Ndabaningi Sithole: one of the fathers of Zimbabwean independence

Men of the cloth do not often feature in struggles for black liberation or emancipation, although notable examples were Dr Martin Luther King and Rev Jesse Jackson in the United States. In Zimbabwe, Ndabaningi Sithole was such a man. A gifted orator, Ndabaningi Sithole was the brains behind the foundation of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) in 1963.

He was born on 21st July 1920 in the village of Nyamandlovu in Matabeleland (western Zimbabwe), but he was an Ndau by descent, the Ndau being one of the minority ethnic groups in Zimbabwe, found mostly to the south-east of the country. His early years were not easy because his father distrusted education and would not support his son’s endeavours to gain a good educational grounding. Blessed with immense intellectual abilities, young Ndabaningi defied his father and started to pursue his education through missionary schools just as most Zimbabwean revolutionaries did. He attended Dadaya School under the tutelage of Garfield Todd, a white New Zealander who was to become Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia from 1953 to 1958. 

His determination to be educated led to him gaining a National Junior Certificate and eventually a BA degree from the University of South Africa by private study. He returned to Dadaya School as a teacher, and in 1947 led a short protest strike in support of several girl students whom he believed had been punished in a degrading manner by Garfield Todd.

Sithole became a Christian and was uncertain for some time whether to pursue a career as a teacher or in the Church. In 1953 he was accepted by the American Board Mission and spent three years in the United States before returning to Rhodesia to become head of a primary school and to be ordained as a Methodist minister. His interest in politics arose when he became president of the African Teachers Association and wrote a short book with the title “African Nationalism”, which was published in 1959. Although he advocated a moderate and peaceful approach to reform, such views were dangerous in a country that was governed by the minority white population.

He soon realised that politics were his vocation and joined the National Democratic Party, led by Joshua Nkomo, in 1960. He soon reached a position of influence within the party and was forced to resign his teaching post, becoming a full-time time politician from that point on. The Government’s response to black nationalism was to become more authoritarian, proscribing the NDP as a criminal organisation in December 1962, but a new organization, the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) was declared very soon afterwards.

However, all was not well in the leadership of ZAPU, and Sithole and others split from Nkomo in July 1963. The new party was called the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), its leaders including, besides Sithole, Herbert Chitepo, Robert Mugabe, Edgar Tekere and Enos Nkala. In 1964 both ZANU and ZAPU were banned and many nationalists, including Sithole, were placed in detention camps. Sithole was detained for five years, after which he was arrested on a charge of plotting to assassinate the Prime Minister, Ian Smith, and sentenced to six years in jail. The evidence rested on a letter that Sithole was supposed to have written, but he always maintained that it was a forgery, stating at his trial: “I wish publicly to dissociate my name in thought, word and deed from any subversive activities, from any terrorist activities, and from any form of violence.”

On his release in 1974, Sithole lived in exile in Zambia with other ZANU leaders, one of whom, Herbert Chitepo, was killed by a car bomb in March 1975, an occurrence that led to the emergence of Robert Mugabe as the leader of ZANU with a more militant approach than that advocated by Sithole. Even before this event, Sithole had lost a vote of no confidence in his leadership, but Mugabe was still in prison at the time. ZANU split along tribal lines, with the Ndebele joining Sithole in ZANU-Ndonga and the Shona following Mugabe in his ZANU-PF (Patriotic Front).

Sithole’s moderate approach led to him being part of the four-man executive council to govern “Zimbabwe Rhodesia” under the “Internal Settlement” of 1978, in conjunction with Ian Smith, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Chief Jeremiah Chirau. He also took part in the Lancaster House Agreement of December 1979 that was designed to reach a settlement for black majority rule that would be agreed by all the parties and recognised internationally. 

