Geoffrey Rex Alexander Middleton Hill is a journalist and author working in London, Nairobi and Johannesburg.
Hill spent his childhood in Malawi, Rhodesia, and South Africa. [1]
His father, Hugh Middleton Hill, was federal water engineer for Nyasaland, during the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and went on to establish water projects across southern Africa. Geoff went to a total of 12 schools before completing his education at Northlands Boys' High School in Durban.
His early writing for biology journals and poetry magazines was encouraged by his mother, Zaeta (pronounced "zeeta").[ needs IPA ] After school, he studied zoology at the University of Natal.
In 1982 he moved to Australia and worked on various newspapers including the Townsville Bulletin and The Australian . In 1984, he founded Rhodesians Worldwide , a quarterly magazine. In 1992, with Nick Russell, he co-founded African Safari Magazine which ceased publication in 2000. He married Hope Kleoudis in Sydney in 1995 and they moved to Zimbabwe in 1997.
From 2002 until 2010, Hill worked as East and Southern Africa bureau chief for The Washington Times . [2]
In 2009, Hill began serving on the panel of the International Association of Genocide Scholars’ advisory council, the first African to do so. [3]
Until roughly 2,000 years ago, Zimbabwe was populated by ancestors of the San people. Bantu inhabitants of the region arrived and developed ceramic production in the area. A series of trading empires emerged, including the Kingdom of Mapungubwe and Kingdom of Zimbabwe. In the 1880s, the British South Africa Company began its activities in the region, leading to the colonial era in Southern Rhodesia.
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozambique to the east. The capital and largest city is Harare. The second largest city is Bulawayo. A country of roughly 15 million people, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English, Shona, and Ndebele the most common.
The Gukurahundi was a series of massacres of Ndebele civilians carried out by the Zimbabwe National Army from early 1983 to late 1987. It derives from a Shona language term which loosely translates to "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains".
Ian Douglas Smith was a Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 1964 to 1979. He was the country's first premier not born abroad, and led the predominantly white government that unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom in November 1965, following prolonged dispute over the terms. He remained Prime Minister for almost all of the 14 years of international isolation that followed, and oversaw Rhodesia's security forces during most of the Bush War, which pitted the unrecognised administration against communist-backed black nationalist guerrilla groups. Smith, who has been described as personifying white Rhodesia, remains a highly controversial figure—supporters portray him as a man of integrity and vision "who understood the uncomfortable truths of Africa," while his opponents consider him "an unrepentant racist."
The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) is a public university in Harare, Zimbabwe. It opened in 1952 as the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and was initially affiliated with the University of London. It was later renamed the University of Rhodesia, and adopted its present name upon Zimbabwe's independence in 1980. UZ is the oldest and best ranked university in Zimbabwe.
Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and Matabeleland politician who served as Vice-President of Zimbabwe from 1990 until his death in 1999. He founded and led the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) from 1961 until it merged in 1987 with Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) to form ZANU–PF after an internal military crackdown that claimed more than 20 000 of ZAPU supporters.
The Prime Minister of Rhodesia was the head of government of Rhodesia. Rhodesia, which had become a self-governing colony of the United Kingdom in 1923, unilaterally declared independence on 11 November 1965, and was thereafter an unrecognized state until 1979. In December 1979, the country came under temporary British control, and in April 1980 the country gained recognized independence as Zimbabwe.
Sir Reginald Stephen Garfield Todd was a liberal Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia from 1953 to 1958 and later became an opponent of white minority rule in Rhodesia.
Sir Roland "Roy" Welensky, was a Northern Rhodesian politician and the second and last Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers and are further separated from Midlands by the Shangani River in central Zimbabwe. The region is named after its inhabitants, the Ndebele people who were called "Amatabele"(people with long spears - Mzilikazi 's group of people who were escaping the Mfecani wars. Other ethnic groups who inhabit parts of Matabeleland include the Tonga, Bakalanga, Venda, Nambya, Khoisan, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, and Tsonga. The population of Matabeleland is just over 20% of the Zimbabwe's total.
Sydney Tigere Sekeramayi is a Zimbabwean politician who served in the government of Zimbabwe as Minister of Defence between 2013 and 2017. He has been a minister in the Cabinet since independence in 1980, serving as Minister of Defence from 2001 to 2009 and Minister of State Security from 2009 to 2013.
David Coltart is a Zimbabwean lawyer, Christian leader and politician. He was a founding member of the Movement for Democratic Change when it was established in 1999 and its founding secretary for legal affairs. He was the Member of Parliament for Bulawayo South in the House of Assembly from 2000 to 2008, and he was elected to the Senate in 2008. He is the Legal Secretary for the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change led by Welshman Ncube. He was the Minister for Education, Sport, Arts and Culture from February 2009 until August 2013.
Judith Todd is the second daughter of Garfield Todd (1908–2002), Rhodesian Prime Minister 1953-58, and a political activist regarding Zimbabwe. She was married to Richard Acton from 1974 to 1984. Todd was born at Dadaya Mission in Rhodesia. She was educated at Queen Elizabeth Girls School. Her missionary father, Reginald Stephen Garfield Todd, served as Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia between 1953 and 1958. Her mother, Jean Grace Wilson Todd, designed and implemented the Southern Rhodesian African Educational System.
United States–Zimbabwe relations are bilateral relations between Zimbabwe and the United States. Both countries share a common history and language as former British colonies.
Zimbabwe and the Commonwealth of Nations have had a controversial and stormy diplomatic relationship. Zimbabwe is a former member of the Commonwealth, having withdrawn in 2003, and the issue of Zimbabwe has repeatedly taken centre stage in the Commonwealth, both since Zimbabwe's independence and as part of the British Empire.
Bernard Thomas Gibson Chidzero was a Zimbabwean economist, politician, and writer. He served as the independent Zimbabwe's second finance minister.
The modern political history of Zimbabwe starts with the arrival of white people to what was dubbed Southern Rhodesia in the 1890s. The country was initially run by an administrator appointed by the British South Africa Company. The prime ministerial role was first created in October 1923, when the country achieved responsible government, with Sir Charles Coghlan as its first Premier. The third Premier, George Mitchell, renamed the post Prime Minister in 1933.
The 1981 Entumbane uprising, also known as the Battle of Bulawayo or Entumbane II, occurred between 8 and 12 February 1981 in and around Bulawayo, Zimbabwe amid political tensions in the newly independent state. Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) guerrillas, mainly in the city's western suburb of Entumbane, rebelled, creating a situation that threatened to develop into a fresh civil war, barely a year after the end of the Bush War. The Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR) and other white-commanded elements of the former Rhodesian Security Forces, fighting for the Zimbabwean government as part of the new Zimbabwe National Army, put down the uprising. Groups of Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) fighters attacked both ZIPRA and the government forces during the revolt, which followed a smaller outbreak of fighting between guerrillas in November 1980.
Michael Theodore Hayes Auret was a Zimbabwean farmer, politician, and activist. A devout Catholic, he served as chairman and later director of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe (CCJP) from 1978 until 1999. He also served as a member of Parliament for Harare Central from 2000 to 2003, when he resigned and emigrated to Ireland.
State House, formerly known as Government House, is the official residence of the President of Zimbabwe and is located in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was previously used by the Administrator of Southern Rhodesia, Governor of Southern Rhodesia and the Governor-General of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in addition to being occupied by the internationally unrecognised Rhodesian Officer Administering the Government and later President of Rhodesia. It was constructed in 1910 to a design by Detmar Blow in the Cape Dutch revival style.