Howard made the announcement at a news conference in London and was flanked by Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo, the presidents of South Africa and Nigeria, respectively. According to the New York Times, "Western officials," meaning Washington and London, "have prodded [Mbeki and Obasanjo] to act more strongly against Zimbabwe." Both African leaders were silent during the press conference, which reflected the fact that many governments in Africa and the Caribbean opposed suspending Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth.

The suspension was imposed under the guise of punishing the government of Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe for organizing rigged elections. Official balloting results show Mugabe winning the election with 56 percent over his rival Morgan Tsvangirai, who garnered 42 percent. Washington, London, and other imperialist governments in the European Union condemned the elections as "unfair and unfree." South African election observers said the voting was legitimate.  
 
Election results
In the lead-up to the election the Zimbabwe government launched a campaign of intimidation against the opposition, including banning some of Tsvangirai's campaign rallies. The government also reduced the number of polling booths in the cities where the opposition is strongest. Many people were forced to wait as long as 10 to 15 hours to vote. Thousands were waiting to vote when the polls closed, which prompted a judge to order the government to extend the voting for one more day.

Official election results indicated a broad base of support for Mugabe in rural areas where the government had increased the number of voting stations. Tsvangirai dominated the vote in cities such as Harare and Bulawayo where discontent among working people is rising over soaring prices, food shortages, and unemployment.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) announced a three-day general strike March 20–22 to condemn government harassment of union members, but the labor action was a flop, and "failed to attract widespread support," CNN reported March 21.

Tsvangirai, who was formerly the secretary-general of the union federation, backed the general strike called by ZCTU. He has campaigned for the Commonwealth to impose sanctions and has received support from the imperialist powers.  
 
British imperialists lead the charge
The British rulers, Zimbabwe's former colonial masters, have been leading the charge against Mugabe. London is concerned that Mugabe's stated intention of moving ahead with government takeovers of capitalist farms in the country will undercut the ability of British imperialism to exploit the country's resources. In addition to the massive farms owned by descendants of the colonial settlers, Zimbabwe is rich in chromium, gold, nickel, copper, iron, and coal.

The British and U.S. governments, as well as other governments in the EU, have imposed travel and financial sanctions on Zimbabwean officials. The government of Switzerland followed suit, while the rulers in Australia urged its citizens to boycott the country. The Canadian government announced March 14 that it was halting all aid to the Zimbabwean government after its prime minister, Jean Chrétien, met with U.S. president Bush in Washington. The next day the rulers in Germany vowed to take the same action.

Senior officials in South Africa announced March 20 that they had no plans to apply economic pressure on Zimbabwe. "If we were to tighten things, it would be the people of Zimbabwe who would suffer," said one official.

This most recent conflict between Harare and the imperialists began in 2000 when the government put forward a referendum in support of the seizure of farms without compensation and to expand presidential powers. A hue and cry went up in the big-business press that Zimbabweans could never feed themselves if the large, "efficient," farms were given over to landless peasants.

Tsvangirai's opposition forces were able to defeat the referendum. The two main groups that campaigned against the measure were the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Tsvangirai, and the Commercial Farmers Union, representing the 4,000 mostly white farmers in the country. The referendum received wide backing among peasants in the countryside, but was voted down by large majorities in the cities.

Mugabe then organized "war veterans" groups--often thuggish supporters of the regime--to occupy the country's largest farms. In some areas the farm takeovers have been promoted by wealthy government supporters and officials who looked to the regime to add to their own holdings.  
 
Legacy of colonialism
The structure of land ownership in Zimbabwe is a legacy of colonialism. Today, many of the farms owned by the 4,000 white farmers are massive. The largest 233 each cover nearly 20,000 acres. The Anglo American Corporation alone owns 25 farms totaling 1.7 million acres. These commercial farmers control up to 80 percent of the arable, fertile land, while 6 million of the country's 12.5 million people are landless peasants crammed into the worst patches of ground.

Until 1980, the people of Zimbabwe were ruled by a white-minority regime in what was then known as Rhodesia, a direct colony of Britain where a tiny minority of whites dominated the country economically and politically.

Mugabe helped lead a guerrilla struggle that defeated the white-minority regime and won independence from Britain. London, which was a signer of the independence agreement, imposed a constitutional provision that prohibited the Zimbabwean government from confiscating the holdings of the capitalist farmers for at least 10 years. In the pact, the British rulers promised to help fund government purchases of farmland on which to settle African toilers, a pledge they have failed to keep.

At a campaign rally earlier this year Mugabe told 7,000 supporters that "we must be satisfied that we are in control of our land and in control of our land absolutely." According to the Washington Post, the Zimbabwean president said his "land-reform effort" is aimed at "completing unfinished business" from the country's colonial era and that redistributing arable farmland to landless Blacks would lead to economic development.

Meanwhile, the combined impact of the world capitalist economic downturn that is hammering southern Africa, a growing economic boycott of Zimbabwe, and a drastic decline in agricultural production has devastated the living conditions of working people. Some 64 percent of the population eke out an existence on less than $2 a day and more than half a million people face starvation. The government announced March 22 that it was seeking 200,000 tons of corn from Kenya, Brazil, and Argentina.

Floods and droughts have decimated the country's harvest of corn and other crops. Last year the corn harvest dropped to 1.54 million tons, down from 2.1 million in 2000. Production of the main cash crop, tobacco, is expected to plunge by as much as 30 percent this year.

As a result of imperialist pressure, foreign loans, aid, and investments have shriveled up. Tourism, the country's third-largest source of income, has plunged by 80 percent.

The Zimbabwean government, which launched a campaign of intimidation against Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, has been able to exploit his close ties with Washington, London, and capitalist farmers. In Mugabe's campaign speeches, for example, he referred to Tsvangirai as a "tea boy" for the "imperialist West, particularly Britain, the former colonial power," the Washington Post reported.

On March 20, the day after the Commonwealth imposed sanctions, the Mugabe government charged Tsvangirai and two members of the MDC with treason. They were accused of plotting to assassinate the president at a meeting held with Canadian political consultants last December.  
 
 
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