Joshua Nkomo
Joshua Nkomo | |
---|---|
1st Second Vice-President of Zimbabwe | |
In office 6 August 1990 – 1 July 1999 Serving with Simon Muzenda | |
President | Robert Mugabe |
Preceded by | Office established |
Succeeded by | Joseph Msika |
1st Minister of Home Affairs of Zimbabwe | |
In office 1980 – February 1982 | |
President | Canaan Banana |
Prime Minister | Robert Mugabe |
Preceded by | Herbert Zimuto (Zimbabwe Rhodesia) |
Succeeded by | Herbert Ushewokunze |
Personal details | |
Born | Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo 19 June 1917 ZAPU |
Spouse | |
Children | 4 |
Residence | Bulawayo |
Alma mater | Jan H. Hofmeyr School of Social Work University of South Africa (BA) |
Profession | Politician, guerrilla leader, trade unionist, businessman |
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 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 called Gukurahundi in western Zimbabwe, mostly on ethnic Ndebele ZAPU supporters.
He was a leading trade union leader, who progressed on to become president of the banned
In 1983, fearing for his life in the early stages of the
Nkomo earned many nicknames like "Umafukufuku" in Ndebele, "Father Zimbabwe" in English, and "Chibwechitedza" ("the slippery rock") in Shona.[3]
Early life
This section needs additional citations for verification. (August 2023) |
Nkomo was born on 19 June 1917 in Matopos, Matabeleland, Southern Rhodesia (now Matobo, Zimbabwe) to a poor Ndebele family.[4][5][6] 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.[citation needed]
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,[4] where he met Nelson Mandela and other future nationalist leaders at the University of Fort Hare, although 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 Fuyana 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.[7] The Southern Rhodesian ANC branch became the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC), and in 1957 Nkomo was elected chairman.[7] Nkomo was out of the country in 1959 when SRANC was banned, its property confiscated, and many of its leaders arrested.[8]
On 1 January 1960, the
Nkomo immediately formed the
ZAPU split in 1963 with Sithole and Mugabe taking their supporters and forming the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).[1] While some have claimed this split was due to ethnic tensions,[12] more accurately the split was motivated by the failure of Sithole, Mugabe, Takawira and Malianga to wrest control of ZAPU from Nkomo.[13] ZAPU would remain a multi-ethnic party right up until independence.[citation needed]
Armed struggle
This section needs additional citations for verification. (August 2023) |
Nkomo was detained at
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.[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 as well trained artillery units.
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 that Nkomo had been tipped off by the British government.[14]
ZAPU forces strategically weakened the Rhodesian government during the Bush War. The most widely reported and possibly the most effective of these attacks were the downing of two Air Rhodesia Vickers Viscount civilian passenger planes with surface-to-air missiles, resulting in the deaths of 107 people in total. The first, on 3 September 1978, killed 38 out of 56 in the crash with a further ten survivors (including women and children) shot dead by ZIPRA cadres sent to inspect the burnt wreckage.[15][16]
Nkomo later dismissed the massacre as false allegations perpetrated by the Rhodesian media and expressed his regret at the downing of a civilian plane, but defended the act by stating the Rhodesian government was known to transport military personnel aboard civilian liners. The eight remaining survivors eluded the guerrillas by hiding overnight in the bush; some walked towards Karoi to seek help. Some of the passengers had serious injuries and they were picked up by local police and debriefed by the Rhodesian army.
The
No one was ever brought to trial or charged with shooting down the aircraft due to amnesty laws passed by both Smith and Mugabe. In a television interview not long after the attack on the first aircraft, Nkomo joked about the incident while admitting ZAPU had indeed been responsible. 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 the question due to military intelligence which demanded secrecy regarding what type of weapons we had acquired from the Soviet Union. They remembered the laugh and not the regret for the shooting down of both aircraft." [citation needed]
Politics 1980–1999
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 believe in trading land or selling land – no. And in any government that I lead, you can be certain those practices must go. That does not mean we will be 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 have to pay some rates or rents, that will go to a general fund of the people. In this way citizens can use as much land as they want. Our system is this: once you use land, that land belongs to you. But you have not bought it. You cannot sell it to some one. The land belongs to the people, but everything on that land is yours."
Elections were held in 1980 and to the surprise of Nkomo but few others, the Common Roll vote split on predictable tribal lines, with the 20 seats in Matabeleland going to ZAPU (listed as "PF–ZAPU") and all but three of the sixty in predominantly Shona areas falling to Mugabe's ZANU–PF. Nkomo was offered the ceremonial post of President, but declined, instead being appointed Minister of Home Affairs.[17]
Conflict with Mugabe
Despite reaching their ultimate goal, ousting Smith's minority regime, Nkomo could not reconcile his differences with Mugabe.
