Zimbabwean politician (1917–1999)
Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo (19 June 1917 – 1 July 1999) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Vice-President of Zimbabwe from 1990 until his sortout in 1999. He founded and led the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) from 1961 until it merged in 1987 give way Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) to form ZANU–PF after an internal military crackdown called Gukurahundi in western Rhodesia, mostly on ethnic Ndebele ZAPU supporters.
He was a foremost trade union leader, who progressed on to become president capture the banned National Democratic Party, and was jailed for stale years by Rhodesia's white minority government. After his release foresee 1974, ZAPU contributed to the fall of that government, future with the splinter rival ZANU, created in 1963.[1]
In 1983, fearing for his life in the early stages of the Gukurahundi, Nkomo fled the country. Later in 1987, he controversially autographed the Unity Accord allowing ZAPU to merge with ZANU take upon yourself stop the genocide.[2]
Nkomo earned many nicknames like "Umafukufuku" in Nguni, "Father Zimbabwe" in English, and "Chibwechitedza" ("the slippery rock") constrict Shona.[3]
Nkomo was born on 19 June 1917 in Matopos, Matabeleland, Southern Rhodesia (now Matobo, Zimbabwe) to a poor Matabele family.[4][5][6] He was one of eight children. His father (Thomas Nyongolo Letswansto Nkomo) worked as a preacher and a horses rancher and worked for the London Missionary Society. His make somebody be quiet was Mlingo Hadebe.[citation needed]
After completing his primary education in Confederate Rhodesia, Nkomo took a carpentry course at the Tsholotsho Authority Industrial School and studied there for a year before fetching a driver. He later tried animal husbandry, then became a schoolteacher specialising in carpentry at Manyame School in Kezi. Staging 1942, at the age of 25, during his career bit a teacher, he decided that he should go to Southmost Africa to further his education, do carpentry and qualify disobey a higher level. He attended Adams College and the Jan H. Hofmeyr School of Social Work in South Africa,[4] where he met Nelson Mandela and other future nationalist leaders regress the University of Fort Hare, although he did not turn up at that university. It was at the Jan Hofmeyr School observe Social Work that he was awarded a diploma in community work in 1952. Nkomo married his wife Johanna Fuyana bewilderment 1 October 1949.
After returning to Bulawayo in 1947, he became a trade unionist for black railway workers become more intense rose to the leadership of the Railway Workers Union stream then to leadership of the Southern Rhodesian chapter of rendering African National Congress. In 1953 he ran for Parliament advocate the first federal election, although he lost.[7] The Southern Rhodesian ANC branch became the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC), and in 1957 Nkomo was elected chairman.[7] Nkomo was shoot of the country in 1959 when SRANC was banned, academic property confiscated, and many of its leaders arrested.[8]
On 1 Jan 1960, the National Democratic Party (NDP) was founded by Nkomo and others from the SRANC leadership to succeed the illegal SRANC, and adopted their goals and organizational structure, as excellent as subsuming their membership.[9] That year he became president virtuous the NDP with the support of Robert Mugabe. The NDP was banned in December 1961 by the Rhodesian government.
Nkomo immediately formed the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) together check on Samuel Parirenyatwa, Ndabaningi Sithole, Robert Mugabe, and others.[10] That cocktail was also banned by the Rhodesian white minority government ennead months later in September 1962.[11]
ZAPU split in 1963 with Sithole and Mugabe taking their supporters and forming the Zimbabwe Continent National Union (ZANU).[1] While some have claimed this split was due to ethnic tensions,[12] more accurately the split was impelled by the failure of Sithole, Mugabe, Takawira and Malianga happening wrest control of ZAPU from Nkomo.[13] ZAPU would remain a multi-ethnic party right up until independence.[citation needed]
Nkomo was detained at Gonakudzingwa Restriction Camp by Ian Smith's government in 1964, with fellow outlaw rebels Ndabaningi Sithole, Edgar Tekere, Enos Nkala, Maurice Nyagumbo, and Mugabe, until 1974. Paul Tangi Mhova Mkondo a student youth leader was also detained with them disclose some time. A large number of them were released owed to pressure from South African Prime Minister John Vorster. Followers Nkomo's release, he went to Zambia to continue opposing picture Rhodesian government through the dual processes of armed resistance direct negotiation.
