BACKGROUND AND RECONCILIATION CHALLENGES

The Patriotic Front (PF) alliance was formed by ZAPU and ZANU on 10 October 1976.133 The stakeholders believed that the alliance would work towards diffusing sources of tension arising from the different ideological orientation and wartime strategic considerations between the two parties and that the revolutionary wings of ZANLA and ZIPRA would be united so that they could join forces to fight for a common purpose. Joshua Nkomo, who had been the ZAPU president since its formation in 1961, was convinced that this was not going to be a marriage of convenience, but that it was a reality of people who once worked together and so had realised that working separately

129 _{M. Bratton and E. Masunungure, (2011). The anatomy of political predation: Leaders, elites and coalitions in} Zimbabwe 1980 – 2010. UKZN Press, Durban, p. 46.

130 _{C. I. Obi, (2001). Reconstructing Africa’s development …, p. 159.}

131 _{D. Held, (1987). Models of democracy. Stanford University Press, Stanford, p. 12.}

132 _{W. Gumede, (2015). Africa style democracy? www.publicseminar.org2015/02/african-style-democracy Accessed} 17 February 2018.

133 _{P. Preston, (2004). Stalemate and the termination of civil war. Rhodesia reassessed. Journal of Peace Research,} 41(1), p. 67.

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to fight British colonialism could not produce sufficient TNT to crack this rock134135 . ZANLA and ZIPRA were placed under a single military command known as Zimbabwe People’s Army (ZIPA). However, the union of the two parties was short-lived as cooperation during 1975 to 1976 ceased when ZANLA fighters massacred ZIPRA fighters at Mhorogoro and Mgagao in Tanzania.136 Official statistics of ZIPRA guerrillas killed are not available since records at that time were either difficult to maintain due to high mobility between training camps, or the ZANLA forces may have hidden them from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) that wanted to see a single liberation movement, as opposed to the two in existence. These unhealthy developments were an expression of the ZAPU/ZANU conflicts in the 1960s that exhibited the tribal or ethnic character of mass political parties in the country. Between 1975 and 1976, ZIPRA and ZANLA guerillas also fought and killed each other when they were placed in the same training camps in Libya and in Mhorogoro and Mgagao in Tanzania.137

It must be remembered that ZANU had split from ZAPU in 1963 when the ZAPU youths that included Ndabaningi Sithole, Enos Nkala, Robert Mugabe, Leopold Takawira and Edgar Tekere were all high-ranking personalities of the Shona ethnic group except Enos Nkala.138 They protested against Joshua Nkomo’s leadership, and in particular, his persistent inclination towards constitutional talks with the white settler regime led by Edgar Whitehead that did not yield substantial and positive results. Possible reasons for the split had much to do with leadership wrangles, the best ideology and strategy to pursue against a recalcitrant white minority

134 _{J. K. Spiker, D. Crawford & R. L. Crawford, (1992). Influence of 2, 4, 6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) concentration on} the degradation of TNT in explosive-contaminated soils by the white rot fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 58(9), p. 3199. TNT is an acronym for ‘trinitrotoluene,’ a term used to describe rock mass damage induced by underground explosions.

135 _{G. Ma, H. Hao & Y. Zhou, (1998). Modeling of wave propagation induced by underground explosion. Computers} and Geotechnics, 22(3), p. 283.

136 _{F. Chung, (2007). Re-living the second chimurenga. Memories from Zimbabwe's liberation struggle, p. 147. ZIPRA} and ZANLA guerillas were placed into two locations by the Tanzanian authorities to destroy the potential rift between ZAPU and ZANU, but ZANLA guerillas undertook to exterminate ZIPRA fighters on the pretext that their leader, Joshua Nkomo, was collaborating with Ian Smith in endless negotiations. Key figures from both parties at Morogoro and Mgagao were from the ZANU side,Constantino Chiwenga, Perence Shiri and Augustine Chihuri (Stephen Chocha). From the ZIPRA side were Eddie Mlotshwa, Phillip Valerio Sibanda (Annanias Gwenzi) and Sam Fakazi. T. Ntungakwa, (2016). Chronicles of Chimurenga II: How ZIPA was buried in Tanzania. http://www.sundaymail.co.zw/chronicles-of-chimurenga-ii-how-zipa-was-buried-in-tanzania/ Accessed 23 March 2017.

