Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, decided while in his twenties to help his black

countrymen achieve independence from British colonial rule. He fulfilled his goal in 1980, after
eleven years in prison and a bloody seven-year guerrilla war. Since 1987 Mugabe has presided
over a land whose economy is in shambles, and Amnesty International named Mugabe one of the
ten worst dictators in the world.

Learned about Racial Injustice

Robert Mugabe was born in 1924, four months after Southern Rhodesia became a British Crown
colony. In a land ruled by a theoretically multiracial Legislative Assembly that was actually
overwhelmingly white, life was not easy for the Shona people of Mugabe's native Kutama
village. Their freedom was curtailed by laws, their job opportunities were regulated by industry's
need for unskilled labor, and their education, in most cases, was limited to the grammar-school
level.
Mugabe was one of the few who escaped this fate. His education was supervised by Father
O'Hea, the director of the nearby Jesuit mission, who was an unshakably moral and defiantly
liberal man. An unabashed iconoclast, O'Hea held the philosophy that all people are equal and
should be treated that way and that students should be educated as far as their capabilities can
take them. He imbued the intelligent young Mugabe with both of these maxims and encouraged
him to pass them on to others by becoming a teacher.
In 1945 Mugabe left O'Hea's guidance behind for a wider Southern Rhodesia, where new settlers
were pouring into the country at a rate of ten thousand each year. Prime Minister Godfrey
Huggins, intent on providing security for them, was firmly in favor of racial separation, a method
of administration that had been buttressed by the Land Apportionment Act. Implemented in
1930, the act decreed that much of the nation's unincorporated land should be divided evenly
between blacks and whites despite a huge demographic imbalance of only 50,000 whites and
650,000 blacks. The growing population and the increasing industrialization of the country
forced more and more blacks to move. By the time Mugabe returned home to start his teaching
career in 1946, about three hundred thousand black families had been displaced from their homes
and packed into already overcrowded areas. It was a situation destined to fester into open
warfare.
Southern Rhodesia was still seething in 1949, when Mugabe won a scholarship to the University
of Fort Hare in South Africa. Because South Africa was also part of the British Commonwealth,
he found little change in the external society, though life was different inside the all-black
university. For the first time since he had left the mission, he saw active protest against
segregation and an eagerness to explore different political philosophies. One that he found
attractive was Marxism.
Mugabe's interest in communism grew into admiration after 1957, when he was invited by
Kwame Nkrumah to teach in Ghana. Recently independent and proudly Marxist, the Ghanaian
government was intent on bringing universal education and opportunity to those formerly at the
lowest levels of society. Mugabe noted that most Ghanaians gladly seized the chance to better

themselves. Enjoying the cheerful public spirit, he plunged eagerly into teaching and working
with the country's youth groups, and he took a deep interest in all aspects of Ghanaian politics.

Became Opposition Leader in Zimbabwe

In 1960 he visited his homeland to introduce his mother to his Ghanaian fiance, Sally Heyfron.
The country was no longer the Southern Rhodesia he remembered. The white population had
grown to 223,000, a formidable number of whom supported the federation that had been
established between Northern and Southern Rhodesia and Malawi. However, no such enthusiasm
existed among the country's 450,000-strong black voting force. The federation's government
refused to implement black majority rule, so politically aware blacks were adamantly opposed to
it. Mugabe was astounded by their bold new vehemence and the protest groups they had formed
to express it.
In July of 1960 black fury exploded into a protest later called the March of 7,000. People
gathered at the town hall of Salisbury's Harare Township to protest the arrest of their leaders.
Mugabe was persuaded to address the gathering. He told his seething audience about the
egalitarian new Ghanaian society and its rise from colonialism, and found that he had generated
public interest that outlasted the day of the protest. He ignored the threatening, almost unlimited
police power of the Law and Order Act that was enacted after the march and began to give many
speeches about Ghanaian pride in its Marxist independence. He also decided to stay and help
achieve the same status for Southern Rhodesia.
Within weeks of the March of 7,000, he was elected publicity secretary of the National
Democratic Party. Seeing his first task as introducing the uninitiated to the possibility of black
independence, he organized a semimilitant youth league like those he had worked with in Ghana.
Just as he had done in Accra, he attracted Rhodesian teenagers with political discussions and the
cultural dancing and music that would give them pride in their heritage. His efforts soon paid off.
Even though the party itself was banned by the government on December 9, 1961, it left behind
enough supporters to regroup immediately into the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU).
As Southern Rhodesia's first effective black political movement, it functioned for nine months
before it was banned the following September.
The tumultuous events in Southern Rhodesia had not escaped the notice of the British Foreign
Office, which in 1959 ordered a comprehensive enquiry under Lord Monckton. The following
year the Monckton Commission disclosed its conclusion that there was too much black
opposition to the federation for it to continue to exist in its present form. If the federation were to
survive, Monckton concluded, a new constitution providing majority rule would have to be
enacted. Britain agreed, relinquishing control of Southern Rhodesia's domestic affairs and
drawing up a new constitution allowing majority rule.
The new constitution did not appease black Rhodesians, however. It lacked a definite target date
for adopting majority rule and it proposed a two-tier electoral system whose upper level was
accessible only to voters with a secondary education. Because this effectively excluded most of
the black population, blacks received only half the voting power of the better-educated whites,
who were also eligible to vote on the lower roll. As a result, the country's far-smaller white

