Difference between revisions of "Zimbabwe" - New World Encyclopedia

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Revision as of 16:58, 11 January 2007

Republic of Zimbabwe
Flag of Zimbabwe Coat of Arms of Zimbabwe
Motto: Unity, Freedom, Work
Anthem: Simudzai Mureza Wedu weZimbabwe (Shona) or Kalibusiswe Ilizwe leZimbabwe (Ndebele) ("Blessed be the land of Zimbabwe")
Location of Zimbabwe
Capital
(and largest city) 		Harare
17°50′S 31°03′E
Official languages English
Government Parliamentary Democracy
Independence
 -  Rhodesia November 11, 1965 
 -  Zimbabwe April 18, 1980 
Area
 -  Total 390,757 km² (60th)
150,871 sq mi 
 -  Water (%) 1
Population
 -  July 2005 estimate 13,010,000* (68th)
GDP (PPP) 2005 estimate
 -  Total $30.581 billion (94th)
 -  Per capita $2,607 (129th)
Currency Dollar (ZWD)
Time zone CAT (UTC+2)
 -  Summer (DST) not observed (UTC+2)
Internet TLD .zw
Calling code +263
* Note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS.

Zimbabwe , officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in the southern part of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. The name Zimbabwe derives from "dzimba dzemabwe" meaning "houses of stone" in the Shona language.[1] Its use as the country's name is a tribute to Great Zimbabwe, site of the capital of the Munhumutapa Empire.

History

The precolonial era

Part of Great Zimbabwe

Iron Age Bantu-speaking peoples began migrating into the area about 2,000 years ago, including the ancestors of the Shona, who account for roughly four-fifths of the country's population today. Ruins at Great Zimbabwe, a Shona-speaking state, attest the existence of a medieval Bantu civilization in the region. Linked to the establishment of trade ties with Muslim merchants on the Indian Ocean coast around the early tenth century C.E., Great Zimbabwe began to develop in the eleventh century. The state traded gold, ivory, and copper for cloth and glass. It ceased being the leading Shona state in the mid-fifteenth century.

In 1837 the Shona were conquered by the Ndebele, who forced them to pay tribute. Later in the nineteenth century British and Boer traders, missionaries, and hunters began encroaching on the area.

Colonialization

In 1888 British imperialist Cecil Rhodes extracted mining rights from King Lobengula of the Ndebele. In 1889 Rhodes obtained a charter for the British South Africa Company, which conquered the Ndebele and their territory (named "Rhodesia" in 1895 after Cecil Rhodes) and promoted the colonization of the region and its land, labor, and precious metal and mineral resources. This was the beginning of forced removal of Africans from land considered to be for whites only. The black majority were forced to move to poor lands for farming. Cecil Rhodes created the land issue problem in Zimbabwe. Both the Ndebele and the Shona staged unsuccessful revolts against white colonialist encroachment on their native lands in 1896-1897.

In 1911 the territory was divided into Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia, the latter becoming a self-governing British colony in 1922. In 1953 the two parts of Rhodesia were reunited in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and after its dissolution in 1963 the whites demanded independence from Southern Rhodesia (Rhodesia from 1964).

Civil war

As African-majority governments were assuming control in neighboring Northern Rhodesia and in Nyasaland, the white-minority government, led by Ian Smith, declared unilateral independence on November 11, 1965. The United Kingdom called the declaration an act of rebellion but did not reestablish control by force. When negotiations in 1966 and 1968 proved fruitless, the UK requested UN economic sanctions against Rhodesia. The white-minority regime declared itself a republic in 1970. It was not recognized by the UK or by any other state.

As guerrilla activities fighting minority rule intensified, the Smith regime opened negotiations with the leaders of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), led by Joshua Nkomo, and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), led by Robert Mugabe. With his regime near the brink of collapse, Smith in March 1978 signed a desperate accord with three black leaders who offered safeguards for whites headed by Bishop Abel Muzorewa.

Muzorewa, who not only had the support of Smith and the USA but with the white-minority regime in South Africa as well, lacked credibility among significant sectors of the African population. The Muzorewa government soon faltered. In 1979 the British Government asked all parties to come to Lancaster House in an attempt to negotiate a settlement in the civil war. Ian Smith and his political party, the Rhodesian Front, took part in the all races elections, but lost badly to the Patriotic Front (ZANU and ZAPU) party.

