Zimbabwe News Update: President Mugabe Blasts West; Tributes to Msika and Nkomo

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe had been attempting to create a government of national unity since September of 2008. The western-backed opposition MDC-T had refused to implement a power-sharing agreement. The agreement went into effect on Feb 13.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Aug. 10, 2009

Mugabe Blasts West's Tepid Support

"Leave Us Alone," Zimbabwean President Says to Nations Criticizing Coalition Government

Associated Press Report

President Robert Mugabe said Monday that if the West can't support Zimbabwe's struggling coalition government, it should "leave us alone."

Mugabe spoke at the funeral of 85-year-old Vice President Joseph Msika, who served alongside Mugabe for two decades and died last week after suffering from heart disease for many years.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and other top officials in the five-month-old coalition government joined Mugabe and some 20,000 other mourners at Harare's Heroes Acre cemetery. Mugabe was the only one to speak.

Mugabe often turns his addresses at state funerals into fiery political speeches. His speech Monday came after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited neighboring South Africa last week and called on Pretoria to help Zimbabwe cope with what she called the "negative effects" of Mugabe's leadership.

Mugabe did not name Clinton Monday, but said his coalition with former opposition leader Tsvangirai was working and supported by southern Africans. But not, he said, by the U.S. and former colonial ruler Britain.

"Who is the real judge of the political arrangement that we have done here in southern Africa?" Mugabe said. "Why should America not recognize the work we are doing as an inclusive government? These Anglo-Saxon nations are giving us problems. We tell them today, "Leave us alone, we don't need your interference because we can do it alone."

Mugabe is accused of bringing a once-prosperous nation to ruin during his decades of authoritarian rule.

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki brokered Zimbabwe's coalition agreement after Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the first round of presidential polling in 2008, and then pulled out of a run-off against Mugabe because of state-sponsored violence against opposition supporters.

Since joining the coalition, Tsvangirai has accused Mugabe hard-liners of stalling political reforms and continuing to harass Tsvangirai supporters.


Lest we forget . . .

TODAY we join the nation in celebrating the lives and works of the heroes and heroines, both living and dead, who dedicated their lives to liberate Zimbabwe from the shackles of colonialism.

This year’s commemorations could not have come at a more appropriate time as we once again celebrate the triumph of nation building over political adversity with our previously feuding political parties united in an inclusive Government.

Although we are grieving today for having lost one of the founding fathers of the revolution, Vice President Joseph Msika, a fearless founding nationalist, we are richer for the legacy of stolid patriotism he has left us.

VP Msika, who will be interred today at the National Heroes Acre, could not have chosen a better day to join his fallen colleagues, on the very day dedicated to celebrating their selfless sacrifices.

This day also marks our 12th straight year without official development assistance from the Bretton Woods institutions — the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Support from these multilateral organisations was withheld because of the illegal economic sanctions imposed by Western nations opposed to the land reform programme, the natural sequel to the 14-year war of attrition that defined some of the men and women we honour today.

Indeed, despite the hardships that reduced the life of the ordinary man to a daily trudge for mortal existence, we celebrate the fact that regardless of the overt and covert attempts to subvert our independence over the past decade, we have remained resolute and staved off all neo-colonial designs.

We have reason to celebrate for these challenges confirm that we have not forgotten why our heroes and heroines laid down their lives.

In fact, the ongoing problems mirror, though they do not surpass, the trials the gallant freedom fighters went through to give us the political independence we enjoy today.

The hardships should be our call for action as the venerated men and women we honour today did not flinch in the face of challenges but remained focused for 14 whole years till they realised their dream of a free Zimbabwe.

Some fell by the wayside and some managed to live on and we are still with them today. To their credit they have carried the baton they were handed by the heroes lying at the national shrine, provincial heroes’ acres, mass graves scattered in various countries and unknown graves all over Zimbabwe and the Frontline States with distinction.

