Zimbabwe's independence

At midnight on April 17 to 18, 1980, in the capital Salisbury (now Harare), the British flag was lowered and Zimbabwe became independent. Robert Mugabe, the leader of the ZANU party, was prime minister, and the reggae star Bob Marley played at the celebrations. The country, until then known as Rhodesia, had been a self-governing British colony ruled by its white minority, about five percent of the population, since 1965.¹²

After Britain's colonies in Africa began to win independence, as Macmillan had signaled in his 1960 'Wind of Change' speech, Rhodesia's white government under Ian Smith rejected majority rule and declared independence unilaterally in 1965. Two African nationalist movements, ZANU under Mugabe and ZAPU under Joshua Nkomo, took up guerrilla war from the late 1960s. The war intensified after Portugal's African empire collapsed in 1975, when independent Mozambique gave ZANU's army a long border and bases. Hit by sanctions, losses and a flight of white settlers, Smith agreed in 1978 to an 'internal settlement' with moderate black leaders, but the guerrillas and most governments rejected it.¹

The war ended through negotiation at Lancaster House in London, chaired by Britain's foreign secretary Lord Carrington, from September to December 1979. The agreement provided for a ceasefire, a new constitution with reserved white seats, and elections. In the elections of February 1980, ZANU-PF won 57 of the 80 seats reserved for black voters, and Mugabe formed a government that promised reconciliation with whites. The war had killed tens of thousands. Mugabe later became president, and his rule, marked by repression and economic collapse, lasted until a military takeover in 2017.¹²