However, the militants in ZANU and ZAPU, who had been engaged in guerrilla-war tactics against the Smith government, were distrustful of Sithole for his presumed sell-out to the whites, and, although Mugabe had signed the Agreement, the solution was clearly not to his liking, involving as it did a guaranteed presence of white members in the new Parliament. Having failed to win a seat in the Parliament elected in 1980, and fearing for his life, Sithole left for the United States in 1983, where he stayed until 1992. 

At the age of 75 he attempted a political comeback by being elected to the Zimbabwe Parliament in 1995. The following year he stood against Mugabe in the election for president, but only gained 37,000 votes as against the 1.4 million won by Mugabe. However, he had withdrawn from the election before polling took place, his name remaining on the ballot, because he claimed that the election was being unfairly managed. Accusations of election rigging have been levelled at Robert Mugabe ever since, and with good reason. 

In 1997 Sithole was arrested, tried and convicted on a charge of attempting to assassinate Robert Mugabe, and he was also ejected from his parliamentary seat. As his appeal was never heard, it must remain technically uncertain whether there was any truth in the allegation, although the likelihood of the charge being entirely fictitious must be high, given the characters of the people involved. 

In June 2000, Sithole’s ZANU-Ndonga won his seat yet again. However, by this time Sithole himself was seriously ill and he left Zimbabwe for medical treatment soon afterwards. He died in hospital in Pennsylvania on 12 December 2000 at the age of 80.

Ndabaningi Sithole will always be seen as an important figure in the history of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. Had he been able to prevail against the stronger and less principled Robert Mugabe, there is every possibility that much of the misery suffered by the people of Zimbabwe in more recent years might have been avoided.

(See also: The Second Chimurenga: Zimbabwe's Successful War of Independence)

© John Welford

Cecil Rhodes, Empire builder

Cecil John Rhodes was born on 5th July 1853, at Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, the fifth son of the town’s vicar. After an education at the local grammar school, he was sent to the British colony of Natal to join his brother Herbert, who was growing cotton there.

However, when Cecil arrived at Durban in January 1871 his brother was missing, as he had gone to seek his fortune on the newly discovered diamond fields of Griqualand West. Cecil started growing cotton, but by October he too had decided that diamonds were a far more profitable venture, and set off inland. Within two weeks of finding his brother, the latter was off again, leaving Cecil in charge of his claims, where he soon proved that he could hold his own in the dangerous pioneer country around Kimberley.

Within two years, Cecil had amassed a fortune of £10,000, which he used to fund a long-cherished ambition, namely to go to Oxford University. However, he only lasted a term before ill health and the lure of Africa took him back to the diamond fields.

Diamond mining in Kimberley was to go through a series of crises, involving such issues as the claims of white miners against black, and small claims-holders against larger ones, as well as technical problems caused when opencast mining was forced to give way to deep mining. Many miners gave up, but Rhodes stayed put and, together with his partner Charles Rudd, became the owner of one of the largest concerns in the region.

There was, however, a controversy over Rhodes’s dealings concerning pumping equipment, and in 1876 he returned to Oxford to complete his degree and qualify as a barrister.

His time at Oxford served to reinforce his imperialist views, and his conviction that the “Anglo-Saxon” race was inherently superior to any other, especially in Africa. He even went so far as to develop a grandiose scheme for an Anglo-Saxon empire that would comprise Great Britain dominating all other nations and races.

On returning to Kimberley in 1878, he set about consolidating his power and accumulating greater wealth. Through his control of the De Beers Mining Company, Rhodes, with his colleagues, became the dominant force in the region, bringing other companies into the De Beers empire and exercising considerable political power at the same time.

Rhodes’s management style included practices that reflected his imperialist attitudes and laid the foundations for 20th century apartheid. For example, black workers were forced to live in closed compounds and were searched every time they entered and left. White workers were treated far less harshly.

Rhodes became a politician by being elected to the parliament of Cape Colony, a position which he used to further his interests as a diamond miner and trader. One of his first actions was to sponsor a law that bore down harshly on diamond smugglers. He showed interest in a peaceful outcome to the dispute with Basutoland, but this was largely out of self-interest because the Basuto people provided food and labour for his mining empire.

