Academic literature on the topic 'Zimbabwe People's Army'

AbstractStudies of southern Africa's liberation movements have turned attention to the great importance of their transnational lives, but have rarely focused on the effects of the military training Cold War-era allies provided in sites across the globe. This is a significant omission in the history of these movements: training turns civilians into soldiers and creates armies with not only military but also social and political effects, as scholarship on conventional militaries has long emphasized. Liberation movement armies were however different in that they were not subordinated to a single state, instead receiving training under the flexible rubric of international solidarity in a host of foreign sites and in interaction with a great variety of military traditions. The training provided in this context produced multiple “military imaginaries” within liberation movement armies, at once creating deep tensions and enabling innovation. The article is based on oral histories of Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) veterans trained by Cuban and Soviet instructors in Angola in the late 1970s. These soldiers emerged from the Angolan camps with a military imaginary they summed up in the Cuban exhortation “Adelante!” (Forward!). Forty years later, they stressed how different their training had made them from other ZIPRA cadres, in terms of their military strategy, mastery of advanced Soviet weaponry, and aggressive disposition, as well as their “revolutionary” performance of politics and masculinity in modes of address, salute, and drill. Such military imaginaries powerfully shaped the southern African battlefield. They offer novel insight into the distinctive institutions, identities, and memories forged through Cold War-era military exchanges.

Zimbabwe Peoples’ Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) was the armed wing of Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) which waged the war to liberate Zimbabwe. It operated from its bases in Zambia between 1964 and 1980. Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK) was ANC’s armed wing which sought to liberate South Africa from minority rule. Both forces (MK and ZIPRA) worked side by side until the attainment of independence by Zimbabwe when ANC guerrillas were sent back to Zambia by the new Zimbabwean government. This paper argues that the failure of ZIPRA and Umkhonto Wesizwe to deploy larger numbers of guerrillas to the war front in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) and South Africa was mainly caused by bio-physical challenges. ZAPU and ANC guerrillas faced the difficult task of crossing the Zambezi River and then walking through the sparsely vegetated areas, game reserves and parks until they reached villages deep in the country. Rhodesian and South African Defense Forces found it relatively easy to disrupt guerrilla movements along these routes. Even after entering into Rhodesia, ANC guerrillas had environmental challenges in crossing to South Africa. As such, they could not effectively launch protracted rural guerrilla warfare. Studies on ZIPRA and ANC guerrilla warfare have tended to ignore these environmental problems across inhospitable territories. For the ANC, surveillance along Limpopo River and in Kruger National Park acted more as impediments than conduits. ANC also had to cope with almost all challenges which confronted ZIPRA guerrillas such as the Zambezi, Lake Kariba and various parks which Rhodesians always used as a first line of defense but had a geographically difficult task in South Africa where the environment was not attractive for a guerrilla warfare.

This article examines the Rhodesian Defence Regiment’s role in the Rhodesian Security Forces’ counterinsurgency efforts against the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army and Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army guerrillas. It argues that the two guerrilla armies successfully used sabotage targeting installations of strategic and economic significance to Rhodesia. This compelled the Rhodesian regime to change its policy of restricting the conscription of Coloured and Asian minorities into the Rhodesian Security Forces to undertake combat duties beyond defensive roles. However, the Rhodesian Defence Regiment largely failed to serve its key duty of countering the guerrilla tactic of sabotage against all major installations and centres of strategic and economic importance. The article concludes that the failure was due to the many challenges the majority members, Coloureds and Asians, that constituted the Rhodesian Defence Regiment faced, including discrimination and mistrust. These challenges derailed the Rhodesian Defence Regiment operations and partly contributed to the overall end of the Ian Smith regime.

