 people and the ceasing of fighting by the National Resistance Army in March 1985, the Kingdom of Uganda was set on the path to the road to recovery with generous economic aid from the East African Community even as it remained under the moderately autocratic rule of the rechristened Ugandan National Alliance. Since then, Uganda has improved after the conclusion of the war and with the ascension of King Muwenda Mutebi II in November 1993, making remarkable strides with methods taken from Singapore as an "African Lion." [4]
Despite being one of East Africa's most deadly conflicts since World War II, the Ugandan Bush War pales in comparison to the violence that gripped Southern Africa after the death of Nelson Mandela in 1963.
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[1] Ubuhake was a clientele system of indentured servitude in Rwanda and Burundi, based primarily on the distribution of cattle and land by Rwandan nobles to Hutu peasants.
[2] ITTL, the Mwami avoids the worst of UNAR's issues IOTL by forcing it to adopt a moderate stance. See Rwanda Before the Genocide: Catholic Politics and Ethnic Discourse in the Late Colonial Era by James Jay Carrey for more.
[3] Although Rudahigwa's decree officially rid Rwanda of the feudalistic Ubuhake system, it failed to take into account the provisions needed for cattle owners and the Mwami's attempts at rectifying the shortcomings of this decree were shot down by the Superior Council and served to make Hutus very aware of their dependency on Tutsi elites. See The Churches and Ethnic Ideology in the Rwandan Crises, 1900-1994 by Tharcisse Gatwa for more.
[4] Think Paul Kagame's Rwanda from 1994 onwards. Of course, Uganda struggles with Bugandan hegemony and authoritarianism but that's no one's business, according to
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He died in Chapter 19. Next chapter'll focus on South Africa and southern Africa in general following his death.
God Bless Africa
God Bless Africa
Excerpt from A History of African Radicalism by Paul Gilroy
Excerpt from A History of African Radicalism by Paul Gilroy
Nelson Mandela's execution in the infamous Rivonia Trial of April 1963 led to outcry from the anti-apartheid movements in South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa at large. The African National Congress suddenly found itself in need of new leadership and Deputy President Oliver Tambo filled the void, proving remarkably successful in keeping the ANC together during his exile in London. The death of Chief Albert Lutuli saw Tambo become the acting President of the ANC in July 1963 and his policies attracted a number of prominent South African exiles to his cause, most notably Thabo Mbeki. However, the death of ANC leaders like Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu at a decisive time in the ANC's history marked a turning point as the ANC started to gradually turn from peaceful protest to armed resistance, signified with the creation of the uMkhonto we Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation in 1961. It was the armed wing of the ANC, established with the aim of fighting back against Pretoria's state-sanctioned campaigns of terror and violence in the aftermath of the Sharpeville Massacre. In response, Pretoria cracked down harshly on anti-Apartheid organizations and under Hendrik Verwoerd's leadership, the South African government continued to enforce the policies of separation inherent in Apartheid.
Hendrik Verwoerd, father of Apartheid, focused on cobbling together a coherent ideology from a loose set of beliefs which had defined Apartheid, lending it legitimacy. This included the belief that there could be some kind of economic interdependence between the various races of South Africa who could maintain a relationship similar to that of the British Commonwealth - of course, this would only succeed under Afrikaner hegemony. Verwoerd and his template of "Grand Apartheid" led to the passing of the Bantu Authorities Act in 1951 and later, Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act. Despite South Africa's isolated international position, Pretoria continued to institute Verwoerd's policies as the National Party emerged victorious from the March 1966 general elections and helped entrench Apartheid. Verwoerd's tenure saw successful South African inroads into self-sufficiency in making an arms industry of its own and developing weapons of mass destruction, most notably biological and nuclear, as he continued embarking on his program of Grand Apartheid. However, Grand Apartheid might've almost found its end in September 1966 when Greek-Mozambican Dimitri Tsafendas tried to assassinate Verwoerd in the House of Assembly by knife, only to fail and be imprisoned.
Even with this second attempt on his life, a shaking Verwoerd went on to make a speech in the House and called for support for the establishment of the Homelands. Despite opposition from the economic establishment, their resistance eventually melted away in the face of Verwoerd's refusal to budge as Transkei was to be propelled to the forefront of his Grand Apartheid program. An experiment of the Homeland proposal even before 1959, they provided Pretoria with some legitimacy as Transkei was conceded the Ciskei region and restructured to become more territorially continuous. Under Chief Kaiser Daliwonga Mathanzima's leadership, the Republic of Transkei was proclaimed independent in December 1968 and loudly paraded around by Pretoria as a token of its progressive Homeland program. Mathanzima himself praised Pretoria's Homeland program, arguing in Independence My Way that the only way the Black African could truly achieve independence was through the establishment of a confederation of Homelands on the British Commonwealth pattern. Mathanzima also saw Transkei as leading the theoretical confederation as the first independent Homeland, denouncing the ANC's radicalism and intentions to establish a Communist South Africa.
The Prime Minister went even further on the path of separate development by pushing through the Bantu Homelands Citizenship and Bantu Homelands Constitution Acts in 1969-1970. The two pieces of legislation were for formally declaring Black South Africans citizens of their Homelands and laying down the foundations for the constitutional development of their Homelands, respectively. In reality, these acts were passed for the implicit uses of ensuring that South Africa's Black populace was deprived of what few rights they had when Pretoria made them citizens of their Homelands. While granting the Homelands self-government and the chance to develop their own institutions, it was in many ways a systematic effort to ensure that Afrikaners remained dominant in what was considered "White South Africa" and directly led to the relocations of the 1970s. Verwoerd didn't hesitate to use the South African Defense Force and other armed formations to enforce the Homelands system by relocating Blacks to their respective Homelands, giving Pretoria the justification to distance itself from SA's Black citizen as it announced its intention to take a hands-off policy toward Homeland development, barring economic aid. However, that same assistance wasn't immediately forthcoming with Portugal's withdrawal from Africa.
With the Carnation Revolution seizing Salazar's Portugal in 1974, Lisbon made the decision to unilaterally withdraw from its colonial empire and bring the troops home. South Africa, having relied on Portugal's colonies for an alternative mean of softening international economic sanctions, was now faced with the reality of hostile states on all of South Africa's borders. It didn't help the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was an effective Marxist-Leninist organization receiving support from Moscow and Beijing, as well as from African Socialist states, had taken control of Luanda and Angola's oil fields by November 1975. This was followed up by their establishment of the People's Republic of Angola and an opposing People's Democratic Republic of Angola by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), becoming the basis for the ACW. Portuguese withdrawal and Luanda's Socialist orientation alarmed Verwoerd's successor, Balthazar Johannes Vorster, who furnished covert support to UNITA and FNLA while stepping up his government's efforts against the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) operating in rural Ovamboland and Zambia with the launch of Operation Savannah.
