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No doubt, Robert Mugabe will be remembered as on of the political revolutionist in Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole, whether you think of him as hero or villain, he will be honoured as one of the front-line leader that ended the colonial rule in Africa.
Mugabe was born on February 21, 1924, in Kutama, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as named in the colonial era. He was the founder of ZANU In 1963, an acclaimed resistance movement against British colonial rule.
The white-minority Rhodesian government led by Ian Smith made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965. The United Kingdom deemed this an act of rebellion, but did not re-establish control by force.
The white minority government declared itself a republic in 1970. A civil war ensued, with Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU and Robert Mugabe’s ZANU using assistance from the governments of Zambia and Mozambique.
Although Smith’s declaration was not recognised by the United Kingdom nor any other foreign power, Southern Rhodesia dropped the designation “Southern”, and claimed nation status as the Republic of Rhodesia in 1970 although this was not recognized internationally.
The country later gained official independence as Zimbabwe on 18 April 1980. Mugabe became prime minister of the new Republic of Zimbabwe after British rule ended in 1980, and he assumed the role of president seven years later.
Mugabe’s government changed the capital’s name from Salisbury to Harare at the celebration of the second anniversary of independence. The government renamed the main street in the capital, Jameson Avenue, in honour of Samora Machel, President of Mozambique.
Early Political Career
In 1960, Robert Mugabe returned to his hometown on leave, planning to introduce his fiancée to his mother. Unexpectedly, upon his arrival, Mugabe encountered a drastically changed Southern Rhodesia. Tens of thousands of black families had been displaced by the new colonial government, and the white population had exploded. The government denied black majority rule, resulting in violent protests. Mugabe too was outraged by this denial of blacks’ rights. In July 1960, he agreed to address the crowd at the protest March of 7,000, staged at Salisbury’s Harare Town Hall. The purpose of the gathering was for members of the opposition movement to protest the recent arrest of their leaders. Steeling himself in the face of police threats, Mugabe told the protestors about how Ghana had successfully achieved independence through Marxism.
Just weeks later, Mugabe was elected public secretary of the National Democratic Party. In accordance with Ghanaian models, Mugabe quickly assembled a militant youth league to spread the word about achieving black independence in Rhodesia. The government banned the party at the end of 1961, but the remaining supporters came together to form a movement that was the first of its kind in Rhodesia. The Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) soon grew to a staggering 450,000 members.
The union’s leader, Joshua Nkomo, was invited to meet with the United Nations, who demanded that Britain suspend their constitution and readdress the topic of majority rule. But, as time passed and nothing had changed, Mugabe and others were frustrated that Nkomo didn’t insist on a definite date for changes to the constitution. So great was his frustration, that by April of 1961, Mugabe publicly discussed starting a guerilla war — even going so far as to declare defiantly to a policeman, “We are taking over this country and we will not put up with this nonsense.”
Formation of ZANU
In 1963, Mugabe and other former supporters of Nkomo founded their own resistance movement, called the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), in Tanzania. Back in Southern Rhodesia later that year, the police arrested Mugabe and sent him to Hwahwa Prison. Mugabe would remain in jail for over a decade, being moved from Hwahwa Prison to Sikombela Detention Centre and later to Salisbury Prison. In 1964, while in prison, Mugabe relied on secret communications to launch guerrilla operations toward freeing Southern Rhodesia from British rule.
Presidency
Within just a week of the unity agreement, Mugabe was appointed president of Zimbabwe. He chose Nkomo as one of his senior ministers. Mugabe’s first major goal was to restructure and repair the country’s failing economy. In 1989, he set out to implement a five-year plan, which slackened price restrictions for farmers, allowing them to designate their own prices. By 1994, at the end of the five-year period, the economy had seen some growth in the farming, mining and manufacturing industries. Mugabe additionally managed to build clinics and schools for the black population.
By 1996, Mugabe’s decisions had begun to create unrest among the citizens of Zimbabwe, who had once hailed him as a hero for leading the country to independence. Many resented his choice to support the seizure of white people’s land without compensation to the owners, which Mugabe insisted was the only way to level out the economic playing field for the disenfranchised black majority. Citizens were likewise outraged by Mugabe’s refusal to amend Zimbabwe’s one-party constitution. High inflation was another sore subject, resulting in a civil servant strike for pay increases. The self-awarded pay raises of government officials only compounded the public’s resentment toward Mugabe’s administration.
Objections to Mugabe’s controversial political strategies continued to impede his success. In 1998, when he appealed to other countries to donate money for land distribution, the countries said they wouldn’t donate unless he first devised a program for helping Zimbabwe’s impoverished rural economy. Mugabe refused, and the countries refused to donate.
In 2000, Mugabe passed an amendment to the constitution that made Britain pay reparations for the land it had seized from blacks. Mugabe claimed that he would seize British land as restitution if they failed to pay. The amendment put further strain on Zimbabwe’s foreign relations.
Still, Mugabe, a notably conservative dresser who during his campaign had worn colorful shirts with his own face on them, won the 2002 presidential election. Speculation that he had stuffed the ballot box led the European Union to place an arms embargo and other economic sanctions on Zimbabwe. At this time Zimbabwe’s economy was in near ruins. Famine, an AIDS epidemic, foreign debt and widespread unemployment plagued the country. Yet Mugabe was determined to retain his office and did so by any means necessary—including alleged violence and corruption—winning the vote in the 2005 parliamentary elections.
Military Takeover and Resignation
Meanwhile, a more dire situation was emerging in Zimbabwe with the onset of what appeared to be a military coup. On November 14, not long after Mugabe’s dismissal of vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa, tanks were spotted in the country’s capital, Harare. Early the following morning, an army spokesman appeared on TV to announce that the military was in the process of apprehending criminals who were “causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice.”
The spokesman emphasized that this was not a military takeover of the government, saying, “We wish to assure the nation that his excellency the president… and his family are safe and sound and their security is guaranteed.” At the time, Mugabe’s whereabouts were unknown, but it was later confirmed that he had been confined to his home.
On November 17, Mugabe resurfaced in public at a university graduation ceremony, an appearance believed to mask the turmoil behind the scenes. After initially refusing to cooperate with proposed plans to peacefully remove him from power, the president reportedly agreed to announce his retirement during a televised speech scheduled for November 19.
On November 22, shortly after a joint session of the Zimbabwean Parliament convened for the impeachment vote, the speaker read a letter from the embattled president. “I have resigned to allow smooth transfer of power,” Mugabe wrote. “Kindly give public notice of my decision as soon as possible.”
He retained a strong grip on power, through controversial elections, until he was forced to resign at age 93.
Mugabe passed away on September 6, 2019, at Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore where he had been treated for several months.
(SOURCE: Biography.com)
