Sithole — ZANU

ZANU (Zimbabwean African National Union) was formed in 1964 when a militant group split from ZAPU frustrated by the leadership's reformist politics. ZANU maintained that armed struggle was the only method of transferring power from the settlercolonial regime to the African people. Under the leadership of its Chairman Herbert Chitepo and President Ndabaningi Sithole. ZANU grew into a mass movement and especially after the reorganisation of the party in 1969 began to transform the struggle into a people's war by its method of recruiting cadres and politicising the people. ZANU's position that the Zimbabwean people must be their own liberators, the strength of its army ZANLA which has always prosecuted the bulk of the armed struggle and the fact that within it was developing a grouping with a Marxist perspective meant it posed a serious threat to imperialism's neo-colonial strategy.

Events within ZANU since 1972 which led to the assassination of Chitepo and the killing of 500 ZANLA cadres in early 1975 and to the formation of ZIPA in late 1975 (see below) all show the attempt of imperialism and its allies (especially Kaunda) to crush ZANU as a movement. This was further evident in the fact that Sithole was not to be invited to the Geneva talks and was only there finally at the insistence of Muzorewa, due to pressure on him from the internal ANC/ZANU grouping.