It is the historical experience of man, that to understand and deal with the present, one must primarily and of necessity, understand the past. For one to have a proper vision and plan for the future, one must, of necessity, understand the present fully. In short, ideas, events and experiences are linked in an unbreakable chain, between the past present and future. In this short piece of writing, ZAPU is presented in this historical context.
The origins of ZAPU are rooted in the formation of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress on the twelfth of September 1957. Between 1959 and 1963 the settler racist regimes of Rhodesia banned Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC), NDP, ZAPU, and PCC to mean directly, a developing dynamic and forward advancing liberation movement. This is what ZAPU grew to be and is now.
It should be noted that the emergence of the SRANC in 1957 was not unconnected event to the past. British colonialism invaded Zimbabwe in great force from about 1880. The standard colonialist methods of cheating, robbery, abuse of Christianity, exploitation, false territorial claims, attempts at exterminating the local population and military seizure of territory were all applied by the British in Zimbabwe. The British colonialists drew a treaty document in their language, called the Rudd Concession, which they claimed had been endorsed by King Lobengula, conceding the British the right of exploiting mineral wealth and some compromise of the King's sovereignty. Advance missionaries of the London Missionary Society Rev. John Moffat and Rev Heim in the grab of the good God, were the interpreters to effect the cheating deal. The upshot is that the British used the Rudd Concession to pitch a flag at Harare (present Salisbury), to steal cattle from Zimbabweans, to grab areas of the peoples land and convert it to individual, personal possessions for mining, farming and estate speculation. Ultimately they used the concession to carry out military seizure of Zimbabwe and realise its colonisation. This was around the year 1900.
The British colonial invasion was not accepted by the people of Zimbabwe. They took up to arms to expel the colonialist invaders, from 1893 to 1900. Several battles were fought in which Zimbabweans distinguished themselves in their determination to defend their country and their sovereignty. The Zimbabwe nation was welded significantly during this period. King Lobengula's most distinguished Commander Mkwati Ncube led several contingents of his forces up to near present Hartley, some sixty miles west of Salisbury and there forged a national force with Mashingaidze.
The national force attacked a fort pitched up by the invaders at Mhondoro South West of Salisbury, on the 17th of March 1897.
Zimbabwe Day, celebrated internationally on the 17th March in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe derives from this event which was significant in the goals of national unity and struggle. The British colonial invaders, now frequently referred to as settlers finally imposed themselves on Zimbabwe by their sheer technological advantage of their weapons. The people of Zimbabwe however, continued their struggle. in different forms of resistance all signifying non acceptance of foreign domination and exploitation.
Chirimuhuta became a prominent figure in the formation of the Native Welfare Association in 1911. Sobantu in the formation of the Bantu voters league in 1913, Jacha in the formation of the Bantu Congress in the early thirties and several other organisations such as the supreme council of 1950 which was the instrument for opposing the proposed Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
It is necessary to reflect that the motive force for the British colonial invasion was economic appetite for wealth. The financiers of the so called Rhodesian Exploration were the growing financial industrial and commercial monopolists resident in the United Kingdom. They were as it were extending their pipes into the mines, farming and cattle ranching lands of Zimbabwe and sucking Zimbabwe's wealth for themselves and their families and not .even for the ordinary citizens of the UK who are also to some extent, within the range of exploitation of these monopolists. The British South African Company, a company engaged in every conceivable industrial financial and commercial enterprise was the spearhead of British colonial occupation of Rhodesia. Rhodesia to day is a cluster of British exploiting companies in all walks of life. They have strangled the African economically so that no African enterprise can grow to any distance without eventual collapse. These monopolists are like an Indian Banyon tree under whose shadow nothing else grows.
Forcibly deprived of their means of living, their cattle and the land, the Zimbabweans. were compelled to seek employment and thus to enter the cycle of the money economy, over which they had absolutely no control. Theirs was exploited labour, as workers. It is in this field of the daily experience of exploitation, reinforced by the attitude of the exploiter that the greatest friction took place and sparked the fire of unrelenting opposition to oppression.
By far the greatest impetus to the Zimbabwe Liberation came from worker's organisations trade unions. Masotsha Ndlovu the greatest veteran of the Zimbabwe struggle launched the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU) in Bulawayo in 1924. From then onwards trade unions were formed in various establishments to resist exploitation. In the vital areas of mining, farming and domestic servants the racist regimes imposed prohibitions on trade union activity. The conflict was on.
