The chapter analyses how Mujuru became the first black commander of the army in independent Zimbabwe. With assistance from the British army, Mujuru oversaw the integration of a new national army comprising three undefeated forces: ZANLA, ZIPRA and the Rhodesians. While the chapter is about Mujuru’s hand in the creation of a new army, it underscores Britain’s lasting influence on part of its former empire through active assistance in processes of post-colonial state-making such as military integration. The chapter argues that regard for expertise and professionalism, however imperfect, were a hallmark of the army Mujuru attempted to create. Mujuru understood professionalism in a particular way, which is that the independence army was to be an equipped and technically competent one, with a high degree of discipline, education, military training and operational readiness. The chapter explicates the sources of Mujuru’s regard for expertise and professionalism.

This chapter discusses Mujuru’s leadership in the 1979-80 Rhodesia/Zimbabwe ceasefire, which was managed by Britain and the Commonwealth Monitoring Force (CMF). The chapter argues Mujuru was important to the ceasefire’s success because he filled the leadership vacuum created by the ZANLA commander Josiah Tongogara’s sudden death on the eve of the truce in 1979. Literature on the ceasefire elides (erroneously) Mujuru’s effectual leadership of ZANLA in the aftermath of Tongogara’s death. Mujuru ensured ZANLA guerrillas’ participation in the ceasefire, although he ordered many of them to remain outside the Assembly Points as contingency in case the truce collapsed and for the purposes of campaigning for ZANU PF in the independence election from within their operational spheres. The chapter makes an additional corrective to the literature by drawing attention to the neglected import of the politics of race and class and subjective ideas about generalship in shaping relations between ceasefire leaders.