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Location: Home > Battlefield > Battlefield LIVE > Zimbabwe - General Information
ZIMBABWE - GENERAL INFORMATION
Original name: Republic of Zimbabwe
National flag:
Briefly:
| Official language |
English, Shona, Ndebele |
| Capital |
Harare |
| President |
Robert Gabriel MUGABE |
Area
-Total
-% water |
390,580 sq km
1.001% |
Population
-Total (2007)
|
12,311,143 |
| GDP |
 $25.58 billion |
Independence
-Declared
-Recognised |
From United Kingdom
(as Rhodesia ) in 1965
(as Zimbabwe ) in 1980 |
| Currency |
Zimbabwean dollar (ZWD) |
| Time zone |
GMT +2 |
Geography
 Zimbabwe is located in mainland southern Africa between South Africa and Zambia. It protects a 3,066km border with Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia. It is landlocked and has no coastline. Except for various mountains in the east, Zimbabwe is mostly high plateaus.
Land boundaries:
total: 3,066 km
border countries: Botswana 813 km, Mozambique 1,231 km, South Africa 225 km, Zambia 797 km
Coastline: 0 km (landlocked)
Terrain: mostly high plateau with higher central plateau (high veld); mountains in east
Demographics
Zimbabwe has contains roughly 13 million people. 98% of the population is black, made up of two major groups, the Shona and the Ndebele. The remaining 2% of the population are white (mostly of British origin) and mixed race. 57% of the country’s population is between 15 and 64, and 40% under the age 14. As of 2006, life expectancy in Zimbabwe was 37 years old. Only 3.5% of the population is over age 65.
 Population: 12,311,143 (July, 2007 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 37.2% (male 2,308,731/female 2,266,027)
15-64 years: 59.3% (male 3,663,108/female 3,641,519)
65 years and over: 3.5% (male 198,867/female 232,891)
(2007 est.)
Population growth rate: 0.595% (2007 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: 2.3 million (2001 est.)
AIDS adult infection rate: 33.7% (2001 est.), 25% (1999 est.).
Deaths from AIDS: 200,000 (2001 est.), 160,000 anually (1999 est.)
Ethnic groups: African 98% (Shona 71%, Ndebele 16%, other 11%), white 1%, mixed and Asian 1%.
Religions: Syncretic (part Christian, part indigenous beliefs) 50%, Christian 25%, indigenous beliefs 24%, Muslim and other 1%.
Economy
Involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo exhausted hundreds of millions of dollars from the nation’s economy between 1998 and 2000. Current economic instability has caused soaring inflation, supply shortages and the lack of foreign investment. Current economic woes have been attributed by many to extensive mismanagement and corruption in the administration of Robert Mugabe, specifically, the controversial eviction of more than 4000 white farmers during a land redistribution program in 2000.
The country’s unemployment rate is estimated to be somewhere around 80%. Recent hyperinflation has devastated the economy. The rate rose annual at around 38% from 1998 until early 2007 when it was measured at about 4,530%.
In response, the government of Mugabe announced that it would temporarily stop publishing such economic data.
Labor force - by occupation: agriculture 66%, services 24%, industry 10% (1996 est.)
Unemployment rate: 70% (2002 est.), 50% (1999 est.)
Budget:
revenues: $2.5 billion (2000, FY96/97 est.)
expenditures: $2.6 billion (2000), $2.9 billion, including capital expenditures of $279 million (FY96/97 est.)
History
After 33 years of administration by the British South Africa Company, from 1923 until 1980 the country was officially the British colony of Southern Rhodesia.  Rhodesia became a self-governing, autonomous nation in 1923. While its parliament was independent, many powers, most notably in regards to African political advancement, were retained by London.
After a brief period as Zimbabwe Rhodesia in 1979 under an internal settlement between the regime and part of the African opposition movement, the country was returned to British rule at the end of 1979 pending elections that led to legal independence under majority government on April 18, 1980.
Since then, under the dictatorial regime of Robert Mugabe, the country has declined economically. In 2002, Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations on charges of human rights abuses and of election tampering. In 2003 the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) upheld this suspension, leading Mugabe to heatedly withdraw Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth.
