Dissident Refugees: A History of 200 Namibians in Zambia, 1977–1989

To date, scholarship on Southern Africa’s exile history has maintained a largely national focus, organised around liberation movements and their narratives. Nevertheless, many exile experiences do not fit neatly within this frame. This article examines such experiences through 200 Namibians who lived in Zambia during the late 1970s and 1980s. These Namibians were among the guerrilla soldiers whom SWAPO detained during its internal crisis of 1976. Rather than ‘confess’ to betraying the liberation struggle and returning to SWAPO, they chose to leave SWAPO in 1977 and were transported by the Zambian army to UNHCR’s Meheba Camp. Most left the camp within a few years, living primarily in the Copperbelt and Lusaka prior to their repatriation to Namibia in 1989.Drawing from Siegfried Groth’s archives and the author’s oral history interviews, the article traces a particular group of exiled Namibians and their experiences of insecurity and solidarity. As I argue, these ‘dissident refugees’ lived in uniquely insecure circumstances, vulnerable to declining socio-economic conditions in Zambia and openly threatened by SWAPO members, who targeted some of them with violence. At the same time, they co-created a global solidarity community that was largely distinct from the solidarity community supporting SWAPO and other liberation movements during the same period, enabling them to access humanitarian aid, education and protection. By drawing attention to these social dynamics, the article challenges assumptions about what it meant to be a ‘Namibian refugee’ during the late 1970s and 1980s. It advocates micro-historical research aimed at nuancing liberation movement-focused accounts of southern Africa’s exile past.