I.

Introduction

Zimbabwe, officially Republic of Zimbabwe, landlocked republic, southern Africa, bordered on the north-west by Zambia, on the north-east and east by Mozambique, on the south by South Africa, on the south-west by Botswana, and on the west by Botswana and the Caprivi Strip of Namibia. It was formerly the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (later Rhodesia).

The white government of the territory declared unilateral independence in 1965, adopting a republican form of government in 1970, and precipitating a war with black nationalist groups seeking independence under majority rule. In April 1980, following multi-party elections, Rhodesia became formally independent as the Republic of Zimbabwe. The total area of the country is 390,759 sq km (150,873 sq mi). The capital of Zimbabwe is Harare.

II.

Land and Resources

Zimbabwe is an upland country with a relatively temperate climate and a diversity of agricultural and mineral resources. The country occupies part of the great plateau of southern Africa. The most prominent physical feature is a broad upland that runs south-west to north-east across the country, and is most extensive in the north-east. It has an average elevation of about 1,525 m (5,000 ft) and is known as the Highveld. On either side of the Highveld the land slopes downward, in the north towards the River Zambezi and in the south towards the River Limpopo. These areas have average elevations of about 1,065 m (3,500 ft) and are known as the Middle Veld. The basins of the Zambezi, and the Limpopo, and, in the south-east, the Sabi-Lundi system are known as the Lowveld.

Along the eastern border is a mountainous range, the Eastern Highlands, which rises to a maximum elevation of 2,592 m (8,504 ft) at Inyangani. Apart from the Eastern Highlands, Zimbabwe’s terrain is predominantly gently undulating, except for a narrow belt of rugged hills associated with fault lines along the Zambezi valley. There is also the Great Dyke, made up of hard, intrusive rocks, which runs some 480 km (298 mi) roughly north-south through the centre of Zimbabwe, and gives rise to prominent ranges of hills; the Great Dyke contains many of Zimbabwe’s rich mineral deposits.

A.

Rivers and Lakes

A number of short rivers rise in the Highveld. Of these rivers the Shangani and Sanyati flow north, and the Sabi and Lundi flow south. Just downstream from the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi is Lake Kariba, which was formed behind the Kariba Dam. It is one of the world’s largest artificial lakes and lies astride the country’s north-western border with Zambia.

B.

Climate

Although Zimbabwe lies in the tropics, its climate is considerably moderated by both altitude and distance from the sea. The average temperature is 15.6° C (60° F) in July (winter), and 21.1° C (70° F) in January (summer). The average annual rainfall is about 890 mm (35 in) in the Highveld and less than 610 mm (24 in) in most parts of the Middle Veld. Most rainfall occurs between October and March. There is a tendency towards drought, though in 1997 rainfall in Zimbabwe was the highest for ten years.

C.

Plants and Animals

The land of Zimbabwe is primarily covered with savannah; a particularly lush grass grows during the moist summers. Forests are found only in limited areas along the eastern border and in the wettest areas of the Highveld. A rich variety of wildlife includes elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, lion, hyena, crocodile, antelope, impala, giraffe, zebra, and baboon. Zimbabwe has taken a lead in wildlife conservation in Africa, and especially in the protection of the rhinoceros and elephant. It has helped pioneer new approaches to conservation, including giving local people an economic stake in the preservation of endangered species, and the development of wildlife ranching.

D.

Natural Resources

Zimbabwe is rich in mineral resources. Most minerals are found in the Great Dyke, including chromium ores, copper, asbestos, nickel, gold, silver, and iron ore. Large coal reserves are found in the north-west near Hwange. Other mineral resources include cobalt and tin.

E.

Environmental Concerns

Zimbabwe is mostly arid, with biomes ranging from dry woodland to grassland and dunes. Woodland covers about 22.5 per cent (1995) of the country, although the rate of deforestation is becoming serious. Reforestation programmes are under way to counteract the effects of firewood collection and pasture clearing. State forests make up slightly more than 2 per cent of the country, a small portion of which is moist forest. Wetlands are few, and some of the major ones are in or near protected areas.

