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The struggle for independence

“Vade Retro domum” - “Nolo Relinquere”

After World War II, the US and the African colonies put pressure on Britain to abide by the
terms of the Atlantic Charter "

"Decolonisation of Africa" 122
Wikipedia
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"Revealed: The Bonfire of Papers at the End of Empire"
" The full extent of the destruction of Britain's colonial government records during the

retreat from empire was disclosed on Thursday with the declassification of a small part
of the Foreign Office's vast secret archive.

Fifty-year-old documents that have finally been transferred to the National Archive show

that bonfires were built behind diplomatic missions across the globe as the purge–
codenamed Operation Legacy–accompanied the handover of each colony.

The declassified documents include copies of an instruction issued in 1961 by Iain

Macleod, colonial secretary, that post-independence governments should not be handed
any material that "might embarrass Her Majesty's [the] government", that could
"embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants or others e.g. police

informers", that might betray intelligence sources, or that might "be used unethically by
ministers in the successor government".

"Revealed: The Bonfire of Papers at the End of Empire" 123
The Guardian (November 2013)
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Towards Independence

" The 1950s was a time of accelerated political change. At the end of the Second World
War, there were only three independent countries in Africa:

 Liberia, which had been founded by freed slaves and declared itself independent in

1847.

 Ethiopia, which was an ancient territory, had never been colonised by a European power

despite the attempts of the Italians in the 1880s and 1930s.

 Egypt, which had achieved independence in 1922.

 In 1951 Libya was granted independence from Hitler's former ally, war-weary Italy.

Egyptrenounced its historic control over Sudan. Britain had little choice then but to