We, the living, have a duty to ensure that these heroes and heroines did not die in vain and if, through continuing with the struggle, we invite the wrath of our erstwhile colonisers, that is not a reason to drop the baton.

Instead it should be our motivation to carry on, the same way the heroes who fell at the battlefront urged their colleagues on, even as they breathed their last.

To this end, we challenge the parties to the inclusive Government to introspect to find out whether they are furthering the vision of the heroes and heroines we honour today.

If not, let this be a day of repentance, a day to invoke the progressive spirit shown by our founding fathers, to work as one to bring about the socio-economic independence the heroes laid down their lives for.

Msika: A nationalist par excellence

By Pathisa Nyathi

An Air Zimbabwe 737 aircraft jets into the Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport.

We hardly see this type of craft here in Bulawayo.

It must be a special flight. Indeed, it is.

The aircraft that has come to a halt has its engines still whining.

A large crowd has gathered to welcome not the usual ecstatic passengers about to disembark and bear-hug their loved ones or business partners.

The Boeing 737 is bringing the body of late Vice President Joseph Msika who passed on last week and is being interred today at the National Heroes Acre in Harare.

Out of the baggage compartment emerges a casket draped in the colourful Zimbabwe flag.

The gusty wind blows away the flag exposing the snow-white lace.

Sadness and loss are indelibly etched on the faces of the large crowd that has gathered to welcome the body of the man who cut his teeth in politics here in Bulawayo more than sixty years ago.

Vice President Msika was among the few surviving individuals who initiated the struggle for independence and participated in it through all its manifestations and stages.

On 19 August 2006 I had the rare opportunity to be granted an interview by the man who saw it all.

Jack Amos Ngwenya, a long time administrator of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) later of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) accompanied me to our rendezvous — the VP’s Gumtree bottle store. This article will draw from some of the historical snippets that I was privy to.

The story of Vice President Msika is synonymous with that of the history of the struggle for independence.

He was born in December 1923 to Wilfred Tafura a carpentry teacher at the Salvation Army’s Howard Institute.

It was while he taught at Howard that Wilfred met his wife who was a local.

The young Joseph attended school at the Salvation Army institution and his father paid for his school fees by providing the school with eggs.

There was a gentlemen’s agreement between the young Joseph and the mission authorities that once through with his education, Joseph would come back to offer services to the institution that assisted him get some education. Meanwhile, Wilfred wanted his son to be schooled in the ways of the Shangani, his own people in Mt Selinda, now Chipinge.

In pursuance of that goal, Wilfred sent Joseph to Mt Selinda where he did carpentry.

In fulfillment of the agreement with the Salvation Army authorities Msika, short for Musikavanhu the ‘Save, Dziva, Vanisi vemvura, Mlambo, Veganda gobvu’ people, went to teach at Usher Institute another school belonging to the Salvation Army located a short distance from Figtree along the Bulawayo- Plumtree road.

It was while teaching at Usher that Msika met and married his wife.

The move to Usher decided Msika’s future in Bulawayo. His service at Usher was in the 1940s and soon Msika found himself working in Bulawayo that at the time was Zimbabwe’s industrial hub.

There was marked industrial expansion following the cessation of hostilities in 1945 (after World War II).

This was the time when new townships were established to accommodate the large numbers of workers coming to work in Bulawayo.

Mzilikazi, Barbourfields, Nguboyenja (part of what is generally referred to as Bulawayo African Townships-BAT), Matshobana, Mpopoma, Njube and Mabutweni were built after 1945.

Working and in particular, living conditions were not good.

The unpalatable conditions led to the establishment of workers’ unions who sought to petition employers for better wages and living conditions.

Whereas Masotsha Ndlovu and others had set up the first black workers’ union in 1928, the more vibrant and militant trade unions came into existence in the 1940s.

There were unions for specific industries such as textiles, engineering, commerce, and furniture, among others.

Msika became president of the Textile and Allied Workers’ Union.

