What was zimbabwe called

The MDC's message has been circulated by the Daily News , the country's only independent daily newspaper, which was launched in and quietly captured the highest newspaper readership in the country: it was so popular that it sold out by lunchtime.

In January of Mugabe's Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo, described the paper as "a threat to national security which has to be silenced. This past September the government denied the irreverent paper a license, and the police shut it down. Tsvangirai's international standing has thus far helped to keep him alive although he was once beaten unconscious , but some of his followers have not been so lucky.

About Zimbabweans have died in political killings since the competition for power heated up, in According to Amnesty International, 70, incidents of torture and abuse took place in Zimbabwe last year alone. The government's most pervasive form of intimidation is also its most effective: the denial of food. While international aid groups try to feed Zimbabweans in rural areas, city folk must buy their maize and wheat from the sole distributor—the Grain Marketing Board. In order to get food they are often forced to produce a ruling-party membership card or to chant such slogans as "Long live Robert Mugabe!

We don't want these extra people. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has famously argued that no functioning democracy has ever suffered a famine, because democratic governments "have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes.

For all the lawlessness in Zimbabwe, the country in fact suffers from an overabundance of laws. Indeed, Mugabe has introduced so many economic edicts in the past year that most citizens have found it impossible to keep track.

He fixed the price of a loaf of bread at half the bakers' break-even price, and levied astronomical fines on any baker who charged more. Bakers stopped making bread until somebody noticed that sesame bread, a "luxury item," wasn't price-controlled; by sprinkling a few sesame seeds on their standard loaves, bakers were able to get back in business. A pair of mortuary workers were arrested recently for running a profitable "rent-a-cadaver" business: because Mugabe had decreed that drivers in funeral processions would get privileged access to the trickle of fuel coming into the country, these entrepreneurs had begun leasing bodies to Zimbabwean drivers.

Inflation in Zimbabwe is expected to surpass percent by year's end. Unemployment is at 70 percent. When Tsvangirai was arrested, several men were needed to carry his bail money to the Harare high court in huge cardboard boxes. Newspapers advertise "money rubber bands" and electronic money counters that "count 1, bills per minute.

Because the rate of inflation is astronomical in comparison with the interest rates offered by banks, Zimbabweans are desperate to withdraw their savings in order to spend the money while it still has value. The banks say they would be happy to oblige—but they don't have the cash. The government has so little foreign currency that it can't pay to import the ink and the paper needed to print more bills or bills of higher denominations.

In July desperate Zimbabweans began sleeping outside banks so as to be there when the doors opened. Mugabe has kept the official exchange rate fixed at Zimbabwean dollars to one U. Businessmen thus do their best to bypass official banks and government institutions, and the black market has become the only market of relevance. The state requires Zimbabweans who export goods to change 50 percent of their foreign earnings into local money at the official exchange rate. This means that every dollar converted loses almost all of its value—giving companies no incentive to bring money home, and worsening the severe cash shortage.

Forlorn Zimbabwean pensioners whose savings have vanished in a matter of months are reminiscent of the doleful Yugoslavs and Argentines who have endured similar implosions. The economic dynamic in Zimbabwe is perversely robust: while ordinary people suffer, black-market dealers and people with foreign bank accounts prosper, making them powerful stakeholders in the perpetuation of devastating economic policies.

When Mugabe took over as President, fewer than half of Zimbabweans could read and write. He transformed the country—producing a literacy rate higher than 85 percent. Yet he may be remembered less for his education drive than for creating the "Green Bombers," the youth militia that emerged from the National Youth Service Training Program, introduced after the ruling party's dismal showing in the parliamentary elections.

Some 50, Zimbabweans aged ten to thirty have passed through the training program since it started. The youth academies initially advertised themselves as offering training in agriculture, construction, and other occupations, but they have morphed into a paramilitary and indoctrination enterprise.

When dictators feel their support slipping among adults, it is not unusual for them to alter school textbooks in the hope of enlisting impressionable youths in their cause. And because tyrants never stop worrying about the loyalty of their militaries, they often establish ruling-party militias to act as personal guarantors of their safety in the event of assassination or coup attempts.

