n as Rhodesia) is headed by Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who is both Executive President and Prime Minister to the country, and head of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU PF): the ruling party. Mugabe, a Marxist, has spent the last twenty-four years of his career maneuvering towards a one-party state, and amassing a vast personal fortune, often at the cost of his countrymen.
             ZANU was formed when the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) – which was headed by Joshua Nkomo – was banned by the Rhodesian government, shortly after its inception in 1962, and a resulting rift within the party led to dissident members (including Mugabe) being ejected.
             At this time, the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, was refusing to grant independence to the white Rhodesian government until certain conditions were met, including "guarantees of internal racial equality [and] evidence of a charted course towards majority rule" (Swaney, 1999). In defiance of this, Ian Smith (leader of the Rhodesian Front governing party), avowed Rhodesia's autonomy in 1965 with the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, essentially rejecting Britain's sovereignty, and maintaining the control that the 3% white community held over the rest of the population.
             Despite their efforts to achieve majority rule in the 1950's and 1960's, the small black parties that fought the Rhodesian Front in the political arena made no ground, and so in April 1966 – feeling that "only by armed conflict could power be wrested from Smith and his Rhodesian Front" (Swaney, 1999) – ZANU and ZAPU combined their efforts and the Second Chimurenga (war for liberation) began.
             Notwithstanding ten years of bitter and unrelenting conflict, the situation was not resolved. Many nationalist groups were splintering off, fragmenting and complicating the cause. In an effort to rectify this, ZANU and...