In 1962, Mnangagwa was recruited in Northern Rhodesia by Willie Musarurwa to join the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), a newly formed pro-independence party in Southern Rhodesia. He joined as a guerrilla fighter for ZAPU's armed wing, the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), and was sent to Tanganyika (today Tanzania) for training. He first stayed in Mbeya, and then at the new training camp in Iringa, where he met leading black nationalists like James Chikerema and Clement Muchachi. While there, he criticized the decisions of ZAPU's leader, Joshua Nkomo, an offence for which a ZIPRA tribunal sentenced him to death. Two other ZAPU members of the same Karanga background, Simon Muzenda and Leopold Takawira, the party's external affairs secretary, intervened to save his life.