In the service of the third chimurenga in Zimbabwe, students are taught how to make gasoline bombs and set up roadblocks. Elliot Manyika, a hard-line ruling-party official who now runs the program, says the training will teach youths to "change their mind-set Clad in green fatigues and red-and-green berets, those graduates who become Green Bombers vandalize MDC offices, harass Zimbabweans waiting for food, seize whites' farms, confiscate newspapers, and intimidate voters and candidates.

The Mbare market, in Harare, is Zimbabwe's largest bazaar. It contains more than a hundred stalls, selling African carvings, tapestries, and sculptures.

In normal times at least four tourist buses and dozens of taxis visited the market every day. Yet when I arrived one Sunday, the vendors looked at me as though they were seeing the ghost of Cecil Rhodes. After a moment's pause they rushed behind their stalls and hurriedly began polishing and propping up their wares. One of them told me I was his first customer of the month; it was July The murder of white farmers, the attacks on the opposition, and the theft of an election have obviously done nothing to help tourism.

Nor has the disappearance of two indispensable travel items: cash and fuel. One Air Zimbabwe flight attendant recently explained a two-hour delay by telling passengers that the plane was waiting for a flight arriving from London "so we can siphon from its tank.

But many of the fences around the parks have been destroyed by squatters, and amid starvation, poachers have begun hunting even rare wildlife.

Farm invaders running out of white commercial farms to seize have begun taking over wildlife preserves, creating safari parks for their personal viewing. Foreign capital is disappearing faster than the wildlife. When Mugabe called for the "indigenization of the economy," he asserted pointedly that some Zimbabweans were "more indigenous than others. In "war veterans" invaded white-owned urban businesses—everything from hotels and department stores to the offices of foreign corporations.

The remaining investors are running scared. As even a democracy like the United States has shown, waging war can benefit a leader in several ways: it can rally citizens around the flag, it can distract them from bleak economic times, and it can enrich a country's elites. In August of Robert Mugabe sent 11, soldiers—a third of his army—into the most menacing country in Africa: the Congo.

He justified the invasion on the grounds that he was defending the sovereignty of an African country being invaded by Rwandan, Ugandan, and Burundian forces, which were backing a rebellion against the Congo's President, Laurent Kabila.

In reality, just as Saddam Hussein went after the oil in Kuwait, Mugabe had his eye on the Congo's riches. But the war was extremely unpopular at home. As casualties mounted, some army officers grew restless and began plotting a coup, which was foiled in its planning stages. Mugabe dismissed his critics as "black white men wearing the master's cap.

Mugabe thought he might placate the war veterans by offering up the white farms, but in the end, although the vets were the ones who expelled the white farmers, it is the country's elites who got the farms. Zimbabwe's troops are thought to have withdrawn from the Congo in September of last year, but the consequences of the war are more durable.

In addition to unleashing the war veterans as a powerful political force, the Congo war consumed vast sums of money that would have been better spent on medicine for the country's dying people.

Zimbabwe's only real surplus is HIV, which has infected a third of the population, causing life expectancy to drop from fifty-six years in the early seventies to a deeply distressing thirty-five years today.

In Mugabe's government actually did something that no other African government had tried: it introduced an "AIDS levy"—a three percent tax on every Zimbabwean's salary, which was to be used to fund AIDS prevention and treatment. Predictably, most of the money disappeared. AIDS illnesses and deaths, in turn, further wreck the economy, reducing the number of communal farmers who can produce in the countryside, and forcing factories and mines to hire almost twice as many workers to secure the same amount of labor.

Zimbabwe's neighbors have begun to treat patients with anti-retrovirals, but Mugabe can't afford the drugs. We say 'go buy' and 'go buy,' but it is just cruel theater. White commercial production was promoted on the back of the destruction of African peasant production. This wanton undercutting of African peasant production marked the beginning of the underdevelopment of African reserves in Rhodesia and the forcible proletarianisation of the African.

