WEEKLY SUMMARY SPECIAL REPORT MALAWI: PAWN OF WHITE SOUTHERN AFRICA?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001500020052-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 14, 2009
• Sequence Number: 52
• Publication Date: October 9, 1970
• Content Type: REPORT

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Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
WEEKLY SUMMARY
Special Report
Malawi: Pawn of White Southern Africa?
Secret
N9 661
9 October 1970
No. 0391/70A
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Malawi: Pawn of White Southern Africa?
My first duty is toward my own people. If, in order to look after my people, I
have to deal with the devil, I will do so.
President Hastings Banda
Geographic location and economic imperatives have largely determined
Malawi's relations with its neighbors in southern Africa. Impoverished and
landlocked, Malawi is dependent on white-ruled Portuguese Mozambique for rail
outlets to the Indian Ocean. Rhodesia arid South Africa provide employment for
Malawi's large surplus of manpower and are also important contributors of
foreign exchange. Moreover, South Africa has become an increasingly s;gnificant
source of development capital for projects that Malawi has been unable to
finance elsewhere.
President Banda's policy of open cooperation with the white states* has
earned him the title "Odd Man Out" in Africa. Malawi is the only black African
state that has official relations with South Africa, Portugal, and Rhodesia. The
President's outspoken defense of his ties with these "racist regimes" has resulted
in his isolation from other black African leaders and has strained Malawi's
relations with most black states. Banda, however, sweeps aside all criticism,
arguing that dialogue will bring about change where violent confrontation has
failed.
A politician of consummate skill, President
25X6 Hastings Kamuzu Banda has a deceptively mild
appearance
campaign in London
from 1951-53 to keep
Nyasaland out of th(z
proposed federation,
fearing domination by
Southern Rhodesia. In
July 1958, Banda rF-
turned home to a tumul-
tuous welcome and as-
sumed the leadership of
the Nyasaland inde-
pendence movement.
He enjoys
enormous pressige wi iinn is country as the man
who took the former British dependency of
Nyasaland out of the unpopular Federation of
Rhodesia and Nyasaland and to independence as
Malawi. Ironically, Banda at that time was con-
sidered a strong spokesman for African na-
tionalism. Dr. Banda had led an unsuccessful
*The white-ruled governments of southern Africa include the Republic of South Africa, South-West Africa, Rhodesia,
and the Portuguese African territories of Angola and Mozambique.
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Banda was named prime minister when the
colony achieved internal self-government in 1963,
and one year later he became president of the
independent state of Malawi. Since independence,
Banda has completely dominated Malawi, relying
primarily on British expatriates to keep the civil
service, army, and police effective and loyal.
Through a mixture of paternalism and force,
Banda maintains firm control of the government
machinery and of the only legal political party; he
makes all major and many minor decisions. Be-
cause of this dominance he has unfettered author-
ity to push ahead with Malawi's policy of co-
operation with the white governments of
southern Africa. This policy has generated some
opposition among the few educated Malawians,
Malawi's foreign policy toward the white
redoubt reflects Banda's own philosophy on how
to cope with the racial problems of southern
Africa. He is convinced that his approach is more
realistic than the strategy of "boycott, isolation,
and violent confrontation" espoused-at least
verbally-by many black African states. While
Banda opposes all forms of racial discrimination,
he also believes that violence will only aggravate
what he considers its root cause-the white man's
fear of the black majority. Instead, Banda argues
that through contacts and dialogue, black and
white leaders can gradually develop respect for
each other, thereby paving the way for peaceful
and evolutionary change. He admits that eradica-
tion of black-white hostilities is an exceedingly
difficult and distant objective and that his ap-
proach may take several generations to achieve.
Nevertheless, Banda is convinced that the alterna-
tive black African solution, relying on the use of
force, has even less chance of success.
Malawi thus is the only African state that
has full diplomatic relations with South Africa,
consular relations with Portuguese Mozambique
as well as a nonresident ambassador to Lisbon,
and a government representative in Rhodesia.
President Banda has welcomed these relations not
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only because of the economic benefits but also
because of his wish to be 3 "bridge-builder" be-
tween the races of Africa.
In addition to his personal convictions, the
pragmatic Banda realizes he must deal with white
Africa because of Malawi's economic weakness.
With few exploitable natural resources and with
90 percent of its 4.5-million people engaged in
agriculture, the country is one of the poorest and
most densely populated states in Africa. Its man-
power surplus is manageable only because
Rhodesia and South Africa annually employ ap-
proximately 255,000 Malawians, nearly twice the
number of Malawian wage earners at home.
