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Zimbabwe began experiencing a period of considerable political and economic upheaval in 1999. Opposition to President Mugabe and the ZANU-PF government grew considerably after the mid-1990s in part due to worsening economic and human rights conditions. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was established in September 1999 as an opposition party founded by trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai.
The MDC's first opportunity to test opposition to the Mugabe government came in February 2000, when a referendum was held on a draft constitution proposed by the government. Among its elements, the new constitution would have permitted President Mugabe to seek two additional terms in office, granted government officials immunity from prosecution, and authorised government seizure of white-owned land. The referendum was handily defeated. Shortly thereafter, the government, through a loosely organised group of war veterans, sanctioned an aggressive land redistribution program often characterised by forced expulsion of white farmers and violence against both farmers and farm employees.
Parliamentary elections held in June 2000 were marred by localised violence, and claims of electoral irregularities and government intimidation of opposition supporters. Nonetheless, the MDC succeeded in capturing 57 of 120 seats in the National Assembly.
2002 The Youth brigade assaulted residents of Ruwa and Mabvuku on 2 January 2002 sealing off the towns of Bindura, Chinhoyi and Karoi on 8 January as part of a recruiting drive and to weed out members of the Movement for Democratic Change before the upcoming elections. Militants petrol bombed the offices of The Daily News, Zimbabwe's main independent daily newspaper, on 11 February. Kenneth Walker reported on National Public Radio on 15 February that the Zimbabwean government had sent troops into Matabeleland. The legislature passed a law in May, giving 2,900 farmers 45 days to wind up operations and another 45 days to leave their land and make way for black settlers. In July the High Court under Judge Feargus Blackie sentenced Patrick Chinamasa, the Justice Minister, to three months in jail on contempt of court charges after the minister repeatedly ignored a court summons. Chinamasa ignored the ruling and police refused to arrest him. The High Court ruled against the state on 8 August in the confiscation of Andrew Kockett's farm because it had not informed the National Merchant Bank, the mortgage holder. Some farmers vacated their land in connection with the expropriation law originally passed in May, but police arrested more than 300 white farmers who refused to vacate their land on 16 August. A bomb exploded at the Voice of the People, an independent radio station in Harare, on 29 August. Police arrested twelve sugar cane farmers from the Chiredzi area in September for refusing to leave their farms. Police arrest Feargus Blackie, a former High Court Judge, is arrested on 13 September. Police find Learnmore Jongwe, a Movement for Democratic Change MP, dead in his prison cell on 22 October. Police had originally arrested Jongwe for allegedly murdering his wife.
Presidential elections were held in March 2002. In the months leading up to the poll, ZANU-PF, with the support of the army, security services and especially the so-called 'war veterans' – very few of whom actually fought in the Second Chimurenga against the Smith regime in the 1970s – set about wholesale intimidation and suppression of the MDC-led opposition. Despite strong international criticism, these measures, together with organised subversion of the electoral process, ensured a Mugabe victory. The government's behaviour drew strong criticism from the EU and the US, which imposed limited sanctions against the leading members of the Mugabe regime. Since the 2002 election, Zimbabwe has suffered further economic difficulty and growing political chaos. Opposition activists were "hunted down, beaten, tortured and in some cases murdered."Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe's Future By Martin Meredith pg. 230
2003 As a direct result of the farm seizures in the previous few years, Zimbabwe entered into an unprecedented food crisis. Most of the countries food was produced by roughly one thousand large commercial farms owned by White Zimbabweans. When those farms were violently occupied by the Zimbabwean government, they were then redistributed to black Zimbabweans. However, in most cases they were given to members of the ruling party who had political connections, and in almost no cases were they given to anyone who had experience farming. As a result, the "landless peasants" who Mugabe has promised land mostly remained landless, however as of 2003 the country was plunged into an emergency in which there was not enough food to feed the population or even stock most grocery stores.US Institute of Peace. “Zimbabwe and the Prospects for Nonviolent Political Change.” US Institute of Peace, 2003. http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep12562. By 2003, Zimbabwe's economy was the fastest shrinking economy in Africa. From 1984 to 1999, the United Nations' World Food Programme relied on Zimbabwean agriculture to produce food used for food aid throughout the rest of Africa, however, by 2003 the situation had reversed, and the WFP had to hire hundreds of international and Zimbabwean aid workers to distribute food throughout Zimbabwe for the first time ever. Western governments, including the United States and the United Kingdom, gave the organization $300 million to feed some 5.5 million Zimbabweans, nearly 50 percent of the country's population. In February, and then once more in December, opinion polls showed that the United Kingdom remained the "most positively viewed foreign country" in Zimbabwe, despite President Mugabe's very public feud with the British government. The 2003 Cricket World Cup, partially hosted by Zimbabwe, was marred by threats of violence and instability for the first time in the history of the institution, as Mugabe's government threatened players of the England cricket team with physical violence, leading several nations to refuse to play in Zimbabwe. The 2003 Cricket World Cup Final was the second most-watched television event of the year in Zimbabwe The 2003 Rugby World Cup Final was the most-watched television event in Zimbabwe in 2003. Global audience figures for the 2003 Rugby World Cup final totalled between 22 and 30 million. The treason trial of Morgan Tsvangirai began in the High Court in Harare on 3 February. President Robert Mugabe issued a decree on 7 December, announcing that Zimbabwe was permanently withdrawing from the Commonwealth to protest the organisation's criticism of ZANU-PF and the government's policies. Canaan Banana, Methodist minister, theologian and the first President of Zimbabwe, died of cancer on 10 November in London at the age of 67. 3,800 deaths from AIDS occurred in Zimbabwe each week of 2003.
