Robert Mugabe on Zimbabwe
The following article was written for the 1982 Britannica Book of the Year (events of 1981) by Robert Mugabe, who became the first prime minister of Zimbabwe in 1980. In it he recounts the black majority’s struggle for independence and details his government’s plans to address the problems facing the nascent country. Mugabe’s title of prime minister changed to president in 1987, and his rule continued until his resignation in 2017. Initial praise for the pragmatic and conciliatory nature of his administration was replaced over the years with criticism of his increasingly repressive and brutal regime. He ends this article with the African liberation cry “A luta continua!” (Portuguese: “The struggle continues!”).
Struggling for Nationhood: The Birth of Zimbabwe
When, in 1652, Jan van Riebeeck, representing the Dutch East India Company, landed at the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa and laid the foundations of a future Dutch Cape Colony, no one could have foreseen that the process thus begun would assume such proportions 250 years later. It engulfed, in successive stages, not just the Cape Colony but also the Orange Free State, the Transvaal, Natal, Basutoland, Swaziland, Bechuanaland, Southern Rhodesia, and Northern Rhodesia. The national liberation struggle that transformed Southern Rhodesia into Zimbabwe was an event in this process and was the sum of many linked events.
Colonial Background
In the competitive game of colonial adventures played out in Africa and the Far East during the 15th to the 19th century, the law of the survival of the fittest ruled just as it did in the jungle. The Portuguese eliminated the Arabs, the Dutch the Portuguese, while the French and British, as they struggled for supremacy, together annihilated the Dutch in many areas. Having survived alone in the Cape, the British began pursuing the Dutch settlers moving northward in search of greater freedom. This northward movement by the Afrikaners resulted in the establishment of two republics: the Orange River Republic (now the Orange Free State) and the Transvaal Republic (now Transvaal), whose northern border was the Limpopo River.
Cecil John Rhodes, a British empire builder who had become prime minister in the Cape, saw the growing British Empire threatened by the northward thrust of the Boers. He determined to curb it in the interest not only of the British Empire but also of his own quest for mineral fortune. A zone of British influence had, therefore, to be carved out north of the Transvaal. Rhodes had already foiled the territorial ambitions of the Boers in Bechuanaland (Botswana) through a treaty signed by Chief Khama and the British government. North of the Limpopo, the strategy, apart from treaties signed in 1888 with Chief Lobengula of the Ndebele tribe, was that of occupation. The occupation of the territory, later called Southern Rhodesia, was the realization of one of Rhodes’s grandest dreams.
In 1889 Rhodes secured a royal charter from Queen Victoria for the British South Africa Company, now charged with the task of effecting the occupation. Thus began a colonial history that led to one of the bloodiest conflicts ever fought in Africa: the bitter war between the Ndebele and the settlers in 1893 and, subsequently, the first national liberation war (Chimurenga or Chindunduma) of 1896–97. Having obtained an agreement from the Africans conferring on him the grant of mineral rights, Rhodes turned it into an instrument of political and socioeconomic control. The Africans were both cheated and invaded, and they resorted to war. The 1896–97 war, with its surprise attacks and ambushes, was aimed at exterminating the enemy. In Matabeleland, for example, 130 European settlers were killed within the first week of the war, and the survivors were driven into hiding. In Mashonaland some 450 settlers were annihilated as the uprising, beginning in Chief Mashayamombe’s area in the Hartley district, spread to other regions. Peace negotiations with the Ndebele were conducted by Rhodes himself. In Mashonaland British reinforcements defeated the Shonas, and their leaders were executed.
The settlers’ victory led to repressive measures against the Africans. All administrative power was vested in the British South Africa Company until 1923, when Britain granted the right of self-government to the settler communities. In 1930 the Land Apportionment Act legalized what already existed in practice: the division of land between the whites and the blacks, with the whites owning 19.9 million ha (49.1 million ac) out of a total of 40.3 million ha (99.6 million ac). From this act, discrimination in the social, economic, and educational spheres also came into being. Since all urban, mining, and industrial areas were designated as white, no African could acquire a permanent home there. Schools, hospitals, and social amenities were all within the white areas. There was racial discrimination in labour conditions and job opportunities as well.
The Failure of Politics
The early nationalist and trade union movements, aware that the institutions of power were fully controlled by the settlers’ government, confined themselves to correcting the grievances arising from racial discrimination by nonviolent means. The Southern Rhodesian African National Congress (1934–57) was the first real national grouping, but for a long time it lacked organization and drive. The National Youth League, formed in 1955 by James Chikerema, George Nyandoro, Edson Sithole, and Dunduzu Chisiza, merged with it in 1957, thus providing a broader basis for the mobilization of popular support.
