The Sunday News
ObituarySaul Gwakuba
NdlovuTOMORROW is the 27th anniversary of the Zanu-PF/PF-Zapu Unity Accord signed by the leaders of the two Zimbabwean former liberation organisations, Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe of Zanu-PF and Dr Joshua Nkomo representing PF-Zapu.
The agreement brought the two revolutionary parties together under the name Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) with Cde Mugabe as its First Secretary and Cde Nkomo as the Second Secretary.
The historic accord ended a wave of political disturbances that had been sweeping the two Matabeleland provinces, parts of the Midlands and to a much less extent, isolated spots in Harare and Mashonaland West.
The whole tragic episode was caused by a group of former Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (Zipra) cadres who refused to be integrated into the national army at independence, and began to spread terror in selected rural areas primarily of Lupane, Insiza and Tsholotsho districts.
The Government decided to form a specially trained military force, the 5 Brigade, to deal with the matter. It had earlier turned down an offer by Joshua Nkomo to use former Zipra guerillas who knew those terrorists to round them up.
The terrorists were referred to as dissidents, a name that was first used by Cde Eddison Zvobgo, a Zanu-PF minister.
The 5 Brigade was deployed in late 1982 or early 1983 and went out lock, stock and barrel to rout the dissidents but in the process unleashed fierce terror against any and all those thought or suspected to be sympathetic towards the dissidents.
Some of the dissidents indiscriminately killed innocent and defenceless civilians as was the case in Esigodini, Insiza and along the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls Road. For its part, the 5 Brigade turned rural villages inside out.
Joshua Nkomo had to flee for his life and ended up in Britain from where he returned after a while, to negotiate with the Government which was overwhelmingly Zanu-PF. The head of the Government was Cde Robert Mugabe, but the Head-of-State was the Reverend Canaan Banana whose role was merely formal or ceremonial.
The negotiations resulted in the 22 December 1987 Unity Accord, a development that led to peace and security in every part of Zimbabwe, particularly those in which dissidents were believed to have been operating.
President Mugabe was so magnanimous that he pardoned the dissidents and gave them a farm to live on.
As for Joshua Nkomo, he regarded the Unity Accord as a vital factor for security and peace, factors that are known for the socio-economic development of the country.
Some people have criticised the Unity Accord, and have said that Nkomo should have left PF-Zapu to operate as an opposition party and that it would have sooner or later got into power.
While it is not possible to tell what the future has in store, it is important to remember that during the armed struggle, both Zanu-PF and PF-Zapu said socialism was their official ideology, and that a one-party state was what they would establish in an independent Zimbabwe.
Following the formation of the Patriotic Front in 1976, negotiations between the two organisations were started to bring them together into one party, the Patriotic Front. The major difference was on how to do it and not whether or not to unite.
Zanu-PF was for the amalgamation of the two party’s armed wings first. That suggestion was based on an earlier decision to bring together the parties’ armies, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (Zanla) of Zanu, and the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (Zipra) of Zapu under the umbrella of what was called the Zimbabwe People’s Army (Zipa).
PF-Zapu was for the amalgamation of the political parties to be followed by that of all other arms or departments of the respective organisations.
The negotiations were quite protracted and went off and on until the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference towards the end of 1979. Dr Nkomo and his national executive team felt so strongly about the need to return home (Zimbabwe) as one political party, the Patriotic Front, with one army that their party PF-Zapu, missed the 1980 general elections registration deadline because they were waiting for an official response from Zanu-PF in Maputo, Mozambique, where Zanu-PF had said it needed to hold wider consultations on the issue after the Lancaster House Conference.
Lord Soames had to bend the rules to register PF-Zapu later than the official deadline. So Unity negotiations shortly after the country’s independence were, to all intents and purposes, a continuation of those held when both parties were in exile.
The major difference between the pre-and the post independence unity talks, was that after independence Dr Nkomo was in a politically weaker position than Cde Mugabe who was by then the head of the Government of the Republic of Zimbabwe.
The 22 December 1987, Unity Accord was preceded by the 7 December 1974 Lusaka Unity Agreement which sought to bring together Zapu, Zanu and James Robert Dambaza Chikerema’s Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe (Frolizi) under Bishop Abel Muzorewa’s African National Council.
Before the 1974 Lusaka Unity Agreement, there had been a practical unification on 12 December 1957 of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC) led by Joshua Nkomo, and the Salisbury City Youth League headed by Chikerema and George “Bonzo” Nyandoro.
The City Youth League was merged with the SRANC that was in effect the beginning of the modern era of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle.
However, much earlier, in 1693 to be precise, Monomotapa and Changamire (also referred to as Mambo) united their two armies to drive Portuguese settlers out of their respective territories. Monomotapa was based in the north-eastern region of today’s Zimbabwe, and Mambo’s area lay South of the Gweru (then known as the Gwilo) River, and extending as far as south-east of Francistown.
There is a slight difference in the purposes of the pre-independence unity agreements and those of the post-independence accords. The pre-independence situation demanded unity among the struggling masses to defeat the white colonial oppressors, the post-independence period demands national unity so as to be better able to promote social cohesion and peace as well as to enhance economic advancement.
The 22 December 1987 Unity Accord was also meant to protect the country’s political and territorial integrity which would have been threatened by the dissidents sooner or later.
Had the 1987 Unity Accord not been entered into, the Matabeleland and Midlands rural areas would most probably still be losing human lives and property. This is not an assertion that the Accord does not have demerits. Any agreement between two socially or economically unequal parties is bound to show a bias against the weaker. That is how human nature defines power, whatever power: political, economic, cultural or social.
What matters most, however, is that the 22 December 1987 Unity Accord established peace, and that that peace obtains in the formerly affected regions of Zimbabwe up to now.
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired Bulawayo-based journalist. A former freedom-fighter, he can be contacted on cell 0734328136 or through email [email protected]
