Joshua Nkomo

Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo (19 June 1917 – 1 July 1999) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and Matabeleland politician who served as Vice-President of Zimbabwe from 1990 until his death in 1999. He founded and led the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) from 1961 until it merged in 1987 with Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) to form ZANU–PF after an internal military crackdown that claimed more than 20,000 of ZAPU supporters.

He was a leading trade union leader, who progressed on to become president of the banned National Democratic Party, and was jailed for ten years by Rhodesia's white minority government. After his release in 1974, ZAPU contributed to the fall of that government, along with the splinter rival ZANU, created in 1963. In 1983, fearing for his life in the early stages of the Gukurahundi, Nkomo fled the country. Later in 1987, he controversially signed the Unity Accord allowing ZAPU to merge with ZANU to stop the genocide.

Nkomo earned many nicknames like "''Umafukufuku''" in Ndebele, "Father Zimbabwe" in English, and "''Chibwechitedza''" ("the slippery rock") in Shona. He was respectfully and affectionately known as "''uMdala''" or "''uMdala wethu''", or "our elder".

Early life

Nkomo was born on 19 June 1917 in Matopos, Matabeleland, Southern Rhodesia to a poor Ndebele family. He was one of eight children. His father (Thomas Nyongolo Letswansto Nkomo) worked as a preacher and a cattle rancher and worked for the London Missionary Society. His mother was Mlingo Hadebe.

After completing his primary education in Southern Rhodesia, Nkomo took a carpentry course at the Tsholotsho Government Industrial School and studied there for a year before becoming a driver. He later tried animal husbandry, then became a schoolteacher specialising in carpentry at Manyame School in Kezi. In 1942, at the age of 25, during his career as a teacher, he decided that he should go to South Africa to further his education, do carpentry and qualify to a higher level. He attended Adams College and the Jan H. Hofmeyr School of Social Work in South Africa. There he met Nelson Mandela and other future nationalist leaders at the University of Fort Hare, though he did not attend that university. It was at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work that he was awarded a diploma in social work in 1952. Nkomo married his wife Johanna MaFuyana on 1 October 1949.

Politics 1947–1964

After returning to Bulawayo in 1947, he became a trade unionist for black railway workers and rose to the leadership of the Railway Workers Union and then to leadership of the Southern Rhodesian chapter of the African National Congress. In 1953 he ran for Parliament in the first federal election, although he lost. The Southern Rhodesian ANC branch became the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC)), and in 1957 Nkomo was elected chairman. Nkomo was out of the country in 1959 when SRANC was banned, its property confiscated, and many of its leaders arrested.

On 1 January 1960, the National Democratic Party (NDP) was founded by Nkomo and others from the SRANC leadership to succeed the banned SRANC, and adopted their goals and organizational structure, as well as subsuming their membership. That year he became president of 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 with Tichafa Samuel Parirenyatwa, Ndabaningi Sithole, Robert Mugabe, and others. That party was also banned by the Rhodesian white minority government nine months later in September 1962.

ZAPU split in 1963 with Sithole and Mugabe taking their supporters and forming the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). While some have claimed this split was due to ethnic tensions, more accurately the split was motivated by the failure of Sithole, Mugabe, Takawira and Malianga to wrest control of ZAPU from Nkomo. ZAPU would remain a multi-ethnic party right up until independence.

Armed struggle

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, Robert Mugabe, until 1974. Paul Tangi Mhova Mkondo a student youth leader was also detained with them for some time. A large number of them were released due to pressure from South African prime minister B. J. Vorster. Following Nkomo's release, he went to Zambia to continue opposing the Rhodesian government through the dual processes of armed resistance and negotiation. Unlike ZANU's armed wing – the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, ZAPU's armed wing – the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army – was dedicated to both guerrilla warfare and conventional warfare. 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 as well trained artillery units.

Joshua Nkomo was the target of two attempted assassinations. The first one, in Zambia, by the Selous Scouts, was a false flag operation. The mission was ultimately aborted and attempted later, unsuccessfully, by the Rhodesian Special Air Service (SAS). In August 2011 it was reported by the BBC
...