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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, FEBRUARY 19, 1982
PAGE 11
ON THE WORLD SCENE
CLOUD OF CIVIL WAR HANGS OVER ZIMBABWE The rift between the two bitter
rivals was bound to come sooner or later, and on February 17 the announce
ment was made: Prime Minister Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe--formerly Rhodesia
--fired his main political rival, Joshua Nkomo, from his ministerial post
in the government. Mugabe accused his former ally in the guerrilla war
against white-minority rule of plotting a coup-d'etat. Most observers felt
the action raised the possibility of new civil strife--meaning tribal war
fare--in the black African nation.
When Mugabe ousted Nkomo and three of his supporters from the Cabinet, the
move broke up a 22-month-old coalition government. Nkomo, the father of
black nationalism in the country and Mugabe's political mentor in the early
1960's, had been serving as "minister without portfolio" after his demotion
last year from Minister of Home Affairs, with authority over the police and
immigration.
Prime Minister Mugabe said at a news conference that a plot had been un
covered when arms and equipment sufficient to outfit a 5,000-man brigade
were unearthed February 6 on farms and other properties owned by Nkomo and
officials of his Zimbabwe African People's Union party. Nkomo denied the
accusation, of course. He charged that Mugabe's real motive was to divert
attention away from what he claimed was the Prime Minister's real aim--to
remove his ZAPU party from the ruling coalition (Nkomo had 20 out of the 100
seats in Parliament, Mugabe 57) and to institute a one-party state.
Some of Mugabe's staunchest supporters--who stem from the Shona tribesmen
composing 85% of Zimbabwe's population--seemed to indicate they would like
to see just such a political development. The Reuters news service report
ed that the morning after Nkomo was dismissed from Zimbabwe's cabinet,
thousands of Mugabe's supporters gathered outside his office to acclaim
their leader and demand the creation of a one-party state. A small card
board box draped with a black jacket and crowned with a wreath of weeds was
brandished before the jeering 3,000 supporters. "Josh is dead and here's
his coffin," cried a demonstration organizer, wiping away mock tears.
A few yards away, an Ndebele from Matabeleland province, where Mr. Nkomo
has long been undisputed political "king" said: "It's just like when they
killed Jesus. They laughed at first, and celebrated, and the tears came
later. Mugabe can now get his one-party state. He has the following."
Another Ndebele commented, bitterly: "They are not talking of a one-party
state. They are talking of a one-tribe state."
Mugabe and Nkomo had been very loosely united in a marriage-of-convenience
arrangement during the seven-year-long black indepE!'fidence war. They fought
under the umbrella "Patriotic Front" tag. But there was deep distrust
between the two, then as now. Showing the depths of his bitterness toward
Nkomo, Mugabe said of his rival after his dismissal that having Nkomo in the
government was like having "a cobra in the house. The only way to deal with
a snake is to strike and destroy its head."
While Matabeleland is quiet for now, the minority Ndebele, observers feel,
will not take their isolated minority status lying down forever. The once
warlike Ndebeles, tribal cousins to South Africa's martial Zulus, once