Zimbabwe was among the first African nations to formulate a coherent conservation strategy, introduced in 1987. About 7.9 per cent (1997) of the country’s land is protected in a system that includes national parks, wildlife reserves, safari parks, and other areas. The government officially views the promotion of wildlife management as an economic form of sustainable resource use, and the country has a strong record of involving local people in the management of national parks, wildlife reserves, and other protected areas. Wildlife and game parks produce millions of pounds in tourist revenue, a large proportion of which remains in the local communities.

Zimbabwe’s rich biodiversity is important to its ecology and economy. Of about 192 endemic species, more than 40 per cent are endangered. Poaching is a serious threat, especially to valuable endangered species, such as the black rhinoceros and African elephant. The government protects some animal reserves with armed wardens.

Explosive population growth in the 1980s put significant pressure on agriculture and land use in Zimbabwe, yet per capita agricultural output did not increase between 1980 and 1990. Water availability is a major problem, and the nation is subject to periodic droughts that can be devastating to agriculture and the economy. Overcropping and overgrazing have led to soil erosion. Widespread pesticide contamination—especially from the dieldrin and DDT used in tsetse fly control—has significantly affected wildlife and human health. Zimbabwe participates in the World Heritage Convention, and three official sites have been designated. The country has also signed international environmental agreements on biodiversity, climate change, endangered species, law of the sea, and the ozone layer. Zimbabwe shares several cross-border protected areas with its neighbours Botswana and Zambia.

III.

Population

The bulk of Zimbabwe’s population is formed by two major Bantu-speaking ethnic groups: the Shona (Mashona), who constitute at least 70 per cent of the total population, and the Ndebele (Matabele), who constitute about 16 per cent of the total and are concentrated in the south-western regions. The European minority comprises 2 per cent of the population. There are several minor indigenous ethnic groups, including the Tonga, Sena, Venda, and Sotho. The country also has small minorities of Asians and people of mixed ethnic origin. Ethnic conflict between the Matabele and the Mashona erupted in the 1980s because the ruling political party, aligned to the Mashona, had suppressed the main opposition party, which represented the Matabele.

A.

Population Characteristics

Zimbabwe has a population of 12,311,143 (2007 estimate), which gives the country an average population density of only 32 people per sq km (82 per sq mi). Zimbabwe has a high population growth rate (3 per cent a year in the early 1980s; an estimated 0.59 per cent in 2007). Around 64 per cent of the population live in rural areas. The emigration of whites, which began in the mid-1970s, continued after independence in 1980; in the early 1990s there were 100,000 whites, compared with 223,000 in 1980. Even so, and despite a considerable increase in the numbers of black entrepreneurs and senior managers, the white community was still playing a dominant role in Zimbabwe’s large private sector more than a decade after independence. Whites are generally more affluent than blacks. There was a small but steady flow of Zimbabweans into South Africa in search of better-paid employment, which in turn exacerbated unemployment problems in that country. Average life expectancy at birth (2007 estimate) is 39.5 years (38.4 years for women and 40.6 years for men), although this will be considerably higher for the white population.

B.

Principal Cities

Zimbabwe’s largest city, and main commercial and cultural centre, as well as its capital, is Harare (formerly Salisbury), which has a population of 1,903,510 (2002). The country’s second city, and the main centre of Matabeleland, is Bulawayo, population 676,787 (2002), an important manufacturing centre and railway junction. Other major centres (with their populations) include Chitungwiza, 321,782 (2002), a black dormitory town; Gweru (formerly Gwelo), 137,000 (2002), a mining centre; Mutare (formerly Umtali), 153,000 (2002), located in an agricultural and forestry region; and Kwekwe (formerly Que Que), 88,000 (2002), an industrial and mining centre.

C.

Religion

More than 40 per cent of the population is at least nominally Christian. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, and Presbyterians are large groups, and many independent Churches are active. Some 40 per cent of the population follows traditional religions.

D.