Independence

Following the conference, held in London (1979-80), Britain's Lord Soames was appointed governor to oversee the disarming of revolutionary guerrillas, the holding of elections, and the granting of independence to an uneasy coalition government with Joshua Nkomo. In the free elections of February 1980, Mugabe and ZANU won a landslide victory. Mugabe has won every reelection ever since.

A second civil war then erupted in 1982, mostly in the Matabeleland North and South provinces, until about 1987. This war was between the military wing of ZAPU and the newly elected Zimbabwean government. To suppress supporters of the military wing of ZAPU the Zimbabwean government then engaged in the systematic genocide of between 20,000 and 30,000 Ndebele people between 1982 and 1987 (according to Amnesty International estimates, the actual number of people murdered by Robert Mugabe and his government will probably never be reliably established). A peace accord was negotiated in 1987, resulting in ZAPU's merger (1988) into the ZANU-PF.

The drought in southern Africa, perhaps the worst of the century, affected Zimbabwe so severely that a national disaster was declared in 1992. The drought compounded the country's debt crisis.

Despite majority rule, whites made up less than 1 percent of the population but held 70 percent of the country's commercially viable arable land. Land redistribution reemerged as the vital issue beginning in 1999. In the aftermath of Mugabe's handling of the land reform, which involved the (often violent) seizure of land from various white property owners and its redistribution to blacks, Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations on charges of human rights abuses and of election tampering in 2002. Later, Zimbabwe withdrew from the Commonwealth. The compulsory land redistribution program in 2000 led to a sharp decline in agricultural exports, traditionally one of the country's leading export-producing sectors. As a result, Zimbabwe is currently experiencing a severe hard currency shortage, which has led to hyperinflation and chronic shortages in imported fuel and consumer goods. In late 2006, the government announced it would temporarily stop issuing passports, as it could no longer afford the special paper used. Marriage certificates are also critically short in supply.[2]

Following elections in 2005, the government initiated "Operation Murambatsvina" in a crackdown on illegal markets and homes that had seen slums emerge in towns and cities. This action has been widely condemned by opposition and international figures, who charge that it has left a large section of the urban poor homeless. The Zimbabwe government has described the operation as an attempt to provide decent housing to the population. Most Southern African countries, including South Africa and Zambia, have come out in support of the Zimbabwe cleanup, and both Zambia and South Africa plan to conduct cleanups in the near future.

Zimbabwe's current economic and food crisis, described by some observers as the country's worst humanitarian crisis since independence, has been attributed, in varying degrees, to a drought affecting the entire region, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the government's price controls and land reforms.[3]. Zimbabwe now has the largest condom usage in the world. The decline is attributed to education of the Zimbabwean masses on HIV/AIDS.

Politics

Zimbabwe is a republic with an executive president and a bicameral Parliament. Under constitutional changes in 2005, an upper chamber, the Senate, was reinstated. The House of Assembly is the lower chamber of Parliament.

The major opposition party at the moment is the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, led by Morgan Tsvangirai. As of 2005, the MDC was split into two factions. One faction, led by Welshman Ncube, is contesting the elections to the Senate, while the other, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, is opposed to contesting the elections, stating that participation in a rigged election is tantamount to endorsing Mugabe's claim that elections in Zimbabwe are completely free and fair. The elections were observed by the Southern African Development Community and African Union, which pronounced that the Senate elections in Zimbabwe were free and fair. The two MDC camps had their congresses earlier this year with Tsvangirai being elected to lead the main splinter group, which has become more popular than the other group. Professor Arthur G.O Mutambara, a former NASA robotics specialist, has been appointed to replace Welshman Ncube. The Mutambara faction has however been weakened by defections from MPs and individuals who are disillusioned by their manifesto. To date the Tsvangirai led MDC has become the most popular with crowds as large as 20,000 attending their rallies as compared to between 500–5,000 for the other splinter group. But political observers in Southern Africa doubt if the two MDCs can be effective or convince the majority of Zimbabweans. The Tsvangirai MDC lost the rural vote by wide margins, leading some to doubt its ability to win rural voters who constitute 70 percent of the Zimbabwean population.