The sprouting trade unions were not recognised at law. The 1934 Industrial Conciliation Act recognised only the white trade unions.

It took the 1945 Railways Strike to trigger a need for a united front by the trade unions.

The result was the creation of the Federation of Bulawayo African Trade Unions (FBAWU) which was led by Jasper Savanhu (later editor of the Bantu Mirror).

Msika was part of that trade union agitation which pressed for better working and living conditions.

The General Strike of 1948 took place following the unification of the trade unions in Bulawayo.

Grey Mabhalane Bango had since taken over from Jasper Savanhu.

It is important to note that at this stage nationalism was limping along feebly.

The Native Congress, under the leadership of Aaron Jacha and Chavunduka, both farming graduates from Domboshava, had been formed in 1934 with the advice and guidance of TT Jabavu from South Africa.

Various people led the Congress including Stanlake Samkange, Enoch Dumbutshena and Joshua Nkomo.

In the 1950s the Congress was, to all intents and purposes, moribund.

Only the Bulawayo branch of which Msika was a member remained alive.

It would take Msika and others to transform trade unionism to full fledged nationalist politics that espoused one man one vote and independence for the blacks.

The Indian Congress had provided the lead and source of inspiration and their efforts were rewarded with the granting of independence of that country.

The South African Native Congress had also been formed in 1911.

Now Ghana had gained her independence, in 1957.

It all started with the formation by Msika and others of the Bulawayo Convention.

The meeting took place in the library at the Stanley Hall in Makokoba.

Meanwhile, in Salisbury (now Harare) the Youth Movement led by the likes of James Chikerema, George Nyandoro and Daniel Madzimbamuto became active.

It took the initiatives of men such as Msika, Benjamin Madlela and Chikerema to forge a link between the Harare based City Youth League and the Bulawayo Convention.

The next challenge was to identify an individual to lead the combined political movement-the first truly national political body clamouring for majority rule.

The founders, who included Msika, then approached a number of individuals who they knew possessed university education.

Samkange turned down the offer and said he would not lead the "varicose", a term that Vice President Msika explained to mean the untutored.

Then they turned to one Mwamuka who also turned them down.

Dumbutshena was next and he too declined the offer.

Finally they approached Nkomo who had some experience at the Rhodesia Railways.

He had taken over the leadership of the old African National Congress from Dumbutshena in 1952.

He accepted the offer and did tell the people who came to petition him that the task ahead was a challenging one; the road is steep and fraught with thorns, as Vice President Msika put it.

At a meeting held on 12 September 1957 at the famous Mai Musodzi Hall in Harare (now Mbare) the delegates formed the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC).

Msika was one of its leaders and he would rise through the ranks till he became Vice President of PF-Zapu in the post independence period.

This landmark political development was taking place against the backdrop of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which had come into existence in 1953.

At the time, Southern Rhodesia’s Prime Minister was Garfield Todd, a New Zealander who set up Dadaya Mission of the Church of Christ.

Faced with mounting white radicalism, he was replaced during a cabinet coup.

Edgar Whitehead, who had been ambassador, was recalled to replace Todd.

The hardening white opinion led to the proscription of the SRANC in February 1959.

The leaders of the nationalist movement found themselves incarcerated in Rhodesian prisons.

This was done under the Emergency Powers which led to the promulgation of preventive detention.

In Malawi this year they are commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Emergency Powers which will be attended by among others, Professor Terence Ranger who was a young lecturer at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and assisted many detainees.

A nation-wide swoop on the nationalists saw them caught in the dragnet.

Msika was taken to the Khami Prison where he described the intimidating and humiliating conditions and antics of the jailers: "They (the jail guards) banged on the door. They jingled the keys to irritate us. A tin served as the toilet and this was kicked to infuriate and frustrate us," said the Vice President who was putting on a grey cardigan, khaki pair of trousers and a pair of white shoes.

