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Zimbabwe’s New President’s Military Roots in Nanjing

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With the swearing in today of Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa as the Zimbabwean successor to long-term president Robert Mugabe, The Nanjinger takes a look back at the new president’s military career which has its beginnings right here in Nanjing 54 years ago.

Sino-Zimbabwean relations got under way during the Rhodesian Bush War of 1979, when Mugabe failed to gain Soviet support, turning at the time to Beijing. Mugabe would later start his “Look East” campaign when embargo’s set by the United States and the United Nations imposed restrictions.

After the Rhodesian Bush War, Mnangagwa and his units became known as Lacoste, in reference to the crocodile logo of the French apparel company. In 1963, the newly formed Zimbabwean African National Union (ZANU) party was detained in Egypt before being sent to China to complete military training.

It was at the Marxist School of Peking University where Mnangagwa and others studied Marxist theory for two months before heading south to Nanjing’s Military Academy, where he undertook combat training, later returning for a number of months to study military engineering; he completed his studies in 1964. After sufficient theory and combat training in China, Mnangagwa then made his way back to Africa where the “crocodile group” was later formed.

The China Military Academy was established by Sun-Yet-Sen in 1924 in Guangzhou, with the help of Soviet officers who taught various military subjects at the academy. The academy was moved to Nanjing in 1928 and later on to Chengdu, then finally to Taiwan in 1950.

At this time, Chairman Mao Zedong had the vision to set up a military engineering college, which came into fruition in 1953, in Harbin, when it was established as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) University of Science and Technology, with the aim of bringing the PLA up to a more modernised level. In 1960, it changed to the Artillery Engineering College of the PLA that merged with the PLA Military School and in 1962 and was brought to Nanjing.

1 year after the university was brought to Nanjing, the now Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa came to Nanjing to receive Chinese military training in theory and practice. The school has since maintained a close relationship with various African nations, training military officers from Africa and around the world.

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