An Analysis Of Zimbabwe's International Re-engagement(2009-2013)

Engagement can be broadly defined as an individual or entity's decision to partner or align with the other or others.Drawing the concept to the context of this research topic,it is understood as Zimbabwe's agenda to re-align or re-partner itself with the international community.A wide range of past factors led to Zimbabwe's exclusion from bilateral and multilateral relationships.These were allegations of democracy violations through lack of transparency as well as political violence during elections.The government embarked on a Fast Track Land Reform Programme in the early 2000 s whereby it issued an order that all white commercial owned farms were to be seized and handed back to the rightful owners,the native Zimbabweans.The outcome of this exercise had a bitter effect of causing disgruntlement to the British and they regarded it as so unfair.They then demanded the compensation of these former white farmers.The agricultural activity of these farmers over the years had been contributing greatly to the stability of the economy by ensuring food security.The above factors led to tension with not only Britain,but United States as well as Australia.Zimbabwe was placed under serious sanctions which ranged from travel bans to specific individuals,most of whom were part of the Mugabe government.Mugabe himself and his family also fell under this travel ban list.Sanctions also restricted the country to trade with the above European countries.Lack of trading partners for access to commodities made Zimbabwe experience an economic backtrack,the situation getting even to the worst stage in 2008 as the country faced a hyper-inflation phase.The economic depreciation automatically led to the suffering of all other sectors and as a result the nation was in a state of disaster.It should be noted that United Nations Security Council had also passed a resolution to place Zimbabwe under sanctions.The above factors gave the rise of a need to re-engage in order to deal with the problems which the country was facing.Zimbabwe decided to internationally re-engage in 2008 and the first step was the signing of the Global Political Agreement among the three main political party leaders: Robert Mugabe representing ZANU PF,the party that had always been in power since the attainment of independence in 1980,Morgan Tsvangirai representing MDC-T,the main opposition political party and the other MDC-M,the second largest political party represented by Arthur Mutambara.As a starting point to international reengagement,the government sought to further strengthen ties with the countries in the East such as China,Russia,Japan,Korea,Malaysia and India.The ‘Look East Policy' had already been in existence for six years and the government simply had to make moves to further the relationship with these states,the main prospective partner being China because of its rapid economic growth and also the fact that China had always been there to support Zimbabwe even in times of isolation.Zimbabwe also had to make visible changes on the alleged democracy violations and to make initiatives towards the compensation of the former white commercial farmers in order to appeal to the West for re-establishment of broken ties.Therefore,the major thrust of this thesis is to make an analysis of Zimbabwe's re-engagement drive.The first chapter will dwell on the overview of the study.Focus is on the background of the study whereby a historical overview of the state of Zimbabwe from the point it got its independence from Britain,how Britain and the rest of the West acknowledged Zimbabwe as a sovereign state.Like several African countries,Zimbabwe even became part of economic programmes known as the Structural Adjustment Programmes being funded by the West in order to improve the economy but however these programmes had a negative bearing on the economy,leading to widespread economic meltdown and a great fall on the Gross Domestic Product of the country.The relationship between Zimbabwe and these Western countries continued to exist until at a point in the late 1990 s when the government decided to initiate the Fast Track Land Reform Programme of grabbing land from the white commercial farmers,a move which was done after other initially lenient measures had been tried in an effort to make the Zimbabweans get back their land that had been taken by the white settlers during colonialism.This frustrated Britain,causing her to mobilise her Western allies against the state.The statement of the problem will also be indicated as well as past publications that have been done on Zimbabwe's international engagement.The hypothesis of this research is that the 2009-2013 period of Zimbabwe's re-engagement placed the country on a better standing in terms of its agenda compared to other phases of the country's engagement agenda.The second chapter entails the domestic policy of Zimbabwe and international engagement.It looks at the domestic problems that drew the desire to abandon isolation and seek engagement with other countries.Subsequently it highlights the domestic as well as foreign policy initiatives that were taken to place the country on an engagement drive.The third chapter brings out the picture of Zimbabwe s it opened itself for strategic re-engagement.With the opening up came a lot of positive changes that transformed the nation's economy and the rest of the sectors.It also brings out the idea of how the government of Zimbabwe was able to improve its relationships and ultimately its standing on the international arena.The third chapter is the concluding chapter of the research.It seeks to give an analysis of the benefits which were brought about through international reengagement.Several positive outcomes were achieved through re-engagement.At the same time a critical perspective brings out some of the negative results that the reengagement agenda came along with.Ultimately the conclusion of the chapter holds it firm that to a greater extent the re-engagement agenda was of great benefit to the country in terms of improving relations with other states and also making the political and socio-economic situation within the country stable.Finally,it gives the conclusion of the research as well as recommendations on improving the international re-engagement of the country.