<em>The objective of this paper is to explore the initiatives and practices of different countries in truth seeking. Many countries during the post-conflict, colonial, slavery, anarchical and cultural genocide periods establish the Truth Commissions to respond to the past human wrongdoings: crimes and crimes against humanity. Enforced Disappearances (ED), killings, rapes and inhumane tortures are wrongdoings. Truth Commission applies the method of recovering silences from the victims for structured testimonies. The paper is prepared based on the victim-centric approach. The purpose reveals the piecemeal fact-findings to heal the past, reconcile the present and protect the future. The study covers more than 50 Commissions in a chronological order: beginning from Uganda in 1974 and concluding to Nepal in February 2015. Two Commissions in Uruguay were formed to find-out enforced disappearances. Colombian and Rwandan Commissions have established permanent bodies. The Liberian TRC threatened the government to submit its findings to the ICC if the government failed to establish an international tribunal. The Commissions of Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti, former Yugoslavia and Zimbabwe were disbanded, and consequently, their reports could not be produced. No public hearings were conducted in Argentina and former Yugoslavia. It is noted that only 8 public hearings in Ghana, 8 national hearings in East-Timor and 15 in Brazil were conducted. Moroccan Commission held public hearings after signing the bond paper for not to disclose the names of the perpetrators whereas Guatemala did not include the perpetrators’ names in the report. The Shining Path’s activists are serving sentences based on civil-anti-terrorist court, but Alberto Fujimori is convicted for 25 years. Chadian Commission worked even against illicit narcotics trafficking. The UN established its Commissions in Sierra Leon, El Salvador and East-Timor, but failed to restore normalcy in Kosovo. Haiti prosecuted 50 perpetrators whereas Guatemala prosecuted its former military dictator. The Philippines’ Commission had limited investigation jurisdiction over army, but treated the insurgents differently. In El Salvador, the State security forces were responsible for 85 percent and the non-state actors for 15 percent similar to CIEDP, Nepal. The TRCs of Argentina, East-Timor, Guatemala, Morocco, Peru and South Africa partially succeeded. Large numbers of victims have failed to register the complaints fearing of possible actions. All perpetrators were controversially granted amnesty despite the TRC recommendation in South Africa. The victims and people still blamed Mandela that he sold out black people’s struggle. Ironically, the perpetrators have received justice, but the victims are further victimized. As perpetrator-centric Government prioritizes cronyism, most of the Commissioners defend their respective institution and individuals. Besides, perpetrators influence Governments on the formation of Truth Commission for ‘forgetting the victims to forgive the perpetrators’. A commission is a Court-liked judicial and non-judicial processes body, but without binding authority except Sierra Leone. Transitional Justice body exists with a five-pillar policy: truth, justice, healing, prosecution and reparation. It has a long neglected history owing to anarchical roles of the perpetrators and weak-poor nature of the victims. Almost all TRCs worked in low budget, lack of officials, inadequate laws and regulations, insufficient infrastructures and constraints of moral supports including Liberia, Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa, Uganda and Nepal. The perpetrators controlled Governments ordered to destroy documents, evidences and testimonies in their chain of command that could have proven guilty to them.</em>

In the liberation of Zimbabwe, the contribution of two liberation fronts, the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZPRA) and the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), cannot be ignored. However, documentation relating to the contribution made by ZPRA in the liberation struggle is scarce. Future generations have to know and understand the role played by ZPRA; and thus, there is a need for memory in the form of documents to highlight the role and contribution of ZPRA. The ZPRA Trust has highlighted the need to document its role in the liberation of Zimbabwe. This study, therefore, sought to find out what documentation exists on ZPRA’s contribution to the liberation of Zimbabwe, what documentation gaps exist on ZPRA’s contribution to the liberation struggle, and how ZPRA intends to fill gaps in its archives or memory. It also sought to find out what challenges stand in ZPRA’s way as it seeks to document its contribution to the liberation struggle, and where ZPRA’s liberation documentation and archives are. The ZPRA Trust is the unit of analysis for this study; as it is responsible for the administration of ZPRA’s affairs. This study was qualitative in nature, and a case study research design was applied. Purposive sampling was used as ZPRA cadres who lead the ZPRA Trust made up the population of the study