Language

English is the official language of Zimbabwe and it has around 376,000 first-language speakers. Eighteen other languages are spoken, all of which are Bantu languages (see Niger-Congo Languages) except for Fanagolo (a Zulu-based pidgin) and Hietshware (a Khoisan language). The most important Bantu languages are Shona (6,225,000 speakers), Ndebele (1,485,000), and Ndau (391,000).

E.

Education

Education is compulsory. Before independence, the majority of the black population was excluded from all but the most basic education, while facilities for the white minority were on a par with much of Western Europe. A priority of the government after 1980 was to redress this inequality, and spending on education increased hugely, becoming one of the largest elements in the budget. The policy was very successful: by the early 1990s, 85 per cent of the population aged 5-19 was in school, and literacy had reached almost 75 per cent. By 2005 it was 92 per cent. The need to constrain costs, however, led to the introduction of school fees for primary education in 1991; parents have always been expected to contribute to secondary school costs. In 1999–2000, 11.1 per cent of gross national product (GNP) was spent on education.

In 2000 approximately 2.46 million students were enrolled in primary schools and 844,183 in secondary schools. There are a large number of private primary and secondary schools, some of them run by Church bodies. The large commercial farms are expected to establish primary schools for the children of their workers, which must be registered with the ministry of education. Higher educational institutions include ten teachers’ colleges and several agricultural and technical schools. The University of Zimbabwe (1957) is in Harare. There were around 60,221 students in higher education in 2002–2003.

IV.

Economy

Zimbabwe has the most diversified economy of any African nation apart from South Africa. Mining, agriculture, and manufacturing are all well developed, and the country’s financial services sector and infrastructure are highly sophisticated. Following the unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) by the white government in 1965, trade sanctions were imposed against Rhodesia by the UN (see History below). They did not, however, seriously damage the economy; during the 1970s numerous local industries were developed to provide substitute goods, and the country became self-sufficient in, and an exporter of, food. The economy suffered a negative growth rate in the late 1970s, but expanded at a real rate of 2.9 per cent a year during the first decade of independence despite recurrent severe droughts.

Partly because of high population growth, per capita incomes were little better than at independence in 1980. The economy faced severe problems, primarily inflation and devaluation of the currency. There was a growing need to attract investment, and to create new jobs to accommodate the thousands of well-educated school-leavers joining the job market. In the early 1990s, the government began to move towards a market-oriented economy and embarked upon a radical reform programme, backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to liberalize the economy and encourage foreign investment. Trade controls, inherited from the pre-independence era, were removed, and government spending was cut heavily. There was some new investment, but the immediate result was a rise in the balance of payments deficit as new imports flooded in, and increased unemployment as civil service jobs were cut and domestic industries, formerly protected, retrenched in the face of competition from cheaper imports. The tourist industry, an increasingly valuable source of revenue, suffered from the turbulent political situation in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The unemployment rate in 1994 was estimated at 45 per cent of the workforce. By 2004 the GNP was about US$8,016 million (World Bank figures), equivalent to US$350 per capita.

A.

Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing

Around 26 per cent of Zimbabwe’s economically active population is engaged in agriculture, which contributes about 60 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). The principal cash crops are tobacco and maize, which are grown mainly in the northern and central regions. In 2005 annual production totalled about 3.29 million tonnes of sugar cane, 0.90 million tonnes of maize, 140,000 tonnes of wheat, 265,000 tonnes of cotton, and 65,000 tonnes of tobacco. Other major crops include tea, coffee, cut flowers, peanuts, citrus fruit, and sorghum.

One of the priorities after independence was to improve the access to agricultural services and markets of the country’s black farmers, who farm small plots, and are called in Zimbabwe “peasant” or “communal” sector farmers. The result of these policies was astonishing. From being marginal contributors to the production of marketed maize, peasant farmers by the mid-1980s were contributing almost 50 per cent of the total. Total marketed production also soared, enabling Zimbabwe to become a major regional exporter of the crop. All this occurred despite severe drought, which had led to famine in neighbouring states, but which Zimbabwe survived because of its large stockpiles of grain. The picture changed at the end of the 1990s, however, when internal political turmoil curtailed the export market and raised the threat of food shortages. President Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme that expropriates land from white farmers, largely by force, to re-distribute among blacks has been divisive. See History below.

