Reconciliation: A false start in Zimbabwe? (1980-1990)

Abstract

This article analysed the elusive post-war reconciliation policy that the Prime Minister Robert Mugabe proclaimed following his Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party’s election victory in the 1980 multiparty elections. Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and ZANU-PF antagonistic relations of the pre-independence era and their traditional rivalry over the control and ownership of the struggle for the liberation of the country from colonial rule spilt into the post-independence era. The deep-seated rivalry of the two liberation parties was predicated on ideological and ethnic factors resulting in turbulence in Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands Province. A state campaign against civilians, referred to as gukurahundi, assumed crisis proportions when the government sent the Fifth Brigade to quell supposed ZAPU dissident disturbances leading to gross human rights abuses. This paper addressed how reconciliation was narrowly defined to mean mending strained relations between ZANU-PF and the Rhodesia Front (RF) led by Ian Smith. The policy of reconciliation, indeed, excluded other black nationalist parties that rivalled ZANU-PF prior to 1980 such as United African National ongress (UANC) led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Zimbabwe African National Union Ndonga (ZANU Ndonga) led by Ndabaningi Sithole and trivialized their significance in postcolonial reconstruction endeavours. It therefore precisely analysed how party rivalries in the 1980 general elections won by ZANU-PF were illuminated in the post-independence discourses primarily because the reconciliation policy focused on black-white relations to the exclusion of other black political rivals. ZANU-PF manoeuvres towards a one-party state after co-opting ZAPU in the 1987 Unity Accord and the enfeeblement of ZANU Ndonga and UANC were discussed. The quest for a one-party state that seemed more likely after the co-option of ZAPU and the reasons for failure are also a key aspect of this work.