In 2004 Zimbabwe jailed 62 black mercenaries from Pomfret, South Africa for one year for suspected involvement in a plot to overthrow the government of Guinea.[4]

The 2005 Zimbabwe parliamentary elections were held on March 31. While the African Union and SADC countries reported no major irregularities, opposition figures such as Archbishop Pius Ncube have made claims of vote rigging. [5]

Education

Zimbabwe had a literacy rate of 95.2 percent in 2000, the highest in Africa. Zimbabweans generally value and pursue academic achievement; for example, Robert Mugabe, the president, has four non-honorary degrees and the cabinet has several graduates at PhD level or higher. For males, the country's adult literacy rate (the percentage of persons aged 15 and over who can read and write) is 97 percent. Comparison with other SADC countries in 2004 is as follows: South Africa, 86 percent, Zambia, 79.9 percent, Swaziland, 80.9 percent, Namibia, 83.3 percent, Lesotho, 81.4%, Botswana, 78.9%, Tanzania, 77.1%, Malawi, 61.8%, Mozambique, 46.5%. [6] [7] [8]. Recent international student count from Africa show that Zimbabwe has the third largest student population in the USA, behind Ghana and Nigeria. Zimbabwe with its highly educated professionals has provided a number of professional services to its neighbors.

Administrative divisions

Administrative divisions of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe is divided into eight provinces and two cities with provincial status. The provinces are subdivided into 59 districts and 1,200 municipalities.

Geography

File:Zimbabwe sat.png
Satellite image of Zimbabwe, generated from raster graphics data supplied by The Map Library
Bridal Veil Falls, Eastern Highlands

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country, surrounded by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the west, Zambia to the northwest, and Mozambique to the east and northeast. The northwestern border is defined by the Zambezi River. Victoria Falls is a popular tourist destination on the Zambezi. To the south, Zimbabwe is separated from South Africa by the Limpopo River. Zimbabwe also shares a narrow border with Namibia to the west via a narrow land corridor.

Economy

The government of Zimbabwe faces a wide variety of difficult economic problems after having abandoned earlier efforts in developing a market-oriented economy. Current problems include a shortage of foreign exchange, soaring inflation, and supply shortages. Economic sanctions from UK, EU and USA have also contributed to a shortage of foreign currency. Its 1998–2002 involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for example, drained hundreds of millions of dollars from the economy. Today Zimbabwe is given credit for helping stabilize the DRC and great lakes region states.

According to official figures, inflation rose from an annual rate of 32 percent in 1998 to a high of approximately 1100 percent in August 2006, a state of hyperinflation. The exchange rate fell from 24 Zimbabwean dollars per US dollar to 250 Zimbabwean dollars per US dollar (official rate) and 850 Zimbabwean dollars per US dollar (parallel rate), in the same period.

Demographics & ethnicity

According to the World Health Organization, the life expectancy for men is 37 years and the life expectancy for women is 34 years of age, the lowest in the world in 2006. The Zimbabwean government does not accept the projected ages by the UN[9] An association of doctors in Zimbabwe have made calls for President Mugabe to make moves to assist the ailing health service.[10]

Zimbabwe has a very high HIV infection rate. In 2001, it was measured at its highest level ever of 33.7 percent for people aged 15 to 49. Subsequent figures from the Zimbabwean government show an apparent decrease, down to about 18 percent. Critics questioned the veracity of the reduction but figures reported by UNAID; BBC, the UN and Cambridge University have confirmed the reduction in HIV/AIDS: to 20.1 percent for people aged 15 to 49.[11]

Zimbabwe on October 3, 2006, launched the world's first official HIV/AIDS Toolkit, which forms the basis for a global AIDS prevention, treatment, and support plan. The country was chosen to test it because of its excellence in initiating different strategies on home based care. It has managed to reduce its HIV/AIDS prevalence rate from 20.1 percent (2005) to 18.1 percent (2006). Zimbabwe continues to show innovative methods of reducing the incident of HIV/AIDS incidents[12]


Ethnic groups (2005 Est.):

(The black ethnic groups total 98 percent of the population.)
  • Shona 80-84 percent. The ruling party is linked to the Shona ethnic majority, as are the opposition parties. Both minority ethnic minorities and the often critical white minorities are members of both ZANU-PF and the opposition.
  • Ndebele 8-10 percent. Up to 1 million Ndebele may have left the country, mainly for South Africa, over the last five years. The Ndebele are descended from Zulu migrations in the nineteenth century and the other tribes with which they mixed. Support for the opposition is particularly strong among the Ndebele. In the early years after independence Mugabe ordered a massacre of all Ndebele-speaking people. This was dubbed Gukurahundi (meaning a rain that washes the chaff after a dry season). The genocide resulted in the death of over 100,000 Ndebele people. The unrest of the Ndebele people is still ongoing in Zimbabwe.
  • Bantus of other ethnicity 8-10 percent.
  • White Zimbabweans Currently less than 1 percent. These are mostly of British origin, but some are of Afrikaaner, Portuguese, or Dutch origin. The white population dropped from a peak of 275,000 in 1970 to possibly 120,000 in 1999, and was estimated at little more than 60,000 in 2006. Recently emigration has been slowing due to a ceasing of land seizures. Much emigration has been to the UK, South Africa, Zambia, and Australia. White Zimbabweans privately refer to their ethnic group as "Rhodesian".
  • Mixed Race 0.5 percent.
  • Asian ethnic groups (various) 0.5 percent. Mostly Indian and Chinese.