Industrial strikes inevitably assumed the character of political action. In this all active Zimbabweans found expression. The post world war era from 1946 was characterised by leaders of the workers movements dictating the pace of political change. At the time, the Political movement which was the African National Congress (ANC) was feeble effort in structure and content. It was being towed away from the path of militant nationalist struggle by liberal devices such as the Capricon Society, Welfare Organisations etc which were apologists of the order of racist domination. The ANC, then, was led by black clerks, farmers and an elite detached from the masses and oriented towards liberalist bourgeoisie ideas. The issue of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland brought to fore a new crop of leadership largely with background of trade union activity. Some of these leaders died in the heroic path of the struggle, some have deviated and some are still right on course in the liberation struggle under ZAPU.
Comrade Joshua Nkomo was Secretary-General of the Rhodesian African Railway Workers' Union. The late Comrade Jason Moyo and Benjamin Madlela were from the Artisans Union. Comrade Joseph Msika was from the Textile Workers, Francis Nehwati from the Municipal Workers' Union. James Chikerema and George Nyandoro have since deviated and destroyed their own past record. To complete the historical link at the time it is inevitable to mention them. They were also linked with their trade unions in the insurance and clerical fields respectively.
The inauguration of the SRANC on the 12th of September 1957 was a result of a series of initiatives by leaders of the resuscitated African National Congress formed in Bulawayo in early 1955 and leaders of the Youth League formed in Salisbury at about the same time. These two organisations shared the common objective of constituting a single national movement for Zimbabwe. They succeeded. .The chief negotiators from the resuscitated African National Congress in Bulawayo were Comrade Jason Moyo, Joseph Msikaand Francis Nehwati. Those from the Youth League Salisbury - were James Chikerema, George Nyondoro and Paul Mushonga.
The point of departure with previous political approaches is that the SRANC enunciated clearly the policy of universal suffrage (one man one vote) as the basis of Government for Zimbabwe. It conceived, though tenously at the time, that socialism was the answer to the politics of oppression in Rhodesia. It believed in exposing the enemy evils such as the grotesque laws of the Land Apportionment Act, the Land Husbandry Act and similar laws which were designed to deprive the African of the-means of living and the potential to develop economically.
The SRANC understood clearly that organisations meant dynamic contact with the masses. It took to the rural areas to mobilise the peasantry, it took to the streets in -the cities to mobilise the proletariat. It expressed the fundamental grievances of the people in the rural areas, such problems as destocking and allocation of infertile and arid land, in the cities such problems as lack of employment arbitrary arrests under a typically reactionay law the Vagrancy Act, lack of schools for the majority of Zimbabwean Children, exploitative rents and fares.
The SRANC realised that pleading with the racist regime to change their heart was a hopeless method. It therefore adopted the militant method of defiance of the regime in its application of certain measures boycotts - where possible - and marching protest demonstrations such as in the demand for more schools for the children. The national struggle was the tide of African nationalism in the entire continent was at its peak when the SRANC immediately sought pan African connections. The task fell on Comrade President Joshua Nkomo. Ghana under the leadership of the great son of Africa, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was the leading pan African force. Comrade President Joshua Nkomo attended the first conference of pan African parties and liberation movements convened in Accra by Dr. Nkrumah. Comrade Nkomo was elected into the steering committee of the All African Peoples Conference as the conference was called. This development marked the first concrete international link of the Zimbabwe liberation movement. A chain development of international links with Government and non government bodies followed. Politically it is significant that these were links with the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist international forces links were initiated and developed with Afro Asian People's Solidarity Organisation (AAPSO) based in Cairo, with countries of the non aligned movement (Yugoslavia, India) with the anti-colonial movement in London under the veteran Fenner Brock way, with the Socialist countries - USSR and China - and with several personalities in the Scandanavian countries, Europe and the United States. All these links were charted, accomplished and consolidated by Comrade Joshua Nkomo virtually single handed between December 1958 and December 1960 having been forced into exile (the first Zimbabwean to live in exile in contemporary times) by the ban of SRANC by the Rhodesian racist regime in February 1959).
The socialist countries in particular the USSR proved to be the most invaluable link ever developed for the future of the liberation struggle. It was a discovery of natural allies in the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist cause.
By far the most important political move taken by Comrade Nkomo internationally was to list Southern Rhodesia as one of the British colonies that had to be the subject of the United Nations’ decolonisation programme. The United Nations after adopting its programme had demanded colonial powers to submit their lists of colonies all over the world.
