ZIPRA or the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army was the armed wing of the Zimbabwean political movement ZAPU (the Zimbabwe African People's Union) and participated in the Second Chimurenga against white minority rule in Rhodesia.

ZIPRA was formed during the 1960s by the nationalist leader Jason Moyo, sometime deputy of Joshua Nkomo. Because ZAPU's political strategy relied more heavily on negotiations than armed force, ZIPRA did not develop as quickly or elaborately as ZANLA, the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), although by 1979 it had an estimated 20,000 combatants, almost all based in camps around Lusaka, Zambia (ref: Rasmussen & Rubert).

Beside the overall political ideologies, the main differences between ZIPRA and ZANLA were that

• ZIPRA drew its recruits almost exclusively from the Ndebele ethnic group
• ZIPRA did not follow ZANLA's example of politicalisation of the peasant population (inspired by the teachings of Mao) and consequently did not enjoy a close relationship with local peasant populations
• ZIPRA was designed to be used as a conventional armed force: entering the country, striking and pulling back to its bases in Zambia and Angola. This was in contrast to ZANLA, which introduced combatants into the country for long-term campaigns of guerrilla fighting

In 1978 and 1979 ZIPRA downed two civilian passenger planes of Air Rhodesia, killing a total of 102 passengers and crew. These successes drew condemnation from Rhodesian church and political leaders (but not from international church and political leaders), especially for the manner in which some survivors of the first crash, including women and children, had been killed by ZIPRA cadres inspecting the wreckage.

References

Rasmussen, R. K., & Rubert, S. C., 1990. A Historical Dictionary of Zimbabwe, Scarecrow Press, Inc., Metuchen, NJ, United States of America.

History of Zimbabwe