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ZIMBABWE REVALUES ITS CURRENCY

Map of Zimbabwe

The central bank is striking ten zeros off Zimbabwe dollar bank notes, making 10 billion dollars now equal to one dollar. Reports from the capital, Harare, say long queues have formed outside banks as people seek to withdraw money. The move comes in response to an official inflation rate of more than 2,000,000%, although it is believed the true figure is at least 9,000,000%. The currency revaluation is intended to make business transactions easier for Zimbabwean retailers who increase their prices several times a day to keep up with inflation.

Computers, electronic calculators and automated teller machines at Zimbabwe's banks have difficulty handling basic transactions in billions and trillions of dollars.

"Other than making it easier for us to count and to carry around, our problems have not gone away," Lameck Chamunorwa, a 28-year-old shop cleaner, told Reuters news agency as he left a bank in Harare. "It's like we are pretending that things are getting normal when the truth is that they are doing this because we are in a bad state and far from normality."

Turn the clock back a century

Cecil John Rhodes

Cecil Rhodes was the founder of the state of Rhodesia, which was named after him. Rhodesia, later Northern and Southern Rhodesia, eventually became Zambia and Zimbabwe respectively. He is also known today for the scholarship that bears his name. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers, which today markets 40% of the world's rough diamonds and at one time marketed 90%. Southern Rhodesia became a self-governing British colony in October 1923.

 
Africa Continent Editor

On November 11, 1965, the prime minister of Southern Rhodesia Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom. As colonial rule was ending throughout the continent, and as African-majority governments assumed control in neighbouring Northern Rhodesia and in Nyasaland, the white-minority Rhodesia government led by Ian Smith made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965. The United Kingdom deemed this an act of rebellion, but did not re-establish control by force. The white-minority government declared itself a "republic" in 1970. It was not recognised by the UK or any other state.

A civil war ensued, with Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People's Union) and Robert Mugabe's ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) using assistance from the governments of Zambia and Mozambique. Although Smith's declaration was not recognized by the United Kingdom nor any other significant power, Southern Rhodesia dropped the designation 'Southern', and claimed nation status as the Republic of Rhodesia in 1970.

In March 1978, with his regime near the brink of collapse, Smith signed an accord with three black leaders, led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa, who offered safeguards for white civilians. As a result of the Internal Settlement, elections were held in April 1979. The United African National Council (UANC) party won a majority in this election. On June 1, 1979, the leader of UANC, Abel Muzorewa, became the country's prime minister and the country's name was changed to Zimbabwe Rhodesia. The internal settlement left control of the country's police, security forces, civil service, and judiciary in white hands. It assured whites of about one-third of the seats in parliament. It was essentially a power-sharing arrangement which did not amount to majority rule.

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, head of ZAPU. In the free elections of February 1980, Mugabe and his ZANU won a landslide victory. Mugabe won the re-election.

 In 1982, Joshua Nkomo was ousted from his cabinet, sparking fighting between ZAPU supporters in the Ndebele-speaking region of the country and the ruling ZANU. A peace accord was negotiated in 1987, resulting in ZAPU's merger (1988) into the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

 
Land issues, which the liberation movement had promised to solve, re-emerged as the main issue for the ruling party beginning in 1999. Despite majority rule and the existence of a "willing-buyer-willing-seller" land reform programme since the 1980s, ZANU (PF) claimed that whites made up less than 1% of the population but held 70% of the country's commercially viable arable land (though these figures are disputed by many outside the Government of Zimbabwe[citation needed]). Mugabe began to redistribute land to blacks in 2000 with a compulsory land redistribution. Charges that the programme as a whole is designed to reward loyal Mugabe deputies have persisted in Zimbabwe since the beginning of the process.

The legality and constitutionality of the process has regularly been challenged in the Zimbabwean High and Supreme Courts; however, the policing agencies have rarely acted in accordance with court rulings on these matters. The chaotic implementation of the land reform led to a sharp decline in agricultural exports, traditionally the country's leading export producing sector. Mining and tourism have surpassed agriculture. As a result, Zimbabwe is experiencing a severe hard-currency shortage, which has led to hyperinflation and chronic shortages in imported fuel and consumer goods. In 2002, Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations on charges of human rights abuses during the land redistribution and of election tampering .

Following elections in 2005, the government initiated "Operation Murambatsvina", a purported effort to crack down 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 substantial section of urban poor homeless. The Zimbabwe government has described the operation as an attempt to provide decent housing to the population although they have yet to deliver any new housing for the forcibly removed people.[24].

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.

Life expectancy at birth for males in Zimbabwe has dramatically declined since 1990 from 60 to 37, the lowest in the world. Life expectancy for females is even lower at 34 years.[26] Concurrently, the infant mortality rate has climbed from 53 to 81 deaths per 1,000 live births in the same period. Currently, 1.8 million Zimbabweans live with HIV.

On March 29, 2008, Zimbabwe held a presidential election along with a parliamentary election, The three major candidates were Robert Mugabe of the ZANU-PF, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and Simba Makoni, an independent. The results of this election were withheld for several weeks, following which it was generally acknowledged that the MDC had achieved a significant majority of seats.