adminTjenesani Ntungakwa
The Geneva experience left Zanu and Zapu facing what they considered Western trickery in handling the Rhodesia question. It brought about a realisation that Britain and the Rhodesian Front should not go it alone in finding a solution. The Geneva Conference was followed by Malta Conferences I and II in the first half of 1978.
These initiatives never achieved much towards the conclusion the Rhodesian issue.
Geneva culminated in a frustrating impasse. There was a strong feeling that the British had unilaterally called off the conference, a development which incensed the Organisation of African Unity.
On a continental scale, the fight for freedom in Southern Africa was becoming everybody’s business.
The OAU convened its 28th Ordinary session in Lusaka from the 24th January to the 4th of February 1977. President Kaunda delivered the keynote address to the delegates at Mulungushi Hall.
He lamented the fact that efforts to resolve pertinent issues in Southern Africa amicably had failed.
It was for such and related reasons that the continent was behind the cause for Southern Africa.
His speech also confirmed the fact that the Anglo-American proposals behind which the OAU had thrown its weight “foundered on the head of Ian Smith”.
Kaunda said “Geneva was only an extension of the liberation war in Zimbabwe”.
He did not hide his disapproval of how the British had called off Geneva without any consultation with the nationalist parties.
The Rhodesian Front government of Ian Douglas Smith had in turn rejected the Anglo-British on January 24, 1977.
In the spirit of Kaunda’s presentation at the session; Ian Smith had turned down an opportunity to negotiate and was obviously for war.
The mood of the ‘70s had shown Zapu, Zanu and the OAU that unity would always be hard to achieve if certain “manageable” obstacles were left in the way.
The OAU had also observed that it had to attend to the critical matters with an open mind.
It was a fact that the disparities in the approaches of Zanu and Zapu was to be a subject concern for the OAU.
From a historical perspective, the burial of Zipa had some lessons to offer for the future of Africa in general and Rhodesia in particular.
After everything had been said and done, 1977 was most likely a year of awakening in the OAU. One of the most endeared steps for Rhodesia was the incubation of the Patriotic Front.
The Front became the closest ever altar for Zanu and Zapu unity.
What made the difference from Zipa was that the OAU was like the midwife to its delivery.
The 28th Ordinary Summit of the OAU passed a resolution on the Zimbabwe Patriotic Front. The OAU endorsed the PF on February 4, 1977.
The Liberation Committee affirmed that it was giving assistance and full support for all the fighting cadres of Zimbabwe, whether they were based in or outside Rhodesia.
For the sake of progress, the Zimbabwean nationalists were to desist from condemning each other and the Liberation Committee was to find means and ways of ensuring that the armed struggle was intensified.
And 1978, was a year in which the confrontations in Southern Africa escalated to an unprecedented magnitude.
Zapu, Zanu, Swapo, Mkontho we Sizwe and the MPLA government in Angola were in one way or the other engaged in massive military deployments against the armies of settler colonialism, apartheid as well as a brand of post-Second World War Eurocentric fascism.
The mood was fiery and diplomacy had lost its relevance.
Within that sort of atmosphere, Joshua Nkomo was upbeat about the intensity of the battles and clashes that were to follow.
His strong intimation was that PF-Zapu would bring the Katyusha to Rhodesia.
As a matter of detail, the Katyusha was a 40-barrel Soviet-made ground attack piece of artillery that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had supplied to.
Its history came out of the Soviet repulsion of the German invasion in WWII, thus it was dubbed “the Stalin Organ”.
The Patriotic Front was a chapter that preceded the Lancaster house Conference held in the last quarter of 1979.
The Lancaster House talks were the watershed of Armageddon.
By that time, there had been a change over in Rhodesia’s political system.
A new and short-lived administration was in place.
It was the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia marriage of Bishop Abel Tendekai Mozorewa whose party had adopted the name United African National Council after the demise African National Council.
Tjenesani Ntungakwa is the project advisor of the Revolutionary Research Institute of Zimbabwe, an initiative involved with documenting and disseminating the contribution made by the Patriotic Front Zimbabwe African Peoples Union and its military wing, the Zimbabwe Peoples’ Revolutionary Army, to the liberation and development of Zimbabwe
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