History
At the time of independence, the then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe declared that integrating Zimbabwe's three armed forces would be one of Zimbabwe's top priorities. The existing Rhodesian Army was combined with the two guerilla armies; the 20,000-strong ZANLA forces of ZANU-PF and the 15,000-strong ZIPRA forces of PF-ZAPU. A British Military Assistance and Training Team played a pivotal role in assisting the creation of the new army, and was still in place in 2000. The Rhodesian Air Force was eventually reorganised as the Air Force of Zimbabwe.
It has been alleged by opposition leaders that the military has gained control of political life in Zimbabwe following the 2008 elections that saw the MDC become the majority party in the Parliament.
Read more about this topic: Zimbabwe Defence Forces
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow, mathematical present.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“If you look at the 150 years of modern China’s history since the Opium Wars, then you can’t avoid the conclusion that the last 15 years are the best 15 years in China’s modern history.”
—J. Stapleton Roy (b. 1935)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)