However, he now presides over a nation whose economy is in tatters, where poverty is endemic and political strife and repression are commonplace.

OVERVIEW

Zimbabwe is home to the Victoria Falls, regarded as one of the natural wonders of the world, the stone enclosures of Great Zimbabwe - remnants of a past empire - and to herds of elephant and other game roaming vast stretches of wilderness.

For years it has been a major tobacco producer and is potentially a bread basket for surrounding countries which often depend on food imports.

But the seizure of almost all white-owned commercial agricultural land, with the stated aim of benefiting black farmers, led to sharp falls in production. The country has endured critical food shortages and many Zimbabweans survive on grain handouts.

Aid agencies and critics partly blamed the shortages on the land reform programme. The government blamed a long-running drought, and Mr Mugabe accused Britain and its allies of sabotaging the economy in revenge for the redistribution programme.

The government's urban slum demolition drive in 2005 drew global condemnation. The razing of "illegal structures" rendered hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

The former Rhodesia has been the scene of much conflict, with white settlers dispossessing the resident population, guerrilla armies forcing the white government to submit to elections, and the post-independence leadership committing atrocities in southern areas where it lacked the support of the Matabele people.

The country's challenges include the need to address its international isolation, chronic unemployment, rampant inflation and one of the world's highest rates of HIV/Aids infection.

Zimbabwe has had a rocky relationship with the Commonwealth - it was suspended from the organisation after President Mugabe's controversial re-election in 2002 and later announced that it was pulling out for good.

FACTS

• Population: 12.9 million (UN, 2005)
• Capital: Harare
• Area: 390,759 sq km (150,873 sq miles)
• Major language: English (official), Shona, Sindebele
• Major religions: Christianity, indigenous beliefs
• Life expectancy: 37 years (men), 37 years (women) (UN)
• Monetary unit: 1 Zimbabwe dollar = 100 cents
• Main exports: Tobacco, cotton, agricultural products, gold, minerals
• GNI per capita: US $480 (World Bank, 2001)
• Internet domain: .zw
• International dialling code: +263

LEADERS

President: Robert Mugabe

Robert Mugabe played a key role in ending white rule in Rhodesia and he and his Zanu-PF party have dominated Zimbabwe's politics since independence in 1980.

President Mugabe has defended the seizures of white-owned farms

The main challenge to the octogenarian leader's authority has come from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The MDC says its members have been killed, tortured and harassed by Zanu-PF supporters. The president has accused the party of being a tool of Western powers.

Mr Mugabe was declared the winner of the 2002 presidential elections, considered seriously flawed by the opposition and foreign observers. He received a boost in 2005 when Zanu-PF won more than two-thirds of the votes in parliamentary elections, said by the MDC to be fraudulent.

The size of the win enabled the president, if he wished, to change the constitution.

Ideologically, Mr Mugabe belongs to the African liberationist tradition of the 1960s - strong and ruthless leadership, anti-Western, suspicious of capitalism and deeply intolerant of dissent and opposition.

His economic policies are widely seen as being geared to short-term political expediency and the maintenance of power for himself. Mr Mugabe has defended his land reform programme, saying the issue is the "core social question of our time".