Former President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe is dead.

He died in the early hours of Friday at the age of 95.

Recall that Mugabe, the longest serving president of Zimbabwe, was forced to resign in 2017 following protracted intra party crisis.

He was succeeded by his estranged deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa

BRIEF HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY OF 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. He chaired the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) group from 1975 to 1980 and led its successor political party, the ZANU – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), from 1980 to 2017. Ideologically an African nationalist, during the 1970s and 1980s he identified as a Marxist–Leninist. He self-identified as a socialist after the 1990s. His policies have been described as Mugabeism.

Mugabe was born to a poor Shona family in Kutama, Southern Rhodesia. Following an education at Kutama College and the University of Fort Hare, he worked as a school teacher in Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Ghana. Angered that Southern Rhodesia was a colony of the British Empire governed by its white minority, Mugabe embraced Marxism and joined African nationalist protests calling for an independent state led by representatives of the black majority. 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 ZANU’s role in the Rhodesian Bush War, fighting Ian Smith’s predominantly white government. He reluctantly took part in the peace negotiations brokered by the United Kingdom that resulted in the Lancaster House Agreement. The agreement ended the war and resulted in the 1980 general election, at which Mugabe led ZANU-PF to victory. As Prime Minister of the newly renamed Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s administration expanded healthcare and education and—despite his professed Marxist desire for a socialist society—adhered largely to mainstream, conservative 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 declined. In the Gukurahundi of 1982–1985, Mugabe’s Fifth Brigade crushed ZAPU-linked opposition in Matabeleland in a campaign that killed at least 10,000 people, mostly Ndebele civilians. Internationally, he sent troops into the Second Congo War and chaired the Non-Aligned Movement (1986–89), the Organisation of African Unity (1997–98), and the African Union (2015–16). 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, drastic economic decline, and international 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 own 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, widespread corruption, anti-white racism, human rights abuses, and crimes against humanity.

Illness and death

Mugabe was hospitalized in April 2019, making the last of several trips to Singapore for medical treatment, as he had done late in his presidency and in the months following its end. He died on 6 September 2019, at the age of 95.

ROBERT MUGABE LIFE IN BRIEF

Born to a carpenter on February 21, 1924, in the then Rhodesia, Robert Mugabe was brought up and trained to be a teacher at Roman Catholic Mission School.

He later won a scholarship at Fort Hare University in South Africa, where he took the first of his seven academic degrees before teaching in Ghana.

At Ghana, late Mugabe was influenced by the pan-Africanist ideas of Ghana’s post-independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah.

This led to him to marry Sally, his first wife from Ghana. He returned to Rhodesia in 1960 where he worked with an African nationalist, Joshua Nkomo.

They later drifted apart as Mugabe became the founding member of the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu).

In 1964, after making a speech in which he called Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and his government “cowboys”, Mugabe was arrested and detained without trial for a decade.

As part of the pain of struggle, he lost his son while still in prison and was not even allowed to take part in the funeral.

Radical leader

Known for his radicalism, Mugabe was chosen as president of Zanu even though he was in prison in 1973 and upon his release from prison, he went to Mozambique and directed guerrilla raids into Rhodesia.

His organisation formed an alliance with Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) and while negotiation for Rhodesia independence was ongoing, Mugabe was perceived as the most militant of the black leaders and the most uncompromising in his demands.

Soon, the Lancaster House agreement of 1979 set up a constitution for the new Republic of Zimbabwe, as Rhodesia was to be called, and set February 1980 for the first elections to the new government.

He ran separately against Nkomo and Mugabe had unexpected victory. Zanu secured a comfortable majority even though the polls were marred by accusations of vote-rigging and intimidation from both sides”

Upon his victory, he vowed that there won’t be victimisation and nationalisation of private property.

He initially promised a programme of reconciliation. Later that year, he outlined his economic policy, which mixed private enterprise with public investment.

Meanwhile, he reportedly championed a one-party system which led to him trying to stifle political opposition.

Controversies

In the mid-80s, there was a massacre of thousands of ethnic Ndebeles seen as Nkomo’s supporters in his home region of Matabeleland and Mugabe was linked to the killings committed by the Zimbabwean army’s North Korean-trained 5th Brigade.

Being the power of Zimbabwe, he was never tried.

Instead, the opposition, Nkomo agreed for his Zapu to be merged with – or taken over by – Zanu to become the virtually unchallenged ZANU-PF.

From Prime Minister to President

Late Mugabe would later become Zimbabwe president in 1987 and was elected for a third term in 1996.

After his first wife died of cancer, he married Grace Marufu. He gave birth to three children.

In 1992, he introduced the Land Acquisition Act, permitting the confiscation of land without appeal.

Most of the affected persons were the white farmers, who still owned the bulk of the country’s best land.

This led to criticism from the public who alleged that the president was giving out farms to his cronies, rather than the intended rural poor.

In early 2000, Mugabe again won the presidential election with 56.2 per cent of the vote compared with Mr Tsvangirai’s 41.9 per cent.

Following this, the US, UK and the EU failed to recognise the election result. They said Mugabe victory was marred with violence and allegations of fraud.

The Commonwealth also suspended Zimbabwe from participating in its meetings until it improved its record as a democracy.

Relentless Mugabe

Mugabe in 2005 led Operation Restore Order, a crackdown on the black market which reportedly led to arrest of about 30,000 street vendors and whole shanty towns demolished leaving an estimated 700,000 Zimbabweans homeless.

He lost the first round of the presidential elections in March 2008 but won the run-off in June after Mr Tsvangirai pulled out.

Mugabe in February 2009 later appointed Tsvangirai as prime minister.

Back in the saddle

Again in 2013, Mugabe won as president with 61 per cent of the votes.

As expected, there was again allegations of rigging.

At 89, he was still fighting tirelessly to remain president with increasing health challenges.

In 2015, there were speculations that his wife, Grace, was poised to take control in the event of his death in office but Mugabe would not allow these speculations to come true when he declared interest in 2018 again by which time he would be 94.

In February 2016, the power of Zimbabwe, Mugabe announced that he would be in power “until God says ‘come’”.

Removal OF MUGABE

Tired of his autocracy, the Zimbabwe National Army on November 15, 2017, placed Mugabe under house arrest and, four days later, was replaced by his former vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Mugabe would not resign until November 21 of 2018 when a motion to impeach him was being debated in the Zimbabwean parliament.

The speaker House of Assembly announced that Robert Mugabe had finally resigned.

The Power of Zimbabwe was never tried. Rather he got granted a house, servants, vehicles and full diplomatic status.

WHEN MUGABE DIED

He died on September 6, 2019.