population could elect fifty of the Legislative Assembly's sixty-five members. The vociferous
opposition of 450,000 blacks spurred ZAPU leader Joshua Nkomo to visit the United Nations
(UN), which in turn called on Britain to suspend the new constitution and initiate discussions
about true majority rule.

At a Glance
Born Robert Gabriel Mugabe on February 21, 1924, in Kutama, Zimbabwe; son of Gabriel
Mugabe and Bona Mugabe; married Sally Heyfron, February 21, 1961; two children; married
Grace Marufa, August 16, 1996; three children. Education: University of Fort Hare, South
Africa, BA, 1951; University of London, LLB.
Career: Taught at various mission schools in Zimbabwe, 1951-55; taught at Chalimbana
Training College, Zambia, 1955-58, and St. Mary's Training College, Takoradi, Ghana, 1958-60;
National Democratic Party, publicity secretary, 1960-61; Zimbabwe African People's Union,
publicity secretary, 1961-62; Zimbabwe African National Union, founder and leader, 1963-76,
president, 1976-80; arrested in 1963 and jailed 1964-74; Republic of Zimbabwe, prime minister,
1980-87, minister of defense, 1985; president, 1987.
Awards: African Leadership Prize, 1988.
Addresses: OfficeOffice of the President, Private Bag 7700, Causeway, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Nkomo's negotiations with the British stalled. Nkomo was perceived by many, including
Mugabe, as accept- ing Britain's vague promises of eventual majority rule rather than insisting on
a definite timetable. Along with other ZAPU supporters, Mugabe was so furious about these
equivocations that he openly began to advocate a guerrilla war. In April of 1961, noted Mugabe's
biographers David Smith and Colin Simpson, Mugabe even snapped at a policeman at Salisbury
Airport who stopped a party supporter suspected of carrying a weapon: "We are taking over this
country, and we will not put up with this nonsense."
Mugabe's defiant attitude made him the target of constant police surveillance, especially after he
split from Nkomo's party in 1963. In August of that year he and several other ex-Nkomo
supporters formed the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The Rhodesian police, aware of these activities, waited for their opportunity to arrest him. Their
chance came in December, when Mugabe returned to his homeland. He was jailed for eleven
years. In prison, Mugabe was not as isolated as the police hoped. Secret communications
networks between him and his supporters brought him the news that the former Nyasaland was
now Malawi, that the former Northern Rhodesia was now Zambia, and that the independence of
both countries had caused the collapse of the federation. He also knew that an attack on a white
Rhodesian farmstead in 1964 had signaled the start of guerrilla operations to liberate Southern
Rhodesia.