137 _{F. Chung, (2015). Zimbabwe looking east. Directory Publishers, Bulawayo, pp. 83-94.}

138 _{M. Sithole, (1987). State power consolidation in Zimbabwe: Party and ideological development. In E. J. Keller and} D. Rothchild (Eds.). Afro-Marxist Regimes: Ideology and Public Policy. Lynne Rienner, Boulder, p. 86.

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government, and possibly ethnic cleavages within the party.139 Maurice Nyagumbo remarked that Enos Chikowore and Nyamupingidza as youth members of the breakaway ZANU party, made conditions impossible for Joshua Nkomo and his deputy, James Chikerema, to remain in Salisbury (Harare) even for a hour.140 The reason that Salisbury was in Mashonaland compelled Nkomo to establish ZAPU headquarters in Matabeleland. Therefore, after 1963, ZAPU and ZANU operated as two separate liberation movements, each with its own liberation army. Right from its inception, ZANU comprising youths, resolved to engage the settler regime by military means because of failed negotiation processes that had happened in the past, whereas ZAPU believed in constitutional negotiations to bring majority rule to Zimbabwe, and that the armed struggle would be the last resort.

This was the position of the two parties before the hardline Ian Smith, representing the Rhodesia Front that was racist and exclusivist, came to power in 1964. The ZAPU vice president, James Chikerema, in response to observations on the struggle, intimated that the decision to undertake the armed struggle did not start in 1964 following the detention of nationalist leaders, but rather after the collapse of the 1963 Constitutional Conference. To weaken and silence African nationalism, all key members of ZAPU and ZANU were put into detention camps in Gonakudzingwa and Sikombela. The move did not deter meaningful correspondence between and among people in detention and those who remained outside to coordinate clandestine nationalist activities. Chikerema stated that the objectives of the party in sending cadres to neighbouring and sympathetic socialist countries for military training was not for waging a guerilla warfare, but for carrying out acts of sabotage considered relevant to engender fear and despondency among the white minority regime in Rhodesia. Information could reach Nkomo in Gonakudzingwa restriction area through the agency of white liberals141 who regarded him and his party as less hardline and African nationalist (“racist” as interpreted by whites), than ZANU.142

The split between ZAPU and ZANU resulted in sporadic factional fights particularly in Salisbury, renamed Harare after independence. A distinguished journalist, Stanlake Samkange, who was also

139 _{Masipula Sithole, “State Power Consolidation in Zimbabwe: Party and Ideological Development”, p. 87.} 140 _{M. Nyagumbo, (1980). With the people: An autobiography from the Zimbabwe struggle. Allison & Busby,} London, p. 184.

141 _{T. Ranger, (2005). The rise of patriotic journalism in Zimbabwe and its possible implications. Westminster Papers} in Communication and Culture, 2, p. 11.

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chairman of the Highfields high-density suburb ZANU branch in 1964, expressed dismay at the absence of love of one’s fellow countrymen demonstrated by the youths which he regarded as the number one principle of his party because Africans were murdering Africans and boasting about it.143 Each of the two parties sought to portray itself as truly representing African nationalism by outbidding the other. The support base for the nationalist cause was found mainly in urban areas like Salisbury where the contest for support took on ruthless forms. This was also because ZAPU was strongest in Matabeleland and Salisbury.144

A distinctive depiction of ZANU’s aggressive nationalism was its attempt to obliterate all political rivals and to position itself as the sole guarantor of national goals by labeling ZAPU a party of traitors seeking to betray the attainment of the so-called national goals. Nkomo was caricatured as recanting, revisionist and recoiling whereas Sithole, the ZANU leader, was hailed as the leader of all patriots before he, too, became a “traitor” in the eyes of many after renouncing the use of violence as a precondition for his release from detention.145 This kind of patriotic journalism of the 1960s and 1970s had a direct bearing on ZANU-PF’s media influence, control, and manipulation in Zimbabwean modern politics after 1980. In the above periods, ZANU arrogated to itself the role of a true defender of African nationalism and there was always fierce contestation with ZAPU for that role.

ZANU attacks on ZAPU supporters in 1965 provided a good example of what it called patriotism, where ZAPU was demonised and ZANU was exalted for its love of the country.146 In ZANU’s booklet, Traitors do much damage to National Goals, ZAPU was portrayed as a club of traitors and ZANU, as the true representative of African black people in the country.147 The decision by ZAPU to fight a guerilla war could have been necessitated by the realisation that ZANU’s use of demonising propaganda stifled its organisational capacity in terms of recruitment, visibility and legitimacy. It was suicidal for Nkomo’s ZAPU to harp on the language of negotiation and peaceful

143 _{T. Ranger, (2005). The rise of patriotic journalism in Zimbabwe, p. 11.}

144 _{M. O. West, (2002). The rise of an African middle class:Colonial Zimbabwe, 1898-1965. Indiana University} Press, Bloomington, p. 234.