By the late 1980s large-scale commercial farmers, the main growers of tobacco, were shifting out of maize and tobacco into new crops like green beans and other vegetables, and flowers, which are exported to a number of countries. Livestock-raising and dairy farming are also of major importance. Beef, which is of high quality, is exported to the EU. In 2005 the country had about 23.1 million chickens, 5.40 million cattle, 2.97 million goats, 610,000 sheep, and 610,000 pigs.

Zimbabwe’s annual roundwood cut in 2005 was about 9.11 million cu m (322 million cu ft); most of it was used for household fuel. The fish catch in 2004 amounted to 15,955 tonnes mainly from Lake Kariba. Trout, prawns, and bream are farmed.

B.

Mining

The mining sector is the leading export sector, with about 40 per cent of earnings. Zimbabwe is, with South Africa, the world’s leading supplier of high-grade chromium ore and nickel. Other minerals include asbestos, coal, iron ore, cobalt, and copper. There was a major expansion in Zimbabwe’s gold production in the 1980s, following the introduction of cheap leaching techniques enabling the recovery of ore from old waste tips.

C.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing grew rapidly in Zimbabwe after World War II and especially during the period of international sanctions. The leading manufactures include food products, machinery, metal products, textiles, fertilizer, clothing, footwear, chemicals, and alcoholic beverages. Other major manufactures are transport equipment, electrical machinery, mining machinery, pulp and paper products, tobacco products, and pharmaceuticals. Until the late 1980s the sector was predominantly oriented to servicing the domestic economy. However, backed by financial incentives, there was a major drive to increase manufacturing exports at the end of the decade, which met with some success throughout the 1990s, especially regionally.

D.

Energy

Zimbabwe has considerable hydroelectric power and coal resources. The country gets most of its electric power from the Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River. Coal-fired thermal power stations provide the rest; a large new thermal power station was built in the 1980s near the coalfields at Hwange in the north-west. Total production in 2003 was about 8.9 billion kWh.

E.

Transport

Zimbabwe has a road network totalling about 91,810 km (57,048 mi) in length. About 70 per cent are improved all-weather roads, including about 19 per cent paved roads. In 2002 there were around 44 passenger cars per 1,000 people. The country is also served by 3,077 km (1,912 mi) of well-maintained railways, with links to Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, and ports on the Indian Ocean in Mozambique. Road and rail connections with Zambia and Mozambique were restored in 1980 following independence. Most of the major towns are served by air transport. There are major international airports at Harare, Bulawayo, and Victoria Falls. Air Zimbabwe is the national carrier.

F.

Communications

Although the media in Zimbabwe is theoretically free, in practice it is very much state-dominated. The government controls the 2 main daily newspapers. Independent or foreign journalists who refuse to toe the government line have found themselves facing harassment or even expulsion. An Access to Information Bill instigated in December 2001 (see History below) made it increasingly difficult for journalists to operate in the country. A wide variety of periodicals are published. Zimbabwe has national radio and television broadcasting stations based in Harare, with secondary studios in Bulawayo. Independent radio stations find it almost impossible to obtain licences. In 1999 the country had about 4 million radio receivers and 410,000 television sets.

G.

Currency and Banking

The monetary unit is the Zimbabwe dollar (Z$; formerly known as the Rhodesian dollar), of 100 cents (Z$259.16 equalled US$1; early 2007). The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (established 1964) is the central bank and the sole note-issuing bank. The country has the most developed financial services sector in Africa, apart from South Africa, with five commercial and four merchant banks, five finance houses, several discount houses, and a stock exchange. The Zimbabwe Development Bank (1983) is a development finance institution, 51 per cent government owned. The Agricultural Finance Corporation makes advance loans to farmers for seed, fertilizer, and equipment purchases. In 1994 the Zimbabwe dollar was devalued by 17 per cent, and in 1995 IMF assistance was suspended for six months because of the government’s failure to reduce public spending. The currency continues to decline against major world currencies.

