ZIPRA
ZIPRA or the
Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army was the armed wing of the
Zimbabwean political movement ZAPU (the
Zimbabwe African People's Union) and participated in the
Second Chimurenga against white minority rule in
Rhodesia.
ZIPRA was formed during the 1960s by the nationalist leader Jason Moyo, sometime deputy of
Joshua Nkomo. Because ZAPU's political strategy relied more heavily on negotiations than armed force, ZIPRA did not develop as quickly or elaborately as
ZANLA, the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African National Union (
ZANU), although by 1979 it had an estimated 20,000 combatants, almost all based in camps around
Lusaka,
Zambia (ref: Rasmussen & Rubert).
Beside the overall political ideologies, the main differences between ZIPRA and
ZANLA were that
*ZIPRA drew its recruits almost exclusively from the
Ndebele ethnic group
*ZIPRA did not follow ZANLA's example of politicalisation of the peasant population (inspired by the teachings of
Mao) and consequently did not enjoy a close relationship with local peasant populations
*ZIPRA was designed to be used as a conventional armed force: entering the country, striking and pulling back to its bases in Zambia and
Angola. This was in contrast to ZANLA, which introduced combatants into the country for long-term campaigns of
guerrilla fighting
In 1978 and 1979 ZIPRA downed two civilian passenger planes of
Air Rhodesia, killing a total of 102 passengers and crew. These successes drew condemnation from Rhodesian church and political leaders (but not from international church and political leaders), especially for the manner in which some survivors of the first crash, including women and children, had been killed by ZIPRA cadres inspecting the wreckage.
Rasmussen, R. K., & Rubert, S. C., 1990.
A Historical Dictionary of Zimbabwe,
Scarecrow Press, Inc., Metuchen, NJ, United States of America.
