Lancaster House and Zimbabwe's Independence

By 1979 Rhodesia was under heavy military and economic pressure, and South Africa wanted a settlement. At the Commonwealth meeting in Lusaka in August 1979, Margaret Thatcher's government agreed to hold new negotiations. At Lancaster House in London, from September to December 1979, Britain, the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia government and the Patriotic Front of Nkomo and Mugabe agreed a ceasefire, a constitution and elections under temporary British rule.

The constitution reserved 20 of 100 parliamentary seats for white voters for seven years and protected property, so land could be transferred for ten years only on a 'willing buyer, willing seller' basis. In the February 1980 election, Mugabe's ZANU-PF won 57 of the 80 common-roll seats. Zimbabwe became independent on 18 April 1980, and Mugabe called for reconciliation.

Yet tensions soon erupted: from 1983 to 1987 government forces killed thousands of civilians in Matabeleland in the Gukurahundi campaign, and unresolved land inequality became a major issue later.