Lighting the next cigarette by using the previous one, he chronicled through a thick pall of Kingsgate smoke, how their jailers tormented them.

From Khami Prison, Msika was transferred to Selukwe (now Shurugwi and later to Marandellas (now Marondera) Despite their incarceration, the struggle went ahead.

Those who had not been detained formed the National Democratic Party (NDP) on 1 January 1960.

The educated elite got on board at this juncture.

Robert Mugabe was elected Secretary for Publicity and Information.

Even this new party was short lived.

It was banned in December 1961 and was followed in the same month by a new party, Zapu in which Msika was active as leader of the youth.

The Dominion Party, precursor for the Rhodesian Front (RF) banned Zapu.

In the following year a split took place in the nationalist movement.

The Vice President narrated the goings on at Dar-es- Salaam, in particular the letter by the hardliners that wanted to eject Nkomo from the leadership.

Msika, Clement Muchachi and Jason Moyo, who also were in Tanzania remained loyal to Nkomo when Ndabaningi Sithole, Morton Malianga and Leopold Takawira, among others, chose to go it alone.

Those were the birth prangs of the new party, the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu).

Zapu transformed into the People’s Caretaker Council (PCC) in 1963 and Msika was in its national executive committee.

By this time the RF leader, the more intransigent Ian Smith, banned the two parties in 1964 and pushed through pieces of legislation meant to pave the way for the detention of the nationalist leaders.

Indeed, in 1964 the Zapu leaders were picked up and incarcerated at Gonakudzingwa.

The pioneers at the new place were Nkomo, Msika, Josiah Chinamano and his wife Ruth.

Many of their officials were soon to follow and served varying periods in detention.

The Zanu leaders, amongst them Sithole, Takawira, Mugabe, Edson Zvobgo, Enos Nkala and Edgar Tekere, were whisked to Sikombela.

Meanwhile, the Zapu leaders, Msika amongst them, remained in detention until 1974 when the Dr Henry Kissinger (US Secretary of State) brokered detente exercise culminated in the release of some detainees.

With the situation in Mozambique deteriorating following an escalating guerrilla war and the General Spinola coup in Portugal, Msika and colleagues were transferred to Buffalo Range for the final years in detention.

The political scene outside had changed markedly.

The guerrilla war had escalated.

Zipra (Zapu’s armed wing) and Zanla (Zanu’s armed wing) guerrillas had established fronts in virtually the whole of Rhodesia save for the interior.

In an effort to coordinate opposition to the 1972 Anglo-Rhodesian Constitutional Proposals (the Pearce Commission) Bishop Abel Muzorewa assumed the leadership of the new African National Council (ANC).

The Frontline States were keen to see the Zimbabwean nationalist movement present a united front.

The released detainees headed for Lusaka where they signed the Lusaka Accord.

Msika was among the leaders who went to Lusaka to create the new accord. Ideological differences led to the abandonment of the idea and the four parties (Chikerema had since formed the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe —FROLIZI following a split in Zapu in 1971).

John Nkomo who had gone there on the Zapu (then calling itself the African National Congress Nkomo-ANC-Nkomo) ticket found his way to Zimbabwe House in Lusaka while his Zanu counterpart Simon Muzenda went to Maputo where his colleagues were living.

Attempts had been made before to unite the armed wings of Zapu and Zanu — the Mbeya Accord and now the Zimbabwe People’s Army (ZIPA) - which too was short-lived. The next move was to bring together the two political parties, not just the armed wings.

The Patriotic Front (PF) was the result of those efforts in which Msika played a big part.

The Geneva Conference of 1976, in which Msika participated, necessitated the formation of the Front so that the two parties would present a united front.

At the time of Jason Moyo’s death in January 1977, Msika had just arrived with him from Maputo where they had been attending talks to consolidate the formation of the Patriotic Front. Following the death of Moyo, Nkomo and some of his senior lieutenants went into exile to prosecute the armed liberation struggle.