Operation Savannah was the culmination of the SADF's success in Angola where it deployed 3,000 men to Angola alongside arms desperately needed by FNLA and UNITA. Supported by UNITA units, SADF troops wiped out a contingent of MPLA/FAPLA troops at Catengue, rapidly advancing through southern Angola over the course of November and December. In the north, South African and Rhodesian aerial support bombarded FAPLA forces at Quifangondo who retreated to the rear and were immediately pursued by Holden Roberto's men exploiting this opportunity. The seizure of Quifangondo allowed the FNLA to besiege Luanda with SADF artillery crews raining down hell on the FAPLA stronghold and in tandem with the UNITA-backed SADF advance from southern-central Angola, plan for the eventual taking of Luanda. Aware of the threat that the RPA and SWAPO presented to this sole Rhodesian ally and country that would recognize Rhodesia, Ian Smith continued providing support to the SADF with his Canberra B2 bombers and bases. Pretoria stepped up its commitments to the Angolan effort by the deployment of some 5,000 men to Angola as Jonas Savimbi's men moved up from central Angola with the intention of meeting up with Roberto and participating in the siege of Luanda by January.
An MPLA T-34-85 on the streets of Luanda, January 1975.
Luanda fell in the face of combined UNITA, FNLA, and SADF pressure in early February 1976 as Roberto proclaimed the inauguration of the Angolan Republic in Luanda. With FNLA-UNITA success in Angola, Vorster shifted a victorious NP's attention to Namibia, Rhodesia, and Mozambique to deal with other remaining threats to South Africa. In Namibia, or South-West Africa, Verwoerd dispatched Fox Odendaal who led his namesake commission to Windhoek to partition the country into several Homelands - East Caprivi, Hereroland, Ovamboland, and Kavangoland - in late 1964. Similarly to the Homelands of South Africa proper, South-West Africa's Homelands were to be prepared for independence to avoid having their Black population be integrated into the Republic of South Africa. As was done with Transkei, SWA's northern Homelands were merged into a territorially continuous land and provided the basis for the Republic of Namibia to become independent in April 1976. The rest of South-West Africa remained apart of the RSA with a significant White and Colored constituency being valuable to the NP's now expanded voter base with Vorster's reforms regarding the status of Coloreds, and other non-Black ethnicities like Indians or Chinese, over the course of the late 1970s.
A pleased Jonas Savimbi on the outskirts of Luanda, February 1976.
Next door, Ian Smith's Rhodesia was dealing with the same isolation that South Africa was suffering from, though perhaps in more dire straits. Portuguese withdrawal from Mozambique meant that Rhodesia was now isolated on all sides by the hostile Frontline States and despite Rhodesia's support for the SADF in Angola, Vorster pushed for a settlement. The 1976 Soweto uprising resulted in the massacre of students peacefully protesting against the 1974 Afrikaans Medium Decree - dictating studies must be taught partially in Afrikaans - and allowed the ANC to become a leading voice in the anti-Apartheid movement. That was followed up by an influx of Blacks into a pissed and already radicalized ANC as Tambo approved the use of violent resistance by the MK. Salisbury was also dealing with its own violence in the escalating Bush War with the Zimbabwe African National Union pursuing a more aggressive strategy symbolized by their attacks on civilian centers. Hoping to secure another friendly state on the South African pattern, Rhodesia turned to Mozambique, embroiled in a massive civil war, and aided an anti-FRELIMO organization known as the Mozambique National Resistance (MNR) in order to secure its access to the sea.
Rhodesian soldiers in Mozambique, March 1975-76.
Rhodesia's Mozambican venture led it to intervene multiple times from 1975 onward to not just support MNR and destabilize the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) government but to launch operations and attacks against ZANU bases permitted on Mozambican territory. One of these raids saw Rhodesian soldiers rescue ex-FRELIMO official André Matsangaissa from a re-education camp whereupon Salisbury decided to use the official as a puppet in the MNR leadership, alongside Afonso Dhlakama, and renamed the MNR to RENAMO. Although its first attack on Vila Paiva was unsuccessful with Matsangaissa nearly dying in the process as RENAMO, ill-disciplined and organized, was expelled from Gorongosa region, it managed to live to see another day. With South African assistance, RENAMO developed itself into an effective fighting force and just like the Portuguese, it forced the FRELIMO government to deal with the same tactics it once utilized. Pretoria, despite Vorster's misgivings, continued to furnish aid to the Rhodesians and RENAMO in their effort against FRELIMO even though the conflict quickly bogged down into a stalemate. However, Ian Smith's regime wouldn't expect to see the Mozambican Civil War expand with more and more countries getting involved.
Pissed at the broken nose South Africa had given them in Angola, Havana and Moscow approved extensive support to FRELIMO when it requested aid. It was in August 1976 that FRELIMO was the recipient of the most aid of the Soviet Union in Africa when an airlift of arms worth US $1 billion arrived in Mozambican ports from its existing bases in Africa. Military missions from North Korea, Cuba, East Germany, Tanzania, and the USSR arrived and immediately set to work training and reorganizing FRELIMO forces while the government inaugurated a program of mass mobilization in order to supplement its existing armies. In addition to this, various other African states were getting involved in Mozambique - most notably, the Congo, Liberia, and Equatoria. Under the diarchy of Patrice Lumumba and Laurent Kabila, Kinshasa was particularly interested in correcting the Congo's failure to give the MPLA government sufficient aid and as a left-leaning state sympathetic to FRELIMO's struggle against the Salisbury-backed RENAMO. In Monrovia, Samuel Doe's government was a fierce advocate for the South Africans suffering under Apartheid and even as he gave covert support to the MK, Doe was upping significant aid to the Mozambican government. Equatoria, having suffered from Arab imperialism, was also sympathetic.
New recruits in FRELIMO's mass mobilization program, August 1976.
In the face of this overwhelming foreign support for FRELIMO and the ever-expanding Bush War, Ian Smith was finally forced to concede defeat. Rhodesian forces formally withdrew unilaterally from Mozambique in 1978 for good as the Rhodesian Front government, desperate to preserve White hegemony, agreed to sign the 1979 Internal Settlement. This was in part due to Pieter Willem Botha's government pressuring Ian Smith into recognizing that the Rhodesians couldn't simply prolong the inevitability of majority rule, owing to Pretoria beginning to deemphasize support for Rhodesia as it was dealing with ANC resistance and economic aid to the Homelands. Their situation was just untenable and despite the opposition of the National Party's vocal right-wing, Rhodesia was being sacrificed to salvage the gradual decline of Apartheid. The Internal Settlement was followed by establishing Zimbabwe-Rhodesia in June 1979 under Bishop Abel Muzorewa's United African National Council as Muzorewa became Prime Minister and Josiah Gumede President. Much to Ian Smith's disappointment and anger, this was simply not enough for the international community who desired a settlement to include the ZANU-PF and that was concluded with the Lancaster House Agreement which returned Z-R to temporary British rule.
