Other large
cities: Bulawayo, 965,000; Chitungwiza, 411,700
Monetary unit: Zimbabwean dollar
Languages: English (official), Shona, Ndebele (Sindebele), numerous minor tribal
dialects
Ethnicity/race: African 98% (Shona 82%, Ndebele 14%, other 2%), mixed and Asian 1%,
white less than 1%
Religions: syncretic (part Christian, part indigenous beliefs) 50%, Christian
25%, indigenous beliefs 24%, Muslim and other 1%
Literacy rate: 91% (2003 est.)
Economic summary:GDP/PPP (2006 est.):
$25.36 billion; per capita $ $2,100. Real growth rate:
–4%. Inflation: 976.4% official data; private sector
estimates are much higher (yearend 2006 est.). Unemployment:
80%. Arable land: 8%. Agriculture: corn, cotton,
tobacco, wheat, coffee, sugarcane, peanuts; sheep, goats, pigs.
Labor force: 3.96 million; agriculture 66%, services 24%,
industry 10% (1996). Industries: mining (coal, gold, platinum,
copper, nickel, tin, clay, numerous metallic and nonmetallic ores),
steel; wood products, cement, chemicals, fertilizer, clothing and
footwear, foodstuffs, beverages. Natural resources: coal,
chromium ore, asbestos, gold, nickel, copper, iron ore, vanadium,
lithium, tin, platinum group metals. Exports: $1.766 billion
f.o.b. (2006 est.): cotton, tobacco, gold, ferroalloys,
textiles/clothing. Imports: $2.055 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.):
machinery and transport equipment, other manufactures, chemicals,
fuels. Major trading partners: South Africa, Switzerland, UK,
China, Germany, Botswana (2004).
Communications: Telephones: main lines in
use: 331,700 (2006); mobile cellular: 832,500 (2006). Radio
broadcast stations: AM 7, FM 20 (plus 17 repeater stations),
shortwave 1 (1998). Radios: 1.14 million (1997). Television
broadcast stations: 16 (1997). Televisions: 370,000 (1997).
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 6 (2000). Internet
users: 1 million (2005).
Transportation: Railways: total: 3,077 km (2002). Highways:
total: 97,440 km ; paved: 18,514 km ; unpaved: 78,926 km (2002 est.).
Waterways: the Mazoe and Zambezi rivers are used for
transporting chrome ore from Harare to Mozambique. Ports and
harbors: Binga, Kariba. Airports: 430 (2002) .
International disputes:dormant
dispute remains where Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
boundaries converge.
Zimbabwe, a
landlocked country in south-central Africa, is slightly smaller than
California. It is bordered by Botswana on the west, Zambia on the north,
Mozambique on the east, and South Africa on the south.
Government
Parliamentary democracy.
History
The remains of early
humans, dating back 500,000 years, have been discovered in present-day
Zimbabwe. The land's earliest settlers, the Khoisan, date back to 200 B.C. After a period of Bantu domination, the Shona
people ruled, followed by the Nguni and Zulu peoples. By the mid-19th
century the descendants of the Nguni and Zulu, the Ndebele, had established
a powerful warrior kingdom.
The first British explorers, colonists,
and missionaries arrived in the 1850s, and the massive influx of foreigners
led to the establishment of the territory Rhodesia, named after Cecil Rhodes
of the British South Africa Company. In 1923, European settlers voted to
become the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia. After a brief
federation with Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi) in
the post–World War II period, Southern Rhodesia (also known as
Rhodesia) chose to remain a colony when its two partners voted for
independence in 1963.
On Nov. 11, 1965, the conservative
white-minority government of Rhodesia declared its independence from
Britain. The country resisted the demands of black Africans, and Prime
Minister Ian Smith withstood British pressure, economic sanctions, and
guerrilla attacks in his effort to uphold white supremacy. On March 1, 1970,
Rhodesia formally proclaimed itself a republic. Heightened guerrilla war and
a withdrawal of South African military aid in 1976 marked the beginning of
the collapse of Smith's 11 years of resistance.
