Word: nkomo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Patriotic Front's acceptance of the cease-fire terms came at the eleventh hour. Two days earlier, in fact, the Lancaster House conference had formally ended with no comprehensive settlement. In the face of a stern ultimatum from British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington, who had conducted the talks, Nkomo and Mugabe had flatly rejected a British scheme by which the guerrillas would assemble at 15 widely dispersed camps, which they felt would be too isolated and vulnerable. Their agreement was extracted by a British concession in a numbers game. It gave the Front forces a 16th camp...
This is an important day for Rhodesia," declared a jubilant Sir Ian Gilmour, Britain's Deputy Foreign Secretary. "It means the end of the war." So it seemed. Moments earlier, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, co-leaders of the Patriotic Front guerrilla alliance, had entered a gilded room in London's Foreign Office to add their signatures to a twelve-page protocol that had already been initialed by representatives of Britain and the now defunct Salisbury government of Prime Minister Abel Muzorewa. The document: a three-sided agreement for a complete cease-fire in Zimbabwe Rhodesia...
...peaceful creation of an independent republic of Zimbabwe by early next spring, as the British plan envisages. More immediately, it called for all combatants to lay down their arms within two weeks and for thousands of exiled guerrillas to return to Rhodesia, outlaws no longer. Declared a smiling Nkomo with some emotion: "We are going home." For all the hopeful statements, however, even some British officials conceded that they remained skeptical about the long-term prospects for real peace...
...population, and Ndebele, who make up about 15% (whites constitute 3%). Like its leader Robert Mugabe, the bulk of the Mozambique-based Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) are Shona. The Zambia-based Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) is dominated by Ndebele, like Leader Joshua Nkomo...
Tribal enmity,* along with ideological disputes between the left-leaning Mugabe and the more pragmatic Nkomo, could pose a serious threat to the cease-fire plan. The two groups considered joining their forces under a single command and mounting a unified campaign in the forthcoming elections. Nevertheless, many guerrillas have been killed in intramural gun fights between the rival factions. Says James Chikerema, a former guerrilla leader: "The security forces sit on tops of hills and wait for ZIPRA and ZANLA to knock each other to pieces. Then they move in and kill." In November ZIPRA and ZANLA units clashed...