2.0 Introduction The year 2009 was an important milestone in the historical development of Zimbabwe. It saw for the first time in the country’s history ZANU(PF)’s monopoly on power being broken with the formation of an inclusive government and the swearing in of ‘opposition’ ministers in February 2009. This development fundamentally altered the political landscape in Zimbabwe with the infusion of the ‘democrats’ into government; alternatively, and perhaps more significantly, it also extinguished an opposition’s discerning voice, as they all began to speak as one government. These changes, as will be more evident in this report, managed to arrest the rapid decline of the economic socio-political environment that had characterized the country in the last decade. This union, however, was an imperfect one, with numerous ‘outstanding issues’ hindering the full implementation of the Interparty Political Agreement (more commonly known as the Global Political Agreement, GPA) that had created the inclusive government. The political bickering eventually led to the temporary withdrawal of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) faction headed by Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC-T) from the government on 16 October 2009, only to re-engage later following intervention by SADC in November. The political bickering and gesturing by the political parties only marginally affected Zimbabwe’s economic turnaround that had been encouraged by the GPA and the decision to adopt a multicurrency regime. Commerce and industry seemed to be on the mend, and basic commodities started to re-appear in most retail outlets. This revival cascaded to the provision of social amenities that had ceased at the height of the crisis: schools and hospitals began to reopen across the country, though these were available only to those that could afford the service fees. As these developments took place in a specific political context, and in order to fully comprehend the content of this, the inaugural report, it is essential to look at the crisis in retrospect and analyse 2009 with that history in mind. 6 Zimbabwe Human Rights Report – 2009