User:Katangais/Sandbox/Gukurahundi

Gukurahundi was a series of organised pogroms and mass killings perpetuated against the Northern Ndebele people by the Zimbabwe National Army's 5th Brigade between 1983 and 1987. Prime Minister Robert Mugabe and the country's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) were frequently accused of active complicity in the campaign. While the Zimbabwean government has never released official estimates of the number of people killed, independent sources usually estimate the death toll at between 8,000 and 20,000.

During the Rhodesian Bush War, ZANU and another rival party, the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) had emerged to challenge Rhodesia's conservative white minority government. Both parties formed armed wings, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), which were responsible for guerrilla activities and sabotage. Following ZANU's ascension to power in 1980, its government remained threatened by former ZIPRA militants responsible for continued acts of political violence. As the country's newly elected prime minister, one of Mugabe's first priorities was to suppress the ex-ZIPRA dissidents. Between 1980 and 1983, the 5th Brigade was formed for this purpose by the Zimbabwe National Army, with training and technical assistance from North Korea. Drawn almost entirely from ex-ZANLA forces loyal to Mugabe, the 5th Brigade was organised with a chain of command that bypassed the army's general staff and answered directly to the prime minister's office. It was deployed into Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South, and the Midlands in early 1983 with the objective of eliminating the dissidents, as well as intimidating the civilian population supportive of ZAPU. Between 1983 and 1987, the 5th Brigade was accused of murdering thousands of Ndebele civilians, and unlawfully detaining thousands of others at isolated internment camps. In mid-1987, ZAPU and ZANU began bilateral negotiations to enter into a political unity accord, aimed at putting an end to the violence. The army was withdrawn from the Matabeleland provinces as a result, and the last ex-ZIPRA dissidents surrendered the following year.

Due to heavy censorship of media coverage pertaining to the 5th Brigade's activities, little was reported about the campaign by the local or international press. A dossier published in the 1990s by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace was the first widely publicised documentation of atrocities committed during Gukurahundi. The dossier's details were repeatedly refuted and denied by Mugabe. In 2005, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) voted to classify Gukurahundi as a genocide.

Background
During the late 1950s and 1960s, the United Kingdom and the other principal colonial powers on the African continent began preparing their colonies for nationhood. The prospect of a rapid decolonisation process, however, met severe opposition in Southern Rhodesia, one of the few colonies which enjoyed self-governing status; rather than being administered directly from Whitehall, the territory was governed by its own predominantly white government. In an attempt to forestall independence under majority rule, Southern Rhodesia preemptively issued a unilateral declaration of independence as Rhodesia in 1965.

Two principal black nationalist movements were committed to armed struggle to oust the Rhodesian regime, each with different ethno-linguistic support bases and competing external supporters. ZAPU was founded in 1961 as the immediate successor to the National Democratic Party (NDP), itself the successor to the Southern Rhodesian African National Congress, which was the colony's first major black political party. By the 1970s, ZAPU was drawing its support mainly from the Ndebele, Rhodesia's second largest ethnic group, although it remained nominally a broad-based nationalist movement. Its insurgent army, ZIPRA, was trained as a semi-conventional fighting force and well-equipped with heavy weapons. ZAPU received arms and diplomatic support from the Soviet Union and various Soviet bloc regimes.

In August 1963, dissidents within ZAPU broke away to form ZANU, and the following year was characterised by violence between the two rival parties. ZANU concentrated on building an underground political movement among the Shona, who constituted Rhodesia's largest ethnic group. Its insurgent army, ZANLA, was more loosely structured for guerrilla warfare.

and drew its support primarily from

Nkomo's Zipra army, numbering some 20,000 men, had been recruited mainly from Matabeleland, spoke in Sindebele, and had been trained largely as a regular force, with air and armoured units. Mugabe's Zanla army, twice as large, had been recruited from Shonaspeaking areas and was more loosely structured for guerrilla warfare.

, Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing dependency dominated politically by a white minority of European descent and culture.

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