Zimbabwe: story of a nation
1953 Federation of Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), and Nyasaland (Malawi), created by Britain
1963 Federation breaks up as Zambia and Malawi gain independence; Robert Mugabe sets up Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu)
1965 The prime minister, Ian Smith, declares independence. UK applies economic sanctions; Zanu starts guerrilla war against white rule
1972 Guerrilla war intensifies
1976 Zanu gains support from regional powers
1978 Smith pressed into negotiated settlement
1979 Britain brokers peace deal (Lancaster House)
1980 Zimbabwe gains full independence; Mugabe elected first prime minister
1987 Constitution altered, Mugabe becomes executive president; Zanu merged with rival to form Zanu-PF
1998 Riots and strikes amid failing economy
1999 Opposition Movement for Democratic Change born
2000 February : Campaign begins to seize white-owned farms
June Zanu-PF narrowly wins parliamentary elections
2001 October Group from Commonwealth criticises seizure of farms
2002 February EU sanctions imposed on country
2002 March Mugabe's re-election at ballot condemned as flawed; Commonwealth observers declare election illegitimate and suspend Zimbabwe from group
2003 February Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on trial for treason
2003 September Zimbabwe 's largest circulation paper, the Daily News, closed down
2003 November Inflation hits 526%; food and currency shortages acute
2003 December Commonwealth suspension extended; Mugabe quits group
2005 May The Mugabe government initiated Operation Mrambatsvina aimed at ridding the country’s urban centers of illegal business enterprises and other criminal activity. This practice however has been mostly used to destabilize the government’s political opposition
2005 September President Mugabe signs constitutional amendment reinstituting the national senate that had been abolished in 1987. The same amendment nationalized all of the country’s land.
2007 March Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is abducted and tortured by a crack commando unit based at the army’s Cranborne Barracks.
Recent Political Situation
Then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, in 1987, revised the country’s constitution, making himself President. His political party, ZANU has won every election since 1980, raising suspicions of corruption and election fraud.
The 1990 elections in particular gained much international disapproval when the second place party of Edgar Tekere, Zimbabwe Unity Movement, garnered only 20% of the vote. The 2002 elections were also suspicious.
While the next presidential elections are currently planned for 2008, President Mugabe is currently pushing for an amendment to the constitution allowing him to retain his power until 2010.
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe (born February 21, 1924) has been the head of government in Zimbabwe , first as Prime Minister and later as first executive President, since 1980.
 Mugabe was raised at Kutama Mission, Zvimba District, north-west of Harare (then called Salisbury ), in then Southern Rhodesia. He was raised as a Roman Catholic and was educated in Jesuit schools. He qualified as a teacher at age 17, but left to study at Fort Hare University in South Africa , graduating in 1951. He then studied at Drifontein in 1952, Salisbury (1953), Gwelo (1954), in Tanzania (1955 - 1957), and then Accra, Ghana (1958 - 1960) where he married a local teacher.
Returning to Southern Rhodesia in 1960 as a committed Marxist, Mugabe joined Joshu Nkomo and the National Democratic Party (NDP), which later became the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). He left ZAPU in 1963 to form the rival Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). After squabbling with ZANU's founder Ndabaningi Sithole, he became leader of a militant ZANU faction.
He was detained with other nationalist leaders in 1964 and remained in prison for ten years. On his release he resumed leadership of his faction of ZANU and left Rhodesia for Mozambique in 1974 and led the Chinese-financed military arm of ZANU, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), in the war against the Ian Smith government. In 1976 ZANU allied itself with ZAPU as the Popular Front (PF).
Mugabe was elected to head the first government as prime minister on March 4, 1980 with ZANU winning 57 out of 100 seats in the new parliament. In 1987 the position of Prime Minister was abolished, and Mugabe assumed the new office of executive President of Zimbabwe gaining additional powers in the process. He was re-elected in 1990 and 1996 and won a substantial and controversial victory with accusations of violence in presidential elections in March 2002.
Opposition Parties and Movements
Zimbabwe’s major opposition party, The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was founded in 1999 in opposition to Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). The MDC comprises of a broad coalition many of whom protested and campaigned heavily against the 2000 constitutional referendum that tried to increase Mugabe’s grip on Zimbabwe’s government.
MDC successfully defeated Mugabe’s referendum, and, in that same year, won 57 of 120 seats up for election in the country’s parliament. This success gave the opposition movement new hope, however, allegations of voter fraud and election rigging lead the MDC to challenge the results of the election. Finally, a South African Ministerial Observer team, closely tied with Robert Mugabe, declared the elections free and fair.
In 2004 an internal dispute among the MDC’s national decision making council over whether to participate in the 2005 parliamentary elections lead to the eventual splitting of the MDC into two organizations. The mainstream faction is lead by Arthur Mutambara while the new MDC Pro-Senate faction, is lead by Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy, Gibson Sibanda. The internal strife obviously has impeded the political progress the party is working to accomplish, as the Mugabe regime has taken advantage of this separation.
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