Map showing the sectors of ZIPRA during the Bush War.ZIPRAT-34-85 tank at the Zimbabwe Military Museum,Gweru.
Because ZAPU's political strategy combined political negotiations and armed force, ZIPRA developed by elaborately training both regular soldiers and guerrilla fighters. However, by 1979, it had an estimated 20,000 combatants,[1] based in camps aroundLusaka,Zambia and at the front. ZIPRA's crossing points into Zimbabwe were atFeira in Zambia, oppositeMashonaland East and West. For example, the operational boundary was Sipolilo, where ZIPRA,Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) andRhodesian Security Forces clashed. ZIPRA operated alone in Mashonaland West. No ZANLA combatants were present in that area until the war's later stages.[3]
Besides the overall political ideologies, the main differences between ZIPRA and ZANLA were that:
ZIPRA did not follow ZANLA's ideology (inspired byMaoism) but followed SovietMarxist-Leninist principles.
ZIPRA controlled zones from Sipolilo to Plumtree.
ZIPRA formally allied withuMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), theANC's militant wing. In the mid-1960s, ZIPRA and MK mounted a celebrated, if strategically unsuccessful, raid into Rhodesia. Rhodesian Security Forces, working in concert with theSouth African Police, stopped the incursion.
AViscount of Air Rhodesia (pictured in the early 1970s), similar to theHunyani and theUmniati.
In 1978 and 1979, ZIPRA downed two civilian passenger planes ofAir Rhodesia, killing a total of 107 passengers and crew.Air Rhodesia Flight 825 (named theHunyani) was a scheduled flight fromKariba toSalisbury that was shot down on 3 September 1978 by ZIPRA guerrillas using anSA-7surface-to-air missile (SAM). ZAPU (the political body behind ZIPRA) leader Joshua Nkomo publicly claimed responsibility for shooting down theHunyani onBBC Television the same evening, saying the aircraft had been used for military purposes, but denied that his men had killed survivors on the ground. Eighteen of the fifty-six passengers in the Air Rhodesia plane survived the crash, most of whom were seated in the rear. Three crash survivors who remained on the aircraft managed to avoid being killed by running away and hiding in the bush. A second plane,Air Rhodesia Flight 827 (named theUmniati), was shot down on 12 February 1979 by ZIPRA guerrillas, again using an SA-7 SAM.
Rasmussen, R. K., & Rubert, S. C., 1990.A Historical Dictionary ofZimbabwe,Scarecrow Press, Inc., Metuchen, N.J., United States of America.
Chatambudza, Takawira, 2025.The Zimbabwe Liberation Struggle: A Military History of the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), 1963-1979, PhD Dissertation. University of Calgary.
Sunday mail, Sunday, 8 October 2006, Zimbabwe's true armed struggle history must be told
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