From the above, it is clesr that in colonial Zimbabwe, land dispossession immediately followed colonisation. As early as , a Land Commission was appointed while the first two reserves, the arid Gwai and Shangani, were set aside for the Ndebele.

And when the Great Depression hit the fledgling settler economy, the settler government intervened by introducing a raft of legislation like the Maize Control Act, Cattle Levy Act, Reserve Pool Act, Market Stabilisation Act, among others, all of which had the effect of restricting African peasant production and forcing Africans to partake in the wage labour market. This inevitably resulted in a drop in African agricultural production which the settler government, however, blamed on poor African farming methods rather than land shortage and restrictive policies.

African responses to these early forms of exploitation and oppression ranged from outright resistance and acquiescence to adopting and adapting Christian ideologies and use of petitions for the return of Ndebele land alienated by the settlers.

A significant phenomenon was also the formation of African churches that broke away from the orthodox Christian churches to ameliorate the impact of colonialism.

The Second World War fundamentally changed the relationship between the colonizers and the colonized. In Southern Rhodesia, s of Africans actively participated in the fighting, both on the war front and back home through production of foodstuffs and various minerals essential to the war effort. On the war front, Africans fought side by side and on equal terms with whites. They came face to face with shortcomings of the white man which debunked the notions of white invincibility and superiority.

Quite significantly, the African was exposed to contemporary thoughts and ideas on self-determination and equality. Post Second World War Zimbabwe thus experienced far-reaching economic, social and political changes marked by a gradual process of transformation in the political consciousness of Africans characterized by a change from the earlier position of requesting for fairness and accommodation in the governing structures from whites to that of seeking self rule.

The colonial state responded to the economic challenges posed by the Second World War by adopting specific economic policies and strategies that resulted in a relatively rapid growth of the manufacturing sector. However, this overall industrial expansion was limited in scale as the country only had industrial establishments employing a total of 20 black workers.

A more fundamental development though was the large influx of white immigrants into the country in the immediate post war years, boosting the settler population and providing the economy with much needed skilled labour and a larger domestic market. However, white immigration had the significant effect of fuelling inter-racial tensions which hastened the rise of militant African nationalism.

An equally significant development was that the emerging manufacturing sector demanded a larger permanent urban based worker resevoir, hence policies that further pushed over Africans off the land into the cities.

The post Second World War era also witnessed a significant rise of an African middle class of educated African professionals such as teachers, nurses, lawyers and entrepreneurs. The tensions emerging from the interaction of these groups meant that the anti-colonial struggles took different and sometimes conflicting forms as each social grouping, namely alien and indigenous urban workers, the rural population and the emerging middle class, sought to advance its peculiar interests.

Similarly, differences also existed within the dominant white settler community. The whites who had been in the country for a long time wanted to maintain the status quo of exclusive white domination while the post war immigrants tended to have liberal political views and attitudes towards Africans whom they felt had to be accommodated to avert the growth and threat of militant African nationalism.

Accusations of partiality to Africans cost Garfield Todd the premiership in , effectively marking the end of liberal tendencies and the ascendancy of exclusionist right-wing policies that resulted in the formation of the Rhodesia Front in , the party that was to unilaterally declare independence in The early African initiatives for the amelioration of the colonial conditions have been described by some scholars as proto-nationalist as they were targeted at encouraging the colonial authorities to provide a more tolerant and accommodating socio-political and economic dispensation and not at overthrowing colonialism.

African political activity in this period manifested itself mainly in trade unionism. Mopore strikes were experienced throughout the country over these years. Other manifestations of African protest were the revival of the Southern Rhodesia Bantu Congress as the Southern Rhodesia African Native Congress, the Voters League and the creation of the African Methodist Church which was an African protest against both white religious and political domination.

Students also expressed their disgruntlement through strikes, like the famous Dadaya Mission strike in This was, however, overshadowed by the incidents in which several women were raped at Carter House in harari Township Mbare as punishment for breaking the strike, revealing the gender tensions in the urban African communities at the time. While black women participated with their male counterparts in the anti-colonial struggle, they also had to deal with patriarchy.

