Nkomo Goes into Exile

The government cracks down, and he flees in the night

During the past quarter-century most African countries have gained their independence, but few of their governments have found a democratic way to accommodate political opposition. In country after country, governments have grown wary of their political enemies, often for good reason, and have moved against them. At the same time, opposition parties have felt obliged to express dissent by unlawful means, and in the end many of their leaders have fled their countries. Last week that sorry chain of events was repeated in one of black Africa's more promising nations, Zimbabwe.

The principal characters in the drama were Prime Minister Robert Mugabe and Opposition Leader Joshua Nkomo. The two men had been comrades-in-arms in the seven-year guerrilla war against the white Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith. The partnership continued even after Mugabe, whose Shona tribal constituency makes up almost 80% of the country's population, won the preindependence elections in 1980. But it ended abruptly a year ago after the government discovered arms caches on property belonging to several of Nkomo's political allies. The government charged Nkomo's Ndebele tribesmen, who constitute about 18% of the population, with plotting a coup. The Ndebele, in turn, accused the government of intimidation and harassment. Matters have been getting worse ever since.

Two months ago, Mugabe's government sent an armed force led by the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade into Matabeleland, the Ndebele homeland in the southwestern part of the country, to crush a rising tide of resistance and lawlessness. The soldiers, most of whom are Shona tribesmen, killed hundreds of Ndebele civilians. Two weeks ago, the Fifth Brigade moved into the suburbs of Bulawayo, the main city in Matabeleland, and conducted house-to-house searches for dissidents. The soldiers even invaded Nkomo's home, where they killed an employee and ransacked the property. That night Nkomo, who had gone into hiding before the army arrived, told reporters that the Mugabe government was trying to kill him and wipe out his party, the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). Nkomo, who last month had been prevented from leaving Zimbabwe to attend a meeting of the Soviet-sponsored World Peace Council in Prague, added that he would remain in hiding but had no intention of fleeing the country.

Three days later, however, Nkomo fled. After an all-night drive in a Land Rover along bush roads, he reached the border of Botswana, where he sought temporary refuge. At week's end, Nkomo flew by private chartered aircraft to Johannesburg, where he boarded a British Airways flight to London. There was no way of telling whether his exile would prove to be temporary or permanent. In Zimbabwe, the government detained his wife and three other members of his family. Later, authorities announced that Nkomo's wife had been released on unspecified "humanitarian grounds," although the other family members remained in custody. Publicly, government officials (though not Mugabe, who was away attending the New Delhi summit conference for nonaligned nations) expressed delight that Nkomo had decided to "take the gap," the phrase usually reserved for whites leaving black-ruled Zimbabwe. Privately, they feared that Nkomo's escape would exacerbate the situation at home and further damage the country's reputation overseas.

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