Lesotho Liberation Army

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA, German roughly: "Liberation Army of Lesotho") was an underground organization in Lesotho . It was founded in 1974 and dissolved in 1990.

history

Prehistory and foundation

In 1970 the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP) won the parliamentary elections, but Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan of the Basotho National Party (BNP) canceled the count and continued to rule autocratically. The BCP split shortly afterwards. A part was integrated into the government work, while the larger part went to the party leader Ntsu Mokhehle after a failed coup in 1974 into exile . There it was decided to found the LLA, which was to destabilize the regime through attacks and ultimately overthrow it.

Lesothian miners who lived as migrant workers in South Africa were recruited as fighters . The recruitment was carried out by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), an anti- apartheid organization that was itself involved in the armed struggle against the South African government and whose leading member Potlako Leballo had previously belonged to the BCP. The weapons training took place with 178 Basotho in Libya . Leballo worked there as a trainer from 1974 to 1976.

Actions and Influence of South Africa

In 1975, 15 LLA members were arrested in Lesotho and convicted of treason . In 1976, South Africa released the homeland Transkei , which bordered Lesotho, into independence. Contrary to the expectations of the South African apartheid government, the BNP government refused to recognize the Transkei. In addition, she granted exile to numerous members of the African National Congress (ANC), which was banned in South Africa , so that the South African government opposed the government of Lesotho. She then instrumentalized the LLA as leverage against Lesotho. In the negotiations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission , witnesses confirmed the cooperation of the LLA with the secret South African police unit Vlakplaas , which systematically disappeared , tortured and murdered opponents of the apartheid regime . The American mercenary Bob MacKenzie, who had previously fought on the side of the whites in Rhodesia and was deployed in the South African army for special tasks, took over the training of the LLA fighters in a camp near Lusikisiki in Transkei.

After his escape from Lesotho, Mokhehle lived in Botswana and Zambia , but was declared persona non grata because of his connection to the LLA . In March 1980 he publicly renounced the LLA. From 1980, however, he traveled several times to South Africa and finally lived there hidden in a township near Odendaalsrus in the Orange Free State and finally in what was then the homeland of Qwaqwa on the border with Lesotho .

On August 20, 1980, South African President Pieter Willem Botha and Jonathan met in a trailer at the Peka Bridge border crossing . Botha offered to stop the LLA's activities and extradite Mokhehle if Lesotho extradited certain ANC refugees like Chris Hani and deported others to more distant countries. As a result, Jonathan actually had ANC refugees deported, and the LLA's activities were suspended, even if the exchange of Hani and Mokhehle did not materialize. When the relationship between the two governments deteriorated again, the LLA resumed its attacks.

Between 1979 and 1986 there were over a hundred LLA raids in Lesotho. The main post office in Maseru , hotels, substations, police stations, border crossings, barracks, the US Cultural Center, BNP politicians and renegade BCP members were attacked. Some politicians, such as the BNP labor minister Jobo Rampeta and the BCP politician Koeyama Chakela, died; an attack on Leabua Jonathan in August 1983 almost succeeded. The car of the German ambassador was destroyed in a bomb attack in 1981. On February 13, 1983, one of the three fuel depots in Maseru was blown up, apparently with the help of a helicopter. Most of the attacks caused only minor property damage. Several LLA members were shot dead by Lesotho paramilitary forces. Almost all of the attacks took place near the South African border, mostly in Maseru. The South African star suspected in November 1982 that the attacks were being controlled from South Africa. Unlike Unita in Angola and Renamo in Mozambique , which were also largely controlled by South Africa, the LLA was unable to create a base in Lesotho. The Jonathan government was unpopular, but the LLA was seen as a puppet of the hated apartheid government in South Africa. The apparent interference of South Africa made it easier for the Lesotho government to get development aid from Western countries. In 1986 the Jonathan government was overthrown after the South African authorities largely closed the borders to Lesotho for several weeks. The LLA then stopped its activities. In 1988 members of an LLA splinter group hijacked a bus carrying 60 Basotho people who wanted to see the Pope during his visit to Lesotho. Lesotho's military government had to seek help from the South African authorities to end the kidnapping.

Dissolution and aftermath

In 1990 the BCP members were able to return to Lesotho, so that the LLA disbanded. The incorporation of LLA fighters into the Lesotho army led to a mutiny in 1994 and ultimately to the coup d'état of King Letsie III. and some military against the BCP government elected in 1993. The former LLA fighters belonged to different wings of the BCP and thus caused unrest within parliament.

literature

  • Mokete Lawrence Pherudi: The Lesotho Liberation Army: Formation, Mission and Schisms. In: South African Historical Journal. Vol. 45, issue 1, 2001, pp. 266-277.
  • Scott Rosenberg, Richard Frederick Veisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanhan 2004, ISBN 0-8108-4871-6 digitized version (excerpts)
  • Joseph Hanlon: Lesotho: Bellowing from the Mountain-Top. In: Joseph Hanlon: Beggar your Neighbors: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa. James Currey, Oxford, 1986, ISBN 978-0-85255-305-3 , pp. 107–130 Digital copy (excerpts)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Scott Rosenberg, Richard Frederick Weisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanhan 2004, ISBN 0-8108-4871-6 Digitalisat (excerpts), p. 179 , accessed on July 1, 2012
  2. ^ Scott Rosenberg, Richard Frederick Veisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanhan 2004, ISBN 0-8108-4871-6 Digitalisat (excerpts), p. 380 (English), accessed on July 2, 2012
  3. ↑ Joseph Hanlon: Lesotho: Bellowing from the Mountain-Top. In: Joseph Hanlon: Beggar your Neighbors: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa. James Currey, Oxford, 1986, ISBN 978-0-85255-305-3 , pp. 107–130 Digitized (excerpts), pp. 110–111 (English), accessed July 2, 2012
  4. ↑ Joseph Hanlon: Lesotho: Bellowing from the Mountain-Top. In: Joseph Hanlon: Beggar your Neighbors: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa. James Currey, Oxford, 1986, ISBN 978-0-85255-305-3 , pp. 107-130 Digitalisat (excerpts), p. 111 (English), accessed on July 2, 2012
  5. ↑ Joseph Hanlon: Lesotho: Bellowing from the Mountain-Top. In: Joseph Hanlon: Beggar your Neighbors: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa. James Currey, Oxford, 1986, ISBN 978-0-85255-305-3 , pp. 107-130 Digitized (excerpts), p. 112 (English), accessed on July 2, 2012
  6. ↑ Article in the Los Angeles Times, 1988 (English), accessed July 1, 2012
  7. ↑ Overview of Lesotho's history ( memento of March 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) by EISA , accessed on July 1, 2012