The sacrifice of Rhodesia and subsequent establishment of the hostile Republic of Zimbabwe seemed to number the days of Apartheid, especially with the MK's mounting attacks. Thus, Botha adopted a much more pragmatic and reformist stance compared to his predecessors, though he continued Verwoerd's Grand Apartheid project by supporting the independent Homelands. Bophuthatswana, Lebowa, Gazankulu, Venda, and KwaZulu received independence by 1976 with veritable governments in place that were at least somewhat genuinely concerned with their respective peoples. It helped Pretoria that they were also opposed to the ANC which made no effort to differentiate between South Africa proper (Cape, Orange Free State, Transvaal, Natal, and South-West Africa) and the Homelands when permitting the MK to launch its attacks against local garrisons. Unfortunately for those ANC leaders okaying the raids and attacks, they did little but turn the local population against the ANC and toward the Homeland governments for assistance. With South African support, the Homelands developed their own militaries which were surprisingly well-trained and well-equipped, certainly enough so to crush the MK when it decided to confront them conventionally. Interestingly, Botha's reforms focused on Coloreds and Asians.
Having implemented Verwoerd's proposed Homeland system, Botha turned to the question of South Africa's considerable Colored and Asian population. In 1983, he proposed a new Constitution that proved instrumental for the aforementioned groups and Apartheid's seeming death knell over the course of the 1980s. It put forward a theoretical Tricameral Parliament with representative bodies for delegates from Whites, Coloreds, and Asians as the office of the State President was merged with that of the Prime Minister and given sweeping executive powers in the process. The Constitution was successfully passed in South Africa's last White-only referendum and an election in September 1984 resulted in Botha becoming State President but these developments did have consequences. It led the NP's vocal right-wing members to finally break away to form the Conservative Party with the somewhat popular Andries Treurnicht rallying anti-reform Whites to his cause. However, the National Party gained a relatively larger voting pool amongst Afrikaans-speaking Coloreds but the NP lacked any significant bases, Indian or Chinese, amongst Asian South Africans. The United Progressive Party was formed with the hope of being the voice for eligible and isolated-feeling non-Afrikaners, usurping the Progressive Federal Party.
South African success in the Homeland system did have its occasional pothole on the road, particularly with the forced relocations and over territorial concessions. In particular, the Zulus felt that the land they'd been given in the 1969 Homeland Territorial Act was insufficient and did not correlate to the historical frontiers of the Zulu Empire with the exclusion of Natal and Durban. Despite Zulu pressure and opposition, Pretoria remained staunch and refused to concede Natal, populated by English-speaking White South Africans and Indians, to KwaZulu. Though there was some support for conceding Durban to KwaZulu among PFP MPs, there was their overwhelming refusal as tensions remained bitter between the two sides before Botha managed to negotiate Zulu leaders down to receiving West Zululand as compensation. Pretoria's unwavering stance made it popular with the Indians of Natal, as well as English-speaking Whites, where the fruits of Botha's labor begun to yield results and the territorial concessions whipped up Zulu nationalism with Mongosuthu Buthelezi at its head. Similarly elsewhere, these territorial concessions and reforms committed Homeland leaders to the development of their nations and even facilitated talks for the formation of a confederation between the Homelands.
Despite Botha's concessions and reforms, the State President refused to yield on the issue of granting majority rule and maintained that Verwoerd's Grand Apartheid program was a success. He pointed to the development of the various Homelands without South African interference and the enfranchisement of the Coloreds and Asians that all was fine in the Republic of South Africa. The bloated state security apparatus was expanded further and harsher punishments were meted out to those suspected of sympathizing with or aiding the ANC as Botha warned neighboring states against supporting Oliver Tambo and his allegedly terrorist organization. Even with Botha threatening and bombarding the capitals of several of South Africa's neighbors, the rechristened African Union turned its attention from the Arab imperialist to the north to the White state to the south. Just like Ian Smith, his government was increasingly isolated as a result of its determination to avoid meaningful reform and entrench Apartheid ever further. It was only in the USA that Pretoria had any sliver of support with Ronald Reagan coming to power in November 1984 and calling for "constructive engagement" with Pretoria, pressuring them to reform while protecting them from the UN's wrath. It would be this refusal to reform that sparked war.
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That actually sounds quite interesting and I'm a bit jealous I didn't think more about this. Got any other good ideas for food and whatnot?
Ethiopia is admittingly outside of my area of knowledge though here are some possible ideas.
- Malta soft drink (aka non/low-alcoholic malt beer) grows in popularity compared to OTL where Ethiopia's only contribution appears to be Negus Malt (that may or may not be Coffee flavored), with other varieties appearing that are flavoured with Ginger, Dates and Anise (or similar local equivalent).
- Not sure how similar Ethiopia's Areki / Katikala is to Arak or the Sudanese Araqi (e.g. Date-Arak?) alcoholic drinks, though perhaps finding a way to make it more well known outside of the region possibly as part of a cocktail or few* that includes Khat (or even Khat Juice). (Actually quite like the idea of Date-Arak though not sure whether Ethiopia produces Dates)
- It appears Ethiopia is a notable grower of Ginger which leads to the idea of them developing local versions of Ginger Wine and Ginger Beer in both alcoholic as well as non/low-alcoholic forms, along with spawning Ginger Liqueurs (plus Domaine de Canton and The King's Ginger) and if possible perhaps even Ginger-Arak.
*- Other cocktail ideas to add minced frozen Khat to would be Gin and Ginger Beer (the latter with or without Khat becoming a local version of Gin and Tonic) being an ATL equivalent of Boodles Gin with Fever Tree Ginger Beer, or perhaps some Ethiopian version of a Pina Colada (or non-alcoholic Virgin Colada) featuring Pineapple, Coconut and Ginger Wine (or Ginger Juice).
This is great even if you lack general knowledge! Mind if I use it for a future TL?
Land of the Fur
Land of the Fur
Excerpt from A Coiled Snake: A History of Juwama by Ian Campbell
Excerpt from A Coiled Snake: A History of Juwama by Ian Campbell
Juwama was marching into the 1950s and the Anyanya government was mostly concerned with matters of infrastructure and unification. After its election in August 1948, they had inherited the least developed parts of their former colonizers' empire and were tasked with not only putting necessary infrastructure in place but establishing a nation-state from some sixty ethnic groups. In addition to the lack of infrastructure and sheer diversity that the country possessed, Juba possessed a less than friendly neighbor to the north - the Kingdom of Egypt. Despite the 1947 Juba Conference clearly cleaving Juwama from Sudan altogether and demarcating the frontier of the two nations, the Egyptians didn't quite respect its results and regularly raided across the border. On top of the Egyptian menace, Juwama also had to deal with a hostile Uganda under Milton Obote, owing to the mostly Nilotic composition of Juwama and the rather friendly stance that the sister Nilotes of Uganda's northern provinces took toward her - it didn't help that violence spilled over into Juwama and led to border clashes. With this work cut for him, Jaden immediately set to work attempting to establish a coherent nation with the necessary requirements to survive in the 20th Century.
