out the solid support andtraining of others, the removal of one person can halt the movement.Repeatedly black resistance movements were formed and subsequently banned. In 1961, after banning the NDP, theZimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) was formed and banned as was the Zimbabwe African National Union(ZANU) 1963. Finally, the liberation movement decided that they were not going to be able to accomplish their goalsthrough political action, so they turned to military action instead, forming the ZNLA, the Zimbabwe NationalLiberation Army, which was trained in China for guerilla warfare. In addition to using guerilla tactics, which aredifficult, if not impossible to "ban," the ZNLA was also able to attain more unity between black groups than had theprevious resistance efforts. During the training process, tribal differences were melded together to make revolution theunifying concept. This gave the ZNLA more strength than the past political efforts, which had been hindered by tribaldivisiveness. However, the ZNLA greatly underestimated the difficulty of waging a successful revolution. Theybelieved that after their training in guerilla warfare, they could return to Rhodesia, fire a few shots, scare the whites,and the revolution would be complete. Of course, it was not. Ian Smith was elected President of Rhodesia in 1964; at which time he declared Rhodesia's independence from theBritish empire making this a very critical year for Rhodesia. He quickly moved to imprison all black leaders in aneffort to control the violence of the ZNLA. But pressure for change began to come from the outside, as well as fromthe interior of Rhodesia.In 1971, a coalition of external forces including Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia, and Angola formed a Front for theLiberation of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia). These states felt threatened by the situation in Rhodesia and sought black unity inRhodesia and in the region as a whole. The formation of the Front was a very important d...