Britain had schemed to conceal Southern Rhodesia by omitting it from its list of colonies. Comrade Nkomo working closely with the Egyptian delegation in the trusteeship Committee of the UN, managed to have Southern Rhodesia listed. The British argued in vain, using their fictitious claim that Southern Rhodesia was a self governing territory and therefore not a colony.
With its demand for one man one vote as the basis of Government in Zimbabwe with its perception of socialism (though tenuous) as the better way of life for Zimbabwe with its clear understanding that struggle meant expression of the will of the people, with its approach to mass mobilisation and adoption of the militant style, by putting the Zimbabwe struggle in the context of the Pan African and other international progressive links, the SRANC stirred a dynamic mood for the liberation struggle-among Zimbabweans and laid the policy foundations for the future course of struggle. The course was that of violent confrontation with Rhodesian racists.
The white racist ruler at the time was Sir Edgar Whitehead. He succeeded the honourable Garfield Todd who for his vision and liberal approach on the question of race relations had been thrown out by the white racists as the confrontation with African nationalism was clearly heading towards a collision course.
Rhodesia then was part of a British imperialist structure called the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Comprising Nyasaland (Malawi) Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).
Federal Government was run by Sir Roy Welensky. The struggle in Northern Rhodesia was being conducted by the NRANC under the leader ship of Dr. Kenneth Kaunda. In Nyasaland it was conducted by a congress organisation under the leadership of Dr. Kamuzu Banda. Dr. Kaunda's organisation later became the mighty United National Indepdence Party (UNIP) and the Nyasaland Congress became the Malawi Congress.
Comrade Nkomo and Dr.Kaunda co-ordinated their efforts at struggle and to a considerable extent also with Dr. Kamuzu Banda.
On the 23rd of February 1959, the racist regime of Sir Whitehead descended on the SRANC banned it and detained the national, provincial, district and branch leadership of the organisation. About 500 Comrades altogether were arrested. Comrade Nkomo, the President was then on a mission to Egypt. He decided to remain in exile and immediately single handedly embarked on an international compaign to rally support for the Zimbabwe Liberation struggle. As indicated earlier on it is this effort that put Zimbabwe in the context of the international anti-colonialist struggle.
Under a delusion of having extinguished the Zimbabwe flame of freedom the Rhodesian racist went on a spate of passing laws to fortify racism. They passed the so called "Law and Order Maintainance Act" the "Unlawful Organisations Act" and a series more.
By these laws the racist regimes were giving them selves more and more powers to suppress the rising tide of the liberation struggle. As events have proved the white racist rulers were missing the point not because they did not understand but because they were the tragic victims and agents of capitalist selfishness.
On the 1st of January 1960 the National Demo cratic Party was launched at the Cyril Jennings Hall in Salisbury. It was born out of a series of communications between some young men in Salisbury Iand the leaders of the SRANC in dentetion in Que Que and Selukwe. Actively involved in this exercise were the late Sketchley Samkange, Willie Musaruwa, George Silundika, Nazario Marondera, Michael Mawema and some others. Those in prison were Edison Sithole, Jaems Chikerema, George Nyandoro and others. A white liberal lawyer, Bowly acted as communications link.
The National Democratic Party was not a new organisation. It was the SRANC in another name. When it was launched its leadership in trust for the President Nkomo who was in exile and for the others who were in prison. Michael Mawema was the NDP's acting President until September 1960. when the National Executive expelled him for impropriety with funds of the organisation.
The development of the struggle under NDP in 1960 can roughly be characterised:
- The vigorous mass mobilisation and party organisation in the urban and rural areas throughout Zimbabwe.
- Focussing the solution of the Zimbabwe problem on Britain as against the Rhodesian regime. Notable in this connection was the memorandum to British Prime Minister Sir Harold MacMillan in January 1960 when he visited Rhodesia and the demonstrations organised during his visit. The NDP delegation comprising Michael Mawema, Morton Malinga and Leopold Takawira to be led by Joshua Nkomo on arrival in London, to oppose Sir Edgar Whitehead's move to secure the independence for the white racists on Zimbabwe Territory.
- The sharp reaction of the NDP through a massive demonstration in Salisbury on June 19th over the arrest of the party leaders and the continued detention of the Congress Leaders. This was instantly extended to other centres, particularly to Bulawayo, from the 21st to the 24th of June 1960 where the climax was a violent confrontation with the regimes forces whilst the masses bare handed, were rallied by the spirit of "Zhii".
- The break up of violent conflict at Harare Township in October 1960 over white motorists who recklessly and heedlessly ran over African pedestrians working near Beatrice Cottages.
