Zimbabwe's crisis continues
2010-04-15 14:53
Special Report
A classical music presenter for the BBC has been arrested and is in custody in Zimbabwe.
Harare - Zimbabwe marks three decades of independence on Sunday struggling to escape a spectacular economic collapse that eclipsed the early promise of a country once hailed as a model for Africa.
Veteran President Robert Mugabe will give the keynote speech at the main ceremony at a Harare stadium with his rival in a fragile national unity government, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, looking on.
Mugabe, at 86 Africa's oldest leader, was sworn in after independence in 1980 and has retained a stranglehold on the presidency since.
The celebrations will be preceded by an all-night concert in the capital, an echo of the all-night song and dance performances held to raise the morale of fighters in the war of liberation against the white-rule Rhodesian administration.
On April 18, 1980, the renegade colony of Rhodesia gave way to the new Zimbabwe, ending a seven-year war that left 27,000 dead.
The celebrations saw Bob Marley play a concert in Harare and Prince Charles come to watch the British flag lowered for the last time. Zimbabwe presented itself to the world as a new model for Africa.
Mugabe, a guerrilla fighter reviled by Rhodesia's white-minority regime, announced a policy of reconciliation and invited whites to help rebuild Zimbabwe.
International celebrity
His election to lead the new post-independence government made him an international celebrity.
The end of the war also ended years of crippling sanctions on Ian Smith's white-minority government, which had declared itself independent from Britain.
The economy grew as Mugabe built clinics and schools that made Zimbabwe one of the healthiest and most literate countries in Africa.
"The years 1980 to the early 1990s were full of promise," said Eldred Masunungure, a political scientist from the University of Zimbabwe.
"The graph showed an upward trend for the first 10 years, goes flat for the next decade and the next decade was a nightmare which many would not want to relive," he said.
The economic downturn began in 1997, when Mugabe gave in to pressure from war veterans waging violent protests for pensions.
At the same time, civic groups and unions began flexing their muscle and organising what would become the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - the country's first viable opposition party.
Mugabe’s claim
Mugabe turned to populism and the fiery rhetoric of the liberation war to confront the MDC, launching a land reform programme in 2000 - ostensibly to correct the colonialist legacy by giving white-owned farms to landless blacks.
The ensuing chaos undermined the agriculture-backed economy, which shrank to half the size it had been in 1980.
The Zimbabwean dollar went into free-fall. The one-time food exporter became dependent on foreign aid. Hyperinflation set world records.
Western sanctions, including an asset freeze on Mugabe and his circle, were imposed after 2002 elections that observers said were rigged.
The government put itself in isolation, expelling foreign journalists, demonising the former colonial power and straining an already touchy relationship with the West.
"There is some truth in Mugabe's claim that (land reform) was such a big issue because these are white people, not black people being taken off their land," said Teddy Brett of the London School of Economics.
Unity government
"The actual white capitalist class itself was capable of generating a lot more noise abroad."
In 2008, the end seemed near for Mugabe as the MDC won a majority in parliament.
But MDC leader Tsvangirai withdrew from the presidential run-off election, citing violence against supporters. Mugabe hung on through months of talks to remain president in a power-sharing deal.
The unity government with Tsvangirai is supposed to pave the way to fresh elections. But the partnership has proved fragile and a date for new polls has not been set.
Most Zimbabweans today cannot remember Rhodesia, but the country has changed. Average life expectancy is only 45, down from 61 in the 1980s.
Today, 41% of the population is younger than 15 and 80% live in poverty. Many educated Zimbabweans have fled the country.
But on Sunday they will listen to speeches about the jewel their nation was, remember the polls that freed them, and brace for new elections that could come as early as next year.
- AFP