By 1978 it had become apparent that Smith was fighting a no-win war and the only route open to him was to capitulate. He would not immediately do that and instead chose to take on board the parties that he deemed liberal-and not the "Marxist-Leninist oriented terrorists".

He and the consenting parties formed an Internal Accord in 1978 and following the general elections of 1979, Bishop Muzorewa became the Prime Minister of a short-lived Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.

The international community did not recognise the new political dispensation.

At the CHOGM meeting of 1979 in Lusaka, Zambia the Commonwealth heads of government facilitated the convening of the Lancaster House Conference in London to find a solution to the Rhodesian constitutional impasse.

Msika was on the Zapu delegation to the talks that ushered in independence on 18 April 1980.

The Zimbabwe that Msika had devoted the better part of his life to bring about was now a reality.

Sadly, the two guerrilla movements had fought the elections separately and though Msika was in the government that was formed following independence, he soon found himself and his Zapu colleagues ejected from government a move that was followed by the unfortunate protracted "moment of madness".

However, following the signing of the 1987 Unity Accord between PF-Zapu and Zanu-PF, Msika found himself playing a part in government, rising to the post of Vice President following the demise of his longtime leader and mentor Nkomo in 1999. He was Vice President of the Republic of Zimbabwe at the time of his death.

As we inter his remains today, we do so with both gratitude and acknowledgement that here lies the remains of one who saw it all, fought for it all and lived to see it all-from the beginning to the end; the alpha and omega of our struggle for independence.

May his very dear soul rest in eternal peace.


Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo

The founder father of Zimbabwe, Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo died in Harare on July 1 1999 after a long battle with prostate cancer and was buried at the national shrine on July 5, 1999. He was 82.

The largest crowd ever seen at the Heroes Acre estimated at nearly 100 000 mourners, including foreign dignitaries, thronged the national shrine to witness the burial of the former Vice-President Dr Joshua Nkomo. Fondly known as Umdala Wethu, Chibwechitedza and Father Zimbabwe, Joshua Nkomo was an icon and a colossus of Zimbabwe’s political history.

Indeed, Zimbabweans from all walks of life were united for five days in grief in recognition of a man who knew no cultural boundaries. In mourning, people across the country experienced and lived together, Joshua Nkomo’s ideals of peace and harmony regardless of tribe, race or creed.

Record crowds felt obliged to bid farewell to this great son at Barbourfields Stadium and at his home in Bulawayo and at Stodart Hall in Mbare. Joshua Nkomo, the man with a ‘common touch’, even in death, exhibited his capacity for talking to all types of people in a language they could understand.

Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo was born on June 7, 1917 in Kezi District of Matabeleland. His father Thomas Nyongolo Letswana Nkomo, a prominent community leader and lay preacher of the London Missionary Society (LMS) had two wives and 10 children. Thomas Nyongolo was a teacher trained in South Africa through the assistance of LMS missionaries.

Besides nurturing his children under Christian doctrines, Joshua’s father also inculcated in them a spirit of enterpreneurship, a trait evident in Joshua Nkomo’s adult life.

Joshua was very fond of his mother and says in his autobiography, The Story of My Life, that he was a late talker and shy child. "I could not keep up with other children, and kept running back to my mother. I adored her; I was a mother’s boy. My weakness made me backward in our games and the sport of stick fighting . . . Even when I went to school and found myself coming first in all my classes, from standard one to standard six, I felt the other boys were better than me.

"In later life that lack of confidence has been both my strength and weakness. In my dealings with people I have acted trustingly, and have found out too late when I have been betrayed. My comfort has been to trust in and be trusted by the masses."

After completing standard six at Tsholotsho Government Industrial School, Joshua Nkomo obtained a carpentry certificate at the same institution. He taught carpentry at the LMS-run Manyame School in Kezi as well as Makupa and Izimnyama schools near Plumtree.

