Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) Ndebele / Nkomo
The two major groups that formed to give political expression to African goals were the Ndebele-dominated Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and the Shona-based Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). Although ethnic rivalries were not crucial in the initial split, it became evident that, while ZAPU retained the allegiance of the Ndebele and allied Shona groups, ZANU's political base was in the Mashonaland countryside. ZANU units were armed primarily by China, ZAPU by the Soviet Union. Many insurgents received military training abroad in Algeria, China, and Tanzania. Proscribed in Rhodesia, both political groups established exile headquarters in sympathetic black countries, particularly neighboring Zambia. Despairing of the ability to bring about change through peaceful means, they soon turned to more violent methods, including the formation of military elements trained in guerrilla tactics and armed with the necessary weapons to carry them out. In 1972 ZANU's force, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), operating from isolated bases in Mozambique, began sustained guerrilla operations inside eastern Rhodesia. ZAPU's military force, known as the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), carried out hit-and-run raids from bases in Zambia.
It took more than a decade for the African nationalist movement in Rhodesia to recover from the suppression of black political organizations in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The bannings of the NDP and ZAPU, moreover, had both been preceded by aimless urban violence -- nearly all of it directed against other blacks -- that reflected a failure of leadership in those groups. These incidents were the bloodiest outbreaks in the country since the wars of the 1890s, and the government reacted by introducing a series of emergency laws in an attempt to cope with the situation. These included a broader definition of unlawful organizations subject to proscription, provisions for preventive detention, and the granting of extraordinary emergency powers to be used in cracking down on black nationalist groups. Instead of attempting to give direction to the movement inside the country in the face of government repression, Nkomo had chosen to remain abroad much of the time, lobbying at the UN and courting the support of foreign African leaders. He was away in December 1961 when the NDP was banned and most of its other leaders were arrested. Within days, however, Nkomo had announced the formation of ZAPU from Dar es Salaam and, when ZAPU was in turn banned in September 1962, he regrouped its executive committee there. Nkomo's diplomatic experience had often been touted as his strong card as a leader, but increasingly criticism was voiced within nationalist circles that he had spent too much time abroad seeking foreign backing and not enough at home confronting the white regime. Nkomo's colleagues consented to his tactics when he assured them that his plan for establishing a government in exile had the blessing of Julius Nyerere, then chief minister of Tangaryika (later president of Tanzania). It came as a considerable shock to those who had gone into exile with Nkomo when he was castigated by Nyerere for abandoning Rhodesia. Distrustful of his leadership, some members of the executive committee plotted to dump Nkomo and focus ZAPU's efforts on internal organization. Nkomo moved quickly to preempt their challenge to his leadership and returned in mid-1963 to Salisbury where he read the "dissidents" including Ndabaningi Sithole and Robert Mugabe, out of the orgadization and portrayed himself as the only figure willing to take on the hard task of establishing the nationalist movement once again on Rhodesian soil. Soon after, Nkomo formed the People's Caretaker Council (PCC) from the loyal remnants of the executive committee as an internal front for the banned ZAPU. Nkomo was arrested in April 1964 and detained, and a few months later the PCC like its predecessors, was banned. Nkomo's internal following thereafter reemerged illegally under the ZAPU banner. Despite the effort. of Tanzania and Zambia to bring ZANU and ZAPU together, both groups remained more absorbe in recriminations and settling old scores than in waging war in common against the white regime in Rhodesia. Guerrilla activity had virtually ceased by 1968. Disappointment with their weakness led the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to propose a joint military command. When this was rejected by the rival groups, efforts were made by various sponsors to create a new organization to replace ZANU and ZAPU. ZAPU's military stance reflected its political approach emphasizing external operations that would rely on foreign cooperation to achieve objectives. Its military arm, the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), was equipped as a conventional force and conserved its strength in camps in Zambia and Angola while waiting to fight a decisive battle at the appropriate time. Operations were restricted to quick incursions into Matabeleland. Like ZAN LA, ZIPRA avoided contact with security forces. There was frequently fighting, however, between and within the two main forces and with splinter groups that conducted independent operations. Efforts to establish ajoint military command or to find a "third force" to replace the rival commands were unsuccessful. Zambia's Kaunda's umbrella group, the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe (FROLIZI), appeared in 1971 and gained immediate support among exiles. In 1976, after the failure of FROLIZI to unify the military effort, the Zimbabwe People's Army (ZIPA) was organized by commanders representing both major factions, although ZANU's ZANLA participation was more apparent and its officers held the most important leadership positions. ZIPA effectively ceased to function when its ZIPRA component was withdrawn in 1977 by Nkomo in his drive to build up ZAPU's military arm after failure of the Geneva talks. Estimates of the size of the insurgent forces vary considerably, but numbers were believed to have been over 50,000 in 1979. Not all of these, however, were sufficiently armed or trained to be considered combat effective. In the late 1970s about 15,000 guerrillas were active inside Rhodesia at any given time, most of them from ZANU's ZANLA. Ranged against the guerrillas in 1972 were security forces and reserves that numbered under 50,000 men. These were incorporated in a small, white-officered regular army of 3,400, of whom 80 percent were black, backed up by 8,000 white reservists. Equipment was old but well maintained.
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