Zimbabwe's War of Independence (1965–1980)

Abstract

Abstract During the 1890s the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes conquered the African people in what is now Zimbabwe yet did not discover anticipated vast gold deposits. With responsible government in 1923, the white settler minority gained internal political control over the colony of Southern Rhodesia and passed a series of laws that undercut African economic opportunities. As European commercial farmers took most of the best land, Africans became cheap labor as they were pushed into small infertile reserves or moved to cities. After World War II the white minority expected Britain to grant them dominion status, a form of autonomy, along the lines of Canada or Australia. This was to be facilitated by the 1953 Central African Federation, which brought together Southern Rhodesia with the mining economy of Northern Rhodesia and the labor reservoir of Nyasaland. Britain initially supported the federation as it was looking for a new regional ally after the election of the republican minded Afrikaner Nationalist Party in South Africa in 1948 and the introduction of apartheid. Since the tiny European population controlled the federal government, African nationalists in all three territories protested against the federation, which seemed counter to the emerging continental desire for independence and majority rule. In Southern Rhodesia a series of progressively more radical African nationalist groups was banned in the late 1950s and early 1960s. These were the Southern Rhodesian African National Congress (SRANC), National Democratic Party (NDP), and Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). Increasingly violent street protest and state repression led to the breakup of the federation in 1963 and the British, now eager to decolonize Africa, granted independence to Northern Rhodesia as Zambia and Nyasaland as Malawi in 1964. The bulk of federal military resources, warplanes, helicopters, and armored cars supplied by Britain during the 1950s were taken to Southern Rhodesia, where the right‐wing Rhodesia Front of Ian Smith came to power to protect settler interests. Disagreement over strategy split the African nationalist movement as the established ZAPU under Joshua Nkomo wanted to mobilize international sanctions from exile and a splinter group called the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) under Ndabaningi Sithole was determined to confront the regime at home. Most of the top leadership of both organizations was arrested and spent the next decade in detention. An impasse developed between the Smith regime that demanded immediate dominion status and Britain that wanted Smith to acknowledge the eventuality of majority rule. In November 1965 Smith unilaterally declared independence from Britain and although bank assets were frozen and limited sanctions imposed, London did little to suppress the rebellion.