Zimbabwe marks 30 years of independence on 18 April, but events over the past decade have almost overshadowed the euphoria felt when the British colony of Rhodesia ceased to exist and a new African nation was born. Three decades of Robert Mugabe’s rule have seen “the jewel of Africa turning into a sob story”, says a top trade union activist.

Wellington Chibebe is the secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, and like many of his countrymen he’ll be watching Sunday’s Independence Day ceremonies with mixed feelings. While celebrating the simple fact that Rhodesia is now Zimbabwe, he believes the early strides made in the 1980s “are being destroyed by the element of misgovernance”.

Euphoria
Independence followed a seven-year war between nationalist blacks and the white-minority regime that left 27,000 people dead. Robert Mugabe was sworn in as president in 1980 and has maintained his grip on power ever since. Zimbabwean Charles Rukuni, a journalist for over 30 years, sees three distinct phases in the country’s modern history:

“The first decade, 1980 to 1990 was superb for everyone, there was an independence euphoria, things were moving. Then 1990 to 2000, people started looking at what they had actually achieved from independence, scrutinising things like corruption. And then after the land reform in 2000, things just went down”.

Land reform
President Mugabe’s controversial land reform scheme – which saw white-owned farms seized and given to his supporters – ushered in a disastrous economic decline that affects Zimbabwe to this day. But the current state of the nation is a far cry from that first decade when huge strides were made in a number of fields, according to Chibebe.  

“The major achievements were around the areas of education. I think statistics show that we have got close to 95 percent literacy rates. And in the health sector; in our country every ten kilometres you now find a health institution. And empowerment for women – we have managed to put a lot of women in positions of authority.”

Greed
Robert Mugabe was a well–loved and internationally respected leader during his first ten years in office, but as opposition to the president and his ZANU PF party has grown, he has become increasingly autocratic and is now widely-regarded as a tyrant at home and abroad. Innocent Matshe, an economist at the University of Zimbabwe, has a simple explanation for what went wrong:

“The spirit of greed crept in. Everything that was done after the phase of nationalism had passed was driven by greed and selfishness. The people of Zimbabwe looked up to nationalists as leaders who would take Zimbabwe to higher places of development and freedom and so on. But as soon as people who had been given this power felt or enjoyed the comforts of power, they lost all ideals of the freedom that everybody had fought for.”

Little enthusiasm
Under pressure from international sanctions, the spiralling economic crisis and a disputed election, Mugabe entered into a government of national unity with his opposition rival Morgan Tsvangirai. That government has managed to bring a measure of stability, but is still hampered by bickering and has been unable to attract the foreign investment and aid needed to restore the country’s fortunes.

Mugabe’s Zanu PF and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change are jointly organising the Independence Day festivities, but with eight out of ten unemployed, and corruption and organised crime increasing, there’s little public enthusiasm for the anniversary.

What Zimbabweans want as an Independence Day gift, says Chibele, is democratic freedom. But he’s pessimistic about the prospects. “As long as Mugabe’s around”, he says, “democracy is a pipe dream. Because the man has privatised everything. We are living in Zimbabwe Ltd”.

Listen to the Newsline interviews with Wellington Chibebe

Charles Rukuni

Innocent Matshe