This chapter uses case studies of postcolonial Tanzania and Sierra Leone to examine pathways of persecution and punishment during pivotal moments of autocratic contestation and consolidation. Through careful process tracing, I analyze how the politics of the early independence period, which were fundamentally shaped by the struggle for national control, influenced strategies of judicial and extrajudicial repression in the years that followed. My analysis draws on a variety of archival sources that provide a rare window into the challenges faced by new autocrats, including how threats to autocratic survival were perceived in real time.

At the start of the war, members of the ATS, WAAF and WRNS were technically civilians and not subject to the full panoply of military law as incorporated in the Army Act, Air Force Act, and the Naval Discipline Act. This chapter describes how the ATS and WAAF were given military status and sections of the Army and Air Force Acts were applied to these forces. The WRNS, however, was excluded from this process of militarisation and was not brought under the Naval Discipline Act.