First and foremost for the Prime Minister, there was the need to secure Juwama's borders. The result of this was the formation of the Juwama National Armed Forces in June 1949, with Gordon Muortat Mayen Maborjok at a position to command the Juwama National Army's 15,000 conscripts. Tasked with transforming the JNA's rabble into a professional fighting force, the British-trained Second World War veteran [1] threw himself into building a genuine army from a backwater militia, recruiting the former Sudan Defense Force officers that had aligned themselves with Juwama after the 1947 partition. A small number of them had served in World War II like himself, or better yet, received professional training in what few academies the Anglo-Egyptian Sudanese state could offer. They rapidly set to work establishing a proper army on the British pattern, inviting in military missions from a particularly friendly Ethiopia who, wary of Cairo's encroachments, sent its own advisors to help the JNA and these Ethiopian links were especially helpful. It gave Juba the chance to develop ties with the USSR over acquiring a reliable source of arms and advisors, something that dear Comrade Stalin was too happy to oblige the embryonic JNA with. These Soviet ties would prove much more fruitful in the future.
Juwama National Army recruits undergoing training, July 1949.
With the JNA's rapid change underway, Jaden could now turn toward finding out how to establish a uniform identity and nation-state. The Juwaman leadership looked abroad for examples, selecting Ethiopia as a country who housed dozens of different ethnicities - even more than Juwama at eighty-one nationalities - and examining her. It was through war that the modern Ethiopian identity had been forged, notably the Italo-Ethiopian Wars which saw strong yet able Emperors lead all Ethiopians, regardless of religion and ethnicity, to victory against the Italians time and time again. The Amharic language and Orthodox Christian language were also historically utilized in campaigns of centralization and unification by the most notable Ethiopian Emperors, as was being done by Araya. Other examples, like that of the USSR and Equatoria, were also floated but ultimately, Jaden sought to mimic a similar multi-ethnic and multi-religious country in much the same straits. However, the Prime Minister placed an interesting spin on things - he promoted the state ideology of "Nilotic nationalism," a nationalist program of the Anyanya government that placed an emphasis on a Protestant "Nilotic" identity to unify the Nilotic nationalities of Eastern Africa from Juba. Ironically, it closely resembled Greater Somalia.
Combined with public works programs inspired by FDR's New Deal, Juwama was set on the path to progress while the 1952 elections came around. The Anyanya Party won another victory in August 1952 and Jaden served it well in the run-up to elections, securing yet another term to institute the core tenets of his Nilotic nationalist program. Knowing that there were already tensions over Dinka and Azande becoming national languages, he made an effort to ensure the numerous other ethnic groups proper representation in Juwaman government. In addition to the existing upper Senate and lower Chamber of Delegates, there was to be another parliamentary body by the name of the House of Nationalities [2] which would see to it that all ethnic groups in the country receive proper representation and receive state recognition of Juwama's sheer diversity. It complemented Jaden's plans for the coexistence and potential merging of the countless traditional leaders and governance systems under Juba's control, especially their transformation into a cadre of loyal supporters. Modeled off of Félix Éboué's Equatoria, these traditional leaders would convene alongside the Chamber and Senate wherever necessary to advise and discuss issues regarding certain groups whose voices weren't heard.
This proposal was successfully passed through, securing the representation of Juwama's numerous nationalities in Juba. It bolstered his support amongst Juwamans as the nation-building process went on and Jaden looked in curiosity to what was happening beyond Juwama's frontiers, interested in the affairs of Pan-Africanism and whatnot. The Anyanya Party claimed to follow a Pan-Africanist model, though it (and the rest of Africa) were split on what exactly constituted an African nation and what flavor it should be, much less how it should be instituted. For this, Jaden's administration adopted a radical outlook, denouncing Arab imperialism from nations like Egypt as the latter claimed to be anti-imperialists when in reality, they simply wanted to replace the Europeans! Addis Ababa, Nairobi, and other East African states were quick to support the Juwamans in their anti-Arab rhetoric as its stance sparked incensed feelings from Arab-African nationalists - something that only intensified after decolonization and the onset of tensions between North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Cairo, attempting to occupy a foremost position among anti-colonialists in Arabia and Africa alike, did itself no favors when Juba fiercely denounced their brand of settler colonialism in Sudan during decolonization.
Excerpt from The Cry of A Nation: Sudan, 1947-1981 by Martin Daly
The 1947 Juba Conference divided the former Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and gave the Christian/Animist Nilotic south independence. Its Muslim Arab counterpart to the north was conceded to the Kingdom of Egypt and annexed in the aftermath of the conference as King Farouk II proclaimed the unification of the Nile Valley. Isma'il Pasha's dreams were one step closer to being completed and Cairo looked to the nation on its southernmost frontiers in anticipation, expecting that they would rapidly fall to Egyptian influence - some Egyptian officials even wanted to reclaim the freshly independent Juwama! After all, the retention of Sudan and expansion down the Nile was an Egyptian dream going back centuries but also made for a convenient topic for less than popular kings like Farouk who needed to distract his people. It managed to distract them for a time from his notoriously lavish lifestyle as nationalist euphoria framed this as an Egyptian victory over their former British overlords but soon enough, it came up again. Worse yet was the fact that Farouk's new Sudanese subjects were joining their Egyptian comrades in opposing the King and his failure to decisively crush the Israelis, culminating in the 1952 Revolution and catapulting Gamal Abdel Nasser to power.
Under Nasser, Sudan was not given independence as some Sudanese nationalists hoped but it was given a much better deal than Farouk's. The Sudanese landowning class was, just like its Egyptian counterparts, dismantled as one of the pillars of Farouk's reactionary establishment and Nasser presided over the redistribution of these lands to the masses. His other reforms facilitated greater Sudanese representation in Egyptian government and his efforts to better the Sudanese population did make him very popular with Egypt's considerable Sudanese minority. On the other hand, Nasser was responsible for repressing Sudanese nationalism in his crackdowns on parties and political organization, as well as an extensive resettlement of Egyptians from the overpopulated Nile river and throughout Sudan. Many have pointed out this was one of Young Egypt's policies with its claims to Sudan as it was rightful Egyptian living space in the same way Hitler proclaimed vast swathes of East Europe were needed for German survival. It became a point of contention between the Sudanese population and Egyptian settlers and over the course of the 1950s, led to escalating and often bloody clashes that forced Cairo to maintain a sizable garrison in its Sudanese territories - especially when Darfur became a problem.
