The Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA)

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The Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) was the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), one of the two liberation movements that spearheaded the struggle for Zimbabwean independence. It used various ways in mobilizing support from the rural population and violence was common among the others. The guerrilla fighters are also fingered for having been responsible for impregnating women on a large scale. Most narratives of the Zimbabwean liberation war give the impression that sexual harassment of women by guerrilla fighters in the operational areas was commonplace and was rampant. The ZANLA forces used violence in some cases in mobilizing their support from the masses in the liberation struggle. They were various …show more content…

This served a propaganda function whose objective was to undermine the support that the freedom fighters secured from the local and international communities . The term ‘terrorist' was intended to depict the liberation army as bent on using force and intimidation as its modus operandi in its interaction with its host, the rural populace . Colonial and pro-colonial historiography that drew from Rhodesian propaganda alleged that the guerrilla fighters unleashed terror on the African population in the rural areas and were not freedom fighters as they purported . Meanwhile the nationalist guerrilla forces and their rural supporters adopted the word ‘terrorist' and modified it into matororo. The word was then used to refer to the liberation fighters and along the process it shed off its offensive meaning. Adult members of the rural community affectionately called the ZANLA forces vakomana, a Shona word which means boys . This term expressed the cordial relations and oneness that obtained between the guerrillas and the rural community. The ZANLA forces were part and parcel of the Shona communities and it was from these communities that they had left to join the war. This was why the liberation forces were not foreigners in the rural communities as alluded to by sympathizers of the Rhodesians who documented the war . Moreover, according to Shona culture adult members of the community viewed ZANLA cadres as their children because of their age. An adult member would refer to persons in the same age group with his children as his children . The obverse is true with children who refer to adult members of the community as their parents. In this regard the ZANLA and the masses stayed in the same boat o

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