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Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) was the military wing of the
Zimbabwe African National Union The Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) was a militant organisation that fought against white minority rule in Rhodesia, formed as a split from the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). ZANU split in 1975 into wings loyal to Robert Mugab ...
(ZANU), a militant
African nationalist African nationalism is an umbrella term which refers to a group of political ideologies in sub-Saharan Africa, which are based on the idea of national self-determination and the creation of nation states.Rhodesian Bush War The Rhodesian Bush War, also called the Second as well as the Zimbabwe War of Liberation, was a civil conflict from July 1964 to December 1979 in the List of states with limited recognition, unrecognised country of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe-Rh ...
against white minority rule of
Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of So ...
(modern
Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...
).


Operations

ZANLA was formed in 1965 in
Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
, although until the early 1970s ZANLA was based in camps around
Lusaka Lusaka (; ) is the capital and largest city of Zambia. It is one of the fastest-developing cities in southern Africa. Lusaka is in the southern part of the central plateau at an elevation of about . , the city's population was about 3.3 millio ...
, Zambia. Until 1972 ZANLA was led by the nationalist leader
Herbert Chitepo Herbert Wiltshire Pfumaindini Chitepo (15 June 1923 – 18 March 1975) led the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) until he was assassinated in March 1975. Although his murderer remains unidentified, the Rhodesian author Peter Stiff says tha ...
. He was followed by
Josiah Tongogara Josiah Magama Tongogara (4 February 1938 – 26 December 1979) was a commander of the ZANLA guerrilla army in Rhodesia. He was the brother of current Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa's second wife, Jayne. He attended the Lancaster House co ...
from 1973 until his death in 1979; by then ZANLA had an estimated 25,500 combatants. With the war drawing to a close, commands fell to
Robert Mugabe Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the ...
, previously ZANU's number two leader after Tongogara and head of the movement's political wing. Until about 1971, ZANLA's strategy was based on direct confrontation with the Rhodesian Security Forces. From 1972 onwards, ZANLA adopted the
Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...
guerrilla tactics that had been used with success by the Mozambique Liberation Front (
FRELIMO FRELIMO (; from the Portuguese , ) is a democratic socialist political party in Mozambique. It is the dominant party in Mozambique and has won a majority of the seats in the Assembly of the Republic in every election since the country's firs ...
): infiltrating combatants into the country, politicising the peasantry and participating in 'hit-and-run' ambush operations. ZANLA was supported by
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, which supplied arms and provided advisors to train the cadres. As Mugabe had described himself in an interview as a " Marxist–Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought" supporter, which enraged the
Kremlin The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of the kremlins (Ru ...
,
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
support went exclusively to the rival
Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) was the military wing of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), a Marxist–Leninist political party in Rhodesia. It participated in the Rhodesian Bush War against white minority rule of Rhod ...
(ZIPRA). The ZANU was organized along Maoist lines, being conceived as a vanguard party that would guide the masses towards the revolution, and the party did not tolerate any sort of critical thinking or dissent within its ranks. The South African historian Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni noted that far from being the conforming to the popular stereotype of "freedom-fighters", the ZANLA was a rigidly hierarchical organization whose cadres were expected to unconditionally obey orders, and which regularly conducted purges to liquidate any cadres who differed even in the slightest from the party line. The party's principal spokesman
Edson Zvobgo Eddison Jonasi Mudadirwa Zvobgo (2 October 1935 – 22 August 2004) was a founder of Zimbabwe's ruling party, ZANU–PF, the Patriotic Front's spokesman at the Lancaster House in late 1979,
wrote that the "ZANU Idea" was the "gun idea", namely that violence was the best solution to any problem, and that the ZANU cadres should embrace the "gun idea" of ruthlessly seeking to gun down all enemies of the party. The ZANLA gloried the gun as a symbol of power and of "cleaning up the rot" as the purges to liquidate cadres who showed insufficient willingness to embrace the party line wholeheartedly were known. The ZANU leadership ruled via fear, and Ndlovu-Gatsheni described "violent disciplinary measures" and the execution of those cadres who differed from the party line as routine and normal. ZANLA's close association with the FRELIMO helped it after Mozambican independence in 1975. From about 1972, ZANLA had operated from
Tete Province Tete is a province of Mozambique. It has an area of 98,417 km² and a population of 2,648,941 (2017 census). Tete is the capital of the province. The Cahora Bassa Dam is situated in this province. Districts On March 21, 2013, Mozambi ...
in northern
Portuguese Mozambique Portuguese Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique) or Portuguese East Africa (''África Oriental Portuguesa'') were the common terms by which Mozambique was designated during the period in which it was a Portuguese colony. Portuguese Mozambique originally ...
, which was FRELIMO-controlled, and, after Mozambican independence, ZANLA was permitted to open additional training and supply camps along the Rhodesian-Mozambican border. This greatly assisted the recruitment and training of cadres.