The birth of the City Youth League and subsequent nationalist parties at this time has to be seen in the context of the quickening pace of African nationalism in the post-Second World War era which resulted in the landmark and inspirational independence of Ghana in In February , the colonial government of Rhodesia declared a state of emergency and banned the ANC under the newly created Unlawful Organisations Act.

Party assets were confisticated while over political leaders were arrested. A landmark demand by the NDP was majority rule under universal suffrage.

The party was however soon riddled with serious divisions of an ethnic nature resulting in its split in when a new party, the Zimbabwe African National Union ZANU , was formed under Ndabaningi Sithole.

In the meantime, the white community was also experiencing serious divisions. These moves were heavily criticized by conservative whites who were against any concessions to African nationalism.

These conservatives were influenced by the need to protect their racial economic interests. Failing to gain independence from the British, Smith opted for a unilateral declaration of independence UDI on 11 November, , setting the Rhodesian white community on a collision course with the black African majority.

Social and economic developments in Rhodesia during the UDI period. This goal clashed with the long held aspirations of the generality of the white section of Rhodesian society to safeguard its privileged position. The political struggles of the period, often crossing the racial divide, were mainly about the social and economic interests of the various groups that formed the Rhodesian society.

Notwithstanding the efforts of the RF government to create a sense of nationhood among whites, Rhodesian white society was divided along class and economic interests, among other variables. As the conflict intensified, some members of the white population were, by the mids, preaching a different gospel from that of the RF, admitting that majority rule was inevitable.

At the same time, a number of Africans had, for economic and other reasons, defended white settler hegemony as soldiers in the Rhodesian army, Selous Scouts and policemen.

The RF government put in place several measures as part of efforts to cushion white society in the wake of sanctions imposed on the country following the UDI. Although these measures were, in the short term, successful, the success was not without its own costs.

By the mids, a combination of factors, chief of which was the intensifying civil war, resulted in an economic decline that adversely affected the many facets of Rhodesian society. It marks how the crisis in Rhodesia escalated as opposition to white rule became increasingly militant. In , Mugabe suffered a narrow defeat in the first round of a presidential election but subsequently won the run-off election in a landslide after his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew; Mugabe then entered a power-sharing deal with Tsvangirai as well as Arthur Mutambara of the MDC-T and MDC-M opposition party.

In , the Election Commission said Mugabe won his seventh term as President, defeating Tsvangirai with 61 percent of the vote in a disputed election in which there were numerous accounts of electoral fraud. Robert Mugabe: Prime Minister Mugabe in At the time of his election victory, Mugabe was widely acclaimed as a revolutionary hero who was embracing racial reconciliation.

They are standing up for their rights, and we must stand with them. Please join us as we stand in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle for peace, justice and freedom. According to human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the government of Zimbabwe violates the rights to shelter, food, freedom of movement and residence, freedom of assembly, and the protection of the law.

There have been alleged assaults on the media, the political opposition, civil society activists, and human rights defenders. The downward spiral of the economy has been attributed mainly to mismanagement and corruption by the government and the eviction of more than 4, white farmers in the controversial land confiscations of The Zimbabwean government and its supporters attest that Western policies to avenge the expulsion of their kin sabotaged the economy.

By , the living standards in Zimbabwe had declined from Life expectancy was reduced, average wages were lower, and unemployment had trebled. Amid growing internal opposition to his government, he remained determined to stay in power. He revived the regular use of revolutionary rhetoric and sought to reassert his credentials as an important revolutionary leader.

Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Post-Colonial Africa. Search for:. The Unilateral Declaration of Independence In , the conservative white minority government in Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom, but did not achieve internationally recognized sovereignty until as Zimbabwe.

The Mutapa Kingdom was established around when, Nyatsimba Mutota, a prince of Great Zimbabwe made the journey north, either to secure further trade routes from Arab-Swahili influence, or to acquire salt deposits according to other sources. His capital was Zvangombe, close to the Zambezi River.

