Zimbabwe used to be the bread basket of Africa. It is now Africa's basket case. The country has the highest inflation rate in the world of 7.6%. Life expectancy at birth for males in has dramatically declined since 1990 from 60 to 37, the lowest in the world. Life expectancy for females is even lower at 34 years. Concurrently, the infant mortality rate has climbed from 53 to 81 deaths per 1,000. The country has in seven years experienced the biggest exodus of its citizens for a country that is not in a civil war situation with at least 5 million Zimbabweans expected to be in neighbouring countries, mostly in South Africa and more in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia.

Zimbabwe gained independence from white minority rule in 1980, amid pomp and ceremony. The Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front, ZANU (PF) led by Robert Mugabe had the highest votes. There was optimism that independence would bring with it not just political freedom but economic prosperity too. How ever this has not been the case.

During the first decade of independence Mugabe used the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade to silence any opposition.  Over 20 000 civilians, from the Midlands and Matebeland area, mostly Ndebele, were killed or disappeared^, many have not been accounted for to this date. Allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing have resulted in calls for Mugabe's arrest and prosecution for crimes against humanity.

The formation  in 1999, of the first main opposition political party the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by veteran trade unionist Morgan Tvangirai, was again met with a violent reaction from the Mugabe regime. Scores of opposition supporters, activists, journalists, lawyers have been killed, arrested or persecuted in one way or another over the past seven years.

Elections

Elections held in 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2008 have been condemned by the international community and progressive forces in Zimbabwe as having been rigged.