What went wrong with Zimbabwe?

[Dave A]

I think there are very few people who look at the current situation in Zimbabwe and think everything's OK. Reading much of the "popular opinion," it seems the blame for this is largely being placed on Robert Mugabe's desire to cling to power at the cost of the nation. I'm less convinced.

Sure, it's Robert Mugabe's policies that have led to the economic meltdown. How can he not be held responsible when he's been the country's leader since the end of UDI and the establishment of broad democracy. It's just too long after taking power to blame this on a colonial past. Besides which, much like here, there was a period of good growth and prosperity that crossed racial lines.

This might sound strange, but the turnaround happened at a time when I wasn't paying any attention to anything outside of my business and my family - part of the recovery process from a very difficult time in my life. So I have got absolutely no idea exactly what the sequence of events were that led to this crisis.

So can anyone help me out here. What was the sequence of events that led Zimbabwe to this point? Somewhere along the line there was a fatal flaw in policy development. But what were the actual policies that led to the meltdown?