Joshua Nkomo was the leader of the other Zimbabwean liberation movement, ZAPU, in the fight against Ian Smith's Rhodesia. Unfortunately for him the leader of rivals ZANU, one Robert Mugabe, was not a man who could contemplate any sharing of power once Smith had been removed.
"ZAPU and its leader, Dr. Joshua Nkomo, are like a cobra in a house. The only way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and destroy its head", said Mugabe. The North-Korean-trained Fifth Brigade was despatched to Matabeleland, Nkomo's heartland, and, during the course of what came to be known as Gukurahundi, massacred something like 20,000 civilians. Nkomo fled the country:
After the Gukurahundi massacres, in 1987 Nkomo consented to the absorption of ZAPU into ZANU, resulting in a unified party called ZANU-PF, leaving Zimbabwe as effectively a one-party state and leading some Ndebeles to accuse Nkomo of selling out. These Ndebele individuals were in such a minority that they did not constitute a meaningful power base within the cross-section of ZAPU. In a powerless post and with his health failing, his influence declined.
When asked late in his life why he allowed this to happen, he told historian Eliakim Sibanda that he did it to stop the murder of the Ndebele (who supported his party) and of the ZAPU politicians and organizers who had been targeted by Zimbabwe's security forces since 1982. "Mugabe and his Shona henchmen have always sought the extermination of the Ndebele," he said.
Nkomo died in 1999, and, no longer a threat, was declared a national hero. Last December a large bronze statue of the man was unveiled in Bulawayo by a shameless Mugabe:
And, to complete the irony, who designed the statue? Why yes, that bombastic style is familiar. It is, of course, the Mansudae Art Studio of North Korea, designers of such icons as Senegal's African Renaissance Monument, and - alongside nuclear proliferation - one of North Korea's most successful overseas earners.
So the circle of humiliation is complete: the North Koreans oversaw the Gukurahundi massacres which slaughtered Nkomo's ZAPU followers, and now they get to design the statue in his honour.
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