Watched the Majority Rule Prevail

Mugabe had been in prison for about two years when former Royal Air Force Pilot Ian Smith
became Rhodesia's prime minister. An experienced politician, Smith assured white Southern
Rhodesians that majority rule would not come to pass during his tenure. He went to London for
the constitutional talks, but his stance did not impress the new Labor government. Nevertheless,
he stuck obstinately to his agenda, going so far as to issue a unilateral declaration of
independence on November 11, 1965, though still professing allegiance to the British Crown. In
response, the UN imposed sanctions that quickly damaged the Rhodesian economy. Chrome,
copper, asbestos, tobacco, and sugar previously bound for export never left the country, and
shipments of badly needed oil were kept out.
However, sanctions were just one of Smith's problems. Far worse was the 1975 independence of
Mozambique, a staunch former ally in its days as a Portuguese colony. Mozambique was now a
Marxist state, with long, sparsely patrolled borders that were ideal bases of operations for
Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and the Chinese allies eager
to help it with training and arms. Neighboring South Africa, Smith's last remaining ally, was now
also teetering insecurely. Encouraged by South African leaders, Smith had Mugabe released from
prison to attend a 1974 conference in Lusaka. Mugabe seized this opportunity and escaped across
the border into Mozambique, stopping on the way to recruit young Rhodesians for guerrilla
training.
By the end of the 1970s a savage and stealthy war and a devastated economy had convinced
Smith that majority rule was inevitable. Unsuccessfully, he tried to reach a mutually suitable
transition schedule with Mugabe, but there was no progress until 1979, when Britain convened a
conference at Lancaster House in London. Topics discussed at the conference were the Britishmonitored transition to black majority rule, the assurance of white minority representation for a
specific period after independence, and a new constitution. With all these matters settled, on
December 16 the UN lifted the sanctions.

Became Prime Minister

On April 18, 1980, British rule ended in Southern Rhodesia and the nation was renamed the
Republic of Zimbabwe. Elected over candidates from ten competing parties, including Nkomo,
the ZANU took power, with Mugabe as prime minister. Despite his Marxist leanings, he tried his
best not to frighten whites by immediately scrapping the capitalist economy. Instead, he tried to
persuade them to stay and share their skills by announcing that the change to socialism would
proceed in gradual phases. White Rhodesians were not convinced that they could find security in
a country run by a recently murderous enemy, however, and in 1980 alone, over seventeen
thousand of them fled from the country.
Mugabe ignored their departure and turned his attention to badly needed reforms. By New Year's
Day 1981, the country boasted free primary school education for all students as well as
guaranteed admission to secondary school for all who qualified. Free medical care was provided
for those with low income levels, and a new housing law granted freehold ownership to homerenters of thirty years' standing. In other innovations, Mugabe had city boundaries reshaped to
ensure multiracial political representation and replaced whites with educated blacks in key
positions relating to educational institutions.

Nevertheless, problems remained. Fighting broke out in February of 1981 between Mugabe's
forces and Nkomo's Zambia-based faction. Most troublesome was Nkomo himself, who was
fired from the government in 1982 after his intention to launch an antigovernment coup was
revealed. This action touched off a flurry of robberies and led to the murder of several tourists. It
also brought retaliation from Mugabe's forces in the form of rapes and murders in Nkomo's
stronghold area of Matabeleland.
An atmosphere of resentment smoldered on through the national elections of 1985, when
Mugabe tri- umphed a second time over Nkomo. Friction between the ZANU and Nkomo's
ZAPU supporters continued until November of 1987, when fifteen Matabeleland missionaries
were murdered with axes by Mugabe supporters. This tragedy caused Nkomo and Mugabe to
settle their differences.

Became Zimbabwe's President

On December 22, 1987, the ZANU and the ZAPU merged in a unity agreement designed to
begin healing the country, which was now split along tribal lines. One week later Mugabe was
installed as the country's new president, and Nkomo was named one of three supervising senior
ministers. The friction eased, allowing President Mugabe to concentrate on bettering an economy
starved for foreign currency as a result of prolonged drought, a worldwide recession, and the
lingering effects of sanctions against the Smith government. Despite his efforts, imported spare
parts for the mining and manufacturing industries became scarce, and levies on tobacco and
alcohol had to be instituted to offset the soaring unemployment rate.
By 1989 the economy required major restructuring. The International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank helped create a five-year adjustment program that restructured the government,
relaxed price controls, and gave farmers the right to set their own prices. Still, shortages of
staples such as brake fluid and cooking oil; the drought-induced rises in the cost of maize, wheat,
and dairy products; and a new policy of charging for education and medical care overshadowed
most of the adjustment programs' benefits and darkened the national mood. By 1994, however,
the structural adjustment had produced some improvements, with slight growth beginning in
agriculture, manufacturing, and mining. Mugabe's vision of security under majority rule in
Zimbabwe had begun to move forward.
In 1996 Mugabe took the controversial stance of supporting the seizure of white-owned land
without compensation to reverse the economic imbalances that disadvantaged the majority
blacks. He also refused to revise the constitution that is tailored to a one-party state, or release
his hold on the media.
In September of 1998 Mugabe's government held an international conference to raise money for
land distribution, but potential donor countries refused to give Mugabe any money until he came
up with a plan for reducing rural poverty. Since no plan was proposed, no money was received.
Then in April of 2000 Zimbabwe passed a constitutional amendment that held Britain, as a
former colonial power, responsible for paying for land stolen from Africans during colonial rule.
Mugabe threatened to seize land without compensation if Britain did not pay. Some critics,