Ever since its annexation by Egypt in 1875, Darfur had been a restive territory with a history of nation-building and a fierce people opposed to foreign occupation. It was no happier under Muhammad Ahmad's Mahdist Sudan, nor was it happy with the Anglo-Egyptian co-dominion when it was integrated in 1916. Under Britain, Darfur was still neglected with the lion's share of the colonial administration's investments being centered in Khartoum as well as the Blue Nile Province and left it nothing more than a backwater. Its annexation into Farouk's Egypt didn't have many prospects for success while the King continued spending absurd amounts of taxpayer dollars on his supporters and himself, ironically making Darfur a major center of pro-Husayn activity when unrest peaked in the early '50s. Soon enough, the Egyptian Army ousted Farouk, effectively reduced the Monarchy to a figurehead, and restored Ahmad Husayn to the post of Prime Minister. He was popular in Darfur with government investment in Darfur's affairs and there was widespread mourning when he was assassinated in 1954. Nasser made there an initially popular replacement when he continued Husayn's reforms and made inroads in Darfur that previous Egyptian governments had failed to.
However, the subsequent repression of Darfuri political organization and Egyptian resettlement program ensured that Nasser's popularity faded. Led by Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, the National Umma Party came to the fore in Sudanese opposition to Nasser but was forced to go underground when Cairo launched a series of purges against Sudanese parties. With a significant following in Darfur, it fled into rural Darfur to consolidate its support base and emerged as the leading party in the region as young Darfuris angered at the Egyptian occupation joined in droves. It wasn't long before the NUP was spreading its roots to include other disgruntled Sudanese, building up a support base while Abd al-Rahman maintained his considerable influence in the Sudanese economy to furnish financial support for his movement. Meanwhile, Sudanese nationalists of all stripes begun to flock to the NUP as it became the sole political party other than Sudan's branch of the Nasserist National Union, cementing its position in Sudanese politics. Despite the NUP's pan-Sudanese orientation, it remained rooted primarily in Darfur as an organization who'd become the vanguard of the Darfuri national struggle and paved the way for the bloody fighting of the '60s.
Israel's sudden offensive across the Sinai in October 1956 made things ripe for the NUP as Sudanese men were called upon by Cairo to fight against the Anglo-French-Israeli incursion. Few wanted to fight the Israelis with the unimpressive performance that Egyptian forces were displaying on the Sinai front but Cairo thought it necessary to force the issue by instituting a draft. There was outrage on the part of Sudanese everywhere over the draft's implementation and the National Umma Party jumped on the chance to demonize the Egyptians by mobilizing Sudanese resistance in response. The incensed reaction was especially strong in Darfur where anti-Egypt feelings were already palpable and eventually boiled over when there were rumors of Nasser's latest failures meaning more Sudanese men would be mobilized, provoking a NUP-organized strike. It was cracked down on harshly and a particularly pissed al-Mahdi, hearing of the deaths of dozens of NUP members, ordered the long-planned attack on Egyptian forces in Darfur to begin with a mutiny of the local garrison. The local Darfuri garrison defected the Egyptian side after slaughtering their Egyptian officers and supplying the NUP's crack troops with much needed arms as the impetus for one of Sub-Saharan Africa's bloodiest conflicts broke out in late 1956.
NUP crack troops defend against Egyptian attack, November 1956.
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[2] Based off a real proposal to establish a non-partisan legislative body to represent all ethnicities in South Sudan. You can find it here.
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Great update! I hope Nasser doesn’t form something akin to the Janjaweed to combat the NUP.
Remember, OTL’s Janjaweed formed from the remnants of Gaddafi’s Islamic Legionnaires, a pre-existing Arab nationalist group, and Gaddafi’s forces in Chad following the Libyan defeat in Chad in the ‘80s. Now consider the scale of Equatorian-Libyan conflict ITTL and how that might spill over into the existing conflict in Egyptian Sudan and Darfur in particular.
Considering how TTL's Darfur is progressing, I recommend keeping a close eye on it and TTL's South Africa.
Defiant Passion
Defiant Passion
Excerpt from Africa's Shining Star: A History of Garveyist Liberia by Mark Christian Thompson
Excerpt from Africa's Shining Star: A History of Garveyist Liberia by Mark Christian Thompson
Liberia during the Cooks presidency was witness to a renewed flurry of activity dedicated to Liberia's involvement abroad. The Biafran venture had been a surprising success, with Liberian tanks and planes participating in the Biafran War of Independence as Biafran troops seized Lagos and forced the Nigerian government to peace. Emboldened by Liberian success in Biafra, Cooks endorsed the establishment of the Mali Federation and lent aid to a united West Africa, the dream of Black nationalists like Alexander Crummell and Edward Blyden as some in Monrovia hoped there would eventually be a united West Africa. It was reminiscent of its imperial past, invoked by a leadership wanting to foster brotherhood and unity in a vast territory that was home to various ethnic groups and religions. Despite Liberia's stand as for West African unity and at the head of the Monrovia Bloc, the Liberians found themselves being particularly isolated amongst the newly-independent states with their previous history. The nature of the Liberian polity itself did not necessarily appeal to West African nations, particularly how their state came to be under Americo-Liberian hegemony and how it was sustained under the egalitarian UNIA with its mission of civilization and benevolent imperialism - especially against fellow Africans.
Nonetheless, Cooks was fiercely anti-colonialist and advocated for African independence, as well as African unity. Although Cooks was an utmost Liberian nationalist, Cooks was a dogmatic Garveyist in many aspects and had pushed for nothing less than the unequivocal independence of the Dark Continent from colonialism. France's attempts at desperately retaining whatever influence they had in Africa often found resistance from Monrovia and Cooks made it national policy to block these moves from France, significantly cooling relations between the two nations when he denounced France. It helped contribute to the formation of the Monrovia Bloc when Senghor's government came to blows with the despised Ivorians and when French influence in Biafra threatened to reduce it to a neocolonial puppet. This helped to preserve the independence of the embryonic nation as Biafran oil was one of the reasons why Paris had contributed so much aid to Enugu against the British and Soviet-backed Nigeria, with its influence and colonial empire in Africa crumbling. Cooks also renewed Liberia's relationship with their long-standing Ethiopian friends, inaugurating close cultural exchanges and economic pacts aimed at uniting West Africa with the eastern portion of the continent.
At home, Cooks pursued policies closely mimicking William Tubman's Unification Policy and focused on the wholesale integration of all Liberians. Since the establishment of the first colonies in what was to be Liberia, Liberia's society, government, and other facets of the country had been dominated by Americo-Liberians from its inception. Although there were half-hearted attempts at assimilating and integrating the non-Americoes, Liberia was to remain under the thumb of an Americo-Liberian elite for the next eighty or so years until the election of Marcus Garvey to the Liberian Presidency in January 1931. The Universal Negro Improvement Association promised an ecstatic Liberian population shortly after its rise that one of its central policies was to uplift the aboriginal peoples only represented by a chief in the Liberian Legislature or just excluded from the affairs of governance entirely, especially if they were from the more rebellious tribes. Garvey delivered on this by personally financing the construction of schools, factories, self-help programs and other institutions to facilitate the rapid development of an aboriginal populace just as skilled as its Americo-Liberian counterpart over the course of the 1930s. This, of course, did not necessarily mean that Americo-Liberian rule ended with Garvey's Presidency.