Malawi also occupies a strategic position be- 25X6
tween Zambia and Tanzania-the two most active
supporters of African liberation movements-and
white-ruled Mozambique. Should Malawi become
a major infiltration route for African militants, it
would complicate the insurgency problem for the
Portuguese in Mozambique and in turn cause dif-
ficulties for Rhodesia and South Africa. Con-
versely, denial of the use of Malawian territory to
the guerrillas would make it even more difficult
for them to operate effectively. The white govern-
ments accordingly have attempted to cultivate
Malawi as a means of restraining it from granting
black African insurgents a base of operations.
South Africa: Moving Outward via Malawi
South African Prime Minister Vorster's of-
ficial visit to Malawi last May was a victory for
Banda and a high point in relations between the
two countries. President Banda touted the pres-
ence of the apartheid leader as vindication of his
policies and expressed the hope that it would
result in even closer relations.
As for South Africa, the state visit con-
firmed Vorster's intention to proceed with his
"outward policy" of establishing friendly rela-
tions with neighboring black African states.
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Although this policy has not yet gotten much
beyond Malawi, Pretoria hopes it will eventually
improve South Africa's image in the West, defuse
black African hostility, and win acceptance of the
status quo in white-ruled Africa.
In addition to these political contacts, over
the past three years there has been a significant
increase in Malawi's economic ties with South
Africa concurrently with a decline in assistance
from the UK-still Malawi's main benefactor-and
from other Western sources. The lack of com-
petition from other Western nations and Banda's
unswerving opposition to accepting aid from
Communist states have giver. South Africa the
opportunity to fill the aid vacuum.
President Banda has been especially ap-
preciative of South African assistance for two of
his pet goals. The first project, announced in
1968, involved two loans totaling $15.4 million
President Banda and Prime Minister Vorster exchange Jews
for rolling stock and construction of the Malawi
portion of a rail link leading to the Mozambican
seaport of Nacala. The same year, Banda also
obtained an $11.2 million loan for construction
of the first phase of a new national capital at
Lilongwe. Both of these projects had been re-
jected by traditional Western aid sources as un-
necessary. The still largely uncompleted capital,
which may cost more than $50 million to finish,
may enable South Africa to increase its political
leverage on Banda because Pretoria is the only
likely source of additional aid. These projects will
give Malawi few immediate economic returns, but
Banda insists they are necessary for his country's
long-range growth and its balanced development.
Trade with South Africa will probably de-
cline in the future, however. Malawi has doubled
its imports from South Africa since signing a
bilateral trade agreement in 1967 (to approxi-
mately 15 percent of total imports in 1969), but
the bulk of this increase is related to Pretoria's
financial assistance and is therefore a temporary
phenomenon.
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Portuguese Mozambique: Vital
L'eon(mtie LiJ'clinc
Good relations with Portuguese Mozambique
are a matter of economic survival because all
imports and exports are transported via the Beira
and Nacala rail lines. Since independence, Banda
has avoided doing anything that would provoke
the Portuguese into closing these lines. Addi-
tionally, he has forbidden nationalists of the
Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), who
operate principally out of Tanzania, to stage
armed raids into Mozambique from Malawi or
even to transport arms through his country. As a
result, FRELIMO has been forced to keep its
armed activity in Malawi to a minimi'm, although
the guerrillas often use remote border regions for
refuge and staging bases. Because of these un-
authorized activities, Blantyre has generally
acquiesced to recurring but minor border viola-
tions by Portuguese counterinsurgency patrols.
As in the case of South Africa, Portuguese
cooperation extends into several areas. In early
1970, Lisbon agreed to its first major loan of $6
million for a new highway. Portugal has also given
Malawi two boats and has trained seamen for
patrolling Lake Nyasa. Both regular and informal
contacts are maintained by administrative, mili-
tary, and security officials on both sides of the
border. The interest of the Portuguese in support-
ing Banda's continued rule became evident in
1967, when they allegedly offered military as-
sistance to help him defeat an abortive uprising.
Malawi's relations with Rhodesia are pri-
marily economic. An estimated 155,000 Mala-
wians are employed each year in Rhodesia, and
the wages they bring home contribute a substan-
tial amount of foreign exchange. In addition,
Malawi has good trade connections with the Ian
Smith regime; in 1969, about 17 percent of
Malawi's imports came from Rhodesia. Neverthe-
less, B