Likewise, Rhodes was keen to see the Afrikaners (settlers of Dutch extraction) kept in check, partly from imperialist motives, but mainly so that he could extend his control over the diamond mines in the territories they controlled, particularly in Bechuanaland (modern-day Botswana) to the west of Griqualand West. The situation was complicated by the arrival of Germany as a colonial power, taking control of the region that became South West Africa.

By means of persuading the South African government to take military action, Rhodes was able to gain most of what he wanted, with northern Bechuanaland becoming a British protectorate and the Afrikaners kept as potential allies rather than enemies. Above all, his commercial interests were secured.

In 1886, gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand, which led in turn to further European expansion in southern Africa and the annexation of virtually all the land as far north as the Congo.

Rhodes was rather slow to get into gold mining, and his acquisitions on the Rand were not particularly profitable. He therefore set his sights further north, and particularly in the lands of Lobengula, the king of the Matabele, whom Rhodes was able to outmanoeuvre in gaining mining concessions.

Rhodes also worked with, and eventually gained control over, the British South Africa Company, to acquire interests over vast swathes of Africa, with treaties being signed that would establish British rule over much of the continent.

Things did not always go smoothly for Rhodes and his agents and partners. This was in part because of the imperialist interests of the other European great powers who sought their share of the African carve-up, notably Belgium and Portugal. However, Rhodes was able to colonise the lands north of the Limpopo that were later to be known as Rhodesia, although their promises of mineral wealth were not realised to the extent that was hoped for. His methods of acquiring territory were often dubious, to say the least.

In 1890, Rhodes became Prime Minister of Cape Colony, with the unlikely support both of liberals and Afrikaners. He proved to have astute political skills in being able to please all the disparate elements of his administration by, for example, supporting agricultural interests. However, the liberals were less happy with his attitude towards African labour, and did not form part of Rhodes’s second administration in 1894.

Trouble flared in 1895 when rivalries with the neighbouring Transvaal, peopled by Afrikaner Boers, nearly led to war. The dispute was over tariffs and rail communications. It is notable that Rhodes was able to retain the support of his own Afrikaners throughout the crisis.

However, things went disastrously wrong when the “Jameson Raid” into the Transvaal failed in its aim to overthrow the Boer republic, and Rhodes’s refusal to repudiate the raid forced his resignation as Prime Minister. Rhodes’s “fingerprints” were soon found to be on the plot, with the result that Afrikaner support was lost and the Cape electorate started to split along ethnic lines.

In 1896, the Ndebele and Shona in what is now Zimbabwe rebelled against the colonists. Rhodes took personal charge of the campaign to quell the rebellion in his private colony, but realised that negotiation was better than conquest. He used much of his own money to resettle the rebels in new territory and to pacify the settlers.

Rhodes continued to be a powerful influence in Cape politics, although he never regained the Premiership. He was also prominent in efforts to promote a railway link from “Cairo to the Cape”.

Throughout his life Rhodes had been conscious of his mortality, and he wrote a number of very different wills at various times. His eighth and last will, written in 1899, provided for 52 annual Oxford scholarships for men from the colonies (which included the United States!), the aim being to strengthen the ties of empire by ensuring the education of future imperial leaders. Bill Clinton was a notable Rhodes Scholar at a much later date.

Rhodes’s last years were spent in defending his reputation, particularly as regarded his actions over the Jameson Raid, and overseeing progress in Rhodesia. He also spent four months trapped in Kimberley in 1899 during the First Boer War.

His health, which was never robust, eventually deteriorated, and he died on 26th March 1902 at his home near Cape Town. He was buried, at his request, in the hill country of Southern Rhodesia. He left behind a strong imperialist mentality in the leaders of southern Africa, the seeds of apartheid, and a powerful mining company in De Beers that continues to dominate the diamond trade to this day.

© John Welford