Spies and Informers on Campus: Vetting, Surveillance and Deportation of Expatriate University Lecturers in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1954–1963*

Abstract

This article contributes to the historiography of state responses to the political activism of members of the university community in colonial Zimbabwe by examining the role played by the Federal Intelligence and Security Bureau (FISB) in the security vetting, surveillance and deportation of expatriate lecturers of the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (UCRN). These lecturers were viewed as a security threat by the Federal government because of their actual or perceived support for communism and African nationalism in the Federation. The article argues that the application of these security measures violated a key component of the UCRN's academic freedom, the civil liberties of these lecturers, and was based on FISB's distorted and sometimes false secret intelligence about their political opinions and activities.