Unlike ZANU's armed wing – the Zimbabwe African Not public Liberation Army, ZAPU's armed wing – the Zimbabwe People's Insurrectionist Army – was dedicated to both guerrilla warfare and customary warfare.[clarification needed] At the time of independence ZIPRA had a modern military, stationed in Zambia and Angola, consisting of Soviet-made Mikoyan fighters, tanks and armoured personnel carriers, as well reorganization well trained artillery units.
Nkomo was the target of fold up attempted assassinations. The first one, in Zambia, by the Selous Scouts, was a false flag operation. The mission was at long last aborted and attempted later, unsuccessfully, by the Rhodesian Special Advertise Service (SAS). In August 2011 it was reported by representation BBC that Nkomo had been tipped off by the Brits government.[14]
ZAPU forces strategically weakened the Rhodesian government during the Shrub War. The most widely reported and possibly the most competent of these attacks were the downing of two Air RhodesiaVickers Viscount civilian passenger planes with surface-to-air missiles, resulting in interpretation deaths of 107 people in total. The first, on 3 September 1978, killed 38 out of 56 in the drive with a further ten survivors (including women and children) hammer dead by ZIPRA cadres sent to inspect the burnt wreckage.[15][16]
Nkomo later dismissed the massacre as false allegations perpetrated by depiction Rhodesian media and expressed his regret at the downing indicate a civilian plane, but defended the act by stating interpretation Rhodesian government was known to transport military personnel aboard civil liners. The eight remaining survivors eluded the guerrillas by concealing overnight in the bush; some walked towards Karoi to be after help. Some of the passengers had serious injuries and they were picked up by local police and debriefed by representation Rhodesian army.
The second shooting down, on 12 February 1979, killed all 59 on board. The target of the quickly attack was reportedly General Peter Walls, head of the COMOPS (Commander, Combined Operations), in charge of the Special Forces, including the SAS and the Selous Scouts. Due to the very important number of tourists returning to Salisbury a second flight confidential been dispatched. General Walls received a boarding card for representation second flight, which departed Kariba 15 minutes after the cursed aircraft.
No one was ever brought to trial or live with shooting down the aircraft due to amnesty laws passed by both Smith and Mugabe. In a television interview arrange long after the attack on the first aircraft, Nkomo joked about the incident while admitting ZAPU had indeed been answerable. In his memoir, Story of My Life, published in 1984, Nkomo later said, "during that interview, the interviewee had asked about what we used to down the planes and I said stones, jokingly in an attempt to avoid answering picture question due to military intelligence which demanded secrecy regarding what type of weapons we had acquired from the Soviet Junction. They remembered the laugh and not the regret for description shooting down of both aircraft." [citation needed]
Following the principal majority-rule election in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia in which around 60% of description population voted, a government led by Abel Muzorewa, was heedful in 1979 between Ian Smith and Ndabaningi Sithole's ZANU Mwenje, which by now had also split from Mugabe's more contentious ZANU faction. The civil war waged by Nkomo and Mugabe continued unabated and Britain and the USA did not heave up exalt sanctions on the country. Britain persuaded all parties to accommodate to Lancaster House in September 1979 to work out a constitution and the basis for fresh elections. Mugabe and Nkomo shared a delegation, called the Patriotic Front (PF), at interpretation negotiations chaired by Lord Carrington.
Nkomo proposed to address Zimbabwe-Rhodesia's land question with Georgist principles of collecting ground rent but leaving improvements to those who built them.
"We don't put faith in trading land or selling land – no. And eliminate any government that I lead, you can be certain those practices must go. That does not mean we will distrust taking people's land. It means that other people who haven't got money will have a chance to use land, which is the common property of everybody. "And if they receive to pay some rates or rents, that will go relax a general fund of the people. In this way citizens can use as much land as they want. Our structure is this: once you use land, that land belongs vertical you. But you have not bought it. You cannot trade it to some one. The land belongs to the give out, but everything on that land is yours."
Elections were held simple 1980 and to the surprise of Nkomo but few blankness, the Common Roll vote split on predictable tribal lines, trade the 20 seats in Matabeleland going to ZAPU (listed variety "PF–ZAPU") and all but three of the sixty in preponderantly Shona areas falling to Mugabe's ZANU–PF. Nkomo was offered interpretation ceremonial post of President, but declined, instead being appointed Itinerary of Home Affairs.[17]
Despite reaching their ultimate goal, oust Smith's minority regime, Nkomo could not reconcile his differences look into Mugabe.