however, pointed out that when the British arrived in Africa at the end of the nineteenth century,
they were only helping themselves to land that was not being used by anyone else.
In a presidential election in March of 2002, Mugabe officially won reelection by 430,000 votes.
However, there were widespread allegations that Mugabe had stuffed the ballot box with enough
votes to give him his margin of victory. The allegations had sufficient credibility to cause the
United States, the European Union, and many other developed countries to impose sanctions on
Zimbabwe, including an arms embargo. In 2003 a hearing was held by the High Court of
Zimbabwe, though no decision was immediately made and Mugabe and his party retained power.

Was Unable to Help Zimbabwe's Economy

By October of 2002 Zimbabwe's commercial agriculture, which had formerly sustained the
economy, had ground to a halt. With widespread hunger (half the population was said to be
experiencing famine), food donations were pouring into the country. There were reports that
Mugabe's government had been distributing donated food on the basis of the recipient's political
affiliation. Other reports stated the government would only buy farmers' products if they
supported Mugabe, which contributed to the food problem.
Food shortages, however, were only the tip of the iceberg for Mugabe. Since early 2000 the
economy had experienced a steep decline. The gross domestic product had fallen 24 percent,
inflation had reached 135 percent, the value of the country's currency had fallen 96 percent, and
the arrears on the foreign debt of $3.4 billion had reached 30 percent. Earnings from tourism had
fallen 80 percent, gold production was down by half, and 300,000 of the county's 1.3 million
workers were unemployed. In addition to bad economic news, 35 percent of all adults had AIDS.
Many people left the country, whose population declined by nearly 2.5 million between 1992 and
2002.
Though Zimbabwe's economic, social, and cultural situations were growing more desperate,
Mugabe tightened his grip on the country. In September of 2003 a government commission
essentially banned Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper from future publication. The
paper regularly criticized Mugabe. Though Mugabe was in control, he did face some uncertainty
before the 2005 parliamentary elections. Besides factional infighting in his political party and
controversy over who would be Mugabe's successor when he decided to leave office, several
important people in Mugabe's government, including the Zimbabwean ambassador to
Mozambique, were charged with selling state secrets to foreign agents.
During his campaign, Mugabe said he believed the mining industry would take Zimbabwe out of
its eco- nomic doldrums, and he looked forward to the opening of the country's first big diamond
mine in 2005. The government also invested funds to encourage more platinum mining.
Furthermore, Mugabe spoke out against the violence expected to accompany the elections.
Despite being named one of the world's ten worst dictators by Amnesty International in 2004,
Mugabe was expected to win the election and stay in power until at least 2008, when he said he
would retire.

His retirement did not come soon enough, however, as Mugabe's party did indeed retain power in
the 2005 parliamentary elections. By that time, the country had further descended into a shocking
state of chaos and economic ruin. The collapse had begun in 2000, with the enactment of the
threatened forcible appropriation of thousands of white-owned farms. The ensuing destruction of
the agricultural base (output fell by 80 percent) resulted in an approximate decline of 50 percent
in the gross national product, an annual inflation rate of 400%, and a dizzying drop in tourist
revenues. The problems were further worsened by Operation Murambatsvina (variously
translated as "Clean up Filth," "Drive out Trash," and "Restore Order"), which was started in
May of 2005. Described by the government as a civic beautification program, the initiative
displaced an estimated seven hundred thousand people and affected nearly two million more,
thousands of whom were rendered homeless within months. Mugabe denied any such situation
and refused UN assistance for its alleged victims. Nonetheless, by November of 2005 the
average life expectancy had halved in a decade, four million people faced famine, and the
unemployment rate hovered around 70%.
Attempts to deal with the economic collapse, including printing more and more money, led to
runaway inflation. It rose from 1,000 percent in 2005 to an unimaginable 40 million percent in
2008. In 2007 Celia W. Dugger of the New York Times reported that "the government had to lop
10 zeros off the currency to keep the nation's calculators from being overwhelmed."
Zimbabweans faced monthly limits of how much money they were allowed to take out of the
banks, amounting to only a dollar or two. The once-prosperous Zimbabwe had declined into a
beleaguered country fit, perhaps, only for its president.

