BiAS 7 – The Bible and Politics in Africa
trated by the 5th Brigade against innocent and defenseless civilians was
regrettable. Ncube further maintains that in January 1983, the ruling
party deployed the 5th Brigade in Matabeleland North and within three
weeks, its troops had massacred more than two thousand civilians,
beaten and raped thousands more and destroyed hundreds of thousands
of homesteads^2. The Catholic Commission on Justice and Peace in Zim-
babwe (CCJP) prepared a scathing report in which it detailed the atroci-
ties committed by the Fifth Brigade during the massacres.
According to Hatchard (1987), the dissident problem was largely political
and eventually political measures were taken to cease the destabiliza-
tion^3. In October 1987, meetings commenced between ZANU and
ZAPU with a view to the possible merger of the two parties but they
collapsed in April 1987 when the government reattributed dissident
activities to PF ZAPU. Hatchard further maintains that the final pres-
sure to merge the two parties was stepped up when the then Minister of
Home Affairs (Enos Nkala), inter alia, banned any PF-ZAPU meeting or
public rally, ordered the closure of its offices nationwide and dissolved
six PF-ZAPU dominated local authorities in Matabeleland North^4. These
steps forced PF-ZAPU to go back to the negotiating table and in Decem-
ber 1987 an “agreement of unity” was ratified by the two parties.
The two parties merged under the name Zimbabwe African National
Patriotic Front (ZANU PF). This agreement has been described by
scholars as a “shotgun marriage”, an “intra-elite cohesion” and a “mar-
riage of convenience”. Under this agreement, six PF-ZAPU members
were appointed to ministerial posts and Dr. Joshua Nkomo was first
appointed a senior Minister in the Office of the President and later a
Vice President, a post he held until his death.
President Mugabe became the first Secretary and president of the united
party. One of the major provisions of the unity accord was the introduc-
tion of a one-party state constructed along Marxist-Leninist principles,
an objective which ranked high on the agenda of ZANU since independ-
ence. From this discussion, it has emerged that ZAPU signed the Unity
Accord. However, discontentment with the Accord among some high
ranking ex-ZAPU elements continued and in November 2008, they
(^2) Ncube “Constitutionalism, Democracy and Political Practice in Zimbabwe,” 163.
(^3) John Hatchard, Individual Security and State Security in the African Context: The Case of
Zimbabwe (Harare: Univ. of Zimbabwe Publications, 1987), 112.
(^4) Hatchard, Individual Freedoms and State Security in the African Context, 115.