Eager to improve his carpentry qualifications, Nkomo enrolled at Adam’s College in Natal, South Africa. On his way to South Africa 1942, he boarded the same train with Enoch Dumbutshena and Herbert Chitepo and it was the former who influenced Joshua Nkomo to join the political sphere.

In South Africa he abandoned carpentry in favour of an academic career. On attaining University Junior Certificate (UJC) he proceeded to Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Science in Johannesburg, graduating in 1949 with a BA degree in Economics and Social Science. While studying in South Africa, Joshua Nkomo befriended Nelson Mandela and the late President of Botswana, Sir Seretse Khama.

In 1949, he returned home and married Johanna Fuyana (maFuyana). He joined the Rhodesia Railways as a social welfare officer based in Bulawayo. The post exposed him to huge salary differences between blacks and whites doing similar jobs.

Appalled by such injustices, as well as generally poor social conditions under which Africans lived, Joshua Nkomo joined the trade union movement to fight against these conditions. In 1951, he was appointed Secretary of the Railway Workers’ Association. By 1955, he had become the president of the Federation of Africa Workers’ Unions and was inevitably propelled into national politics.

In 1957, Joshua Nkomo was elected President of the African National Congress. He took advantage of his railway pass to travel throughout the country mobilising the people. The same year he accepted an invitation from Sir Godfrey Huggins, the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia to represent African opinion at the London Conference on the proposed federation of the two Rhodesians and Nyasaland. Dr Kenneth Kaunda and Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda represented Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland respectively. Joshua Nkomo returned home bitterly opposed to the proposals, but could make no impression in the face of overwhelming European support for the federal concept.

He resigned from Rhodesia Railways in 1954 to start his own business as an auctioneer and insurance agent in Bulawayo becoming the first African to own such a venture.

The birth of the federation weakened the ANC and Joshua Nkomo set out to rejuvenate the party by incorporating into ANC the more radical National Youth League led by George Nyandoro, James Chikerema, Henry Hamadziripi, Edson Sithole and others.

Events in Ghana, especially the All African People’s Congress held in that country in December, 1958, and interaction with other liberation movements around the world had a telling effect on the new course to be taken by ANC. whereas, the party had hitherto restricted itself to peaceful means of achieving freedom, Joshua Nkomo and other nationalists were running out of patience and were increasingly accepting armed struggle as an alternative means of attaining independence.

The authorities in Southern Rhodesia responded by declaring the first state of emergency in 1959, banned the ANC and detained 500 of its members. Cde Nkomo escaped because he was in Egypt at that time.

On the advice of Egyptian friends he opened an external office in London with the objective of stating to the outside world the case of Africans in Southern Rhodesia. For 18 months Joshua Nkomo travelled widely from his London base.

A new party, the National Democratic Party (NDP) was formed in 1960 with Joshua Nkomo as president with the late Leopold Takawira, Moton Malianga, Ndabaningi Sithole and Robert Mugabe as executive members.

In 1961, Nkomo led the NDP delegation of George Silundika, Ndabaningi Sithole and Herbert Chitepo to the Southern Rhodesia constitutional Conference chaired by then Prime Minister, Sir Edgar Whitehead. The NDP rejected Sir Edgar’s franchise and representation plans and Nkomo led the boycott against the elections emanating from that Constitution. The resultant escalation of civil unrest and tension between NDP and the government led to the party’s ban in December 1961.

Cde Nkomo responded by launching the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) headed by himself as president and the NDP executives retaining their posts in the new organisation. On September 20, 1962, Zapu too was banned and most of its leaders and members were restricted for three months to their rural places of birth.

Cde Nkomo who was in Zambia at the time Zapu was banned considered establishing a government in exile to bring pressure on the Organisation of Africa Unity (OAU), the United Nations and other sympathetic bodies to effect political change at home. His idea was resisted by Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, Enoch Dumbutshena and Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere who felt he should return home to suffer the same restraints as other leaders. He returned home in early 1963 and was immediately restricted at his Kezi home for three months.

