Nkomo, Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo

▪ 2000

      Zimbabwean activist and politician (b. June 19, 1917, Semokwe Reserve, Matabeleland, Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe]—d. July 1, 1999, Harare, Zimb.), led his country's prolonged struggle for freedom from white minority control. Although he encouraged black nationalist guerrillas, Nkomo was essentially a diplomat and preferred negotiation to fighting. He attended high school and college in South Africa and, upon returning home, worked for the Rhodesian railway system. By 1951 he was a leader of the black railway workers' union. As black demands for rights found expression in riots and strikes, Nkomo became president (1957) of the African National Congress (ANC). When the ANC was banned, he founded successor organizations, which were also banned in turn. The most important of these organizations was the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU); the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), a ZAPU splinter group, also became prominent. Under Prime Minister Ian Smith's segregationist rule, Nkomo was detained for more than 10 years, beginning in 1964. When freed, he attempted to negotiate black freedoms with Smith but then left Rhodesia to seek international support for his cause. In 1976 ZAPU and ZANU formed an uneasy alliance under the Patriotic Front banner and with leadership being shared by Nkomo and Robert Mugabe. Once white-ruled Rhodesia became black-ruled Zimbabwe in 1979–80, ZAPU, supported by the minority Ndebele people, lost to ZANU, the party of the majority Shona people, in the country's parliamentary elections. Mugabe, the new prime minister, appointed Nkomo to his Cabinet, but, fearing a coup, he dismissed Nkomo in 1982. The move precipitated five years of bloody battles between Shona and Ndebele people. Mugabe recognized that he could not rule Matabeleland without Nkomo's aid, so he negotiated an agreement (1987) to merge the two parties. The result, at last, was national reconciliation. In 1990 Nkomo became vice president, a post with influence but with limited power.

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