145 _{T. Ranger, (2005). The rise of patriotic journalism in Zimbabwe, p. 11.} 146 _Ibid.

147 _{G. Marawanyika, Zanu PF issues ‘traitors’ list, The Independent, 18 February 2005} https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2005/02/18/zanu-pf-issues-traitors-listAccessed 2 July 2016.

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transition at a time when its rival, ZANU, had already embraced the idea of guerilla war as a practical necessity, and when its members in urban areas especially, were being killed, physically attacked and assaulted by the ZANU urban youths for belonging to ZAPU. ZANU as a liberation movement stated that it was engaged in a Manichean struggle which ought to end in an absolute victory, freedom or death, and proclaimed the certainty of military victory.148 _{The need for ZAPU’s}

military engagement was further reinforced by the failure of the Geneva Constitutional Conference in 1976 during which time it was brought to the attention of detained nationalists that their fellow comrades were being hanged by Smith’s regime of at the rate of five people every Monday.149 _The

futility of negotiating made Nkomo consider negotiating with the British in the context of war “…as the only way to eject a thief that had broken into the house”.150

On the other hand, the release of Mugabe from prison in 1974 as a result of the détente initiative led by John Vorster, the South African president, and Kenneth Kaunda, the Zambian president, coincided with a leadership struggle within ZANU. Ndabaningi Sithole, as president of ZANU and under compelling prison conditions, renounced the use of violence in order to obtain his release from prison and this translated to ZANU abandoning its military strategy altogether. The renunciation of violence by the ZANU president, Ndabaningi Sithole in 1970, and his subsequent release from prison, met with such mixed feelings that made him him unpopular within the party that he had presided over since its formative years.151

The election of Robert Mugabe to replace Sithole as president of ZANU has been debated in political circles. Some members were not convinced that Sithole had sold out by renouncing the use of violence and so continued to regard him as their legitimate leader. The military leadership, not the ordinary guerillas, on the other hand, discarded Sithole as a sell-out and elected Mugabe instead. As Chung postulates, the importance of the military in fulfilling the role of ‘kingmaker’ was associated with Solomon Mujuru, whose war name was Rex Nhongo, who threw his weight behind Mugabe rather than Sithole during the 1974-75 power struggle.152 _{The controversies}

148 _{M. Ottaway, (1991). Liberation movements and transition to democracy: The case of the ANC. The Journal of} Modern African Studies, 29, p. 67.

149 _{National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ), (1979). Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo; ‘Down with colonialism: Down with} Fascism’ Political Editions. Information and Publicity Department, ZAPU, Lusaka, n.p.

150 _Ibid.

151 _{L. Laakso, (2003). Opposition politics in independent Zimbabwe. African Studies Quarterly, 7, p. 2} 152 _{F. Chung, (2015). Zimbabwe: Looking east. Bulawayo: Directory Publishers, p. 94.}

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surrounding Mugabe’s election as ZANU president in Mozambique informed military influence on decisions relating to democracy and power after ZANU-PF’s election victory in 1980.

According to Laakso, thousands of guerrillas in ZANU camps in Mozambique were detained for allegedly plotting to overthrow Mugabe in 1977.153 _{This suggests that a substantial number in}

ZANU and its military wing, ZANLA, did not support Mugabe’s leadership from the start and continued to view his leadership as an imposition from the party revolutionary leadership. The leadership wrangles in ZANU around 1978 have been linked to the mysterious death of the ZANLA High Commander, Josiah Tongogara, in a car crash on Boxing Day in 1979. Although no documented sources exist to shed light on the circumstances that led to his sudden death, he is understood to have mobilised ZANLA guerillas against the idea muted by ZANU to break away from PF and to campaign in the 1980 elections as a separate party from ZAPU. It is suspected that psychological warfare and manipulation of views and perceptions became part of ZANU-PF’s political culture and the inclusion of the military in the voting for leadership led to the dominance of militarists within ZANU during the war.154 A precedent was set that the army in future would determine who should lead the country and who should not. From the support that Mugabe got from a war general who was only second-in-command to Josiah Tongogara, it is not surprising that the revolutionary solidarity between Mugabe and Mujuru continued in government until the latter’s retirement from the army. It is therefore imperative to analyse the role of the military in sustaining ZANU-PF’s hegemonic powers in post-independence Zimbabwe and in creating conditions that were not conducive to democratic participation of all citizens regardless of political affiliation.