2004–2005
Divisions within the opposition MDC had begun to fester early in the decade, after Morgan Tsvangirai (the president of the MDC) was lured into a government sting operation that videotaped him talking of Mr. Mugabe's removal from power. He was subsequently arrested and put on trial on treason charges. This crippled his control of party affairs and raised questions about his competence. It also catalysed a major split within the party. In 2004 he was acquitted, but not after suffering serious abuse and mistreatment in prison. The opposing faction was led by Welshman Ncube who was the general secretary of the party. In mid-2004, vigilantes loyal to Mr. Tsvangirai began attacking members who were mostly loyal to Ncube, climaxing in a September raid on the party's Harare headquarters in which the security director was nearly thrown to his death.
The Committee to Protect Journalists released a list of the ten most hazardous countries for journalists on 2 May 2004 placing Zimbabwe third after Iraq and Cuba as the most dangerous place to be a journalist.
An internal party inquiry later established that aides to Tsvangirai had tolerated, if not endorsed, the violence. Divisive as the violence was, it was a debate over the rule of law that set off the party's final break-up in November 2005. These division severely weakened the opposition. In addition the government employed its own operatives to both spy on each side and to undermine each side via acts of espionage. Zimbabwean parliamentary election, 2005 were held in March 2005 in which ZANU-PF won a two-thirds majority, were again criticised by international observers as being flawed. Mugabe's political operatives were thus able to weaken the opposition internally and the security apparatus of the state was able to destabilise it externally by using violence in anti-Mugabe strongholds to prevent citizens from voting. Some voters were 'turned away' from polling station despite having proper identification, further guaranteeing that the government could control the results. Additionally Mugabe had started to appoint with judges sympathetic to the government, making any judicial appeal futile. Mugabe was also able to appoint 30 of the Members of Parliament.
As Senate elections approached further opposition splits occurred. Ncube's supporters argued that the M.D.C. should field a slate of candidates; Tsvangirai's argued for a boycott. When party leaders voted on the issue, Ncube's side narrowly won, but Mr. Tsvangirai declared that as president of the party he was not bound by the majority's decision. Again the opposition was weakened. As a result, the elections for a new Senate in November 2005 were largely boycotted by the opposition. Mugabe's party won 24 of the 31 constituencies where elections were held amid low voter turnout. Again, evidence surfaced of voter intimidation and fraud.
In May 2005 the government began Operation Murambatsvina. It was officially billed to rid urban areas of illegal structures, illegal business enterprises, and criminal activities. In practice its purpose was to punish political opponents. The UN estimates 700,000 people have been left without jobs or homes as a result. Families and traders, especially at the beginning of the operation, were often given no notice before police destroyed their homes and businesses. Others were able to salvage some possessions and building materials but often had nowhere to go, despite the government's statement that people should be returning to their rural homes. Thousands of families were left unprotected in the open in the middle of Zimbabwe's winter. The government interfered with non-governmental organisation (NGO) efforts to provide emergency assistance to the displaced in many instances. Some families were removed to transit camps, where they had no shelter or cooking facilities and minimal food, supplies, and sanitary facilities. The operation continued into July 2005, when the government began a program to provide housing for the newly displaced.
Human Rights Watch said the evictions had disrupted treatment for people with HIV/Aids in a country where 3,000 die from the disease each week and about 1.3 million children have been orphaned. The operation was "the latest manifestation of a massive human rights problem that has been going on for years", said Amnesty International. As of September 2006, housing construction fell far short of demand, and there were reports that beneficiaries were mostly civil servants and ruling party loyalists, not those displaced. The government campaign of forced evictions continued in 2006, albeit on a lesser scale.