Ndabaningi Sithole
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Ndabaningi Sithole (31 July 1920 – 12 December 2000) was a member of the Ndau ethnic group, a Methodist minister, and a veteran of Zimbabwe's liberation struggle. Founder of Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) party in 1963, he spent 10 years in prison after ZANU was banned. A rift along tribal lines split ZANU in 1975, and he lost the 1980 Zimbabwe elections to Robert Mugabe.
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[edit] Early life
Sithole was born in Nyamandhlovu, Zimbabwe. He studied teaching in the USA from 1955 to 1958, and was ordained a Methodist minister in 1958. The publication of his book "African Nationalism" and its immediate prohibition by the minority government of Ian Smith, announced his entrance into politics.
[edit] ZANU
In conjunction with Herbert Chitepo he founded the Zimbabwe African National Union party in 1963. In 1964 there was a party Congress at Gwelo, where Sithole was elected president and appointed Robert Mugabe to be his secretary general. ZANU was banned in 1964 by Ian Smith's government. He spent 10 years in prison after being arrested, alongside Robert Mugabe, for his political activities. While in prison he specifically authorised Chitepo to continue the struggle from abroad as a representative of ZANU. Sithole was convicted on a charge of plotting to assassinate Ian Smith. The two were released from prison in 1974.
On 18th March, 1975 Chitepo was assassinated in Lusaka, Zambia with a car bomb. Mugabe, in Mozambique at the time, unilaterally assumed control of ZANU. Later that year there was a factional split, with many Ndebele following Sithole into the moderate Zanu (Ndonga) party, who renounced violent struggle, while the Shona-dominated ZANU (now called ZANU PF) followed Mugabe with a more militant agenda. [1]
Sithole joined a transitional government of whites and blacks in 1979 called Zimbabwe Rhodesia and led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa. Later in September 1979 he attended the Lancaster House Agreement chaired by Lord Carrington which paved the way for fresh elections, but his small ZANU Party failed to win any seats in independent elections that swept Mugabe to power in 1980.
[edit] Exile and return
Declaring that his life was in danger from political enemies, Sithole went into self-imposed exile in Silver Spring, Maryland in 1983, returning to Zimbabwe nine years later to re-enter the political arena.
He was elected a Member of Parliament for his tribal stronghold of Chipinge in southeastern Zimbabwe in 1995. In December of 1997 he was tried and convicted for conspiring to kill Mugabe and disqualified from attending the Harare parliament. [2] Sithole's small opposition group again won the Chipinge seat in June 2000.
He was granted the right to appeal, appeal was filed, but the case was never heard by the Supreme Court. He was allowed bail because of his deteriorating health. He died 12 December 2000, in Philadelphia, Pa., USA. The author of three books on African politics, he is survived by his wife, Vesta, and five adult children.
Vesta Sithole claims [3] that following independence the Mugabe government stripped Ndabaningi Sithole of his political status, social standing and financial resources. The farm near Harare that he purchased in 1992 was later confiscated.
