Student Information Sheet: Independence for British and French Colonies in Africa.

Independence for French Colonies and Possessions in Africa

Student Information Map: Decolonization in Africa

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This information is to accompany Unit Four of the Curriculum Guide.

Student Information Sheet: Southern Rhodesia and Resistance to Black Majority Rule

Southern Rhodesia and its governing White minority, were granted internal self-government in 1923.

• The White minority controlled the political and economic life of the colony.

• The European settlers were not prepared to accept Britain's desires to achieve Black majority rule.

• All Black nationalist groups were banned.

When Britain refused to grant the white controlled Rhodesian government full independence, Prime Minister Ian Smith and his Rhodesian Front Government issued an Unilateral Declaration of Independence (U.D.I.) from Britain in 1965.

Britain was not prepared to use military force to restore order and through the United Nations attempted to force compliance through economic sanctions.

• The economic sanctions against Rhodesia were unsuccessful in forcing Smith and his government from leaving office or changing their policies.

• Smith and his government received aid and support from South Africa and Portugal.

• Portugal was also resisting attempts to lose control of its African colonies.

Between 1967 and 1975, the Rhodesian military assisted by South African forces were able to contain the nationalist guerrilla forces.

• However, Rhodesia's ability to sustain continued war against the Black nationalist forces was limited.

• When the two Black nationalist groups, the Zimbabwe African People's Union and the Zimbabwe African National Union formed the Popular Front, the Smith government realized that negotiations would now be necessary.

Rhodesia gained its independence in 1980 as the new nation of Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe, leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union, became Zimbabwe's first Prime Minister.

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This information is to accompany Unit Four of the Curriculum Guide.

Student Information Map: Africa in 1994

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This information is to accompany Unit Four of the Curriculum Guide.

Student Information Sheet: France: An Attempt to Re-establish the Old Order

Vietnam

During the last decades of the nineteenth century, France had occupied large areas of Indo-China.

• Resistance to French rule developed among the Vietnamese in the 1930s.

During the World War II, Japanese forces occupied French Indo-China. Following the war, France was determined to reimpose its control over Indo-China.

• The Vietnamese nationalists resisted the return of French rule.

One of the resistance leaders was Ho Chi Minh.

• Educated in France, he had participated in the formation of both the French Communist Party and the Vietnamese Communist Party in the 1920s.

The Communist led Vietminh had harassed the Japanese occupying forces during the Second World War.

• By the end of the war, the Vietminh controlled northern Indo-China and had established an independent government at Hanoi.

Ho's leadership of the independence movement did not go unchallenged. Noncommunist and Catholic Vietnamese had developed their own organizations and were not overly enthusiastic about Ho's declaration of independence in September of 1945.

The French returned to Indo-China with the intention of re-establishing their colonial hold.

• They quickly gained control of the southern regions and faced the resistance of the Vietminh in the North.

The French offered to allow the North to become a self-governing state within French Indo-China but the Vietminh refused.

• Hostilities between the French and Vietminh ensued.

In June 1949, the French appoint Bao Dai as head of state of Vietnam, while Laos and Cambodia were also given limited independence. Bao Dai was to act as a figurehead for the French. The French colonial authorities would retain effective power.

US Involvement

With American encouragement, the French and the Vietminh were able to sustain a truce until 1947.

When communists came to power in China, the conflict between the French and the Vietminh acquired global implications.

• Communist aggression in Korea heightened American fears of communist expansion.

The United States was determined to contain the spread of communism.

• In 1950, the US announced that it would support the French effort by supplying the French with weapons and supplies.
• Ho Chi Minh's forces received support from the Chinese.

The French had underestimated the strength of the Vietminh and the popular support it had with the populace.

• Despite massive American support, the French forces sustained a major defeat in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. This defeat convinced the French to end their attempt to control Vietnam.
• A cease-fire was arranged.

The peace conference agreed to the temporary division of Vietnam into northern and southern zones.

• The northern zone was controlled by the Vietminh while the southern area was under French influence.
• Elections were to be held in 1956 to reunify the nation. The two zones were not unified in 1956.

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This information is to accompany Unit Four of the Curriculum Guide.

Student Information Sheet: A Divided France: The Algerian Independence Issue

France's experience in postwar Vietnam did not diminish its determination to retain Algeria. Indeed, Algeria was home to over one million French residents.

France considered Algeria an integral part of France. To avert calls for independence by the non-French Algerian populace, the French government granted Algeria a large degree of self-government.

However, in the 1950s, violence between the Europeans and the non-French in Algeria increased. The French army waged a bitter war against the Algerian nationalists. Both sides committed atrocities.

The Algerian issue threatened the stability of France itself.

• Elements of the army were determined to keep Algeria under French control. Political deadlock led to Charles de Gaulle assuming power in France.

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• De Gaulle, a realist was prepared to grant Algerian independence.

Two revolts against De Gaulle's government by elements of the French army were unsuccessful.

• Algeria was granted independence in July 1962.

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This information is to accompany Unit Four of the Curriculum Guide.

Student Information Sheet: Castro and the Cuban Missile Crisis

When a Soviet threat to the United States materialized, it was not from the far North, but rather from the island of Cuba.

Fidel Castro has assumed power in Cuba, in 1959, by ousting the unpopular dictator, Batista.

• Initially the US supported Castro, but relations soon soured as Castro drew closer to the Soviets.

• His nationalization of the American-owned sugar industry particularly angered the Americans.

• The US refused to buy Cuban sugar and Castro responded by seizing $100 million worth of American property in Cuba.

• Diplomatic relations between the two nations were severed in January 1961.

Relations between Cuba and the US were not improved by the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion by exiled Cubans who opposed Castro.

• These exiles had been trained and supplied by the US

In October 1961, the US became aware that Soviet missiles were being installed in Cuba.

• The new US President, John Kennedy, ordered a naval blockade of Cuba. All Soviet ships approaching the island of Cuba were to be stopped and searched.

• Kennedy, in an address to the American nation, also made it clear that an attack from Cuba would be considered an attack from the Soviet Union.

• For a week, the two super powers seemed on the verge of a nuclear war.

Khrushchev ordered the Soviet ships to return to the Soviet Union and agreed to remove the missiles in Cuba.

• In return for the dismantling of Soviet missile installations in Cuba and the removal of those missiles, the US agreed not to invade Cuba.

• The apparent Soviet retreat probably contributed to the political demise of Khrushchev two years later.