H.

Commerce and Trade

Until 1990 annual export earnings were usually greater than import costs. In 1991 the trade balance shifted into deficit, with export earnings of US$1,760 million and import costs of US$1,800 million. After 1994 the system of strict foreign exchange allocations for imports, inherited from the pre-independence era, was abolished. Although the system had badly inhibited the modernization of existing industry and curtailed the development of new industries (because it was hard for them to get allocations), it had enabled some equilibrium in the trade balance and limited the size of the overall balance of payments deficit. In 2002 there was a trade deficit, with exports earning an estimated US$2,327 million and imports costing US$2,467 million.

The leading exports included tobacco, asbestos, gold, cotton, steel, ferrochrome, nickel, textiles, and meat. Among the major imports were petroleum products, machinery, and transport equipment. The United Kingdom, South Africa, the United States, and Germany are the leading trade partners.

I.

Tourism

Zimbabwe became one of the fastest-growing African tourist destinations during the 1980s, able to support attractions like the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi and numerous game parks, with a well-developed transport infrastructure and international-class hotels. However, the industry faced a downturn at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s with many prospective tourists being deterred by the worsening political situation. Around 1.56 million visitors a year were recorded in 2005, with receipts amounting to US$110 million.

V.

Government

According to the April 1980 constitution, amended in November 1987, Zimbabwe is a sovereign republic, and guarantees the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, regardless of race, tribe, or place of origin.

A.

Executive and Legislature

Under the 1987 amendment to the constitution, executive authority in Zimbabwe is vested in a president, who is nominated and elected to a six-year term by the members of parliament. The president appoints the vice-president and a Cabinet.

Legislative power in Zimbabwe is vested in the parliament. The Lancaster House pre-independence agreement on the constitution provided for a bicameral body consisting of a 120-seat House of Assembly and a 40-seat Senate; the 20 seats in the House of Assembly reserved for white members under the Lancaster House Agreement were abolished late in 1987. When the agreement on the constitution expired in April 1990, the bicameral parliament was replaced by a new, single-chamber House of Assembly. It comprised 150 members, of which 120 were directly elected. The constitution was rewritten in 2005 and a second, upper chamber—the Senate—created once more. It has 66 members, with 50 directly elected, 10 places reserved for traditional chiefs, and 6 presidential appointees. At the November 2005 elections ZANU-PF took 43 seats and the MDC 7.

B.

Political Parties

The two leading political parties were, until December 1987, the ruling Shona-based Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the main, Ndebele-based opposition group, the Patriotic Front-Zimbabwe African People’s Union (PF-ZAPU). After long and, at times, violent, confrontation, they united as ZANU-PF in 1987 and 1988, turning Zimbabwe into a de facto one-party state. In 1996 ZANU-PF formally abandoned its adherence to Marxism-Leninism. A new opposition party, the Zimbabwe Unity Movement, was established in 1989 but faded into obscurity in the early 1990s. In October 1994 the United Party was formed by a merger of the United African National Council, the smallest of the pre-independence nationalist parties, and the Forum Party of Zimbabwe. The other party was ZANU-Ndonga. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai, was founded in September 1999. After the general election of March 2008 it held 99 seats in the National Assembly compared to ZANU-PF with 97.

C.

Judiciary

The general common law is Roman-Dutch law as it applied in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope in 1891, as modified by statute. Statutory provision is made for the application of African customary law by all courts as appropriate. The Supreme Court, which includes a chief justice and four other justices, has original jurisdiction over certain constitutional questions and appellate jurisdiction on all others. It is the final court of appeal. The high court, consisting of 13 judges, has original jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases. In addition, there are regional courts (dealing with only criminal cases), magistrates’ courts, and village and community courts. Mugabe’s regime is notorious for its lack of respect for court rulings, and harassment of court representatives, particularly non-black judges.