Corrupted the 2008 Elections

In March of 2007 Zimbabwean riot police broke up opposition rallies, and Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai and several other opposition leaders were
beaten and hospitalized. The United States announced that it would hold Mugabe personally
responsible for the attacks. In August of 2007 Mugabe forbade all businesses in Zimbabwe to
increase their prices or wages for the next six months. The move was an attempt to fight
Zimbabwe's runaway inflation, but it had little or no effect on the country's economic problems.
In December British prime minister Gordon Brown refused to attend a summit involving the
European Union and African nations because of Mugabe's presence there. At the summit,
representatives of other countries criticized Mugabe for his human-rights record.
Late in 2007 Mugabe's party and the opposition began holding talks in South Africa aimed at
national reconciliation. However, in January of 2008 police used tear gas to break up an
opposition rally. A few days later, the Mugabe regime announced that it would hold presidential
and parliamentary elections on March 29 of that year, and Mugabe would run for reelection.
Mugabe ran on the slogan "This is the final battle for total control." Opposition leaders insisted
that changes to the constitution should precede new elections, and they threatened to boycott the
vote unless changes were made to ensure the elections would be free and fair, including a
relaxation of tough security laws used to suppress political rallies.
The March 29, 2008, elections pitted Mugabe against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai of the
MDC. Electoral authorities took more than a month to release results. In the meantime, on April

6, Mugabe asked the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to recheck the results of the presidential
elections before publicly releasing the outcome. The MDC sued in Zimbabwe's High Court to
block this order. The MDC believed Mugabe was trying to steal the election and argued that
Mugabe could not legally ask for a recount until after the results were released. The MDC also
demanded that the results of the election be published immediately.
When election results were finally released on May 2, they showed that Tsvangirai took 47.9% of
the vote and that Mugabe only won 43.2%. This meant the two would have to compete in a runoff election, because to win in the first round the top vote-getter had to win more than half of the
vote. The MDC alleged that Tsvangirai had indeed won more than 50% of the vote in the first
round of the election and that Mugabe's government had manipulated the vote-counting process
to prevent Tsvangirai from taking office.
On May 16, 2008, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced that the run-off election
between Mugabe and Tsvangirai would be held on June 27, 2008. Tsvangirai declared he would
compete in the run-off election, despite his assertions that the vote-counting in the first round of
the election had been rigged. However, in June of 2008 Mugabe said he would not allow
Tsvangirai or the MDC to take power in Zimbabwe as long as he was alive. BBC News noted
that Tsvangirai withdrew his candidacy just days before the election because, he said, "the
outcome is determined by Mugabe himself" and because as many as two hundred thousand
MDC supporters had been forced from their homes, and others had been beaten and even killed.
On June 29, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced that Mugabe had won 85.5% of the
vote in the June 27 election. Shortly after the announcement, Mugabe was sworn in for another
term.
Several international organizations that monitored the election, including the Southern African
Development Community and the Pan-African Parliament, condemned Mugabe's reelection. The
monitors declared the voting had been so unfair that the results could not be trusted. Many
African leaders insisted at that time that Mugabe enter into talks with opposition leaders to
relinquish some of the total control of the Zimbabwean government that he had exercised for
twenty-eight years.

Agreed to Potential Power-Broking Deal

In response to international criticism, negotiations between Mugabe and Tsvangirai and mediated
by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa began in July of 2008. In September Mugabe signed
an agreement with Tsvangirai to share responsibilities for running Zimbabwe. It was unclear how
the power-sharing agreement would work, although at that time Mugabe was introduced as
president and Tsvangirai as prime minister of the country. Within days, however, the deal faltered
as Mugabe insisted on retaining control of the police and security forces, as well as other crucial
ministriesfinance, foreign affairs, information, mines, land, agriculture, and justice.
In early October of 2008 Mugabe announced that the ZANU would retain control of crucial
ministries, including those that control both the military and the police force, whereas control of
the finance ministry was still unresolved. Opposition leaders declared they would not join a
government formed under such circumstances.

In late October Botswana's president Seretse Khama put pressure on other African leaders to call
for a new election in Zimbabwe if the power-sharing deal remained at an impasse. Mediators
referred stalled negotiations to the Southern African Development Community. By November of
2008 the situation was not yet resolved. Human rights groups suggested that Mugabe and his
supporters might be jeopardizing the talks, fearing that they would face human rights trials
should they allow the opposition to take part in government.