‘Propping up the rebellion’: Big business, late colonialism, and decolonisation in Rhodesia, 1966–1979

Abstract This paper examines the role of big business as the linchpin of late colonialism in Rhodesia (colonial Zimbabwe) during its Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) years between 1966 and 1979. After Rhodesia’s rebellion against Britain in 1965, London and the world, through the United Nations, responded by imposing sanctions against Salisbury, hoping to bring it to legality quickly. However, Rhodesia survived the expected impact of sanctions until its demise in 1979. Scholarship has accounted for this survival in various dimensions, emphasising the role of white solidarity/redoubt in the region, manipulation of the market and sanction busting or breach by friendly states and businesses. Regarding sanction busting, less accounted for are the other major sanction busters, except for well-known governments of Portugal, South Africa, and the USA, as well as British and South African oil firms. Using primary documents from British archives and intelligence work, this paper shows the specific companies that were the raison d’etre of late colonialism and the British government’s response and actions against these firms. The paper argues that by acting as conduits for Rhodesia’s access to international markets, British firms kept its economy going, thereby propping up and propelling the Rhodesian rebellion, paying and sustaining late colonial rule, and delaying the decolonisation of Rhodesia. The paper further shows the duplicity and indecisiveness of the British government in dealing with the Rhodesian problem, thus elongating settler rule. In doing so, the paper thus contributes to the historiography of the politics and economics of late colonialism and the role of business in decolonisation in Southern Africa.