Richard AmmonZimbabwe is the former Rhodesia, a colony of Britain for a hundred years. After a civil war, 1965-1979, the country became independent in 1980 under the leadership of Robert Mugabe. He has been president ever since and has ruled with a corrupt and violent hand. Superficially Harare appears to have a veneer of prosperity as reflected in various modern buildings and a reasonable array of new-ish cars in the streets, But beyond the business center and a few middle-class residential areas the domestic scene is grim with high unemployment and substandard housing.