Marcus Garvey proclaiming his support for non-Americo rights, January 1931.
In spite of Garvey's efforts to integrate non-Americo Liberians into Liberia, he ironically ended up perpetrating it in many regards. Although he was definitely instrumental in uprooting or co-opting Americo-Liberian elites in a matter of months where it had taken others years, Garvey was responsible for maintaining Americo-Liberian dominance. During his time in the United States, the Jamaican invoked the popular myth of empire-building and his lieutenants called upon Black Americans to save their heathen continental brethren and lead a conquering army into the very heart of their ancestral homelands to establish an African Empire. There was, instilled into them in the grand rallies and propaganda of the UNIA, a genuine determination amongst Black American immigrants a genuine determination to civilize and Christianize the Liberians. Once in Liberia, the UNIA administration made it obvious that the playing field between Americo-Liberians and non-Americo Liberians was to be leveled, not that there would be an end to Americo-Liberian rule. Garvey more than once praised the original Americo-Liberians, proclaiming they were an example to follow and including them into the New Negro archetype that the UNIA often promoted while arguing that the Americoes were the very basis of Liberia itself.
However, Cooks dedicated himself to the notion of equality between the two groups and went even further than Garvey's administration. Non-Americo Liberians were nominated personally by Cooks and elevated, though he made sure that these Liberians were qualified for the job and quickly got rid of those who weren't. The 1950s saw the unprecedented rise of said Liberians, most notably Samuel Doe, throughout all facets of Liberia while they became the basis of a new cadre of support for the Cooks government. In addition to the Unification Policy, Cooks oversaw Liberia's first era of prosperity with considerable annual economic growth rates at 11.5% and got the Liberian economy to become the fastest growing one. This was bolstered by the construction of the world's largest mercantile fleet, as well as the building of the world's largest rubber plantation and latex factory, that Liberia was Africa's main exporter of iron ore and ranked number three globally on the list of iron ore exporters. There was a degree of political liberalization with the legalization of political parties and opposition that had since been banned and harshly repressed by Garvey's administration, particularly the True Whigs and Republicans.
It was in the 1960s that political opposition started mounting to the authoritarian nature of Carlos Cooks and his Black Star Party, especially from the True Whigs. They proclaimed themselves the historical Liberian party and under Winston Tubman's leadership, denounced the Black Star Party for its inherent authoritarian governance and called for democracy. It announced its support for a Liberia where all Liberians lived side by side, ensuring its independence, and returning to the ideals that the Americo-Liberians founded the country upon. The True Whigs espoused their support for liberalism, patriotism and the free market whereas the BSP called for conservatism as well as racial nationalism and protectionism in contrast. The TWP became a tent for all those who'd suffered from the BSP's repression of organized opposition, forming the only other relevant party in Liberian politics with the Republicans often providing token representation for the few Liberian elites that were willing to remain openly defiant to Cooks. Although he wouldn't openly suppress them, they were often discouraged with help from a bunch of hired goons or with Universal African Corps members whom Cooks would publicly denounce, only to later pardon. Despite Cooks' previous liberal reforms, he remained firmly authoritarian.
Political issues became irrelevant when border clashes with the neighboring Ivory Coast flared up in 1962, leading Monrovia to accuse Félix Houphouët-Boigny of acting as an agent of Paris after a particularly bad clash made headlines in the capital and Houphouët-Boigny lashed out with his own remark about the Americo-Liberians being agents of Washington. As the two governments went it, they ordered that their respective militaries increase their presence on the other's border and reinforce the frontier while carrying out probing raids. In reality, these probing raids were soon escalated into outright war on some parts of the border but it was the worst at Tai. That border town had been the scene of some of the worst fighting and Houphouët-Boigny, gambling with the recent string of alleged plots against him, made the decision to escalate by forcibly seizing Tai in August 1963. Little did Houphouët-Boigny know, he had just kicked the hornet's nest and invoked the wrath of 2.9 million Liberians in doing so when Monrovia made the decision to attack in response in September.
Excerpt from Defiant Passion: A History of François Tombalbaye's Equatoria by Adrien Fontanellaz
1973 marked the third year of François Tombalbaye's presidency as Equatorian soldiers reclaimed the Aouzou Strip, forcing Gaddafi into peace talks. It was in September that the war ended with the Addis Ababa Accords as it saw cheering crowds in Brazzaville, N'Djamena, Libreville, Cameroon, and Bangui herald the Equatorian victory. Tombalbaye's Equatorian Progressive Party won a landslide in the 1974 elections, securing another five years in power as Tombalbaye set to work rebuilding northern Chad with it having been the main scene of fighting over the course of 1971-73. The rapidly developing towns were reduced to rubble with the house-to-house fighting of Oum Chalouba, Zouar, Faya Largeau, Ouadi Doum and Fada meaning that much of Chad was essentially nothing but ruins. These were places that often supported Tombalbaye after seeing Libyan troops retreat while the EA's soldiers marched through the streets and restored order, constituting an important support base and Tombalbaye made the decision to pour millions from the Libyan reparations into their recovery. Despite the halting of US's needed aid and protests from Ubangi-Shari's administration, funds were diverted to the reconstruction of northern and central Chad over the course of the mid-1970s.
Tombalbaye announces Equatoria's victory, September 1973.
In addition, Tombalbaye continued Boganda's policy of modernization from above and initially made little diversion from his predecessors' policies. In 1975, Brazzaville decisively broke with France on the basis that Equatoria, with quite a few experienced officers and expanding well-educated indigenous civil service, was now capable of standing on its own legs. It was intended to show Equatorian solidarity with the rest of Africa against France and pave the way for Equatorian self-sufficiency as Brazzaville increasingly developed its own industries without need for French investment, moving closer to neighboring African nations. An effort was made to align Equatoria in favor of Central Africa, particularly the Congo and Angola which were chockfull of natural resources that could supply Equatorian industry. Under Lumumba-Kabila diarchy that had arisen in the wake of the economic crisis of 1973, Kinshasa was all too happy to find a market in the wealthier Equatoria who responded with its own investment in an isolated Socialist Congo attempting to up the ante. In Angola, the FNLA-UNITA coalition government, led by Jonas Savimbi, was widely perceived as a South African puppet and desperate for allies, Savimbi was willing to supply copious amounts of oil to the Congolese and Equatorians in return for some cash.