This article aims to examine the importance of indigenous medical knowledge during the 1970s when guerrillas from the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) negotiated their way to the front to fight the Rhodesian white minority regime. From the 1960s until the ceasefire at the end of 1979, ZIPRA was one of the two liberation movements that waged war to liberate Zimbabwe. This article traces the experiences of guerrillas who moved from the Zambian side of the Zambezi Valley into Rhodesia. The terrain that the guerrillas had to navigate on foot was punctuated by many devastating and life-threatening challenges. Some of these included malaria, sleeping sickness, venereal diseases, snake bites, mental disorders, injuries and even fatigue. Given that the guerrillas had no hospitals and other medical facilities at their disposal, it is important to establish how local knowledge assisted them to survive, especially when ailments struck them. The purpose of this study was to determine the role the fighters’ knowledge of indigenous medicines played in dealing with these difficulties. The author collected information by conducting interviews with former ZIPRA guerrillas who had operated in Zimbabwe during the war. Some civilians who were in ZIPRA operational areas were also interviewed. The importance of the study lies in understanding the continued use and existence of indigenous medical remedies in Zimbabwe. Findings from the study are valuable in widening knowledge horizons on indigenous medical knowledge as a useful alternative in times of need.

The liberation struggle for Zimbabwe culminated in the attainment of independence from the autocratic rule of minority white settlers on 18 April 1980. Peace prevailed only for a short period after independence, followed by a harrowing genocide which affected the Matabeleland and Midlands regions. Much attention has been given to the role of the Fifth Brigade during this genocide. Thus, an emphasis on the actions of the Fifth Brigade soldiers leads us to negate all violence that took place during the period. Therefore, this article seeks to explore the role of the police as partners in crime with the Fifth Brigade during the Gukurahundi genocide. Further, the article raises questions of state opacity and how this was used by the police to eliminate the so-called enemies of the independent state. It draws from interviews conducted with the people of Bulilimamangwe, ex-Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army cadres and ex-policemen who served during the period and other documentary evidence to engage with the role of the police during the genocide.

AbstractForced displacement and resettlement is a pervasive challenge being contemplated across the social sciences. Scholarly literature, however, often fails to engage complexities of power in understanding socio-environmental interactions in resettlement processes. Addressing Zimbabwe’s Tokwe-Mukosi flood disaster resettlement, we explore hegemonic uses of state power during the pre- and post-flood induced resettlement processes. We examine how state power exercised through local government, financial, and security institutions impacts community vulnerabilities during forced resettlement processes, while furthering capitalist agendas, drawing insights from analysing narratives between 2010 and 2021. Concerns abound that multiple ministries, the police, and the army undermined displaced people’s resilience, including through inadequate compensation, with state institutions neglecting displaced communities during encampment by inadequately meeting physical security, health, educational, and livestock production needs. We explore how forcibly resettling encamped households to a disputed location is not only an ongoing perceived injustice regionally but also a continuing reference point in resettlement discussions countrywide, reflecting concerns that land use and economic reconfigurations in resettlement can undermine subsistence livelihoods while privileging certain values and interests over others. Policy lessons highlight the need for reviewing disaster management legislation, developing compensation guidelines and reviewing encampment practices. Analytically, lessons point to how state power may be studied in relation to perspectives on the destruction of flood survivors’ connections to place, people and livelihoods, underscoring the critical need for theorising the relationships between power dynamics and diverse experiences around displacement.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Stabilization and Reconstruction))--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2010.
Thesis Advisor(s): Lawson, Letitia. ; Second Reader: McNab, Robert M. "June 2010." Description based on title screen as viewed on July 14, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Zimbabwe, Mugabe, structural adjustment program, democracy, autocrat, state sponsored violence, ZANU, ZAPU, Nkomo, Movement for Democratic Change, Tsvangirai, Fifth Brigade. Includes bibliographical references (p. 51-55). Also available in print.