SNAPSHOT IN HISTORY – LUSAKA, AS A CENTER OF ESPIONAGE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

SNAPSHOT IN HISTORY – LUSAKA, AS A CENTER OF ESPIONAGE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

IN the 1970s and 1980s, Lusaka was the espionage center of Southern Africa and at one stage the Ambassadors of the USA and USSR were high ranking spies and the Second Secretary of the British High Commission Daphne Park actually outranked the High Commissioner because of her real rank in MI6.

The Soviet Ambassador Vassiliy Solodnikov was a Professor of African studies and apparently held the rank of Major General in the KGB. Vassily Solodnikov had taught at various institutes where students from Africa went for training in Moscow. He apparently met a young Vernon Mwaanga sent to Moscow for training by UNIP.

Vassily Solodnikov’s career was to go into a tailspin when the Zimbabwe liberation group he supported, ZAPU led by Joshua Nkomo, lost the elections in Zimbabwe in 1980. He was to resurface later in the late 1980s in some background maneuverings over South Africa.

The American Ambassador Frank J Wisner Jr was the son of a career CIA spy and although officially was a State Department career diplomat, was dogged throughout his career with the tag of being a CIA operative.

Frank J Wisner’s father’s life reads like a James Bond movie. Even his death was dramatic. Side-lined when he became manic depressive, he shot himself.

The British diplomat, Daphne Park was to be intimately involved in Zambian affairs throughout her career and is reputed to be the person who tipped off the Zambian government that a coup plot was under way led by Valentine Musakanya, Shamwana and Pierce Annfield.

Reason, well she was Valentine Musakanya’s personal friend and had trained him when as the first black diplomat before Zambian Independence he had been sent to the Congo where Daphne Park was posted at the time.

Musakanya was alleged to have approached Daphne Park to solicit British support. A major blunder because well she was a personal friend to both Vernon Mwaanga and Kenneth Kaunda.

In the 1980s the Swedes were forced to turn their embassy into a fortress as the Swedes were threatened over their support for the ANC.

The ANC and SWAPO both had huge offices in Lusaka and had acquired considerable property in Lusaka. The cooperation with the Zambian government was considerable. For instance, the current Ministry of Community Development offices were SWAPO offices and also contained a large college which trained hundreds of people who are now Ministers and senior civil servants in Namibia, if i ma not mistaken even the current President went to school there as well..

Several times the Zambian Military Academy accommodated officer cadets from ANC, SWAPO and on one occasion a whole intake of Zambian officer cadets had their course deferred to allow Zimbabweans to train in their place.

The South Africans were very active in Zambia and there was a large freight forwarding company still in existence as an international company whose beginnings were as a front for BOSS, South African Intelligence.

Other intelligence services active in Zambia were the Malawians who actually worked hand in hand with the Rhodesians and the South Africans as well as hunting their own exiles who lived in Zambia. They for instance killed Mr Mhango in Kamwala with a petrol bomb and kidnapped Vera and Orton Chirwa from near Chipata.

Very active as well were the Zairean’s under Mobutu who were also following exiles who lived in Zambia.

The Angolans, both UNITA and the government MPLA, were actually locked in a covert war in Lusaka. Zambia for a long time hosted members of UNITA leader late Savimbi’s family even long after Zambia had recognized MPLA as a legitimate government. This clandestine war was to culminate in bombs going off around Lusaka when the Angolan government threatened the Zambian government over alleged covert support for UNITA including facilitating arms flights, supplies of food, uniforms, medicines and other supplies.

Testimony to this cloak and dagger war was the large embassies of USSR, Yugoslavia, the USA, the UK and China who all backed various sides and factions in the liberation wars in Southern Africa. Today the embassies lie largely empty and unused although the Americans have moved to a more secure location in a huge fortress while the Chinese Embassy has come back to life with the advent of China as an economic power.

(Adapted from an article by Brian Mulenga dated 5th September 2017)