Transnationalism, Contingency and Loyalty in African Liberation Armies: The Case of ZANU’s 1974–1975 Nhari Mutiny

Abstract

This article revisits the history of the 1974–75 mutiny in the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA). The mutiny was primarily led by field commanders Thomas Nhari, Dakarai Badza and Caesar Molife. Dominant accounts on the mutiny maintain that the colonial Rhodesian Security Forces (RSF) influenced Nhari and Badza to stage the revolt. The article traces part of the life history of Rex Nhongo/Solomon Mujuru (a ZANLA commander who interacted with the mutineers) in order to challenge these long-standing accounts of the mutiny. The article highlights the import of conflicting understandings of loyalty in the mutiny, arguing that the revolt was not an RSF scheme. Instead, the mutineers took advantage of the absence of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and ZANLA leaderships, which were abroad on various transnational diplomatic engagements in countries sympathetic to Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle, to stage a revolt. The mutiny could have been avoided had the ZANLA commander, Josiah Tongogara, heeded Nhongo’s advice that ZANU’s transnational appointments be postponed in order first to address growing dissent among guerrillas at the war front. The article underlines that the revolt’s primary grievances did not originate from ZANLA camps but in the war zone. Focusing on the war front provides an important corrective to the exile literature’s emphasis on the space of the camp, which mistakenly gives a lower profile to the influence of war-zone dynamics in upheavals experienced by liberation movements. It is potentially more insightful to consider meticulously the ways in which war-front dynamics interact with camp politics.