This budding relationship between the three Central African countries further facilitated the Central African Community's development. The investments of Equatorian leaders like Boganda and Tombalbaye into the national infrastructure that had been seriously lacking provided the basis for connections within the CAC. The template of the closely-knit East African Community was carried out in this regard and many in Equatorian government in the 1970s were calling for the formation of a loose federation encompassing the three countries to establish the United States of Latin Africa that Boganda had pushed for. Unfortunately for them, Tombalbaye had no interest in having Equatoria foot the bill for its poorer Congolese and Angolan fellows but was only happy to help them in exchange for regular shipments of raw materials. Despite this, the relationship between the three continued its way down a profitable path while the Central African Community adopted a much more anti-colonial and left-wing stance that found it an ally in North China. Owing to the ascendance of Nanjing, Beijing desperately looked in Africa for allies and Hua Guofeng found it in the CAC's member-states as Moscow's reform-oriented administration slowly withdrew from Manchuria. It wasn't long before Beijing finally found friends.
Beijing's support proved helpful in the CAC's intervention in the Mozambican Civil War, along with a sizable chunk of the Eastern Bloc and African Union. Brazzaville and Kinshasa closely cooperated with Monrovia where the Tubman government lent considerable logistical and arms support, along an occasional volunteer from the Universal African Corps. Granted, Liberia had little love for Socialism but it certainly wanted to stick it to Ian Smith as much as possible, willing to cooperate with its ideological opponents to that end and support them. This conciliation, only seen after the deaths of Carlos Cooks in 1971 and William Tolbert in 1980, was to be vital to Tubman's government during its continuation of the brief liberalization seen under William Tolbert. With the sheer amount of the foreign aid Mozambique was receiving, the FRELIMO regime raised and outfitted several armies with an approximate number of 300,000 men that were thrown at the RENAMO men and its Rhodesian mercenaries with the fury of the entire Mozambican people. It is often said that the failure of the Rhodesian venture to aid their puppet ultimately led to the breaking of the back of Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front regime, the rise of Robert Mugabe, and the consolidation of FRELIMO's position as the sole political party of Mozambique to this day.
Finished with the Rhodesians in 1980, the Central African Community turned its attention to Apartheid South Africa which was coming increasingly under scrutiny from the African Union and international community.
Excerpt from A History of African Radicalism by Paul Gilroy
By the 1980s, South Africa was on the ropes with increasing violence in the Black townships carried out by the MK and its international isolation taking a hit to its economy. The oil shipments from Angola were helping but the Angolans looked as if they were about to break with their benefactors in Pretoria for the Central African Community. Speaking of the CAC, it had occupied the foremost role among the Frontline States in their struggle for the true independence of South Africa from Apartheid, aiding them with subsidies and arms. It made an already wary NP government leery of conciliation with the ANC abroad or even those moderates among their ranks pushing for peace and protection of South African Whites. Despite this, Botha presided over notable reforms enfranchising Coloreds and Asians, legalizing miscegenation, fostering Homeland independence, and even authorized their talks with the African National Congress's exiled leaders Oliver Tambo and Thabo Mbeki in 1984. At the same time, said reforms were limited and were rather concessions to stave off collapse as unrest worsened and the MK, emboldened by the NP's liberalizing trend, took the chance to carry out a series of bombings and raids in South Africa proper in an attempt to invoke an insurrection.
However, the MK's use of violent tactics often backfired and had the opposite effect of their intentions, especially in the Homelands. According to Tambo, the Homelands were nothing more than puppet states of Pretoria and were to be subject to the same attacks that occurred in South Africa proper over the course of the 1980s. It did nothing but reaffirm the national identities of the respective Homelands who were very much independent from the authorities in Pretoria, only cooperating with the Botha government insofar as it was concerned over territorial adjustments and economic relations. In a surprising move on Botha's part, land in the Orange Free State was conceded to the Homelands of KwaZulu, QwaQwa and Lebowa while resident Afrikaners and other South African citizens were properly compensated and relocated deeper into South Africa proper with SADF protection. Its efforts continued to yield success as the Homelands developed distinct identities and nationalisms opposed to the ANC's pan-South African orientation, reaffirming the NP's hardline stance. Unfortunately, any willingness for genuine reform would die with Botha when he was assassinated by Namibian extremists suspected to be associated with SWAPO in January 1989, plunging South Africa into chaos.
The National Party was panicking over Botha's death and its implications, leading to incessant bickering and infighting. In the aftermath of the assassination, Jan Christiaan Heunis succeeded Botha as State President with the necessary powers in place to crack down on the worst of dissent in the NP's ranks and outright violence in the townships over the nation. By Tambo's orders, the MK was to seize the opportunity to mobilize support from their covert cadres spread throughout South Africa and launched regular attacks against the predominantly White areas and cities. In response, the SADF was called up and poised to protect various White communities while raids were carried out against MK bases and the veteran Constand Viljoen mobilized 60,000 Afrikaners. The ANC's case wasn't helped by the fact that it was also at war with the former Homelands who housed elite troops capable of utterly smashing the MK in open battle but unfortunately for both sides, the MK leadership had recognized this and often resorted to pitched urban campaigns aimed at wearing down the enemy. This was to be the norm of fighting in South Africa after the Inkatha Freedom Party government troops and SADF men clashed with ANC militants in the city of Durban in what some would refer to as the African World War.
MK recruits in the midst of training, May 1990.
SADF soldiers somewhere in OVS, May 1990.
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Us Today
Us Today
Excerpt from A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855-1991 by Bahru Zewde
Excerpt from A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855-1991 by Bahru Zewde
Upon becoming Emperor, Mikael Imru presided over the liberalization of Ethiopia over the course of the mid- to late 1970s. Although there had been a degree of social and economic liberty under Imru, the government would harshly repress the formation of political parties and opposition to Imperial rule in order to maintain stability. However, the assassination of Araya and Kuroda by the underground ESP, combined with a growing reliance on its Soviet benefactor, made Mikael realize that change was necessary to ensure that the Empire remained united after the withdrawal of Soviet aid and renewal of Somali irredentism. Also on Mikael's plate was the growth of the ethnic nationalist movements previously ruthlessly infiltrated and gutted by the Union of Gihon as the economic recession of 1973 revived these movements. Ironically, they cropped up in provinces properly integrated into a unified Imperial center - Tigray and Welega - which were later joined by another insurgency in Eritrea. Beset on all sides by the problems of Araya's reign, Mikael threw himself into the task of ensuring that Ethiopia stayed the great unified Empire his father had established, dedicating the necessary efforts to reform and liberalization to start securing the tenuous Ethiopian position.
