Frontiersmen Warfare and History General Editor Jeremy Black Professor of History, University of Exeter Published European warfare, 1660–1815 Jeremy Black European and Native American warfare, 1675–1815 Armstrong Starkey The Great War, 1914–18 Spencer C. Tucker Vietnam Spencer C. Tucker Wars of imperial conquest in Africa, 1830–1914 Bruce Vandervort German armies: war and German politics, 1648–1806 Peter H. Wilson Forthcoming titles include: Air power in the age of total war John Buckley English warfare, 1511–1641 Mark Charles Fissel Ottoman warfare, 1500–1700 Rhoads Murphey Frontiersmen: Warfare in Africa since 1950 Anthony Clayton De Montfort University © Anthony Clayton, 1999 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. First published in 1999 by UCL Press UCL Press Limited 1 Gunpowder Square London EC4A 3DE UK and 325 Chestnut Street 8th Floor Philadelphia PA 19106 USA This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001. The name of University College London (UCL) is a registered trade mark used by UCL Press with the consent of the owner. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data are available ISBN: 1-85728-524-7 HB 1-85728-525-5 PB ISBN 0-203-00670-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-17352-X (Glassbook Format) For the fundamental question, the root of all politics, all arts is what do men live by? What makes them tick and keep ticking, and if you answer love and hate, curiosity, ambition, duty and pride, you are already deep, whether you like it or not, in metaphysics . . . It is a revelation of character to see how angrily good-natured men, who regard themselves as completely reasonable beings, will fight about some question of politics (the materialist dialectic) or science (just now it has been once more evolution) upon premises which ignore the ground of the whole discussion – in politics, human nature, or in evolution the will to live. The attraction of Africa is that it shows these wars of belief, and the powerful often subconscious motives which underlie them, in the greatest variety, and also in very simple forms. Basic obsessions, which in Europe hide themselves under all sorts of decorous scientific or theological or political uniforms, are there seen naked in bold and dramatic action. Joyce Cary, The African Witch (London: Michael Joseph, 1951 edition), p. 10. For my father-in-law, Peter, and Nan Contents Maps ix Preface xxiii 1 Introduction 1 2 Independence wars 1950 to 1962 9 3 Independence wars 1962 to 1980 41 4 Wars of integration and disintegration I: 1960 to 1980 73 5 Southern Africa to 1983 115 6 Southern Africa 1984 to 1997 131 7 Wars of integration and disintegration II: 1980 to 1997 155 8 Conclusion 205 Appendix: technical note 209 Notes 211 Chronology 217 Selected reading 227 Index 231 Maps 1 Egypt: the Suez Canal Zone ix