Zambia and the Frontline States: The Price of Solidarity

The story of Zambia and the frontline states is one of the least told chapters of southern Africa's liberation. From independence in 1964 until the early 1990s, Zambia under President Kenneth Kaunda gave refuge and bases to movements fighting white-minority rule in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), South West Africa (now Namibia), South Africa and the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique. Lusaka became, for many years, the headquarters of the African National Congress in exile.

The "frontline states" were the independent countries closest to those struggles, which coordinated their support for them. Zambia was among the first, and it paid a real price: in trade, in money and in lives lost to cross-border raids.

What were the frontline states?

The Frontline States began as an informal grouping in the mid-1970s, built around Julius Nyerere's Tanzania, Kaunda's Zambia and Seretse Khama's Botswana. Mozambique and Angola joined after their independence from Portugal in 1975, Zimbabwe after its independence in 1980, and Namibia in 1990. Their leaders met regularly to agree positions on the wars and negotiations in the region, and to speak with one voice to the wider world.

The grouping was never a military alliance in the conventional sense. Its members were mostly poor, recently independent states with small armies, surrounded by or bordering far stronger, well-armed minority governments. What they offered was territory, diplomacy, shelter and political legitimacy. In 1980 several of them also founded the Southern African Development Coordination Conference in Lusaka, an effort to reduce the region's economic dependence on apartheid South Africa, and the forerunner of today's Southern African Development Community.

Zambia and the frontline states under Kenneth Kaunda

Zambia's geography made it central. It bordered Rhodesia, Angola, Mozambique and Namibia's Caprivi Strip, and touched Botswana at the Zambezi. Kaunda, a committed opponent of colonial and racial rule, made support for liberation a pillar of foreign policy. The 1969 Lusaka Manifesto, agreed by states of East and Central Africa, set out the region's position: a preference for peaceful change, but a recognition that where peaceful change was blocked, armed struggle was understandable.

Many movements had offices, homes and camps in Zambia at different times. The ANC, led in exile by Oliver Tambo, moved its headquarters to Lusaka and remained there until it was unbanned in 1990. In 1985 the ANC held a major consultative conference in the Zambian town of Kabwe. Zimbabwean movements, especially Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU, were based in Zambia during the Rhodesian war, and the United Nations Institute for Namibia was set up in Lusaka to train future administrators for an independent Namibia. Angolan and Mozambican movements also used Zambian territory at points in their struggles.

When Nelson Mandela was released in February 1990, one of his first journeys abroad was to Lusaka, to meet the ANC leadership who had spent years there in exile.

The costs Zambia carried

Solidarity was not free. The most immediate cost was economic. Zambia's copper exports and fuel imports had depended on routes through Rhodesia, Mozambique and South Africa. Opposing those governments while relying on their railways and ports left Zambia exposed, and after Rhodesia closed the border in 1973, Zambia kept its side shut. Goods had to move by longer, costlier routes, including the Great North Road to Tanzania and, from 1975, the new TAZARA railway. The western route through Angola was cut by the Angolan civil war.

It is important to be honest that not all of Zambia's economic troubles came from this. The collapse in world copper prices from the mid-1970s, debt and domestic policy choices also did great damage. But the cost of the frontline position was real and deliberately accepted.

There was a human cost too. Rhodesian forces carried out raids into Zambia against Zimbabwean guerrilla bases and refugee camps in the late 1970s, killing many people. South Africa attacked targets linked to the ANC in Lusaka, including in raids in 1986 that also struck Botswana and Zimbabwe. Political violence also reached Lusaka in other forms: Herbert Chitepo, a leader of ZANU, was assassinated there by a car bomb in 1975. Ordinary Zambians lived alongside these exiles as neighbours, landlords, colleagues and friends, and some lost their own lives or livelihoods in the process.

How this history is remembered

Memory of this period is not simple. National memory in Zambia tends to celebrate Kaunda's principled stand and the country's sacrifice, and that pride is well earned. Movement memory, held by former exiles now living across the region, often remembers Zambia warmly but also records tensions, rivalries and hardships. Historians point out more complicated episodes too, such as Kaunda's attempts at détente with South Africa's government in the mid-1970s, and his country's own move to a one-party state from 1972.

And then there is the memory of ordinary residents, which is the least written down. People who rented rooms to exiles, who worked alongside them, or who lived near camps that were attacked carry a version of this history that rarely appears in official accounts. Kaunda died in 2021, and many others who lived through the period are elderly. That makes listening now more urgent.

On the road through Lusaka

The current plan is for Leon to walk north from Livingstone through Monze to Lusaka, roughly 460 to 500 km, and then on to Kabwe. Lusaka is where the expedition hopes to spend time with historians, archivists and, above all, people who remember this period first hand, aiming for a few deeply sourced human accounts rather than a catalogue of every organisation and incident. The walk follows the same corridor that carried copper, refugees and freedom fighters, and passing through it on foot is a way to take that history at a human pace.

This chapter builds on the South African and Botswana parts of the journey rather than repeating them; for a much earlier story of southern African leaders defending their land, see the three dikgosi who travelled to London in 1895. You can follow the whole line on the route page, read about who Leon is, and see each act of kindness recorded on the kindness ledger. If you would like to help, please support the walk.

Frequently asked questions

Which countries were the frontline states?

Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana formed the core in the mid-1970s, joined by Mozambique and Angola, then Zimbabwe in 1980 and Namibia in 1990.

Why was the ANC based in Lusaka?

Banned in South Africa, the ANC needed a secure base in a sympathetic neighbouring country. Zambia under Kaunda offered one, and Lusaka served as its exile headquarters until 1990.

Did Zambia suffer for supporting liberation movements?

Yes. It faced disrupted trade routes, higher costs and armed raids by Rhodesian and South African forces, though falling copper prices and other factors also hurt its economy.

Who was Kenneth Kaunda?

Zambia's first president, from independence in 1964 to 1991, and a leading voice for African liberation across the region. He died in 2021.