Culture

Zimbabwe has many different cultures, one of them being Shona. The Shona people have many sculptures and carvings of gods which are made with the finest materials available.

Football, rugby and cricket are popular sports in Zimbabwe. The national rugby team played at the Rugby World Cup in 1987 and 1991. The national rugby sevens team has also had success.

Arts

Traditional arts in Zimbabwe include pottery, basketry, textiles, jewelry, and carving. Among the distinctive qualities are symmetrically patterned woven baskets and stools carved out of a single piece of wood. Shona sculpture in essence has been a fusion of African folklore with European influences. Also, a recurring theme in Zimbabwean art is the metamorphosis of man into beast. Zimbabwe sculptors have exbited the art at all the major art galaries of Europe. Zimbabwe stone sculptors have sold their work for as much as $500,000. Their work has become recognized recently in the United States.

Religion

There are various forms of spiritual practice in Zimbabwe. Forty to fifty percent of Zimbabweans attend Christian churches. However, like most former European colonies, Christianity is often mixed with enduring traditional beliefs. Besides Christianity, the Mwari is the most practiced non-Christian religion, which involves ancestor worship and spiritual intercession; the Mbira Dza Vadzimu, which means "Voice of the Ancestors", an instrument related to many lamellaphones ubiquitous throughout Africa, is central to many ceremonial proceedings. Mwari is an unknown supreme being that communicates with humans through cave-dwelling oracles known as the Voice of Mwari[citation needed]. One percent of the population is Muslim.

Zimbabwe, like most African countries, has experienced a so-called Christian revival and sends its citizens to minister in the USA and Europe. Zimbabweans can be found in UK leading churches with different racial groups. This is a major revisal from colonial times when UK sent its Anglican ministers and bishops.

Language

English is the official language of Zimbabwe, though only 2 percent consider it their native language, mainly the white and Coloured (mixed race) minorities. The rest of the population speak Bantu languages like Shona (76 percent) and Ndebele (18 percent). Shona has a rich oral tradition, which was incorporated into the first Shona novel, Feso, by Solomon Mutswairo, published in 1957. English is spoken primarily in the cities, but less so in rural areas. The end of colonial rule has led to more emphasis on Bantu languages. Today radio and TV use them extensively. However, most Zimbabweans do speak English.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle, Into Africa: A Journey through the Ancient Empires, Key Porter Books, Toronto, Canada, 1997. ISBN 1550138847


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  1. ↑ http://www.history.und.ac.za/ebe1mhm/zimbabwe.htm Zimbabwe at History Department of UKZN] www.history.und.ac.za (accessed 03 April 2006)
  2. ↑ "ZIMBABWE: No legal way out", IRIN, 7 December 2006
  3. ↑ "Crisis profile: Zimbabwe's humanitarian situation"(26 July 2005) Reuters Foundation AlertNet
  4. ↑ South Africa - Dogs of War Head Home – But They'll Find It's Gone. Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  5. ↑ Robert Mugabe is poised to rig a general election once again (March 23, 2005) www.economist.com (accessed April 3, 2006)
  6. ↑ UNICEF Statistics www.unicef.org (accessed 03 April 2006)
  7. ↑ BOTSWANA LITERACY SURVEY: 2003 www.cso.gov.bw (accessed 03 April 2006)
  8. ↑ Zimbabwe Country Assistance Evaluation (Document of the World Bank) PDF, (accessed 03 April 2006)
  9. ↑ The World Health Organization. "Annex Table 1 - Basic indicators for all Member States", The World Health Report 2006. 
  10. ↑ Peta Thornycroft. "In Zimbabwe, life ends before 40", Sydney Morning Herald, 2006-04-10. Retrieved 2006-04-10.
  11. ↑ "Zimbabwe HIV infection rate drops location = Harare", BBC News, 2005-10-10. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
  12. ↑ Mu Xuequan. "Zimbabwe launches world's first AIDS training package", Xinhua, 2006-10-03. Retrieved 2006-10-03.
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