VICE PRESIDENT JOSHUA NKOMO DIES AGED 82

(1 Jul 1999) English/Nat
Vice President Joshua Nkomo, the father of Zimbabwe's fight for independence from white colonial rule, has died. He was 82.
Nkomo suffered from prostate cancer, and poor health forced him to largely withdraw from political life last year.
Thandiwe Nkomo, Nkomo's daughter, said he died around 1:30 a-m local time at Harare's main hospital, on Thursday.
Joshua Nkomo was regarded by many as the guiding light of the nation's black nationalist movement, which fought a guerrilla war against white colonial rule for nearly three decades in the former British colony of Rhodesia.
But the traditional leader of the minority Ndebele tribe failed to achieve his goal of becoming the first black leader when Rhodesia became independent Zimbabwe in 1980.
Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, a longtime lieutenant of Nkomo in the nationalist movement, formed a coalition, appointing him in 1980 to the post of Home Affairs Minister in charge of police and internal security.
But the alliance was short-lived.
In February 1982, Mugabe accused Nkomo of plotting a coup and fired him and three ministers of his Zimbabwe African People's Union party.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I have suffered, I have worked so hard for this county, before independence, and I have worked so hard to make independence stick. And now this man turns round and calls himself a traitor. Me, a traitor- a man who has worked so hard for his county. There is no insult to beat this."
SUPER CAPTION: Joshua Nkomo,
Nkomo's passport was seized and he was restricted to his home city of Bulawayo in western Zimbabwe.
Fighters professing loyalty to Nkomo mounted an armed rebellion.
Nkomo saw his sacking as a personal act of revenge by Mugabe.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I have never done anything wrong and Robert (Mugabe) knows this. I tell you, this is for personal power. Let him stand up and deny this. He is frightened of me and my stature and is frightened that he will not win the next election. That is what he is doing- trying to smear me. It is very very sly and very dirty. You don't expect (this) of a president of a country."
SUPER CAPTION: Joshua Nkomo
Mugabe brutally crushed the insurrection with troops drawn mostly from his majority Shona tribe.
Nkomo denied direct links with the rebels, but fled into exile by crossing the Botswana border on foot and in disguise after government troops ransacked his home and killed his driver.
He returned to Zimbabwe to negotiate an end to the rebellion and in 1988 signed a peace accord with Mugabe.
He rejoined the government as vice president.
Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo was born on June 19, 1917.
As a young man, he worked as a truck driver and carpenter to raise money for his education in South Africa.
On returning to Rhodesia, Nkomo rose through the ranks of youth movements and labour unions to form and lead the African National Congress, the nation's first black nationalist political party, in 1952.
In 1957, the African National Youth League merged with Nkomo's ANC and the new group, named the National Democratic Party, elected him president.
Colonial authorities banned the NDP five years later. Nkomo reformed it as ZAPU, which was also immediately banned.
But as Britain granted independence to its other African colonies in the early 1960s, rivalries in the nationalist movement erupted into violence.
Nkomo, Mugabe and other black activist leaders were detained.
Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith declared unilateral independence from Britain in 1965 to retain white rule. Nkomo and Mugabe were to remain in detention for ten years.

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