Zimbabwe is a country located in Africa. According to AbbreviationFinder, ZW is the two-letter ISO code of Zimbabwe, and ZWE is the three-letter country abbreviation for Zimbabwe.
Yearbook 1997
Zimbabwe. According to Countryaah, the national day of Zimbabwe is April 18. President Robert Mugabe implemented a major change of government in July. several ministries were merged to lower government costs. In the same month, the contents of a compromising report for the president leaked. The report shows the atrocities committed by the Zimbabwean army when they fought an uprising in the province of Matabeleland in 1980. Mugabe was prime minister at the time of the incident.
Former Zimbabwe President Canaan Banana was indicted in September on charges of gay rape on his subordinates during his presidency. No judgment was announced during the year.
At the end of November, a list of the 1,500 farms – owned by white farmers – was published that would be forcibly redeemed by the government. The land should be distributed and converted into small farms. Among other things, Rhodesia’s last President Ian Smith’s property will be confiscated and distributed to black peasants.
Rises as a result of the president pushing through tax increases without Parliament’s approval showed that Zimbabwe was no longer as politically stable as before. Protesters in the capital Harare were chased and beaten by police. The following day, lawyers marched through the city and handed out leaflets in protest of police brutality.
1980 Patriotic Front wins the election
Nor did this facelift lead to international recognition. At the same time, the armed liberation struggle grew in strength, and the Smith-Muzorewas regime expanded the conflict by terrorist bombing far inside Zambia and Mozambique. At this time, the UK Conservative Government saw no other option but a new round of negotiations involving all parties. The Patriotic Front was put under severe pressure – also from the frontline states – and agreed that an election should be held as early as February 1980.
Prior to the election, ZANU and ZAPU’s capacity to run a campaign was severely limited, tens of thousands of refugees did not reach the elections, South African troops stood in the country, and large sums of money from South Africa and Western countries were pumped in to Bishop Muzorewa. However, the election result was an unequivocal affirmation of the endorsement of the movements that had led the protracted liberation struggle, and a corresponding staggering defeat to Muzorewa and his supporters.
While the white minority constitutionally was guaranteed 20 seats, the 80 African mandates were distributed as follows: ZANU 57, ZAPU 20 and Muzorewas UANC 3. The result was unforeseen by the British and the white regime in Zimbabwe. With British intervention, on April 18, 1980, the so-called Lancaster House agreement was concluded, after which the old colonial lord temporarily assumed power to hand it over to the Patriotic Front (PF), which formed government with Robert Mugabe as prime minister. Although the whites retained a number of economic and political privileges, they were not allowed to veto future constitutional changes.
- Shopareview: Offers climate information of Zimbabwe in Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, covering maximum and minimum temperature for each of 12 months. Also includes when is best time to visit this country.
The black majority government could now address its next big task: to build a society with equitable land distribution, national independence and opportunities for the black majority to decide on its own future. The Mugabe government began to repeal the country’s racist legislation and to rebuild the economy that was devastated after the 7 years of war. had driven 1 million people on the run. The stock of cattle was reduced to a third, thousands of kilometers of roads were useless and a number of diseases such as malaria had spread among the 7 million black population.
1988 ZANU-PF is formed. Tendency towards one-party state
In December, Mugabe and Nkomo signed an agreement on reconciliation, after which their two parties – the country’s most important – were to join forces. The agreement was ratified in April 88 and ZANU-PF was formed by the two parties. From that point on, the country was increasingly moving towards a one-party state- contrary to the trend elsewhere in Africa. It was also because a number of white MPs were in alliance with the party. At the March 90 election, the party got 116 out of the Parliament’s 119 seats. President Mugabe interpreted the result as a “popular mandate” for his idea of the unity party. Still, the result was more nuanced. The newly formed Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) got 15% of the vote and 46% chose to stay home from the election. A drastic drop in turnout in 1980 and -85, at 90%. The opposition got its best election in Harare and other cities with 30% of the vote, but ZANU-PF remained largely in the countryside.
Throughout the 1980s, annual economic growth had averaged 4%, but at the same time agriculture’s share of GDP had increased from 14% in 1980 to 20% in 90. That same year, Parliament passed a land reform that allowed the government to expropriate land from the whites at a price set by the state and redistribute this land among the poor. The black population overwhelmingly supported the law, seeing it as an expression of racial and economic justice. At the same time, the white peasants, supported by lawyers and parts of the Catholic Church, criticized the law for being an abuse of the civil and human rights as enshrined in the constitution.
Following Zimbabwe’s independence, the country’s indigenous peoples had formed the Organization of Peasant Progress (ORAP) with the aim of preserving the indigenous peoples culture and social organization. In 1991, it had ½ million members from 16 different peoples from 3 of the country’s 5 provinces. The basic organizational structure of ORAP is the Amalema’s, neighborhood associations made up of 10 families working to recreate the common organizational and production structures that existed prior to colonialization. ORAP wants to show that local people’s traditional ways of living are better able to solve the country’s problems than the paternalistic structures that European invaders brought with them.