Black nationalist
movements were led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa of the African National Congress
and Ndabaningi Sithole, who were moderates, and guerrilla leaders Robert
Mugabe of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and Joshua Nkomo of the
Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), who advocated revolution.
On
March 3, 1978, Smith, Muzorewa, Sithole, and Chief Jeremiah Chirau signed an
agreement to transfer power to the black majority by Dec. 31, 1978. They
formed an executive council, with chairmanship rotating but with Smith
retaining the title of prime minister. Blacks were named to each cabinet
ministry, serving as coministers with the whites already holding these
posts. African nations and rebel leaders immediately denounced the action,
but Western governments were more reserved, although none granted
recognition to the new regime.
The white minority finally consented
to hold multiracial elections in 1980, and Robert Mugabe won a landslide
victory. The country achieved independence on April 17, 1980, under the name
Zimbabwe. Mugabe eventually established a one-party socialist state, but by
1990 he had instituted multiparty elections and in 1991 deleted all
references to Marxism-Leninism and scientific socialism from the
constitution. Parliamentary elections in April 1995 gave Mugabe's party a
stunning victory with 63 of the 65 contested seats, and in 1996 Mugabe won
another six-year term as president.
In 2000, veterans of Zimbabwe's
war for independence in the 1970s began squatting on land owned by white
farmers in an effort to reclaim land taken under British
colonization—one-third of Zimbabwe's arable land was owned by 4,000
whites. In Aug. 2002, Mugabe ordered all white commercial farmers to leave
their land without compensation. Mugabe's support for the squatters and his
repressive rule has led to foreign sanctions against Zimbabwe. Once heralded
as a champion of the anticolonial movement, Mugabe is now viewed by much of
the international community as an authoritarian ruler responsible for
egregious human rights abuses and for running the economy of his country
into the ground.
In March 2002, Zimbabwe was suspended from the
Commonwealth of Nations. That month Mugabe was reelected president for
another six years in a blatantly rigged election whose results were enforced
by the president's militia. In 2003, inflation hit 300%, the country faced
severe food shortages, and the farming system had been destroyed. In 2004,
the IMF estimated that the country had grown one-third poorer in the last
five years.
Parliamentary elections in March 2005 were judged by
international monitors to be egregiously flawed. In April, Zimbabwe was
reelected to the UN Commission on Human Rights, outraging numerous countries
and human rights groups. In mid-2005, Zimbabwe demolished its urban slums
and shantytowns, leaving 700,000 people homeless in an operation called
“Drive Out Trash.” In 2006, the government launched
“Operation Roundup,” which drove 10,000 homeless people out of
the capital.
Since 2000, Zimbabwe has experienced precipitous
hyperinflation and economic ruin. By 2008, inflation skyrocketed to nearly
100,000%, up from 7,000% in 2007, unemployment reached 80%, and the
Zimbabwean dollar was basically worthless. According to the World Health
Organization, Zimbabwe has the world's lowest life expectancy.
Zimbabweans, clearly fed up with the economic collapse and the lack
of available necessities in Zimbabwe, expressed their anger at the polls in
March 2008's presidential and parliamentary elections. The opposition
Movement for Democratic Change won a majority of the seats in Parliament, a
remarkable defeat for Mugabe's party, ZANU-PF. Four days after the vote,
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Movement for Democratic Change, declared
himself the winner by a slim margin. Mugabe refused to concede until the
vote count was complete. More than a month after the election, howvever, the
vote was not yet complete. Zimbabwe's HIgh Court dismissed the opposition's
request for the release of election results. Many observers speculated that
Mugabe ordered the delay to either intimidate election officials or to rig
the results in his favor. Indeed, in April police raided the offices of the
opposition and election monitors and detained dozens of people for
questioning. The police were accused of violently cracking down on the
opposition.
On May 2, election officials finally released the results
of the vote, with Tsvangirai defeating President Robert Mugabe, 47.9% to
43.2%. A runoff election is necessary because neither candidate won more
than 50%.