Nhari mutiny and aftermath

In 1974, the ZANLA was shaken by the so-called "Nhari mutiny" when Thomas Nhari and several cadres objected to the party's tactics; Nhari and the rest were convicted by a kangaroo court of mutiny and executed, despite the "court" ruling that they should only be demoted. After the "Nhari mutiny", the ZANU become consumed with an "obsession" to purge its ranks of "sell-outs and counter-revolutionaries", and executions of ZANLA members by their colleagues become the norm. At its camps for training cadres in Mozambique and Zambia, all new ZANLA cadres were publicly beaten by their officers until they lose control of their bowels to determine if they were "sell-outs" to the revolution and huge pit structures called ''chikaribotso'' were dug for holding prisoners as many of the cadres did not pass the test to see if they were loyal to the revolution. For the party, ''Gukurahundi'', a Shona word which literally means "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains", which is perhaps best translated as "total annihilation", was its ideal for conducting politics. Many of the idealistic Shona young men and women who joined the ZANLA to fight against the minority government of Rhodesia were greatly disillusioned once they reached the training camps in Mozambique and Zambia, discovering that the ZANLA were far from being the romantic freedom-fighters that they had imagined.


Rivalry with ZIPRA

Beside their overall political ideologies, the main differences between the
Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) was the military wing of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), a Marxist–Leninist political party in Rhodesia. It participated in the Rhodesian Bush War against white minority rule of Rhod ...
(ZIPRA), the armed wing of the pro-Soviet
Zimbabwe African People's Union The Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) is a Zimbabwean political party. It is a militant organization and political party that campaigned for majority rule in Rhodesia, from its founding in 1961 until 1980. In 1987, it merged with the Zim ...
(ZAPU), and ZANLA were that: *ZANLA drew its recruits mostly from Shona-speaking ethnic groups. *ZANLA followed a strategy of politicisation of the peasant population (inspired by the Maoist teachings of "
people's war People's war (Chinese: 人民战争), also called protracted people's war, is a Maoist military strategy. First developed by the Chinese communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976), the basic concept behind people's war is to main ...
"). *After about 1972, ZANLA introduced combatants into the country for long-term campaigns of guerrilla fighting, while ZIPRA was designed to be used as a conventional armed force: entering the country, striking and pulling back to its bases in Zambia and
Angola , national_anthem = "Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordinat ...
. During the late 1970s, the predominantly
Shona Shona often refers to: * Shona people, a Southern African people * Shona language, a Bantu language spoken by Shona people today Shona may also refer to: * ''Shona'' (album), 1994 album by New Zealand singer Shona Laing * Shona (given name) * S ...
tribe ZANLA fighters were deployed in the
Matabeleland Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambe ...
and
Midlands The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the In ...
provinces, areas where the predominantly
Ndebele Ndebele may refer to: *Southern Ndebele people, located in South Africa *Northern Ndebele people, located in Zimbabwe and Botswana Languages * Southern Ndebele language, the language of the South Ndebele * Northern Ndebele language, the language ...
ZIPRA mostly operated. There were a lot of clashes between the two forces. ZANLA fighters were well known for their savagery when it came to dealing with Ndebele civilians who were usually taken into what were called overnight bases and forced to sing songs in Shona denouncing ZAPU and its leader
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 ...
. These ZANLA cadres had a love for chicken and a local staple food known as
Sadza Ugali or Posho or sima (for others, see ) is a type of maize meal made from maize or corn flour in several countries in Africa. Sima is sometimes made from other flours, such as millet or sorghum flour, and is sometimes mixed with cassava flour. ...
. Each time they came to a Ndebele homestead, given their lack of the Ndebele language, they would simply demand in Shona: "''ndipe sadza nehuku''" (Give me sadza with chicken) hence the local Ndebele derogatory nickname for them "''oSadza nehuku''". They were known as well for saying "Down with Nkomo" most of the time, hence another Matebele name for them became "''opasi''".


1980 election and aftermath

Following the 1980 general election large portions of ZANLA were integrated into the new Zimbabwe National Army. Those who served as the ZANLA elite in exile became the new elite in Zimbabwe, enjoying far greater benefits and perks than did those who had actually fought the Rhodesian Army in the field during the 1970s.


References


Further reading

* * * {{Authority control History of Zimbabwe National liberation armies Guerrilla organizations Military wings of socialist parties Rebel groups in Zimbabwe Defunct organizations designated as terrorist in Africa Communist terrorism ZANU–PF Military units and formations established in 1965 1965 establishments in Rhodesia Military units and formations disestablished in 1980 1980 disestablishments in Zimbabwe