Word: nkomo
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...Nkomo reclaims his seat
Another self-exiled politician had better luck than Aquino. Joshua Nkomo, portly leader of Zimbabwe's opposition ZAPU party, had promised to return "like a lion, not a lamb," and last week he flew back to Harare after five months in London. In the airport lobby, a crowd of jubilant supporters danced and clapped, shouting high-pitched cries of welcome...
...short-lived triumph. Officials pointedly denied Nkomo the use of the airport's VIP lounge and whisked him into a customs office. Inspectors then searched his luggage for more than one hour, confiscating a color television set, a videotape of the musical My Fair Lady and some English honey. Next day Nkomo appeared in Zimbabwe's neoclassical national assembly to challenge a motion that, because he had missed 21 consecutive sessions, would have stripped him of his seat. Prime Minister Robert Mugabe's government had introduced the motion two weeks earlier...
Mugabe has done little to dispel that impression. He has forcefully moved to curb the powers of his main rival, Joshua Nkomo, with whom he shared an uneasy alliance during the seven-year guerrilla war that finally ended the white regime of Ian Smith in 1979. In January, Mugabe's troops killed hundreds of Nkomo's Ndebele tribesmen in Matabeleland, ostensibly while crushing opposition guerrillas. When soldiers raided Nkomo's home in March, he fled to London, where he remains in exile...
...attempt by Mugabe to administer a final blow to Nkomo's waning political prospects failed only narrowly last week. Invoking a law that requires the Zimbabwean Parliament to declare a seat vacant if any member misses 21 consecutive sittings, Mugabe's ruling ZANU-P.F. Party called a vote to strip Nkomo of his parliamentary seat. When the embarrassed leadership realized that not enough members were present in Parliament to provide the necessary majority, it postponed the decision. In London, Nkomo warned glumly that "if I don't go back, there will...