When the Zimbabwean flag was raised officially in the early hours of 18 April 1980, symbolizing the dawn of a new era and the end of a bitter liberation war, who could have imagined then that the crowds cheering their hero—Robert Mugabe—would come to hate him some thirty years later after he led them to starvation, ruin, and anarchy? Who would have expected Zimbabwe to become the “sick man” of southern Africa, a security concern for its neighbors, and an irritant in the mind of progressive opinion leaders such as former anti-apartheid lead activist and Nobel Peace Prize...

Contrary to a view commonly held in the media and by some observers—that there was a sudden turn of events in 2000, supposedly reversing a previous trend toward democratization—the political system set in place at independence and throughout the 1980s was authoritarian in essence. For ZANU-PF leaders, the institutions, values, and procedures of parliamentary democracy were alien and a potential impediment to their objective of fully controlling the postcolonial state—something hardly disguised by the claim to adhere to “socialism.” Adopting an Eastern European Communist-style one-party state guaranteed absolute control over both state and society by those entitled...

Violence was crucial for ZANU-PF to secure victory in both the parliamentary elections in June 2000 and the presidential election in March 2002, and once again in the 2008 presidential run-off (although systematic rigging also played a determining role, especially in presidential elections). From a survey conducted of people coming out of the polling stations in June 2000, Professor R. W. Johnson estimated that up to 12 percent of the voters changed their vote from MDC to ZANU-PF as a consequence of the political violence inflicted on them during the electoral campaign,¹ a figure corroborated by an October 2000 survey...

Although some opposition parties existed prior to 1999, none succeeded in breaching the ZANU-PF monopoly. Indeed, the Movement for Democratic Change is “the first substantive opposition party to emerge [in Zimbabwe] in the last 20 years.”¹ However, the positive legacy of the failed opposition of the 1990s should not be underestimated. Not only had these parties contributed to the democratic struggle at a time when many civic and union leaders claimed to remain “nonpartisan” and avoided harassment from the state, but the MDC also drew some precious lessons from their pioneer work. By its near success and the sheer scale...

A feeling of freedom flourished when, at Independence, the ZANU-PF government announced its determination to remove the Rhodesian Front regime’s strict state controls on the media. “Not only will the media be genuinely free in an independent Zimbabwe; they will also be responsible as well as responsive to the will of the majority,” promised Nathan Shamuyarira, minister of information and tourism and former journalist.¹ However, this spirit of goodwill was short-lived and the media soon became another contested terrain between the government and civil society. Notwithstanding individuals such as respected nationalist and journalist Willie Musarurwa, Mugabe’s regime was and has...

Since Independence the judiciary has often been under attack, including the harassment of individual Supreme Court and High Court judges, some of which was documented by human rights NGOs such as the CCJP and LRF.¹ In fact, Mugabe’s regime never really accepted the principle of the separation of powers and often singled out white judges for abuse. Being a seasoned tactician, Mugabe’s abiding by the law has always been qualified and calculated. However, the assault against independent judges—many of them blacks—commencing in late 2000 is unprecedented in its violence and duration. The courts have been purged and subsequently...

“Land reform” is an inappropriate name for a political strategy that has little to do with rural development or the black peasants’ alleged hunger for land. Reclaiming the land has been a mobilization slogan ever since the liberation war,¹ and it is now a political weapon against the regime’s perceived enemies. The technical/developmental approach of resettlement adopted in most of the literature on the land controversy,² useful as it may be when dealing with a planned and rational resettlement program, does not address the core issue: the politicization of the land question from the outset and its harnessing, in the...

It is difficult to reconcile Stephen Chan’s recollection of the simple lifestyle in 1980 of Teurai Ropa (Joyce Mujuru) and her husband Rex Nhongo (General Solomon Mujuru)¹ and their current position as prominent businesspeople.² In their own way they exemplify the success of the ZANU-PF elite. In the early literature on Zimbabwe great emphasis is put on the nationalist/socialist project carried by both guerrilla movements (“pro-Russian” ZAPU and “pro-Chinese” ZANU), and a great deal of intellectual debate focused in the 1980s on whether or not ZANU-PF had engaged Zimbabwe on the path of a socialist revolution. Most observers then took...

The deepening crisis in Zimbabwe became an international issue as early as 2000, both within the region and in terms of Europe/Africa relations. Not only were some of the white farmers who were victims of violence foreigners, with their plight attracting sympathy in the Western press and chancelleries, but also the Zimbabwean internal unrest generally became the source of a major diplomatic rift between the United Kingdom, United States, and European Union on the one side, and most African countries on the other, especially in the SADC region. The parties differed strongly in their reading of the situation on the...

Whether 2008 was a pivotal moment of change for Zimbabwe, signaling the end of the crisis opened by the February 2000 referendum, remains undecided more than one year after the coalition government between ZANU-PF and the two MDCs was sworn in.

Despite a deeply flawed process and the unending repression—in addition to the depressing rift between the two MDC factions—there was an atmosphere of desperate expectation in the country on the eve of the 29 March harmonized elections (for the first time presidential, parliamentary, and urban council elections being held the same day). The nearly complete collapse of...