Joshua Nkomo

Who is Joshua Nkomo?

Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo was a Zimbabwean nationalist leader and one of the founding figures of the country's independence movement, widely honoured with the title "Father Zimbabwe." Born in Matabeleland in 1917, he rose through early trade union and political organising to found the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) in 1961, later leading its armed wing, the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), during the guerrilla war against white minority rule in Rhodesia. He spent long years in detention under the Rhodesian government and represented ZAPU at the 1979 Lancaster House talks in London that ended the war and led to Zimbabwe's independence in 1980. After independence, tensions between ZAPU and the ruling ZANU-PF culminated in the violent Gukurahundi crackdown in Matabeleland; Nkomo eventually signed the 1987 Unity Accord merging the two parties, after which he served as one of Zimbabwe's Vice Presidents until his death in 1999. He remains a central figure in Zimbabwean and Ndebele political memory.

Sources: Joshua Nkomo, The Story of My Life (Methuen, 1984) · Martin Meredith, Mugabe: Power, Plunder and the Struggle for Zimbabwe's Future (PublicAffairs, 2002/2007) · BBC News obituary archives