Zimbabwe

C

Rhodesian Self-Government and UDI

Before World War I the white settlers had begun to demand self-government. These demands were renewed after the war, and in 1923 the British proclaimed Southern Rhodesia, as the country had become known, a self-governing British colony. From 1953 to 1963 it was a member of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. African nationalists, led notably by Joshua Nkomo in Zimbabwe and Hastings Kamuzu Banda in Nyasaland (Malawi), opposed the federation, but their movements were banned by the colonial authorities.

When the federation was dissolved in 1963, the white settlers pressed for independence, which the British government refused to grant without safeguards for ultimate African control. After two years of abortive negotiations, the white government, led by Ian Smith, declared unilateral independence on November 11, 1965. The United Kingdom immediately imposed economic sanctions, and the UN later imposed a total embargo on trade with the country.

However, Rhodesia—which in 1970 declared itself a republic—was never recognized either by the United Kingdom or by any other nation, and negotiations with the British government continued. One settlement proposal, drawn up in November 1971, was abandoned the following May when a British commission found it “not acceptable to the people of Rhodesia as a whole”.

D

Growing Isolation

In the mid-1970s the dissolution of Portugal’s empire in Africa left Rhodesia in an increasingly isolated position. Pressured by South Africa to take a more conciliatory stance, Smith then initiated talks with black leaders. Nkomo and other nationalists, including Robert Mugabe, were released from detention in 1974, but negotiations during the next two years brought no accord. Guerrilla activities intensified. In late 1976 Nkomo and Mugabe, both of whom lived in exile, formed the Patriotic Front between their respective forces of ZAPU and ZANU, which in 1977 and 1978 intensified the guerrilla campaign from bases in Mozambique to overthrow the Smith regime.

E

Independence

Foreseeing military defeat by the Patriotic Front, Smith in March 1978 signed an accord with three relatively moderate black leaders, headed by Bishop Abel Muzorewa, calling for universal suffrage and the establishment of black-majority rule, with safeguards for whites. In the 1979 elections, Bishop Muzorewa’s party won 51 of the 100 parliamentary seats; another 28 were reserved for whites. Muzorewa formed a coalition government with Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front and became the prime minister of the new state of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia (later shortened to Zimbabwe). Because his government was widely perceived as a black front for continued white rule, it failed to win popular support.

A final peace settlement with the Patriotic Front was reached at the Lancaster House Conference in London in late 1979, and signed on December 21. The United Kingdom temporarily resumed control of the country to oversee demobilization and elections for an independent government. In the free elections of February 1980 Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU-PF) won a landslide victory.

Independence for Zimbabwe came on April 17, 1980. Prime Minister Mugabe consolidated his power; in 1982 he dismissed Nkomo from his government, a move that exacerbated hostility to ZANU-PF in Matabeleland. A campaign of robberies, killings, and kidnappings by Ndebele dissidents was met with harsh reprisals by the military.

F

The Mugabe Regime

Mugabe’s party won a landslide victory in 1985, the first national election since independence. In late 1987 the constitution was amended to replace the position of prime minister with that of executive president, which combines the posts of head of state and head of government. Following political stalemate in Matabeleland, and faced with growing South African economic destabilization in the region, ZANU-PF and Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (PF-ZAPU) began unity talks in 1986; they finally agreed to merge as ZANU-PF in 1987.

In 1988 Mugabe appointed Nkomo as second vice-president and a senior minister in his reshuffled Cabinet. In the 1990 and 1995 elections, Mugabe and ZANU-PF won decisively. After special constitutional provisions protecting white landowners expired, the government sought to redistribute much of their land to hundreds of thousands of black peasants in the early 1990s amid considerable controversy.

Zimbabwe played a leading role in attempts to end apartheid in South Africa, which resulted in intermittent attacks on ANC targets within Zimbabwe by South African forces. In the election held in March 1996, Mugabe once again won a huge share (92.7 per cent) of the vote, but with a turnout of only 31.7 per cent. However, it became increasingly clear that the ruling party had lost momentum and influence, and that Mugabe had no likely successor. A weak opposition has contributed greatly towards growing political inertia.

G

Land Reforms

In June 1996 Mugabe announced his intention to proceed with nationalizing Zimbabwe’s commercial farms, stating that compensation for farmers would not be provided unless the United Kingdom, as the former colonial power, provided funding. Although the United Kingdom had, since Zimbabwe achieved independence in 1980, provided £30 million for the resettlement of black farmers, only 65,000 black families had been resettled and the funds spent. An international conference on the problem, to be attended by the major donor agencies, was suggested by the UK government, but Mugabe rejected this proposal as an excuse for avoiding further funding.

The following July Mugabe merged several ministries in a Cabinet re-shuffle, and in November 1997 he began to instigate his land redistribution programme of 1,700 mostly white-owned farms, covering 5 million hectares (12 million acres) out of a total of 11 million commercially owned hectares (27.1 million acres). Farmers were told to expect compensation for buildings but not for land. However, pressure from donor countries caused the government to delay the seizure of privately owned farms.

The same year, public allegations of homosexual rape made against a former president and ally of Mugabe, the Rev. Canaan Banana, caused a degree of embarrassment to Mugabe, whose hatred of homosexuals was already well known. Banana, who was found guilty on charges of sodomy and indecency in November 1998, was eventually sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment in January 1999. Further embarrassment came in 1998 with the publication of a report into atrocities perpetrated in Matebeleland by government troops in the 1980s, which claimed that as many as 20,000 people had been killed.