Robert Mugabe - Early Political Career

Early Political Career

Mugabe returned to Southern Rhodesia and joined the National Democratic Party (NDP) in 1960. The administration of Prime Minister Ian Smith banned the NDP when it later became Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU). Mugabe left ZAPU in 1963 to join the rival Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) which had been formed in 1963 by the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, Edgar Tekere, Edson Zvobgo, Enos Nkala and lawyer Herbert Chitepo.

ZANU was influenced by the Africanist ideas of the Pan Africanist Congress in South Africa and influenced by Maoism while ZAPU was an ally of the African National Congress and was a supporter of a more orthodox pro-Soviet line on national liberation. Similar divisions can also be seen in the liberation movement in Angola between the MPLA and UNITA. It would have been easy for the party to split along tribal lines between the Ndebele and Mugabe's own Shona tribe, but cross-tribal representation was maintained by his partners. ZANU leader Sithole nominated Robert Mugabe as his Secretary General.

During early 1964 tension between the two rival nationalist parties boiled over into violent conflict within the black townships. "Many people were killed as rival former colleagues turned against each other," write David Martin and Phyllis Johnson; "Homes and stores were burned and looted." The government reacted by arresting political agitators for criminal offences and jailing Nkomo in Gonakudzingwa Restriction Camp, a remote detention unit in the south-east of the country. After members of ZANU murdered a farmer, Petrus Oberholzer, on 4 July 1964, ZANU and ZAPU were officially banned on 26 August 1964; their leaders, including Mugabe, were shortly arrested and imprisoned indefinitely. ZAPU figures joined Nkomo at Gonakudzingwa while the leaders of ZANU were briefly held in turn at two similar units near Gwelo (Gweru since 1982), first Wha Wha, then, from 15 June 1965, Sikombela, before being transferred permanently to Salisbury Prison on 8 November 1965. Mugabe earned numerous further degrees by correspondence courses while detained, including three from the University of London: degrees in Law and Economics respectively and a Bachelor of Administration. When his three-year-old son Nhamodzenyika died from malaria in Ghana in late 1966, Mugabe petitioned the prison governor to leave on parole to attend the funeral in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, but was refused permission by Smith personally.

In 1974, while still incarcerated, Mugabe was elected—with the powerful influence of Edgar Tekere—to take over the reins of ZANU after a no-confidence vote was passed on Ndabaningi Sithole – Mugabe himself abstained from voting. His time in prison burnished his reputation and helped his cause. Following a South African détente initiative, Mugabe was released from prison in December 1974 along with other Nationalist leaders and having initially travelled to Zambia, where he was ignored by Kenneth Kaunda, returned then left once again in April 1975 for Mozambique assisted by a Dominican nun, where he was later placed in temporary protective custody by President Samora Machel. According to Eddie Cross who participated in interviews of the leadership at that time to determine their views on the "longer term future", Mugabe's political viewpoint was that "a new 'progressive' society could not be constructed on the foundations of the past that they would have to destroy most of what had been built up after 1900 before a new society, based on subsistence and peasant values could be constructed".

Mugabe unilaterally assumed control of ZANU after the death of Herbert Chitepo on 18 March 1975. Later that year, after squabbling with Ndabaningi Sithole, Mugabe formed a militant ZANU faction, leaving Sithole to lead the moderate Zanu (Ndonga) party. Many opposition leaders mysteriously died during this time (Including one who allegedly died in a car crash, although the car was rumoured to have been riddled with bullet holes at the scene of the accident). Additionally, an opposing newspaper's printing press was bombed and its journalists tortured.