Commonwealth Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office: East Africa Departments:...

This series consists of records of the East Africa Department (January to March 1967 and February to October 1968) and the East and Southern Africa Department (March 1967 to February 1968) of the Commonwealth Office dealing with UK and Commonwealth relations with Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mauritius, and Commonwealth interests in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa and, (for the period March 1967 to February 1968), Portuguese Africa and South Africa. From October 1968 the records are those of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office East African Department dealing with Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Congo (Kinshasa) from July 1969 on, Kenya, Mauritius, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda, as well as the East African Community and the Organisation of African Unity.

By former file reference within file cycles

For earlier Colonial Office files on Swaziland see CO 1048 DO 212 DO 213 DO 214

For earlier Commonwealth Office files dealing with relations with East and Central Africa see:

• Commonwealth Office, East and Southern Africa Department, 1968-1968
• Commonwealth Office, East Africa Department, 1967-1967
• Commonwealth Office, East and Southern Africa Department, 1967-1968
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office, East African Department, 1968-1992

From 1999 Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Topics

International

Africa

The East Africa Department of the Commonwealth Office was renamed the East and Southern Africa Department in March 1967 when responsibility for Commonwealth relations with Swaziland, South Africa and Portuguese Africa passed to the new department from the Southern Africa Department. The East Africa Department was reconstituted in February 1968 when a separate Zambia, Malawi and Southern Africa Department was formed (in the lead up to the achievement of full independence by Swaziland in September 1968).

These changes were largely due to the need to accommodate a declining geographical work load in the Commonwealth Office in the months leading up to the formation of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Department was abolished in October 1968 and its functions were split between the Southern African Department and the East African Department, which dealt with Commonwealth East Africa, Rwanda/Burundi, Ethiopia, and Somalia and, from July 1969, Congo (Kinshasa) and the East African Community and the Organisation of African Unity. Responsibility for relations with the French Territory of Afars and Issas was added in 1971. The name of Congo (Kinshasa) was changed to the Republic of Zaire in 1971.