The establishment of the Central African Federation (Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland) in 1953, combining the territories of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland, was widely regarded by the African nationalist leaders of the three territories as a plot conceived by the white settlers (especially those in Southern Rhodesia) to thwart African aspirations and as a strategy to delay the independence process in Malawi (Nyasaland) and Zambia (Northern Rhodesia). During the federal period (1953–63) the Africans of all three territories were pitted against the whites and the tensions between them were intensified. Feeling their systems threatened, the white governments banned the African National Congress (ANC) of Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and later the Zambia Congress, and nationalist leaders, including Kamuzu (Dr. Hastings) Banda and Kenneth Kaunda, were detained. In Southern Rhodesia the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), both led by Joshua Nkomo, were successively proscribed in 1961 and 1962.
For a long time, the African Zimbabwean leadership believed that a solution to the political problem of the country lay in using political pressure to compel Britain to call a constitutional conference. However, when a Southern Rhodesian constitutional conference was held in London and Salisbury in 1960 and 1961, respectively, only 15 parliamentary seats out of 65 were given to the Africans. The mood of the whites under Prime Minister Sir Edgar Whitehead was not inclined to compromise. Less compromising still was the mood of the rightist Dominion Party (later the Rhodesia Front), which rejected the 1961 constitution and later proceeded to win the general elections in December 1962. In 1964 it rejected the liberal Winston Field as leader in favour of the more conservative Ian Douglas Smith, thus setting the scene for the defiant and rebellious course that led to Southern Rhodesia’s unilateral declaration of independence from Great Britain on Nov. 11, 1965. The principle of majority rule was rejected as anathema by the white minority. Meanwhile, the failure of the Federation spelled the end of white supremacy in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, both of which moved on to independence in 1964.
Armed Struggle Begins
The realization by a core of the ZAPU leadership that the old political methods had failed and that a new leadership had to be found to confront the enemy by force of arms led to the formation of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). From its inception, ZANU aimed at armed struggle as the main thrust of national effort. Within a few months of its formation it began recruiting cadres for training in China and Ghana.
It must, however, be stated on behalf of the National Democratic Party that it was the first nationalist organization to distinguish clearly between the remedial approach to grievances and a basic approach that attacked the main cause of grievances against an unjust system. The NDP agitated for political change leading to majority rule based on one man, one vote. ZANU, however, went further by emphasizing that one man, one vote could only be gained by an armed revolutionary struggle.
The unilateral declaration of independence in 1965 rendered the traditional political methods of struggle (strikes, demonstrations, noncollaboration, and appeals to Britain) impotent. In fact, both ZANU and the People’s Caretaker Council had been banned in August 1964, leaving them no option but to operate as underground movements.
In those circumstances, external bases became necessary, and these were established in Zambia and Tanzania. As Mozambique became independent, another base area presented itself. In April 1966 ZANU engaged the enemy in what has become known as the Battle of Sinoia. That battle inspired many other encounters with the enemy during 1966–68. ZANU reckons that the second War of Liberation (Chimurenga II) began in April 1966.
It became evident that the strategy of conventional battles was costly in terms of losses—human and material—because the enemy was stronger in manpower and equipment. A revision of strategy and tactics was called for, and a period of tutelage of ZANU cadres occurred in the Tete area of Mozambique between 1970 and 1972. ZANU then relaunched the struggle in December 1972, in the northeastern part of Zimbabwe, after having cultivated popular support over a period of nearly two years. Thenceforth, the struggle was sustained until the cease-fire arranged under the Lancaster House Agreement, save for a brief period in 1974–75 under a détente arrangement.
In the wake of the détente exercise, sharp contradictions developed in ZANLA, the armed wing of ZANU, as some commanders turned renegade after being infiltrated by the enemy. The enemy strategy was clearly to destroy the forces that now covered most of the northeastern zone. Thomas Nhari and Dakarai Badza, who became leaders of the rebellion, kidnapped some members of DARE (the Revolutionary Council) headed by Herbert Chitepo, and at the rear camp base of Chifombo, on the Zambian side near Tete, they assassinated scores of cadres, male and female, for refusing to join them. Nevertheless, the rebellion was crushed.
The enemy was not deterred by this failure. Within four months of the release of the detained nationalist leaders as a result of the détente, Herbert Chitepo was killed on March 18, 1975, when a bomb blew up his car. For most of 1975 the armed struggle made no progress and indeed suffered serious reversals, especially since the newly formed ANC umbrella organization, led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa, had neither direction nor set purpose other than that of stopping the war and negotiating with the Smith regime. The ZANU wing of the new composite body felt offended by the tactics employed against them by the front-line states (Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana, and Angola), which had coerced them into joining the ANC.