- The National Democratic Party Congress held at the end of October 1960. To illustrate the close relationship with the struggle in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) the NDP congress was chaired by a representative of UNIP, Nalumino Mundia. By far the unnoticed but greatest significant event for the future of the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe was the initiative of Comrade President Nkomo to arrange for six young men to receive military training in the People's Republic of China in 1960. This was the beginning of the conception of and preparation for the armed liberation struggle in Zimbabwe. Among these young men to concretise the historical fact were Philemon Makonese, Dr. Arthur Musuka who went to China with some others. This is how the series began in China and later on facilities were sought in Egypt, the Soviet Union, Algeria, Cuba and Tanzania.
The NDP was headed by a National Executive of seven. This Executive was elected at a congress held in Salisbury at the end of October 1960, chaired as earlier mentioned by Nalumino Mundia of UNIP, Comrade Nkomo was President, George Silundika, Secretary General, Morton Malinga, Vice President, Robert Mugabe Publicity Secretary, Dan Ncube, Assistant Publicity Secretary, Ndabaningi Sithole, treasurer and the late Comrade Moyo, Financial Secretary.
It should be mentioned here that the time and message of the NDP had such a ring in the ears of the struggling masses that the Africans who were swept away by the deceit of the so called multiracial theory started crawling back to the movement of the masses. The NDP became a mixture of various levels of conventions and determinations about the liberation struggle. There was of course a basic common feeling of nationalism. The capitalist oriented black small businessmen believed the drive of the NDP was leading him to the same business stature as the flourishing white exploiters. The intellectuals and black pets of white liberals saw in the NDP an opportunity to be showed with favours and special privileges of high posts and pay the ruling class. The masses (composed of the proletariat, the workers and peasants) saw in the NDP an opportunity to over throw the racist oppressors.
The slogans of the NDP were "ONE MAN ONE VOTE" "NYIKA NDEYEDU - ILIZWE NGELETHU" (Zimbabwe is Ours) and "FORWARD EVER BACKWARD NEVER". The NDP did not only generate the momentum of struggle among Zimbabweans but also exposed the hardened and irredeemable attitudes of white racists who believe that suppression of the black man was the only way of keeping him in his place as less than a dog. The NDP saw the polarisation of attitudes as between the oppressor and the oppressed. The years that followed have seen the rise of the armed struggle.
The NDP contributed to the college of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In 1960 the British Government under MacMillan convened a conference to see how best the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland could be carried forward. Comrades Joshua Nkomo leading the NDP, Kenneth Kaunda of UNIP and Dr. Kamuzu Banda of the Malawi Congress Party forged a formidable alliance to oppose any continuation to the Federation.
It broke up in 1963. Malawi and Zambia moved to Independence, Rhodesia became the fall back of white racists resistance.
The British Government convened a conference in 1961. The NDP attended the first part of it in February, but Comrade Nkomo walked out of the second session in April, where the British and the settlers had now brought in a ten man delegation of chiefs to overwhelm the nationalist stand as represented by the NDP. The British Government then wanted to use the pretext of a referendum on the 26th of July 1961 to give the fraudulent constitution some pseudo democratic legitimacy. Comrade President Nkomo immediately responded by calling all Zimbabweans to demonstrate their rejection of the fraudulent 1961 constitution by turning up at a referendum conducted by the NDP on the 23rd of July 1961. The peasants, farm workers and the proletariat turned up massively and rejected the British Fraud.
The NDP held its Congress in November 1961 in Bulawayo. The political issue was whether or not to participate under the constitution despite opposition to it. The congress decided against participation. It resolved to continue the struggle on a non-collaborationist note.
It is important to note that the faction which eventually became ZANU manifested itself at this congress by tactics to oust certain leaders on tribal lines. The congress trounced these elements. On the 9th of December 1961, the regime of Whitehead banned the NDP and confiscated its property. Comrade President Nkomo was on that day on an invitation visit to Tanganyika to attend the Independence celebrations. Upon his return he launched the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) on the 17th of December 1961 -only a week after the ban on the NDP. Comrade Nkomo's launching of ZAPU was virtually resuscitating the NDP in an improved form such as an expanded executive of sixteen and the creation of the post of special affairs. In consideration of setting upon the path of the armed struggle ZAPU combined party organisation with the demarcation of the country into areas for violent action. Dr. Parirenyatwa, Vice President of ZAPU died on his way to Nkai via Bulawayo to fulfil some of these missions.