Ideological differences kept the two men apart as Mugabe's
Initially, Mugabe refused to 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
In a public statement Mugabe said, "ZAPU and its leader, Dr. Joshua Nkomo, are like a cobra in a house. The only way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and destroy its head."
NKOMO FLEES: ZAPU leader, Joshua Nkomo, fled 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 Printer, Harare 1984.[19]
Nkomo ridiculed the suggestion that he escaped dressed as a woman. "I expected they would invent stupid stories about my flight.... People will believe anything if they believe that".[19] He added that "nothing in my life had prepared me for persecution at the hands of a government led by black Africans."[19]
After the Gukurahundi massacres, in 1987 Nkomo consented to the absorption of ZAPU into ZANU, resulting in a unified party called
When asked late in his life why he allowed this to happen, he told historian Eliakim Sibanda that he did it to stop the murder of the Ndebele (who supported his party) and of the ZAPU politicians and organizers who had been targeted by Zimbabwe's security forces since 1982. "Mugabe and his Shona henchmen have always sought the extermination of the Ndebele," he said.[2]
Personal life
Family
Nkomo married his wife Johanna in 1949. They had four children: Thandiwe Nkomo, Ernest Thutani, Michael Sibangilizwe, and Louise Sehlule
Religion
Nkomo had a
Death
Nkomo died of prostate cancer on 1 July 1999 at the age of 82 in Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare.[26][27]
Legacy and honours
Letters to the prime minister, Robert Mugabe, allegedly written by Nkomo while in 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 buried in the National Heroes Acre in Harare.
On 27 June 2000, a set of four postage stamps were issued by the
Notes and references
- ^ ISBN 978-1-59221-275-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-77609-346-5.
- ^ Obituary: Dr. Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo, 1917–1999, Volume 25, Department of Information & Publicity ZANU (PF) Headquarters, 1999, p. 1
- ^ a b Jessup, John E. (1998). An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945–1996. Greenwood Press. p. 533.
- ^ Metrowich, Frederick Redvers (1969). Rhodesia: Birth of a Nation. Africa Institute. p. 129.
- ISBN 978-1-4129-2694-2.
- ^ a b "Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo". Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004.
- ^ Sibanda 2005, p. 52
- ^ Sibanda 2005, p. 53
- ^ Sibanda 2005, pp. 71–72
- ^ Sibanda 2005, p. 89
- ^ Sibanda 2005, p. 2
- ^ Sibanda 2005, p. 140
- ^ "Did UK warn Mugabe and Nkomo about assassination attempts?". BBC News Online. 1 July 2011. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
- ^ "Seeds of Political Destruction". Time. New York. 18 September 1978. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
- ^ Lindsell-Stewart, Gavin (5 September 1978). "Three Describe a Night of Terror". The Rhodesia Herald. Salisbury: Argus Group: 1.
- ISBN 9789171063403.
- ^ Paragraph 9 Archived 7 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine Informative letter to Prime Minister Mugabe Dead Link
- ^ a b c Joshua Nkomo, The Story of My Life, Methuen London 1984 or Sapes books Harare 2001, p.1-4 "clown Herbert Ushewokunze, minister of home affairs"
- S2CID 146223661– via JSTOR.
- ^ The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 1995. p. 471.
- ^ a b Mushayavanhu, David (2017). A historical analysis of the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa's socio-political and economical influence on Zimbabwe (1890–1990) (PDF) (PhD thesis). University of Pretoria. p. 188. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
- ^ a b Bayethe Damasane, Paul (6 July 2014). "Spirituality in the struggle for independence". The Sunday News. Zimbabwe. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
- ^ ISBN 9780815798910.
- )
- ^ "World: Africa Farewell to Nkomo". BBC News Online. 5 July 1999. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
- ^ "Joshua Nkomo | Zimbabwean political leader". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 27 March 2019.
- ^ "Politics: Joshua Nkomo's letter". Zimbabwe Metro. 7 June 1983. Archived from the original on 28 February 2008.
Further reading
- Nkomo, Joshua; Harman, Nicholas (1984) Nkomo: The Story of My Life (autobiography); ISBN 978-0-413-54500-8.
- Sibanda, Eliakim M. (2005) The Zimbabwe African People's Union 1961–87: A Political History of Insurgency in Southern Rhodesia. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press. ISBN 978-1-59221-275-0
- Ranger, Terence O. (2004) "Nkomo, Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo (1917–1999)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. (accessed 18 June 2006, subscription required)
External links
- Joshua Nkomo at Curlie
- BBC Obituary
- Guardian Obituary
- ISBN 978-3-319-60555-5.