complex and wide ranging enquiry on a subject which has had a past and will have a future. It is high time SINCE Joshua Nkomo, the leader of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) has returned from his self- imposed exile in England, and reclaimed his parliamentary seat in Harare, it may be time to examine the complicated clashes between the Zimbabwe army and the Northern population of the Ndebele. Western press reports had ascribed the bloody civil discord to tribal and factional factors inherent in Zimbabwean society. Zimbabwe's present crisis can be located above all, in the socio-economic pro- blems of post-independence reality, and the international factors therein. Apart from this general point, however, it is essential to recognise the role of South Africa, which dominates and subverts the infrastructure, and the consequences of the Lancaster House agreements that served as the mechanisms for the transfer of power to the Patriotic Front comprising Nkomo's ZAPU and Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).
