Guerrilla Veterans in Post-war Zimbabwe
Symbolic and Violent Politics, 1980–1987

This book examines the peace settlement and veterans' programmes after Zimbabwe's guerrilla war of independence.

Norma J. Kriger (Author)

9780521818230, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 May 2003

316 pages, 3 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.64 kg

'… an important corrective to those who fail to see the seeds of the country's current crisis in its history.' Development and Change

Zimbabwe's guerrilla veterans have burst into the international media as the storm troopers in Mugabe's new war of economic liberation. In this book, Norma Kriger gives the unfolding contemporary drama a historical background, and shows continuities between the present and past. Between 1980 and 1987, guerrilla veterans and the ruling party colluded with and manipulated each other to build power and privilege in the army, police, bureaucracy and among workers. Both relied chiefly on violence and appeals to their participation in the anti-colonial liberation war as they sought to vanquish their then political opponents. Today, violence and a liberation war discourse continue to be salient as Mugabe's party and its guerrilla veterans struggle to maintain power through land invasions and purges of a new political opposition. This study gives a critical review of guerrilla programs and the war-to-peace transitions literatures, thus changing the way we view post-conflict societies.

List of tables
Acknowledgements
Chronology (1889–1980)
List of abbreviations
Map
1. Introduction
2. The peace settlement
3. The assembly phase
4. Military integration
5. Employment programs for the demobilized
6. Conclusion
Epilogue: the past in the present
Appendix: the ruling party's attempts to withdraw ex-combatants' special status and ex-combatants' responses, 1988–97
Notes
References
List of pseudonyms used in the text
Index.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Regional studies [GTB]