Before Zimbabwe became an independent country, it was called Rhodesia. Rhodesia was a British colony until 1965, when the minority-white Rhodesian government declared independence from Britain. At the same time, resistance to white-minority rule was growing stronger in Rhodesia. A civil war broke out between the Rhodesian government and two liberation movements: Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwean African National Party (ZANU) and Joseph Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU). This conflict lasted from 1964 until December of 1979, when an agreement was reached and the country gained independence as a republic. It was first known as the Republic of Rhodesia, and then it became the independent country of Zimbabwe in April of 1980. Robert Mugabe’s party, ZANU, won the first election with 63% of the vote, and Mugabe became the prime minister. Although there were allegations of voter intimidation on the part of Mugabe’s army, there was also a great deal of support for him because of his role in fighting for freedom for Zimbabwe. 

In the 1980s, conflict broke out between Mugabe’s ZANU party and Nkomo’s ZAPU party. Most of the supporters of ZANU were Shona, while the majority of ZAPU were Ndebele: two major ethnic groups in Zimbabwe. The government sent the army into the Ndebele territories of Matabeleland to suppress dissent there.