State of the World's Minorities 2006 - Zimbabwe

Since the defeat of the constitutional referendum in 2000, politics in Zimbabwe have been marked by slow regression away from many of the norms of democratic governance. International pressure on the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, to change his damaging policies significantly increased in the second half of 2005. The UN, South Africa and other African powers are pressing him to restore democracy and change economic management. Perhaps the greatest pressure has resulted from the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy, which has left millions hungry. In five years, the economy has contracted by 50 per cent, according to Harare economists. Inflation stands at 255 per cent and unemployment at 75 per cent. The seizure of almost all white-owned commercial agricultural land, with the stated aim of benefiting black farmers, has led to sharp falls in production. In late 2003 fewer than 900 commercial farms were still operating and the country has endured critical food shortages. In mid-2004, 5 million Zimbabweans still needed food aid, with almost half the neediest living in urban areas (a traditional locus of opposition support). Food aid was used as an instrument of political strength by the government in the run-up to the 2005 elections.

In July 2005 Operation Murambatsvina (Restore Order) cost some 700,000 Zimbabweans their homes or livelihoods or both, and otherwise affected nearly a fifth of the troubled country's population. The UN Secretary-General's special envoy's report on the military-style campaign shows that the Zimbabwe government collectively mounted a brutal, ill-managed campaign against its own citizens. Whatever its intent – the urban clean-up claimed by authorities, or more sinister efforts to punish and break up the political opposition as city dwellers voted overwhelmingly for the opposition in recent elections – the campaign has exacerbated a desperate situation in the country.

After destroying homes in the cities and moving people into transit camps, the government assigned people to rural areas on the basis of their identity numbers. On the identity cards carried by all Zimbabwean citizens, the first few digits form a code for the bearer's home area. This, however, reflects one's ancestral home rather than one's own birthplace. Zimbabweans of foreign parentage are finding themselves in a particularly difficult situation.

A change in the citizenship law shortly before the 2002 presidential elections meant that being born in Zimbabwe no longer automatically conferred nationality. Zimbabweans who had one or both parents born outside the country were reclassified as aliens unless they formally renounced claims to foreign nationality. Although most observers believe the law was designed to disenfranchise whites, it also affected the status of Zimbabweans who have roots in other African countries.