Mikael started with the state of Imperial leadership in Addis Ababa by ushering in a new generation. These were the young, foreign-educated Ethiopians who'd come after their pre-1935 and Japanese-educated counterparts, having benefitted immensely from Araya's continuation of Haile Selassie's education-based reforms that led to the expansion of schools across the country to provide better education. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church helped in this process when Araya requested that they contribute their part as a historical institution [1] involved in Ethiopian education and spreading literacy. Despite Abuna Basilios' deep suspicion of modernism, he proved willing to contribute his part and facilitated what was virtually an intellectual renaissance that the Orthodox Church was responsible for. The Patriarch's death in October 1971 meant that the reformist Tewophilos succeeded him as Ethiopia's second Patriarch, inaugurating a period of administrative reform, rapprochement with the other Orthodox Churches, and renewed support for the Ethiopian state. Nonetheless, this new Orthodox leadership would concretely back the new Emperor as he brought more young educated Ethiopians into the Imperial government and his Cabinet in particular.
The Imperial Cabinet in particular was reorganized when Imru resigned from the post of Prime Minister and left it vacant. The decision was made to appoint the Oxford-educated Endelkachew Makonnen to Prime Minister as well as other Western-educated Ethiopians, many of whom were veterans of the Ogaden War. This made sure that the Imperial government reflected the ascendance of a new generation and the desire to close ranks with the West in hopes of reaching some sort of rapprochement while also securing a support base for Mikael's administration too. It certainly worked as Washington re-established an American advisory team in the capital and would reclaim its stake in the former Radio Marina base at Asmara as Western support for Ethiopia was reinforced with Moscow stepping up support to Siad Barre's Somalia and Fuad's Egypt in the late '70s. The French in particular were perpetually desperate to preserve their influence in Africa, realizing the threat of Somali irredentism to French Somaliland after losing a friendly government in Equatoria. When Mikael made friendly public overtures or covertly agreed to recognize French Somaliland, Paris was happy to support him and this support allowed the French Somaliland territory to remain French [2] in 1977.
Another issue was that of Somalia's continuing encroachment on the Ethiopian frontier, joined by the Egyptians in a series of renewed border clashes by 1977. Increased Ethiopian production of its existing Soviet stocks made up for the withdrawal of Soviet aid but Ethiopia was lacking in the heavier stuff, Ethiopian officers pointing out they'd be out in six months. The undeclared border war between Ethiopia and Somalia decided to flare up again in August 1977 and while Ethiopian troops continued to smash their Somali counterparts, High Command was unnerved by reports of Somali boldness and increased firepower. On the Sudanese border, the Central Command in Bahir Dar was sending alarming reports of Egyptian troops amassing all along the Ethiopian border and engaging in brief but fierce firefights with the IEA at several points. The lack of Soviet aid allowed that aid to go to Somali and Egyptian recipients, already bolstered by support from the Arab world, who found it convenient to keep pressure up on a shared enemy. Imports of Western equipment supplemented the Ethiopian arsenal, as did Ethiopia herself making up for the lack of aid with increased production of the Soviet arms shipped to it between 1947-74 as Mikael sought out friends for an isolated Ethiopia.
Having previously been close allies of Ethiopia, the Juwamans and Kenyans responded positively to Mikael's overtures. The 1966 Nairobi Pact was renewed, for the Kenyans too were wary of Somali aggression and of Somalis in the North Eastern Province attempting to break away to join a Greater Somali state. Nairobi was harsh in its repression of its ethnic Somalis, doing away with traditional governance and ushering in campaigns of integration and urbanization to reduce coherent Somali resistance that eventually melted away in the face of ruthless Kenyan counterinsurgency operations in October 1967. Although there were economic and education benefits which helped the general populace, it wasn't enough to stem the tide of pan-Somali irredentism and its alluring call to the Kenyan Somalis. Thus, Nairobi was all too happy to collaborate with Addis Ababa in a mutual alliance and this was useful because Barre had renewed his drive to establish Greater Somalia, emboldened by Soviet support. A veteran of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and Ogaden War, Barre had experienced what exactly the Ethiopians could throw at Somalia and knew that they possessed the larger population, better industry, etc. in stark contrast to the less populous and industrialized Somalia but the Kenyans? Not at all.
In fact, the scene of border skirmishing shifted from the Ogaden borderlands to the deserts of the North Eastern Province. The NEP eventually became the main site of fighting in the Kenyan-Somali War when Barre made the decision to escalate in August 1978 in a bid to avoid the same circumstances that brought him to power. Ethiopian cooperation was vital to Kenyan defense, with Ethiopia already planning that any invasion of Kenya would see an entire Ethiopian army march straight into Somaliland in a repeat of 1965. Similarly, the British were to be integrated into the network carefully set up by the Kenyans in the hopes that potential British intervention would help to deter Somali invasion. All that was needed was a simple reminder of London's failure to more thoroughly support the Nigerian government and it ended up balkanizing in the face of Biafran and Yoruba secession. Kenya had the chance of going down the same path, potentially giving it the chance to reinforce Kikuyu hegemony as the Hausa-Fulani had been able to in what remained of Nigeria. The Juwamans also presented an important ally to the Kenyans in terms of an anti-Arab, Pan-Africanist alliance, with her outspoken stance on Egyptian imperialism and advocacy against Arab encroachment, that helped protect Kenya against Arab-backed Somalia.
Speaking of an anti-Arab, Pan-Africanist alliance, Mikael was faced with a split in Pan-Africanist ranks over the explicit issue of North Africa. Countries like Juwama decried the predominantly Arab nations, accusing the North African delegations of attempting to replicate European colonialism and continued to present the Egyptian atrocities in Darfur in Addis. Furthermore, Libya was brought into question with Gaddafi's intentions of creating this Arab-led Islamic Pan-African empire by supporting friendly movements like FROLINAT in northern Equatoria. These same movements, like the aforementioned FROLINAT, were responsible for the ongoing suppression of the Darfuri insurgency after Libya's defeat in Equatoria by 1973. The Emperor attempted to occupy a moderate position but the back-and-forth did nothing to help either side as a frustrated Ethiopia mediated while the OAU had devolved into constant bickering and racial divides. The Ghanians and Moroccans were the only ones that helped Ethiopia in trying to keep the order but tensions boiled over and led to the Arab Africans symbolically break an oath of the OAU and establish the Maghreb Union in the process, consisting of the predominantly Arab North African states as Sub-Saharan Africa formed the African Union in 1979.
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[1] The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has been heavily involved in Ethiopian education throughout the ages and it was from its ranks an educated elite dedicated to modernization arose in the 19th/20th Century. See Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia: The Reformist Intellectuals of the Early Twentieth Century by Bahru Zewde and Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270-1527 by Taddesse Tamrat for more.
[2] The Ogaden War forced quite a few ethnic Afars and Oromos to flee into French Somaliland where they quickly occupied the forefront of resistance to union with Somalia. Combined with a new wave of immigration from more ethnic Afars as a result of instability and insurgency in Aussa, there's a much larger base of genuine support for continued union with France. TTL's Djibouti ends up becoming an overseas Department of France.
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