Zipra

1. History has recorded that whenever there had been hostilities during the liberation war against colonialism in what was Rhodesia between Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), the military wing of ZANU-PF, and ZIPRA the military wing of the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU), the ZIPRA forces had always defeated ZANLA forces in battle. This was also clearly demonstrated in 1981 when the ZANU-PF regime of Prime Minister Robert Gabriel Mugabe instructed ZANLA forces to destroy ZIPRA forces while awaiting integration into the Zimbabwe National Army. ZANLA forces were heavily defeated and driven out of Bulawayo by ZIPRA. At the same time, open conflict and skirmishes between ZANLA forces and ZIPRA forces had also broken out in various integration camps throughout the country with ZIPRA forces emerging victorious.

2. In February 1981, Prime Minister Robert Gabriel Mugabe having recognized the defeat of his ZANLA forces but still determined to destroy ZIPRA forces, sought air power assistance from Ian Smith, the former Rhodesian Prime Minister, and deployed the Rhodesian air force supported by the Rhodesian African Rifles against ZIPRA forces based at Entumbane township in Bulawayo.  Several bombing raids were carried out by the Rhodesian air force against ZIPRA forces resulting in scores of people being killed. The Rhodesian forces also suffered heavy casualties. The cessation of these hostilities only came to fruition after Prime Minister Robert Gabriel Mugabe (having started the war and suffered defeat) persuaded the ZAPU leader, Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo, to intervene by ordering his ZIPRA forces to cease fire and return to their camps to await integration into the newly established Zimbabwe National Army.

 

A ZIPRA freedom fighter in 1977.
FACT: ZIPRA also helped UMkhonto weSizwe in South Africa. Bayethe Tembisile Chris Hani(ZIPRA+MK), Nikita Mangena labo bonke asingabaqambanga ngamagama


3. When Prime Minister Robert Gabriel Mugabe's inspired strategy of destroying ZIPRA forces in 1981 had resulted in the defeat of his ZANLA forces in Bulawayo, he had simultaneously requested assistance from apartheid South Africa, alongside that of the Rhodesian air force and the Rhodesian African Rifles. The apartheid regime had positively responded to Prime Minister Robert Mugabe's request by deploying South African troops  (supported by tank divisions, armored personnel carriers, air power and other heavy military equipment) along the Zimbabwe Beitbridge border (on the South African side) ready to intervene in support of Mugabe's regime.

4. The readiness of the apartheid South African troops to intervene in support of Mugabe's ZANU-PF in 1981, had been intended to prevent Zimbabwe from providing operational bases to the African National Congress (ANC), and its military wing Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), in the event of ZIPRA emerging victorious and ZAPU assuming power in the country. This assistance was consistent with the pre-1980 secretive agreement between ZANU-PF and the apartheid regime which was signed in Mozambique. However, it subsequently transpired that the apartheid regime's concerns about such a possibility (i.e., of ZAPU overthrowing the Mugabe regime) had been ill-conceived.

5. It was not because ZAPU had no designs or desires of ruling Zimbabwe, but that the ZAPU leadership recognized that they were rapidly being dragged by ZANU-PF into a brutal ethnic conflict that would have had serious consequences. On the question of principle, therefore, the ZAPU leadership were determined at all cost to prevent Zimbabwe degenerating into a civil war of the types experienced in Mozambique and Angola in recent times. It was this conviction more than any other reason that constituted ZAPU's full compliance with the Lancaster House settlement.

6. As a result, the disarmament and  demobilization of all the ZIPRA forces proceeded smoothly without any incidents. Those who had not been integrated into the new Zimbabwe National Army joined the labor market and the ranks of the unemployed, whilst others embarked on various economic activities comprising co-operatives and community development projects. However, as ZAPU was voluntarily disarming its ZIPRA forces out of existence under the terms of the Lancaster House settlement, Robert Gabriel Mugabe's ZANU-PF, on the other hand, was welcoming into Zimbabwe a total of 106 North Korean instructors  who began arriving in August 1981 to train and equip the Fifth Brigade or Gukurahundi.

7. The Ndebele people are still baffled as to the reasons why Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo (as supreme commander of ZIPRA forces) proceeded voluntarily in disarming his forces in accordance to the Lancaster House settlement provisions, whilst around the same period Prime Minister Robert Gabriel Mugabe was doing exactly the opposite - not complying with the Lancaster House settlement, but instead training and equipping his separate army, Gukurahundi or Fifth Brigade.
 
8. The explanation is simple. Robert Gabriel Mugabe and the entire ZANU-PF leadership were fully aware that the Zimbabwe question had already decidedly been determined along ethnic lines during the first independence elections of 1980. In other words the Shona people had triumphed over the Ndebele people. This victory therefore represented the first phase of ZANU-PF's intentions to establish a Shona state in Zimbabwe. And since they had only won in the Mashonaland and Manicaland regions of the country, they were determined to conquer and dominate the whole country at all cost. Hence their next phase of campaign would be in Matebeleland and Midlands.