Lancaster House Agreement


The Lancaster House Agreement, signed on 21 December 1979, declared a ceasefire, ending the Rhodesian Bush War; and directly led to the creation and recognition of the Republic of Zimbabwe. It required the imposition of direct British rule, nullifying Rhodesia’s 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence. British governance would be strictly proscribed to the duration of a proposed election period; after which independence would follow. Crucially, the political wings of the black nationalist groups ZANU and ZAPU, who had been waging the escalating, and increasingly violent insurgency, would be permitted to stand candidates in the forthcoming elections. This was however conditional to compliance with the ceasefire and the verified absence of voter intimidation.
The Agreement would lead to the dissolution of the unrecognised state of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, created months earlier by the Internal Settlement; an agreement forged between moderate black nationalists and Prime Minister Ian Smith's Government. While Zimbabwe-Rhodesia remained unrecognised, the Internal Settlement enfranchised the majority of blacks and resulted in the election of the country's first black Prime Minister.
Lancaster House covered the Independence Constitution, pre-independence arrangements and the terms of ceasefire. The Agreement is named after Lancaster House in London, where the parties interested to the settlement attended the conference on independence from 10 September to 15 December 1979.
The parties represented during the conference were: the British Government, the Patriotic Front led by Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, ZAPU and ZANU and the Zimbabwe Rhodesia Government, represented by the Prime Minister, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, and Ian Smith, minister without portfolio.

Negotiations

Following the Meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government held in Lusaka from 1–7 August 1979, the British government invited Muzorewa and the leaders of the Patriotic Front to participate in a Constitutional Conference at Lancaster House. The purpose of the Conference was to discuss and reach agreement on the terms of an Independence Constitution, to agree on the holding of elections under British authority, and to enable Zimbabwe Rhodesia to proceed to lawful and internationally recognised independence, with the parties settling their differences by political means.
Lord Carrington, Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary of the United Kingdom, chaired the Conference. The conference took place from 10 September–15 December 1979 with 47 plenary sessions.
In the course of its proceedings the conference reached agreement on the following issues:
In concluding this agreement and signing its report, the parties undertook:
Under the Independence Constitution agreed, 20 per cent of the seats in the country's parliament were to be reserved for whites. This provision remained in the constitution until 1987.
The agreement as signed on 21 December 1979. Lord Carrington and Sir Ian Gilmour signed the Agreement on behalf of the United Kingdom, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Dr Silas Mundawarara signed for the Government of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, and Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo for the Patriotic Front.

Outcome

Under the terms of the Agreement, Zimbabwe Rhodesia temporarily reverted to its former status as the Colony of Southern Rhodesia, thereby ending the rebellion caused by Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Lord Soames was appointed Governor with full executive and legislative powers.
In terms of the ceasefire, ZAPU and ZANU guerillas were to gather at designated Assembly Points under British supervision, following which elections were to be held to elect a new government. These elections were held in February 1980, and resulted in the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front led by Robert Mugabe winning a majority of seats. Independence in terms of the Constitution agreed to at Lancaster House was granted to Zimbabwe on 18 April 1980 with Robert Mugabe as the first Prime Minister.

Land reform

In addition to the terms cited above, Robert Mugabe and his supporters were pressured into agreeing to wait ten years before instituting land reform.
The three-month-long conference almost failed to reach an accord due to disagreements on land reform. Mugabe was pressured to sign, and land was the key stumbling block. Both the British and American governments offered to compensate white citizens for any land sold so as to aid reconciliation, and a fund was established to operate from 1980 to 1990.

British delegation

In 1980 the first phase of land reform, partly funded by the United Kingdom, resettled around 70,000 landless people on more than 20,000 km² of land in the new Zimbabwe.
In 1981 the British assisted in setting up a Zimbabwe conference on reconstruction and development, at which more than £630 million of international aid was pledged.
In 1997 war veterans began receiving individual personal payments of ZW$50,000 each for their service in the war, costing the nation's tax payers billions of dollars and depleting government coffers. Then some months later Robert Mugabe announced the forced acquisition of land under Section 8 would proceed, and within 24 hours the local currency had devalued more than 50% and thus began the hyperinflation and demonetisation of Zimbabwean currency and the "Flights of Whites" from the country, most never to return.
In the time since independence, the Lancaster House Agreement was modified and changed more than 27 times according to a Zimbabwe independent newspaper.