Bulawayo Brawl

Warfare at a "place of killing "

It began in a beer hall next to a Zimbabwean army camp with a weekend brawl among soldiers from the country's two major tribal groups, the Shona and Ndebele. But the fighting, which expanded last week into a fierce factional and tribal war, resulted in more than 100 deaths and dramatized the serious internal conflicts that have continued to plague Prime Minister Robert Mugabe since independence ten months ago.

The fighting centered on Bulawayo, the country's second largest city. It is also one of the main locations where the government has been trying to fuse a national army by integrating the two rival guerrilla forces that fought for independence as the Patriotic Front: the ZANLA forces that were led by Mugabe and are composed mostly of Shona tribesmen; and the ZIPRA guerrillas, mostly Ndebele, who remain loyal to Joshua Nkomo. As last week's clashes intensified, ZIPRA and ZANLA units grabbed weapons from the camp's armory and summoned other former guerrillas to come help them. The fighting quickly spread to other nearby army bases and eventually involved as many as 10,000 troops.

For five days, mortar and rifle fire thundered all around Bulawayo (derived from a Ndebele word and broadly meaning "place of killing"). Scores of homes near the camps were damaged by rocket fire. Streams of civilians fled from the confused battle into the nearby bush or to the city center. Shops and schools remained closed in the deserted downtown areas.

Responding swiftly, Prime Minister Mugabe called on other national army units to separate the warring troops.

Among them, ironically, was a battalion of the former Rhodesian African Rifles, a 3,000-man brigade commanded by white officers and once the scourge of Zimbabwean guerrilla fighters. By week's end the national army troops had regained control of Bulawayo. Up to 1,000 dissident ZIPRA troops disappeared into the bush. Many carried their machine guns and grenade launchers with them, auguring more strife.

Nkomo rushed to the city to try to cool tempers among his Ndebele tribe. He denied that the fighting might also have been provoked by his recent demotion by Mugabe. "I don't think anybody knows what started it. When somebody shoots off a gun, it becomes infectious," he said.

To avoid or at least contain future clashes, Nkomo proposed relocating army bases far from civilian centers. But no matter how far the units are removed, the dangerous, deeply rooted tribal and political antagonisms will go with them.

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