Following the shocking death of Herbert Chitepo, the ZANU Central Committee met in March 1975 to review the party’s strategy. It was decided at that meeting that the writer, then secretary-general of the party, should leave the country immediately for Mozambique and Tanzania where he would undertake the reorganization of the party’s external wing and its fighting wing, ZANLA. The writer requested that a companion, Edgar Tekere, then secretary for youth in ZANU, accompany him. On April 4, 1975, we left for the eastern border where, at Nyafaro, we were joined by Chief Tangwena who led us into Mozambique.
The Conflict Intensifies
The failure of the Victoria Falls talks held between the Smith delegation and that of the ANC led by Bishop Muzorewa convinced the front-line states that Smith was still not amenable to political change. There was no alternative but the continuation of the liberation war, which was rekindled in January 1976 using Mozambique as a rear base. After some dissension the ZANLA commanders finally began to work in unison, expanding their military zones stage by stage and transforming many of them into liberated and semiliberated zones. By 1978 the armed struggle had had such remarkable progress that the collapse of the Smith regime was just a matter of time. But between the Victoria Falls conference in 1975 and the final constitutional conference at Lancaster House in 1979, two other constitutional conferences occurred: the 1976 Geneva Conference based on the Kissinger proposals and the meetings based on the Anglo-American proposals, held first in Malta in January 1978 and then in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, in March 1978.
As the idea of a conference to discuss the plan proposed by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger—which aimed at stopping the war on the basis of ultimate majority rule—took shape, all the leaders of the nationalist groups were invited to a meeting with the front-line states. At this meeting ZANU stood as ZANU for the first time. The meeting had been called to provide a forum for reaching some modicum of unity on nationalist strategy for the prosecution of the struggle. As this could not be done with the ANC, now completely divorced from the war, Pres. Julius Nyerere of Tanzania took various nationalist leaders aside and advised them to form a political front so the political leadership could agree on a common political strategy for the proposed Geneva Conference. It was this idea that led to the formation of the Patriotic Front, which was to adopt a common position for all future constitutional conferences. The Geneva Conference, however, was a fiasco. Smith would not accept the British proposals and the Patriotic Front rejected the Kissinger plan completely.
ZANU strategy following the failure of the Geneva Conference was twofold. First, the ZANU leadership had to be restructured. Second, the liberation war had to be intensified, and more arms had to be procured from allies and friends. The political restructuring of ZANU affected mainly the composition of its Central Committee. At a meeting held at a ZANLA military rear base outside Chimoio which lasted for nearly two weeks, it was decided that the new Central Committee would consist of elected members chosen from various constituencies. It was at this meeting that the writer was elected president of the party; Simon Muzenda, vice-president; Edgar Tekere, secretary-general; Josiah Tongogara, secretary of defense; Meya Urimbo, national political commissar; Teurai Ropa, secretary of women’s affairs; and several others to various positions. For the first time, several members of the ZANLA high command were now also members of the Central Committee so that they too could participate in the policymaking function of the party. The successful restructuring of the party marked a final phase in the protracted effort to save ZANU and establish it as the national vanguard movement.
At the end of 1977, Britain and the United States published their so-called Anglo-American proposals. The result was the Malta meeting between the Patriotic Front and an Anglo-American team at which the Patriotic Front emphasized the need for accepting certain fundamental democratic principles, such as universal adult suffrage, free elections, restructuring of public service, and the disbanding of the Smith regime’s illegal army. Negotiations on these principles failed.
Victory in Sight
In the absence of a political solution, armed struggle remained the only option open to ZANU. Formation of the Patriotic Front had resulted in the recruitment of many cadres for the military struggle, but these activities became confined to the northwest and western areas of Zimbabwe and never reached the magnitude of the more comprehensive and more effective ZANLA operations. They complemented the ZANLA operations, however, and by the end of 1979 martial law had been extended to 95% of the country. Between December 1972 and December 1979 (when a cease-fire was agreed to at Lancaster House) the death toll amounted to about 20,000 people.
The “internal settlement” of 1978 that gave rise to the Muzorewa regime in what was called Zimbabwe-Rhodesia only worsened the situation and invited more daring raids from the guerrilla forces. ZANU, having concentrated on party restructuring in 1977, termed 1978 the Year of the People, when the party and the people would be united so that ZANU and the people would be one. The following year, 1979, was designated Year of the People’s Storm (Gore regukurahundi), when the struggle would escalate and enemy bases and administrative centres would be stormed and destroyed. The collapse of the Muzorewa-Smith regime was inevitable.
On Aug. 1, 1979, a few days before the Commonwealth heads of government meeting opened in Lusaka, Zambia, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told the British Parliament that her government was “wholly committed to genuine majority rule in Rhodesia.” The Commonwealth meeting produced an agreement on Rhodesia that recognized the principle of new elections based on one man, one vote under British authority. Britain undertook to convene a constitutional conference to be attended by both the black and white leadership. A cease-fire also had to be established to create an atmosphere of peace for the elections.
