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Introduction:

Discussing the current political situation in Zimbabwe has become a very emotional 
topic for many people who have lived in this country the last 30 years. There are 
those who support Mugabe and ZANU-PF for what has been achieved and those 
who highlight the economic difficulties and violence of the last ten years that they 
attribute to their authoritarian governance. 
 
It is difficult to accurately present the facts that have occurred during these 30 years 
because each side has its history and explanation. Here is a much summarized 
version of the facts that you would be hard pressed to find in the Western media 
when they report about Zimbabwe and describe the forces that oppose the 
government. More details with exact numbers etc. can be found in the files. 
 
From the end of the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, British whites 
stole the good land from black farmers in what has been known as Zimbabwe since 
1980. In 1980 on the day of independence about 6000 white farmers owned 39% of 
the land, equaling 15.5 million hectares of good quality land, while about one 
million black families owned 41.4% of the land, equaling 16.4 million hectares of 
marginal land. In between, 8500 black farmers owned about 1.4 million hectares. 
The government agreed that during the first ten years, the land reforms would be 
voluntary and then until 2000 the government would have the right to purchase land 
for redistribution, but the seller would still be able to negotiate the price of 
compensation. England was supposed to pay this compensation, but paid almost 
nothing. 
 
Due to the structural adjustment conforming to the relationship with the IMF 
beginning in 1991, life began to get worse for many, especially the veterans who 
were fired from government jobs. And because of the delayed land reform, land 
occupations began in the late 90&amp;#39;s and the ZANU-PF started to support them, much 
against the interests of U.S. and UK. They began to punish Zimbabwe through 
sanctions and began supporting ZANU-PF&rsquo;s opposition. 
 
The UK was strongly against any talk about land reforms, since the Rhodesians were 
mainly British or British descendants. The Americans entered the issue in 
connection with the Bush-Blair talks on the UK&rsquo;s support of the invasions of 
Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11 2001. The U.S. received support from the UK and 
the UK received support in damaging the Zimbabwean economy. The EU has also 
helped the UK damage it. 
 
One of the strategies of the EU was to create an opposition party - that did not exist 
before - and at the same time to put pressure on the economy. They did this through 
unions - a strategy that has already been used in other countries to bring about 
"regime change", for example in the "Orange Revolution" in the Ukraine in the early 
years after the fall of the Soviet Union. MDC (MDC is the acronym for Movement 
for Democratic Change) 
 
From 2000 to 2005 land reforms were quickly implemented without compensation 
for the land, except for improvements made. These revolutionary acts were well 
organized by committees in rural villages and the result was that nearly 4,000 white 
farmers had to hand over land to about 200,000 black farmers. 
 
Concerning sanctions, it is argued that they only concern ZANU-PF members and 
their supporters, but what many do not know, is that U.S. officials were given the 
guide for blocking applications for loans and donations from international institutes. 
So Zimbabwe has been left pretty much without any form of developmental aid. 
The sanctions remain. 
 
At the end of 2008 a national unity government was created with President Mugabe 
as president and Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC as prime minister. 
 
There now seems to be agreement about the country&#39;s economic direction. The MDC 
has accepted the rapid agrarian reforms they opposed at the beginning. There also 
seems to be agreement on the so-called law of indigenization (51% of the shares of a 
company with a capital of more than 500,000 USD, must be in the hands of 
Zimbabweans), which was recently approved. 
 
There are also positive key economic numbers, and interest in investing in 
Zimbabwe is increasing, even with the 51% law. They are likely attracted by the 
enormous resources that the country has. All this, along with a less stressful daily 
life should be the basis for reconciliation and progress for the country&#39;s population, 
both in the rural areas, where ZANU-PF has its base, and in the urban areas, where 
MDC has its base. 
 
As has already been stated, your task is to try to extract the real facts from the files 
provided, in order to make a PowerPoint presentation of the current political 
situation. Note that some files have emotion-laden comments in reaction to a one- 
sided story. 
 
Good luck!

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