On his release he travelled to New York where he addressed the UN Committee in 1963. However, Joshua Nkomo’s idea of government in exile brought to the fore internal disputes that had been simmering in the liberation movement for some time.

In July 1963, in the absence of Joshua Nkomo, who had returned to Southern Rhodesia, the executive members who had remained in Dar es Salaam headed by Ndabaningi Sithole voted to oust Nkomo from leadership.

Cde Nkomo then initiated a new organisation called the People’s Caretaker Council (PCC) which was essentially Zapu under a new name.

The formation of the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) headed by Rev Ndabaningi Sithole in August, 1963 was followed by violent clashes between Zapu and Zanu supporters resulting in both Zanu and PCC being outlawed in 1964.

In April that year Joshua Nkomo was arrested and restricted at Gonakudzingwa Camp and for the next 10 years he was confined at various other places including Gwelo Prison and at Buffalo Range near Chiredzi.

From 1969 he was permitted only three monthly visits from his wife and their children under 14 years of age.

During these 10 years he appeared in public on three occasions. Firstly, on October 29, 1965 he was flown to Salisbury to meet British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson on his pre-UDI visit to Salisbury.

The second occasion was in November, 1968 when he was summoned to meet the Commonwealth Secretary General, George Thompson. His last emergence was on February 10, 1972 for an interview with the Pierce Commission at Nuanetsi.

About his incarceration he commented: "I would be silly to get anything short of majority rule after suffering all those years."

Without warning, in 1974 he was released and flown to Zambia where the ANC suffered from the lack of effective leadership.

A flurry of activity and futile peace efforts that included the Victoria Falls Constitutional Conference with Ian Smith, and a peace shuttle that took him to Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, London and Salisbury made Joshua Nkomo conclude to "maintain and escalate the fighting in Rhodesia."

On October 9, 1976 , Zanu and Zapu forged the Patriotic Front Alliance ahead of the Geneva talks scheduled for October 25. Indeed, the armed struggle escalated with Joshua Nkomo leading the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (Zipra) as its Commander in Chief.

At Zimbabwe’s first elections in 1980 Cde Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu won 20 seats against Zanu’s 57. He turned down the largely ceremonial post of president before eventually accepting the portfolio of Minister of Home Affairs.

In 1982 Cde Nkomo, together with some of his party members, was dropped from the government as the country plunged into one of its darkest moments. Civil unrest gripped particularly Matabeleland and Midlands provinces until 1987 when Zapu and Zanu signed the historic Unity Accord.

During the civil strife Cde Nkomo briefly went into exile in 1984, only to return a year later to contest the legislative elections when he was elected MP for Magwegwe.

In fact, the quest for unity and peace among Africans was the cornerstone of Joshua Nkomo’s beliefs. As early as 1970 he wrote from prison: "….disunity has created an international atmosphere that is not favourable to our cause, especially since the rival groups are in reality fighting for the same things. The only difference has been personalities."

He would comment in 1976 on the Frontline States leaders’ efforts to form a united front between Zanu and Zapu that he was prepared to talk "with whoever the Zanu faction chooses as its leader in an attempt to remove the image of disunity."

"I regard unity as Zimbabwe number one priority, the sine qua non of national happiness. I pray and hope that it will be achieved …so that Zimbabwe can become one country for one nation, with opportunities, rights and privileges for everybody: white, yellow, black, Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Venda, Kalanga, Tonga, coloured and all," he wrote in his autobiography.

Cde Joshua Nkomo briefly held the post of Senior Minister in the government of national unity. From April 1988 until his death, he was Zimbabwe’s Co-Vice President.

In May 1979, Joshua Nkomo was conferred an Honorary Degree of Laws by Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, in the USA. In 1988, he received an Honorary Doctorate in commerce from Zimbabwe’s National University of Science and Technology (NUST).

At the time of his death, Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo was survived by his wife Johanna Mafuyana, three children and several grandchildren.