D.

Local Government

For the purposes of local administration Zimbabwe is divided into ten provinces (eight provinces and two cities, Harare and Bulawayo, with provincial status), each administered by a governor appointed by the president.

E.

Health and Welfare

Upon independence in 1980, Zimbabwe had limited health facilities and government and private social security systems aimed almost exclusively at the white minority. The post-independence government undertook a major programme to improve the health care of the majority of Zimbabweans and to extend the range of social security provision, and the number of people covered. Zimbabwe today has some of the best health-care services in Africa, particularly in rural areas, where more than 1,000 clinics have been established. The infant mortality rate was 23 deaths per 1,000 live births in the early 1990s, compared with 67 per 1,000 a decade earlier. However, it was estimated at 104 per 1,000 in 1995 and 51 per 1,000 in 2007. In 2004 there were 17,439 people per doctor. In 1990, 6.2 per cent of the country’s GDP was spent on health care. AIDS is a growing public health problem, with estimates of over a quarter of all adults infected.

F.

Defence

In 2004 Zimbabwe’s armed forces totalled about 29,000 personnel, with a paramilitary police force of 21,800 and an air force of 4,000. Some 3,000 Zimbabwean troops were stationed in Mozambique during the civil war there, to keep open Zimbabwe’s important trade corridor along the railway to Beira port. As commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the president has total control over the country’s military. Aid comes from the United Kingdom and South Korea. Although Zimbabwe is not in any formal military alliance, it has lent support to the Mozambique government against the RENAMO guerrillas and also backed the United States during operations in Somalia. It has also been involved in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2003, Zimbabwe spent US$105 million (1.7 per cent of its GDP) on defence.

G.

International Organizations

Zimbabwe is a member of the United Nations (UN), the African Union, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the South African Development Community (SADC). Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations for a year after the flawed presidential election of March 2002 and left of its own accord in December 2003.

VI.

History

Remains of early hominids have been found in Zimbabwe. About 50,000 years ago the plateau area between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers was inhabited by Khoisan-speaking peoples, the ancestors of the modern San of the Kalahari who left many cave paintings in Zimbabwe, some dating back 30,000 years. About 2,000 years ago, Bantu-speaking peoples began crossing the Zambezi, moving into the plateau area. These Iron Age people included the ancestors of the Shona, who were the main occupants of Zimbabwe until the 1830s, when the Ndebele (descended from Iron Age people who had continued further south) moved into the country during the troubles of the mfecane.

The development of states from about the early 10th century ad, appears to be linked to the establishment of trading contacts with Muslim merchants on the Mozambique coast, who offered to exchange glass beads and cloth for gold, ivory, and copper (which initially had no economic value to the Shona). The first of the trading states was Mapungubwe, centred near the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers. It traded initially mainly in ivory; a gold trade was first developed from panning for stream deposits. Gold-mining began probably during the 11th century, and there are today more than 4,000 pre-colonial working gold sites in modern Zimbabwe.

A.

Great Zimbabwe

The trading state which was based at Great Zimbabwe began to develop in the 11th century, taking over from Mapungubwe in the 13th, and reaching its peak in the 14th—when it extended from Botswana to the coast of Mozambique. The state produced cotton cloth, and smelted and manufactured gold, copper, and iron. Great Zimbabwe, whose monumental ruins can still be seen near the River Mutirikwe in the south-east, became a city of some 10,000 people. It ceased to be the centre of the Zimbabwe state and culture in the mid-15th century, possibly because it had outgrown the ability of the surrounding countryside to support such a large settlement.

New Shona states, such as that of the Torwa, the Mutapa, and the Changamire, succeeded the Zimbabwe state. At the beginning of the 14th century the large centralized state, later known as the Mwene Mutapa Empire, came into being. After a rapid territorial expansion in the 15th century, this polity split, and the southern kingdom of Changamire was established.

B.

