Mashingaidze: The 1987 Zimbabwe National Unity Accord and Its Aftermath 83 With the attainment of uhuru there was the institutionalisation of the independence contract in which all, the people, the masses, were supposed to pray at the altar of nation building and development, and the articulation of sectional class, social, community, ethnic and gender interests was frowned upon as selfish and subversive. Herein lies the paradox of post-colonial governance: liberation movements, under whose banner independence was attained, fought for plurality of the political space, but upon assuming the portals of power, sought to obliterate difference. This chapter examines this dynamic in the case of Zimbabwe. In particular it focuses on the Matabeleland crisis and highlights the inadequacies of the Unity Accord established to end the violence. These have spilt over into the present tensions and contradictions within Zimbabwe. The Matabeleland crisis: 1982–1987 Incapacity to tolerate political difference and/or the lack of tolerance to share political space by the ruling elite marred Africa’s post-colonial nation building processes. Zimbabwe’s civil war of 1982 to 1987 was an outcome of the homogenous conceptualisation and practice of nation-building in Africa. Close to twenty thousand people perished in what became known as the Matabeleland crisis (see the report by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Alexander, McGregor and Ranger 2000 for a detailed critique on the history of violence in Matabeleland). The war pitted the newly formed (Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front, ZANU-PF) government against its liberation ally, Zimbabwe African People's Union Patriotic Front (ZAPU-PF). The war was a spill-over from the nationalist politics of the 1960s and 1970s. Nationalism had the ambiguity of being both exclusionary and all-embracing. It subsumed class, ethnic and religious differences, and, at the same time, tried to use these cleavages for its sustenance. Alexander observed that the escalation of violence after the end of the liberation war built on the two guerrilla armies’ (Zanla for ZANU and Zipra for ZAPU) regional patterns of recruitment and operation during the 1970s, and the history of animosity and the distrust between the two armies and their political leaders (Alexander, McGregor and Ranger 2000: 181). These patterns left Zipra forces dominated by Ndebele speakers from Matabeleland, while Zanla was predominantly Shona-speaking. Operational areas maintained significance in terms of political loyalties: voting largely, though not completely, followed ethnic and regional divisions, creating the possibility of conflict along these lines (Cliffe, Mpofu and Munslow; cited in Alexander et al 2000: 181). Zipra’s capacity for conventional warfare was also a source of friction. Following ZANU-PF’s victory in the February 1980 4.Mashingaidze.pmd 83 31/10/2005, 12:54