Beyond the Borders of Lesotho: The Basutoland Congress Party’s Transnational Connections and its Political and Ideological Pragmatism, 1952–1970

This article contributes to the literature on international and transnational connections of liberation movements in southern Africa. It examines the understudied history of the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP) and its transnational connections in Africa and outside the continent. Based on research in Lesotho, South Africa, Eswatini, Egypt, Botswana, the UK and Ghana, the article shows how transnational networks of individuals and ideas widely influenced the BCP’s radical nationalism and proved essential for both the independence struggle and the period of exile after 1970. The article also shows how BCP leader Ntsu Mokhehle adopted a pragmatic approach to the different political models and ideologies he encountered abroad. In the case of Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana, the primary source of political and organisational experience for the BCP, Mokhehle always kept his political independence from the line dictated by Nkrumah himself. The same pragmatism was applied to the relationship between the BCP and different countries in the east and the west, as well as the delicate relationships between the BCP and Israel and the party and Egypt.