White Settlement

The Portuguese, who gained a toehold on the Mozambique coast shortly after 1500, sent missionaries to Mwene Mutapa, and by 1629 they had reduced the once-powerful empire to a vassal state, though they were forced out by an alliance of Mutapa and Changamire in 1693. Changamire conquered most of the Mutapa Empire at the end of the 17th century.

During the mfecane, the great migrations of the 1830s, the Ngoni, on their march north, destroyed Changamire, and the Ndebele soon after settled in the western part of the country. In 1888 King Lobengula of the Ndebele granted mining rights to the British colonialist Cecil Rhodes, and the following year Rhodes obtained a charter for his British South Africa Company. Subsequent white settlement and encroachment on native lands under company auspices brought warfare with both the Ndebele and the Shona that continued until 1897.

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.

H.

Economic Problems

During a three-day period of rioting in January 1998, protesters caused extensive damage in several areas of Harare after steep rises in food prices. A nationwide general strike in protest against continued rising food prices, and tax increases, brought the country to a standstill in March, and there were clashes between students and police in April. The United Merchant Bank collapsed in May, prompting fears of wider instability. The University of Zimbabwe and Harare Polytechnic were closed indefinitely in June, following outbreaks of violence. Also that year, the government of Zimbabwe joined Angola and Namibia in supporting President Kabila in the conflict between the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and rebel groups backed by Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda. The intervention, criticized on many counts, would become a major drain on the economy.

A compromise on the government's controversial land redistribution programme, which had been delayed since its announcement in July, was confirmed in January. The IMF announced that funds released after the programme, to resettle thousands of black peasant farmers on white-owned farms, had been reduced in scale following criticism from the IMF and international donors of the high cost of the action.

In April a new advisory body, a constitutional commission, was established to prepare amendments to the constitution. As its work progressed, Western countries gradually withdrew or suspended their aid programmes for Zimbabwe, claiming that funds and means had been mismanaged. In September, Italy and the Netherlands suspended their aid programmes and in October the World Bank joined them. At the November summit of Commonwealth countries in Durban, South Africa, Zimbabwe lost its membership of the Commonwealth Ministers Action Group (CMAG), whose task is to oversee the implementation of democracy and human rights in member countries. The dissatisfaction with President Mugabe's policies grew steadily and, in January 2000, voters rejected the project of a new constitution which would have granted the president considerable powers. The result was seen as a vote of no confidence in Mugabe's administration.

The issue of land distribution arose again, with black protesters occupying white-owned farms from February. The argument became highly emotive, with white farmers and their families under threat. The crisis escalated in April and the UK government refused to finance the land reform until the violence came to an end.

In 2000, long-awaited national elections were held. The ruling ZANU-PF party won 62 of the 120 elected seats, the opposition MDC party, 57, and the ZANU-Donga Party, 1. The vote appeared to be divided along urban and rural lines: voters in towns and cities being more inclined to support the opposition, while the ruling party tended to be strongest in the countryside. The estimated turnout was a record 80 per cent. International election observers had criticized the ballot for failing to be free and fair. Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC president and former leader of the country's trade union movement, failed to win a seat.

In April 2001, Zimbabwe finally began the withdrawal of its troops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after nearly three years of involvement in the war between the government and the rebels. The war had caused the displacement of millions of people and the deaths of many more.

I.

Land Issues

A group of Commonwealth ministers met in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, on September 6 to discuss the problems of Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform programme. The meeting was led by the Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, and attended by Commonwealth foreign ministers and the Commonwealth secretary-general Don McKinnon. An agreement was reached that provided for financial compensation for farmers whose land was to be redistributed. However, monitors noted that Zimbabwe failed to follow through with the recommendation of the accord and in defiance of the agreement, on November 9, 2001, the government issued a decree amending the Land Act, which was aimed at speeding up its controversial land reform programme.

J.

The 2002 Presidential Election and Beyond

Mugabe announced in December 2001 that presidential elections would be held in March 2002. He was endorsed as the presidential candidate of the ruling ZANU-PF. Meanwhile, Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was arrested twice in the space of a month but was released on both occasions. Tsvangirai accused the government of “political harassment of the worst order”.

