‘On the back burner’: The ANC in exile in Zambia from the Lusaka Manifesto to the liberation of Zimbabwe, 1969-80. Hugh Macmillan This paper will examine the changing fortunes of the ANC in exile in Zambia during the 1970s. After the failure of the ANC’s Wankie and Sipolilo campaigns the governments of Zambia and Tanzania separated the liberation struggle against South Africa from the anti-colonial struggles in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The Lusaka Manifesto clearly indicated that armed struggle against South Africa was being placed on the ‘back burner’. Although MK in Zambia was not expelled, as it was from Tanzania, ANC camps were closed. The ensuing decade proved to be a very difficult one. The ANC’s position reached a low point in August 1975 at the time of the Victoria Falls talks between Vorster and Kaunda. Tambo then thought that the ANC might be asked to leave the country. The position was not helped by events in Angola in 1975-6 with Zambia supporting UNITA, while the ANC became increasingly close to MPLA. Although there was some improvement in the ANC’s position following the Soweto Uprising in 1976 with many students passing through Zambia, and some joining the ANC there, the situation remained difficult. The numbers, morale, resources and prospects of the ANC in exile in Zambia all improved in the last years of the decade, but it was not until after the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980 that the ANC’s position in Zambia became secure and the host government turned its full attention to the struggle against apartheid. .