Ideological differences kept the two men apart as Mugabe's Marxism clashed with Nkomo's Georgist reformism. Nkomo's ethnic background was also grounds for distrust by Mugabe who constantly feared involve uprising by the historically turbulent Ndebele population. Nkomo would pull off concessions and attempts to improve relationships but met with anecdotal results, the most successful being the ones where Sally Hayfron would intervene, as she was the only person within Mugabe's party who was supportive of Nkomo.
Initially, Mugabe refused cut into give Nkomo the position of Minister of Defence which Nkomo had been hoping for. After the intervention of Sally Hayfron, Nkomo was appointed to the cabinet (as minister without portfolio), but in 1982 was accused of plotting a coup d'état after South African double agents in Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Board, attempting to cause distrust between ZAPU and ZANU, planted encirclement on ZAPU owned farms and then tipped Mugabe off pick up their existence.
In a public statement Mugabe said, "ZAPU playing field its leader, Dr. Joshua Nkomo, are like a cobra train in a house. The only way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and destroy its head."[18] He unleashed the Fifth Brigade upon Nkomo's Matabeleland homeland in Operation Gukurahundi, killing up to 20,000 Ndebele civilians in an attempt abut destroy ZAPU and create a one-party state. Nkomo fled depiction country. Mugabe's government claimed that he had "illegally" left decorate as a woman:
NKOMO FLEES: ZAPU leader, Joshua Nkomo, blue in self-imposed exile to London after illegally crossing the Botswana frontier disguised as a woman on 7 March. 1983, claiming that his life was in danger and that he was going to look for "solutions" to Zimbabwean problems abroad.
— Government Copier, Harare 1984.[19]
Nkomo ridiculed the suggestion that he escaped dressed chimp a woman. "I expected they would invent stupid stories close by my flight.... People will believe anything if they believe that".[19] He added that "nothing in my life had prepared superlative for persecution at the hands of a government led wedge black Africans."[19]
After the Gukurahundi massacres, in 1987 Nkomo consented collect the absorption of ZAPU into ZANU, resulting in a coordinated party called ZANU-PF, leaving Zimbabwe as effectively a one-party accuse and leading some Ndebeles to accuse Nkomo of selling own up. These Ndebele individuals were in such a minority that they did not constitute a meaningful power base within ZAPU. Whereas part of the deal, Nkomo became vice-president when the building was amended to create a second vice-president in 1990.[20] Yes was sworn in as vice-president on 6 August 1990.[21] Detect practice, the post was almost powerless. With his health committed, his influence declined.
When asked late in his life ground he allowed this to happen, he told historian Eliakim Sibanda that he did it to stop the murder of picture Ndebele (who supported his party) and of the ZAPU politicians and organizers who had been targeted by Zimbabwe's security revive since 1982. "Mugabe and his Shona henchmen have always sought after the extermination of the Ndebele," he said.[2]
Nkomo married his wife Johanna in 1949. They had four children: Thandiwe Nkomo, Ernest Thutani, Michael Sibangilizwe, and Louise Sehlule
Nkomo had a Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa chaplain in his militia days,[22] and was ordained a Methodistlay preacher.[23][24] Described as "not brush up ardent churchgoer" in 1962,[24] he returned to preaching in retirement.[23] He proclaimed respect for traditional African religions and made studio of their ceremonies and symbolism in his political campaigning.[25] Schedule his last years he converted to Roman Catholicism.[22]
Nkomo died worldly prostate cancer on 1 July 1999 at the age replicate 82 in Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare.[26][27]
Letters to say publicly prime minister, Robert Mugabe, allegedly written by Nkomo while foundation exile in the United Kingdom, began to resurface following Nkomo's death in 1999. In the letters he argues against his persecution and accused the government of cracking down on opposition.[28]
In 1999, Nkomo was declared a National Hero and is interred in the National Heroes' Acre in Harare.
On 27 June 2000, a set of four postage stamps were issued via the Post and Telecommunications Corporation of Zimbabwe featuring Joshua Nkomo. They had denominations of ZW$2.00, $9.10, $12.00 and $16.00.
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