In the run-up to the elections Mugabe exercised pressure on both the media and election monitors. In November he ordered the closure of The Daily News, Zimbabwe’s remaining independent daily newspaper, and in December an Access to Information Bill was passed that made it an offence for news reporting to take place from within the country unless vetted by a state-appointed commission. In effect, it banned all foreign media.

Likewise, a Public Order and Security Bill gave the government sweeping powers to “protect public order and security and to deal with acts of insurgency, banditry, sabotage, terrorism, treason, and subversion”. The General Laws Amendment Bill included amendments to the Electoral Act that banned foreign and independent election monitors. In February the European Union (EU) imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe and pulled out its election observers after the EU team leader was expelled.

Mugabe was declared the winner of the March 9-10 election with 54 per cent of the vote, while Tsvangirai garnered 40 per cent. Election observers declared that the poll was rigged and estimated that over 1 million people had been prevented from voting, despite the efforts of the High Court which had extended the polling to a third, unscheduled, day. Extreme voter intimidation had also taken place. Mugabe was sworn-in during the week following the election and pledged further accelerated land reform measures. He also used his swearing-in as an opportunity to attack Britain, the former colonial power. Later in the month the Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe for a year after official reports into the levels of violence during the election.

An EU travel ban on Mugabe was temporarily lifted in February 2003 to allow him to travel to France to meet French president Jacques Chirac and attend meetings of the Franco-African summit in Paris. Meanwhile, the trial of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, accused of treason in a supposed plot to kill Mugabe, started. A general strike was organized in the country in March in protest at the government; the demonstrations were violently put down and many hundreds of strikers were injured. Also in March, the Commonwealth voted to extend the suspension of Zimbabwe until the end of the year.

In April 2003 a three-day national strike against petrol price rises was organized by Zimbabwe’s Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). Following a week of protests instigated by the opposition, the government cracked down on strikes by public sector workers in June 2003. A rally against President Mugabe in Harare in September 2003 was broken up by the authorities and over 100 protesters arrested.

The full scale of the disaster facing Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector emerged in October 2003 with official statistics stating that the tobacco crop had been halved over the previous 12 months. An official report into land reform stated that only some 127,000 black farmers had been resettled on land seized by the government from white farmers, out of the expected 300,000.

In December 2003 the Commonwealth voted to extend the suspension of Zimbabwe indefinitely. In retaliation, President Mugabe severed all ties with the organization. South African President Thabo Mbeki mediated between Mugabe and his critics and called upon the international community to readmit Zimbabwe as the best way to solve the country’s problems. In February 2004 the EU voted to extend sanctions against Zimbabwe for a further 12 months. Tsvangirai was acquitted of charges of treason in October 2004.

K.

2005 and 2008 Elections

Elections to the House of Assembly were held at the end of March 2005. Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party secured 78 of the 150 seats, as well as an anticipated 30 seats appointed by the president. A two-thirds majority in the House placed Mugabe in a position that would allow him to make changes to the constitution. The opposition MDC won 41 seats. International Western observers backed their claims of electoral fraud (evidenced through the widespread stuffing of ballot boxes), though the Southern African Development Community thought the election “well-managed”. ZANU-PF won the majority of seats in the new Senate in an election held in November 2005. The MDC split over Tsvangirai’s decision to boycott the polls but Tsvangirai’s wing of the party quickly regained its popularity. In September 2006 demonstrations against the government were brutally put down and Tsvangirai was hospitalized the following March after being arrested at a political rally. Coverage of much of the brutality was viewed (and condemned) around the world. Parliamentary and presidential elections were held in March 2008. The delay in releasing results was criticized by international observers and tended to suggest that Mugabe and ZANU-PF were attempting to hide politically disadvantageous results for both the president and the party. Later, the electoral commission announced that the MDC had won more National Assembly seats (though not the majority of the popular vote); the presidential results appeared too close to call, with Mugabe hanging on to power and threatening to extend the poll to a second round of voting.