PREAMBLE
WHEREAS THE ZIMBABWE AFRICAN PEOPLE`S UNION (hereinafter referred to as "ZAPU" or "the Party") is the original liberation movement in Zimbabwe that emerged as the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress in 1957, later the National Democratic Party, and adopted the name Zimbabwe African People's Union in 1961;
AND WHEREAS ZAPU resolved at the Cold Comfort Farm never to change its name again in the face of bannings and harassment by the settler regimes of the time;
AND WHEREAS ZAPU initiated and prosecuted the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe from within and outside Zimbabwe until political independence was achieved in 1980, having transformed itself from a mere nationalist organization with a Pan - Africanist outlook to a broad revolutionary movement with an internationalist outlook, with its armed wing, the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZPRA);
AND WHEREAS ZANU (Zimbabwe Africa National Union) was formed as a breakaway party in 1963 and separately participated in the liberation struggle with its armed wing ZANLA (Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army);
AND WHEREAS in 1987 ZAPU entered into a unity accord with ZANU (PF) the ruling party that had been engaged in acts of genocide and other human rights abuses against the people of Zimbabwe living in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces as a result of which accord such acts and abuses ceased for a while the marginalization of those peoples persisted and the abuses resurfaced countrywide in 2008, much against the letter and spirit of the 1987 Unity Accord;
AND WHEREAS in December 2008 ZAPU reconsidered its position in the unity accord in the face of fundamental breaches of the unity accord by ZANU and at a convention resolved to withdraw therefrom and resuscitate itself as a political party.
AND FURTHER WHEREAS ZAPU realizes the need to transform itself from a liberation movement to a competitive political power and to govern the country with transparency and accountability as a servant rather than master of the people,
NOW THERFORE, WE THE DELEGATES HERE SOLEMNLY ASSEMBLED IN NATIONAL PEOPLE`S CONGRESS do hereby give unto ourselves, the people of Zimbabwe and to posterity the amended CONSTITUTION that follows.
