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 homo sexual rape made against a former president and ally of Mugabe, the Rev. Canaan Banana, caused a degree of embarrassment to Mugabe, whose hatred of homo sexuals was already well known. Banana, who was found guilty on charges of sod omy and indec ency 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 Parliamentary 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 places 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”.
