In today’s Zimbabwean politics, the respective share of the main Shona groupings (Manyika, Karanga, Zezuru) in government appointments is widely commented on among the people. As elsewhere in Africa, Zimbabwean tribalism is a modern phenomenon rather than a “tradition,” a set of “fabricated” identities marshaled by politicians to advance their careers. The rift within the opposition MDC in 2004–5 that led to its breaking into two rival parties had a component of Shona/Ndebele antagonism (see Chapter 3). However, the “struggle within the struggle” in the 1970s was primarily a cutthroat fight for power between political entrepreneurs whose ideological differences were often very thin. The tactical use of ideological discourse to support one’s personal ambitions, and, conversely, ritual claims that one’s opponent is a tribalist, has remained typical of African politics in Zimbabwe. Obviously, Mugabe did not create factionalism in the liberation struggle, but he learned how to make good use of it to gain control of ZANU.
There had been a series of murders of ZAPU and ZANU leaders, some of which were undoubtedly the work of Rhodesian government intelligence. However, in most cases factional strife was to blame. ZAPU in exile also was weakened by severe infighting in 1970–71,7 and the assassinations of Jason Z. Moyo in early 1977 and that of Alfred Mangena in mid-1978 are commonly attributed to ZAPU insiders.8 When Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo, national chairman and leader of ZANU’s external supreme council (Dare re Chimurenga) and its then rising political star, was killed in a bomb blast on 18 March 1975, many in Zambia suspected an inside job by a group of Karanga guerrilla commanders led by Josiah Tongogara, who resented the Manyikas’ alleged domination of the front’s civilian leadership.9 In November–December 1974, a group of Manyika guerrillas led by Thomas Nhari had rebelled and attempted to abduct Tongogara (they kidnapped his wife instead). Factionalism had degenerated into feuding. Although Chitepo had approved Tongogara’s crushing of the rebels and chaired the hurried treason trials and summary executions (including those of the other two Manyikas in the executive),10 the Karanga elements in Dare re Chimurenga still believed he was behind the Nhari group.11 The Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, set up an international commission of inquiry sanctioned by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the report of which, published in March 1976, established that the ZANU high command under Tongogara’s chairmanship had authorized Chitepo’s murder two days before he was killed.12 All members of the ZANU leadership in Zambia were detained—allegedly tortured—and the guerrilla camps closed down. Of course, the current ruling party’s official line to date is very different. ZANU-PF fellow traveler David Martin, who befriended Tongogara and later benefited widely from Mugabe’s patronage, wrote a book to explain that Chitepo was killed because Rhodesia’s Ian Smith, South Africa’s John Vorster, and Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda saw him as an obstacle to their exercise in détente.13
An active member of the nationalist movement since the inception of the National Democratic Party (NDP) in 1960, Mugabe had displayed some oratory skills, but until 1974 he was still only one among others in the group of nationalist leaders. When ZANU split from ZAPU in August 1963, Mugabe became secretary general of the new organization and was a potential contender for the top position at the ZANU congress in 1964 (he dropped his candidacy knowing he would not win against the more senior and better known Ndabaningi Sithole).14 Mugabe and other ZANU leaders claimed in November 1974 that Sithole had been deposed,15 while most of the party Central Committee was still in detention in Rhodesia, and as the new ZANU president he led a delegation to Lusaka. However, the leaders of the Front-Line States refused to condone the coup and demanded that Sithole be reinstated. In Salisbury in the first quarter of 1975, Mugabe had perhaps nothing to do directly with the plot against Chitepo. Yet Masipula Sithole labeled the Dare re Chimurenga members imprisoned in Lusaka “Mugabe’s faction,”16 alluding to possible complicity. Chitepo had refused to condone the Mugabe prison coup and was clearly an obstacle to the latter’s ambitions. Before escaping to Mozambique, Mugabe released a statement supporting the imprisoned Dare re Chimurenga members and blaming Kaunda for complicity—that is, with Smith’s agents—in Chitepo’s assassination. One possibility is that Chitepo’s elimination and Mugabe’s subsequent exfiltration were part of the same plot to take over ZANU. Alternatively, there could be no plot: such factional strife effectively created a power vacuum in ZANU that Mugabe skillfully exploited.
When Mugabe made his escape to the Mozambican border in April 1975, he intended to build a following in the refugee camps. However, Mozambique’s president Samora Machel, who believed that a genuine leader should emerge from the guerrilla ranks—as he himself had done within FRELIMO (the Mozambique Liberation Front)—did not trust Mugabe and let him sit at the border for three months. When Mugabe secretly entered the country, he was put under house arrest for several months in Quelimane, away from the camps. In October 1975, guerrillas in Tanzania, who vehemently denounced African National Council leader Abel Muzorewa, Sithole, and ZAPU breakaway faction leader James Chikerema’s “insatiable lust for power,” endorsed Mugabe as a compromise leader for a united nationalist movement. Apparently the young commanders were induced to choose him by the then imprisoned Dare re Chimurenga members (including Tongogara),17 in the context of ZIPA’s formation—the policy imposed by the Front-Line States leaders to quell the ZANU/ZAPU rivalry and the feuding among nationalists. Military operations in Rhodesia did resume in January 1976, and Samora Machel encouraged the guerrilla commanders in Mozambique to “pick” a new political head for ZANU to balance the ZAPU leadership within ZIPA (the latter being closer to Kaunda). Although Machel preferred Tongogara, still in the custody of the Zambian police, guerrilla commanders posing as leftists chose to support Mugabe, the last member of the old ZANU leadership who sounded committed to their radical line.18 Then Mugabe negotiated with the Front-Line States leaders the release of the jailed Dare re Chimurenga members in October 1976 as a condition for attending a peace conference.19 Mugabe had been forced to form a loose alliance with Joshua Nkomo—the Patriotic Front—in order to negotiate with the Rhodesian delegation at the Geneva conference.20 However, and whatever he had to concede, Mugabe remained opposed to “unity” and he was confident that in spite of ZIPRA’s being better trained and more disciplined he could take the advantage in the field through political mobilization (see Chapter 2 on ZANLA techniques).21 He did not want to come second to Nkomo—or anybody else for that matter—in a liberated Zimbabwe. When the Soviet Union demanded that he recognize Nkomo as the leader as a condition for the delivery of modern weaponry, Mugabe refused bluntly and turned to the Chinese instead.
Mugabe came back from Geneva with a new international aura and full backing from the Front-Line States to stir up the war. In order to strengthen his grip on the organization, he persuaded Machel to neutralize a group of Chinese-trained guerrilla cadres called vashandi (“workers”), led by Wilfred Mhanda (who used the name Dzinashe Machingura in the war), a former ZANLA commander and political commissar and formally third in the united ZIPA command.22 They had opposed the Geneva conference and criticized Mugabe for selling out to the imperialist forces; they hoped to challenge Mugabe from a radical perspective informed by Marxism.23 Several hundred ZANLA guerrillas were arrested (some in Tanzania) or murdered, and fifty top camp commanders were detained in Mozambican jails until 1979.24