The rulers who came after him also used the Monomutapa title and they conquered other lands and peoples, expanding the Kingdom. Monomotapa is a Portuguese conversion of the title Mwenemutapa Owner of the conquered land , and Mutapa meaning Territory. The title, Monomotapa came to be applied to the kingdom as a whole, and was used to indicate its territory on maps of the period. Mutota's successor was Monomutapa Matope Nyanhehwe Nebedza. He extended this new kingdom into an empire encompassing most of the lands between Tavara, through what is now North Central Mozambique up to the Indian Ocean.

The Monomutapa became very wealthy through copper and ivory exploits. Although some historians argue that much of the power of the royalty was because of their monopoly on trade, while others dispute the very idea that the Kings of Mutapa ever had a monopoly on trade. As a result of the great wealth and their large standing army, the Mutapa kingdom subjegated the kingdom of Manyika, the whole of the Dande area and the coastal kingdoms of Kiteve and Madanda. By the time the Portuguese arrived on the coast of Mozambique, the Mutapa Kingdom was the premier Shona state in the region.

The arrival of the Portuguese had a significant effect on the Mutapa Kingdom however. Relations ranged from one of allies to that of Mutapa being a Portuguese vassal. The Portuguese would weaken the Mutapa Kingdom by pitting different claimants to the kingship against each other and thus creating instability in the Mutapa state.

In the Mutapa Makombwe became king of the Mutapa Kingdom. In after extensive warfare he managed to drive the Portuguese out of their fortresses and farms in the coastal interior. This severely weakened the power and influence of the Portuguese in the area. The conflicts with the Portuguese had weakened the Mutapa state as well, however, and a new and powerful Kingdom the Rozvi was emerging from the South-western part of the Zimbabwean plateau. This new and rapidly Kingdom would be the final nail in the coffin for the Mutapa state.

The Torwa Kingdom was established by the Torwa royal dynasty in the s as a result of a civil war between different royal dynasties in the area around Great Zimbabwe. It was one of the two successor states to the Kingdom of Zimbabwe the other being the Mutapa Kingdom.

As a result of the internal strife and succession struggles the Torwa fled southwards and settled in Guruhuswa region. They settled in around the capital city of Khami. Khami, much like Great Zimbabwe, would emerge as a centre of trade where gold and ivory was traded for glass beads, china and other goods from Asia and Europe. The leadership structure of the Torwa was that any descendant of the King could succeed to the throne. This created a an unstable ruling system, and in the Torwa split in two during a civil war.

The split caused the capital of Khami to be abandoned, and a new capital was established in Danangombe. At the end of the between and a cattle owner in the Mutapa Kingdom, Changamire Dombo, put together an army and rebelled against the Mwami Mutapa King of Mutapa. Dombo would attack Portuguese merchants and raid the Mutapa Kingdom as well. He then set up a Kingdom in the area previously controlled by the Torwa dynasty who were severly weakened by internal conflict , and made the recently established Danangombe the capital of the new Rozvi Kingdom.

With the establishment of his Kingdom Changamire Dombo moved his army north and counqured the central parts of the Mutapa Kingdom, reducing the latter to a small chieftancy west of Tete. In and in he won a victory against the Portuguese in the battle of Mahungwe and the battle of Dambarare, when the colonial power attempted to take control of gold mines in the interior of Zimbabwe.

By , Changamire Dombo's new Kingdom had replaced the Mutapa as the supreme kingdom in the region. After the death of Changamire Dombo that same year his successors would take up the title Mambo. The Rozvi Kingdom at its greatest extent. Source: S. Page The succession of the Rozvi Kingdom was organised in a manner so that the eldest brother to the King would become the next Mambo.

Although there were exceptions to the rule, Changamire Dombo was for example succeeded by his son. It is thought that the strict guidelines for succession laws were one of the reasons why the Rozvi Kingdom had a greater internal stability than the Torwa dynasty and Mutapa Kingdom which were both riddled with succession struggles.

The Mambo had a lot of authority, but he would also have to rule with the guidance and approval of his council, the Dare. In addition to this there existed a hereditary duty of the dynasty of Tambare, a noble family of settling electing a ruler when there was no clear heir, and to collect tribute. The Tambare would be a check on both the excesses and power abuses of the Kings. A prominent factor in the success of the Rozvi Kingdom was the establishment of a large and well organised standing army.

