Ndebele expelled during Gukurahundi

Could Mugabe go further with the Gukurahundi and ethnic cleanse Zimbabwe of Ndebele

What would be the impact on Zimbabwe and the neighboring countries

Would South Africa intervene to form a buffer state out of Matabeleland or aid the exiles in forming Militias to screw over Mugabe


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gukurahundi
 
There was a strain of thought in some sections of ZANU-PF in the early 2000’s which wanted a third Chimurenga to do exactly that.

It wouldn’t be exactly practical though both through sheer numbers and as there were a lot of people in Zimbabwe that can pass as both Shona and Ndebele (my wife included who is fully bilingual).
 
In the eyes of some in ZANU-PF, mainly from the Shona dominated areas the Ndebele colonised Matabeleland and drove out the Shona people (who had lived their for centuries) about 50 years before the British colonised both Mashonaland and Matabeleland and called it Southern Rhodesia.

The Ndebele’s were ethnic Zulu’s fleeing King Shaka and they conquered what is now Matabeleland from the Shona people, who were the inheritors of the old Monotoma (Great Zimbabwe) Empire.

To the ZANU-PF members who thought like this the first Chimurenga was the resistance to the British in the 1890’s, the second Chimurenga was the Liberation War in the 1970’s and a logical extension would be the third Chimurenga to drive the Ndebele out of Matabeleland and remake the Great Zimbabwe Empire. Of course to fully remake it you would need to include bits of what are now Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia.

It was all a bit of Blue Sky thinking but there is a lot of antipathy towards the Ndebele in some sections of ZANU-PF. It’s partly why the MDC-T does so well in Matabeleland.
 
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