Robert Mugabe

Robert Gabriel Mugabe (21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017.

Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born on 21 February 1924 at the Kutama Mission village in Southern Rhodesia's Zvimba District.

His father, Gabriel Matibiri, was a carpenter while his mother Bona was a Christian catechist for the village children.

They had been trained in their professions by the Jesuits, the Roman Catholic religious order which had established the mission.

Bona and Gabriel had six children: Miteri (Michael), Raphael, Robert, Dhonandhe (Donald), Sabina, and Bridgette.

They belonged to the Zezuru clan, one of the smallest branches of the Shona tribe.

In about 1930 Gabriel had an argument with one of the Jesuits, and as a result the Mugabe family was expelled from the mission village by its French leader, Father Jean-Baptiste Loubière.

The family settled in a village about 7 mi away; the children were permitted to remain at the mission primary school, living with relatives in Kutama during term-time and returning to their parental home on weekends.

Around the same time, Robert's older brother Raphael died, likely of diarrhoea.

In early 1934, Robert's other older brother, Michael, also died, after consuming poisoned maize.

Later that year, Gabriel left his family in search of employment in Bulawayo.

He subsequently abandoned Bona and their six children and established a relationship with another woman, with whom he had three further offspring.

Loubière died shortly after and was replaced by an Irishman, Father Jerome O'Hea, who welcomed the return of the Mugabe family to Kutama.

In contrast to the racism that permeated Southern Rhodesian society, under O'Hea's leadership the Kutama Mission preached an ethos of racial equality.

After making anti-government comments, he was convicted of sedition and imprisoned between 1964 and 1974.

On release, he fled to Mozambique, established his leadership of ZANU, and oversaw its role in the Rhodesian Bush War, fighting Ian Smith's predominantly white government.

He reluctantly participated in peace talks in the United Kingdom that resulted in the Lancaster House Agreement, putting an end to the war.

Ideologically an African nationalist, during the 1970s and 1980s he identified as a Marxist–Leninist, and as a socialist after the 1990s.

Mugabe was born to a poor Shona family in Kutama, Southern Rhodesia.

Educated at Kutama College and the University of Fort Hare, he worked as a schoolteacher in Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Ghana.

Angered by white minority rule of his homeland within the British Empire, Mugabe embraced Marxism and joined African nationalists calling for an independent state controlled by the black majority.

He served as Leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) from 1975 to 1980 and led its successor political party, the ZANU – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), from 1980 to 2017.

In the 1980 general election, Mugabe led ZANU-PF to victory, becoming Prime Minister when the country, now renamed Zimbabwe, gained internationally recognised independence later that year.

Mugabe's administration expanded healthcare and education and—despite his professed desire for a socialist society—adhered largely to mainstream economic policies.

Mugabe's calls for racial reconciliation failed to stem growing white emigration, while relations with Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) also deteriorated.

In the Gukurahundi of 1982–1987, Mugabe's Fifth Brigade crushed ZAPU-linked opposition in Matabeleland in a campaign that killed at least 20,000 people, mostly Ndebele civilians.

Internationally, he sent troops into the Second Congo War and chaired the Non-Aligned Movement (1986–1989), the Organisation of African Unity (1997–1998), and the African Union (2015–2016).

Pursuing decolonisation, Mugabe emphasised the redistribution of land controlled by white farmers to landless blacks, initially on a "willing seller–willing buyer" basis.

Frustrated at the slow rate of redistribution, from 2000 he encouraged black Zimbabweans to violently seize white-owned farms.

Food production was severely impacted, leading to famine, economic decline, and foreign sanctions.

Opposition to Mugabe grew, but he was re-elected in 2002, 2008, and 2013 through campaigns dominated by violence, electoral fraud, and nationalistic appeals to his rural Shona voter base.

In 2017, members of his party ousted him in a coup, replacing him with former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Having dominated Zimbabwe's politics for nearly four decades, Mugabe was a controversial figure.

He was praised as a revolutionary hero of the African liberation struggle who helped free Zimbabwe from British colonialism, imperialism, and white minority rule.

Critics accused Mugabe of being a dictator responsible for economic mismanagement and widespread corruption and human rights abuses, including anti-white racism, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Mugabe's paternal grandfather was Chief Constantine Karigamombe, alias "Matibiri", a powerful figure who served King Lobengula in the 19th century.

Through his father, he claimed membership of the chieftaincy family that has provided the hereditary rulers of Zvimba for generations.

The Jesuits were strict disciplinarians and under their influence Mugabe developed an intense self-discipline, while also becoming a devout Catholic.

Mugabe excelled at school, where he was a secretive and solitary child, preferring to read, rather than playing sports or socialising with other children.

He was taunted by many of the other children, who regarded him as a coward and a mother's boy.