ions and the granting of independence to an uneasy coalition government with Joshua Nkomo presiding. During the elections of February 1980, Robert Mugabe and his ZANU secured a landslide victory.
Opposition to what was perceived as a Shona takeover immediately erupted around Matabeleland. In November 1980 Enos Nkala made some inflammatory remarks directed at Mugabe's party during a rally near Bulawayo. This, unfortunately, was later deemed to have caused the first Entumbane uprising, which resulted in clashes between Nkomo and Mugabe supporters.
In February 1981, there was a second uprising, which swiftly spread to Glenville and also to Connemara in the Midlands. Former Rhodesian security units were called in to stop the bloodletting, which they were able to do only after three hundred lives were lost.
The Matabele unrest led to what has become known as 'Gukurahundi' (Shona: "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains") or the Matabeleland Massacres, which lasted from 1982 until 1985. Mugabe ordered his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade to occupy Matabeleland, crushing any resistance to his rule. It has been estimated that at least 20,000 Matabele were murdered and tens of thousands of others were tortured in military internment camps. The slaughter only ended after Nkomo and Mugabe reached a unity agreement in 1988 that merged their respective parties, creating the Zimbabwe African Union-Patriotic Front.
Zimbabwean elections in March 1990 resulted in another victory for Mugabe and his party, which claimed 117 of the 120 contested seats. Observers estimated voter turnout at only 54% and found the campaign to be "neither free nor fair".
During the 1990s, students, trade unionists, and workers, often demonstrated to express their growing discontent with increasingly despotic Mugabe rule. Students protested in 1990 against proposals for an increase in government control of universities and