One ideological battle which ZAPU had to engage itself in was to destroy the infiltration of the trade union movement by the ICFTU with the concept that trade unions should not be part of a political movement. Reuben Jamela as President of the unions was agent of this disastrous concept. The membership of ZAPU in the trade union movement and ZAPU itself stood firmly on the revolutionary concept that trade union movement had to be part and parcel of a political movement led by a political party. The party triumphed.
ZAPU was very aware of the heating-up conflict with racists, therefore anticipated a ban sooner or later. It concluded that to accept a ban by the regime was to concede defeat.
ZAPU resolved ahead to continue in any manner possible as ZAPU regardless of the ban.
Indeed the ban on ZAPU came on the 20th of September 1962. The leadership was arrested, some imprisoned and some detained near their rural homes. Comrade Joshua Nkomo who had been abroad when this ban come returned and was restricted at Samukwe his home, some sixty miles or so south east of Bulawayo.
At the end of 1962 the regime of Whitehead conducted elections in which it lost to the Rhodesia Front led by Winston Field. Nearly all detainees were released in January 1963. The President Comrade Nkomo was anxious to develop his ideas on the question of the armed struggle. On release he flew to Tanganyika and put to President Nyerere that the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe now needed a base from which to conduct it. He requested form that base in Tanganyika. Despite some initial difficulties Dar-es-Salaam eventually became a base for the Zimbabwe struggle.
Comrade President led a delegation to the first summit conference of the OAU which established the Organisation on the 25th of May 1963, ZAPU experienced on internal revolt. The Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole led a group which made contradictory charges against Comrade Nkomo.
They alleged that he was at once a "weak leader and Dictator". However, it was the external emergence of the same group which at the 1961 November Congress of the NDP plotted to oust leaders on a tribal plan. Nkomo challenged these elements to a congress of ZAPU (which operated under the name "People's Caretaker Council") at the Cold Comfort Farm on the 10th of August 1963. Rev. Sithole however, called a press conference in Salisbury (Highfields) on the 8th of August and announced his formation of the Zimbabwe
African National Union (ZANU). Thus the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole created a split in the ranks of the People of Zimbabwe. For the last 14 years the energies of the people of Zimbabwe have been split some against the enemy and some being wasted in inter-party differences. The Cold Comfort Congress on the 19th of August 1963 expelled the splitters and also enhanced the authority of the President. A further serious step was taken by this congress to sharpen the role of the armed liberation struggle. The president and his cabinet were authorised to establish even abroad, such instruments of the party as would intensify the struggle.
On the 16th of April 1964 the Rhodesian Front regime swept into detention the entire leadership of ZAPU including the President. The nucleus of leadership left to conduct the struggle from outside was led by the Gwelo decision of the People's Council already established in Zambia. It comprised of James Chikerema, Jason Moyo, George Nyandoro and George Silundika. They were joined by Edward Ndlovu some few months later.
The NDP had for administration and organisatior purpose divided Zimbabwe into eight regions whose centres were Umtali, Salisbury, Sinoa, Fort Victoriam, Gwanda, Nkai, Gwelo and Bulawayo. ZAPU inherited this regional organisation frame. The leadership in detention the nucleus operational committee based in Zambia maintained this structure and continued to maintain it in all their planning.
The Rhodesian Front regime banned the ZAPU caretaker council on the 26th of August 1964. All ZAPU political and military activities form then onwards were underground and very vigorous. The armed struggle escalated. The party remained intact.
The Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the Smith Regime and the subsequent feeble attempts by the United Kingdom Government to bring about a solution through the so called Fearless and Tiger, the Smith and Home Constitutional fraud and lately the Geneva talks of 1976 are all features of political struggle. They are not the main issues of the present treatment. The subject is the resilience of the Zimbabwe liberation Movement from 1957 to this date under the leadership of Comrade Nkomo.
It is a historical fact that in 1970 James Chikerema and George Nyandoro suffered the temptation to seize the party; weaken the leader ship of Comrade president Nkomo and use the army to impose not only their dominance but also that their tribe which they mistakenly believed they represented. This adventure was finally crushed on August 21, 1971 in the bushes of Zambia. They branched off to form the abortive FROLIZI. ZAPU survived purified and invigorated.