The army could muster up thousands of men, and could sustain heavy losses while still continuing to be operational. The army would be organised into different regiments, each with their own commander. The Rozvi could field an array of different weapons such as spears, axes, clubs, bows, and sometimes guns. The army fought in formations which resembled those of Shaka Zulu, and they are said to have favoured close combat.

The army made sure all vassal chiefs paid tribute and stayed loyal. Through collusion with religious authorities called Mwari cults the Kings of Rozvi kept control of their population and gained legitimacy through being seen as blessed by the gods. By the early s the Rozvi Kingdom had been severely weakened. The conflicts, migrations and political upheaval known as the Mfecane was destabilising the whole region at the time and the Rozvi Kingdom was not ready to withstand the external pressures.

By this time the Mwari cult and the royal dynasty were in conflict, which threatened the legitimacy of the King, and civil wars within the dynasty itself had depleted the once powerful Rozwi military. There were several different peoples who migrated through Rozwi lands.

Last of the migrating peoples to the area was the Ndebele people who arrived in under the leadership of Gundwane. They settled in the south-western parts of present-day Zimbabwe.

The Rozwi and the Ndebele were intermittently in conflict, but both Kingdoms existed for another 20 years. Many Shona people from the Rozwi Kingdom would settle in Ndebele villages over these years.

The struggle between the Ndebele and Rozwi was both militaristic and economic. The Ndebele had raided much cattle since they had settled in the area and the Rozwi had lost most of their cattle due the many raids in the early s. The Rozwi needed cattle and the Ndebele needed people.

As a result of this many young people from the Rozwi Kingdom moved to Ndebele lands and came to work for them in exchange for cattle. This exchange of cattle and people helped spread the Ndebele influence in the area. By this point the Rozwi ruling dynasty had retreated to the hills in the east, and they could not hold on to power long. The only choice was to fight back. The Rozwi dynasty attacked the Ndebele and a struggle ensued from to The war was a disaster for the Rozwi and in they surrendered to the Ndebele.

They migrated into present-day Zimbabwe during the Mfecane around The first leader of the Ndebele in Zimbabwe was Gundwane, but his dynasty did not last long.

The Ndebele was plagued by infighting after his death which halted their expansion in the s. After the death of Gundwane, another group of Ndebele entered the area under Mzilikazi Khumalo, who would quickly seize power over the local Ndebele people. From to was a period in which the Ndebele focused on nation building and consolidating previous gains.

This process was led by Mzilikazi and reached the Ndebele in Zimbabwe by the s. Mzilikazi is thought to have been born around in contemporary South Africa.

He was the leader of the Khumalo clan and served under Shaka Zulu until they had a falling out at around He fled north after this and came to contemporary Zimbabwe where he seized power over the Ndebele there from Gundawe in Mzilikazi then began to conquer the various peoples and villages surrounding his Kingdom. Despite coming as conquerors and raiders the Ndebele would adopt many of the local customs and many of the local people already living in the area would assimilate into Ndebele villages.

Some did this as explained above through the economic pressure due to a lack of cattle outside of the Ndebele state. One of the traditions which was the Ndebele took on was the Mwari cult. By the once powerful Rozwi Kingdom had completely surrendered to the Ndebele. Mzilikazi died in and in the succession crisis from which followed his son Lobengula became the new King. Some historians argue that Lobengula needed the Mwari cult and the legitimacy they provided for his ascension to power.

In the Ndebele was a consolidated state and at the height of their power. He needed this legitimacy as he did not have the legitimacy as a conqueror which his father enjoyed.

The power of the Ndebele Kings were also reliant on the distribution of cattle and materials in exchange for services. This created a complex client-patron relationship between the people and the ruling elite. Land was not owned by anyone, but simply distributed by the King to anyone who needed it at the time.

Cattle on the other hand was guided by two modes of ownership, one was communal and one was private. King Lobengula son of Mzilikazi.