The British government did not take Smith’s UDI lightly and the regime was under pressure from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to make him conform with British decolonisation policy at the time. It was for that reason that the UNSC imposed its first ever economic sanctions on Rhodesia in 1965.155 _{In a bid to establish what blacks felt about the political dispensation that}

was ushered in by the UDI declared by the white minority, Britain later set up a commission known as the Pearce Commission in 1970-1. The Commission’s task was to investigate, through

153 _{L. Laakso, (2003). Opposition politics in independent Zimbabwe, p. 2.}

154 _{F. Chung, F. (2015). Zimbabwe: Looking east. Directory Publishers, Bulawayo, p. 88.}

155 _{M. Hove, & H. Chingono, (2013). National interests and the sanctions strategy 1959-2013. Review of History and} Political Science, 1, p. 6.

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conducting a referendum, whether Africans in Rhodesia consented to the constitutional proposals that were calculated to legitimise Smith’s UDI and entrench white economic and political superiority. The ZANU president at the time, Ndabaningi Sithole, and other incarcerated nationalists, denounced the commission from prison as another fraudulent constitutional proposal requiring African decision.156 _{To voice their condemnation of the commission, ZAPU and ZANU,}

both of which were almost paralysed and politically obscure, temporarily re-emerged as the African National Congress (ANC) under Bishop Abel Muzorewa. The ANC successfully mobilised Africans in urban townships throughout the country to condemn the Pearce Commission, a name given to the team selected by the British and led by Lord Pearce to conduct a plebiscite on the proposed constitution. Ndabaningi Sithole wrote two letters while in prison, one to the British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, in 1971, and another to British Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec in 1972, condemning the Pearce Commission as fraudulent. Sithole indicated that the two letters would serve as reference material for the Zimbabwean people if they were in future presented with another fraudulent constitutional proposal requiring their decision.157

This last point above serves as background to the 1976 Geneva Conference and more importantly, to the Lancaster Constitutional Conference of 1979, the latter of which exhibited the fraudulence that Sithole alluded to in as far back as 1972. The nationalists in Zimbabwe, through experiences in negotiated processes involving the British lost trust in them for their negotiating in bad faith and for flouting agreed positions with impunity. The Lancaster Conference produced a constitution that was not only typically flawed right from the start, but also fundamentally lacking in moral validity. Negotiations revolved around designing an undemocratic constitution – to protect white privilege and maintain the economic status quo. Any attempts at reconciliation, in this case, between blacks and whites after independence, had to reckon with a long history of chicanery by the whites that impoverished the Africans and robbed them of their dignity as proper human beings. A few cases need mentioning to emphasise the point above. The Rudd Concession of 1888 signed between king Lobengula, and Cecil, John Rhodes’ men Charles Rudd, Rotchford Maguire and Francis Thompson, became the legal document that the BSAC used to march into Zimbabwe on a colonising mission after cheating on the Ndebele king, Lobengula, to sign on a document written

156 _{NAZ, No. 39874, Zimbabwe must be free now, Zimbabwe African National Union, Salisbury, Letter by ZANU} President Ndabaningi Sithole to the British Prime Minister, Douglas Home, December 1972.

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in very strong legal language about which he knew nothing. Lobengula later realised that he had been cheated and sought to annul the Concession when it was already too late to amend. It must be noted that it was this document that the BSAC, on behalf of the British government, effectively used to justify its colonisation of the country in 1890.

Another case of what Africans consider to be white treachery involved constitutional proposals in the early 1970s. The Pearce Commission in 1971/72 was rejected upon the realisation that the Rhodesians wanted to cheat the Africans and hoodwink them into uncritically endorsing constitutional proposals that were meant to deprive them of their rights. A third case leading to the deepening of black distrust of whites was the Internal Settlement of 1978. The government of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia under the premiership of Bishop Muzorewa after his election victory, was no less compromised than the Smith Administration that it replaced in that Smith retained all the powers, thus rendering Muzorewa a ceremonial Prime Minister. The Lancaster Agreement preserved white political and economic interests by giving them 20 uncontested seats in parliament so that they remained relevant in the new dispensation. It bore the seeds of its own destruction and became pivotal in the long-drawn out political and economic crises in Zimbabwe thereafter. Carrying out aerial bombardments on ZANLA and ZIPRA bases when negotiations were