Considering the fact the ZAPU was banned on the 20th of September 1962, it is significant in terms of the strength of the organisation that ten years later in 1972 the frame of the organisation surfaced under the African National Council to defeat through the Pearce Commission the at tempts by the British and Ian Smith to impose a racially conceived and fraudulent constitution. This is the measure of the success and survival of ZAPU within the Zimbabwe masses as a liberation movement. Bishop Muzorewa rode on the crest of his wave and found himself suddenly looking at the world from horizons as caretaker of the African National Council. He mistook the storm of enthusiasm over the surface revival of ZAPU (under the cover frame ANC) for personal support. This had an accidental effect on his mind. He was tempted to change the course of history and seize the moment for himself and the opportunists, opportunists who were pushing him on. He had some material in a number of young men who had grown up in -between the periods or surface active politics (1962-1972) and therefore had tenuous grasp of which historical forces were the background to the current events. The leadership of destiny was in prisons and outside the country.
The imperialist forces represented by their propaganda media and their political manoeuvres moved to catch the moment for their own purposes. They blew up Muzorewa as a new decisive phenomenon in Zimbabwe Nationalist politics capable of delivering Zimbabwe to independence. These forces desperately needed an immature and inept leader with which to forge a reactionary neo-colonial deal for Zimbabwe, thus preserving their influence and interests.
Muzorewa perhaps as a Bishop began to convince himself of this messianic role.
This was the psychological state under which unity within the ANC was forged in November and December 1974. Muzorewa was so taken that he could not even understand the strong forces that were using him as a front before the vicious Rhodesian regime when on the 2nd of June 1974 the executive of the ANC (virtually) ZAPU rejected the extremely naive deal he had made with Ian Smith accepting a constitution rejected by the masses a basis for independence.
With the encouragement of Front line states a serious effort was made to weld ZAPU and ZANU in unity under the ANC on the 7th December 1974, Lusaka. The top leaders of the two organisations had been released on 3rd December from prisons to discuss the possibilities of constitutional solution and unity, thus became a priority. Instead of acknowledging that ZAPU was virtually the base of the African National Council, Muzorewa took an opportunistic posture which gave room to regroupings, groupings and factional pushover, making it impossible to maintain the centre. He failed to call the Congress envisaged in the unity accord because he feared he would loose to Comrade Nkomo. Unity and his chances to become one of the established leaders through the people's will slipped away. He continues to survive on the fiction of the Pearce Commission demonstrated will of the people against fraudulent constitution and not for Muzorewa.
Under the cover name of the African National Council ZAPU under the leadership of Comrade Nkomo led the masses of Zimbabwe to a congress on the 27th and 28th of September 1975. Delegates were country wide numbering 6,000 in all. Eighty percent of the ANC executive members that originally served with Muzorewa were for the Congress. The will of the people was thus demonstrated and consolidated. Comrade Nkomo was re-elected President with an executive of 68 members. This is how the Movement (ZAPU) stands to day-firmly on the will of the people.
The stress of ZAPU is the armed liberation struggle. Thus after the congress of 1975, the external administration of ZAPU under the leadership of the late Comrade Jason Moyo immediately sought to constitute a unified Zimbabwe Army, ZIPA (Zimbabwe People's Army). This was a welding of the ZAPU army ZPRA and ZANU army ZANLA. ZIPA launched its operations in 1976. Mozambique had become independent. Because of differing military backgrounds and because of the externally conceived dangerous ideas of the so called "Third Force" hatched in order to oust the political leadership, the coherence of ZIPA became tenuous. ZAPU cadres under clear political guidance refused to be agitated to revolt against their political leadership. From May 1976 though maintaining the principle of ZIPA and ZANLA and ZPRA forces have been fighting under separate commands.
The spirit of a single national army and that of political unity in an armed liberation struggle has manifested itself again in ZAPU and ZANU forging a Patriotic Front. This was declared on October 9th 1976. The Patriotic Front defined as an alliance between ZAPU and ZANU has committed itself to unifying the fighting forces and pledged to harmonise its political orientations and programmes as well.
The Patriotic Front represents a qualitative political development within the liberation movement in Zimbabwe. ZAPU and ZANU have had their mutual prejudices pruned down by years of hard march through the jungles of the armed liberation struggle.
They have also sobered to the fact that the independence of Zimbabwe can not be delivered to a divided national army as Comrade President Nkomo has put it.
As democratic people we can afford several political parties but we cannot afford a divided nation al army. Hence we must unify the ZPRA and ZANLA forces, now, so that together they should liberate Zimbabwe and as one defend its independence.
PRODUCED BY THE PUBLICITY BUREAU OF ZAPU (PATRIOTIC FRONT)
Zimbabwe Review, September 1977
