Mugabe: from liberation-war hero to vengeful dictator

Africa Features

By Clare Byrne Jun 29, 2008, 15:02 GMT

Johannesburg - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, 84, one of Africa's last post-independence strongman leaders, was re-elected for another five years Sunday having stood alone in a run-off election that his longtime opposition rival Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe takes a moment to himself during his swearing in ceremony in Harare, Zimbabwe, 29 June 2008. Incumbent President Robert Mugabe was sworn in as president for another five years at a ceremony in Harare after sweeping the polls in a go-it-alone presidential election run-off. Mugabe took 2,150,269 votes, against 233,000 for opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Morgan Tsvangirai, who had urged people not to vote for him after deciding to boycott the poll. EPA/STRTsvangirai withdrew from the vote a week ahead of the election, in which Mugabe smashed his way to victory with an unprecedented three-month campaign of violence against opposition supporters. The campaign, which Mugabe himself likened to a war, marked a new low for Zimbabwe's leader of 28 years, whose transmogrification from liberation-war hero to cruel dictator continues to fascinate and horrify in equal measures. Born February 21, 1924, in north-west Harare, then British-ruled Southern Rhodesia, Mugabe was raised in a Catholic mission and trained as a teacher. He met his first wife, Ghanaian Sally Hayfron, while teaching in Ghana. On his return to Zimbabwe, he joined the National Democratic Party under Joshua Nkomo in its struggle against Ian Smith's white minority rule. During the 10 years he spent in prison between 1964 and 1974 for his political activities, he accumulated six degrees. He would later boast of also having a degree in violence. After his release from prison in 1974 he joined and later led the victorious guerrilla war conducted from Mozambique against Smith's breakaway regime. For his role in liberating Zimbabwe he still enjoys huge respect among many Africans to this day. At independence in 1980 Mugabe was elected prime minister, moving quickly to extend a hand of friendship to the white minority and making vast strides in improving education and healthcare. The reverence Zimbabweans still show for for education is largely due to his efforts. In their eagerness to cast him as a model African leader, Western governments largely ignored early signs of a autocratic tendency. In the 1980s he deployed North-Korean trained paramilitaries against supporters of the rival Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu) movement in Matabeleland, whom Mugabe accused of fomenting lawlessness. At least 8,000 civilians were killed in the so-called Gukurahundi campaign, with some putting the figure at up to 20,000. After the death of his first wife in 1992 from kidney failure, Mugabe married his much younger former secretary Grace Marufu, with whom he has three children. The start of his descent into unbridled tyranny is often pegged at his defeat in a referendum on the constitution in 2000 that would have boosted his powers significantly. Following the defeat, which he blamed on white Zimbabweans' support for the fledgling Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Mugabe gave the nod for ruling party members and cronies to seize thousands of white-owned farms, killing hundreds of people and decimating commercial agriculture, once the country's biggest foreign exchange earners. Zimbabwe's economy has continued to nosedive ever since. At the time of his swearing-in as president for another five years Sunday the Zimbabwe dollar was worth one 15-billionth of a US dollar and an estimated 4 million people were in need of food aid. In the face of electoral setbacks Mugabe's instinct has always been to seek revenge. Following 2005 parliamentary elections that the MDC claimed it won, around 700,000 urban MDC supporters were left homeless by a campaign entitled Sweep Away the Trash, in which thousands of homes and businesses were razed by bulldozers. Mugabe's reputation was further dented in March 2007, when Tsvangirai's bloodied features made front pages worldwide after a beating in police detention. His regime's brutality and his belligerence sank to new lows following March 29 elections, in which his Zanu-PF was relegated to the opposition benches by the MDC and he placed second in the presidential vote to Tsvangirai. As militia loyal to him slaughtered 86 opposition members to avenge the March setback, Mugabe vowed only God, and not an x on a ballot slip, could remove him from office.

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Donulvi dolamJun 29th, 2008 - 15:33:01

So Mugabe vowed only God, and not an x on a ballot slip, could remove him from office. Something tells me God is making those arrangements right now.

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GdubyaJun 30th, 2008 - 17:36:59

Overall Mugabe has been a saviour for Zimbabwe not a vengeful dictator. Let us not forget that the 'White Farmers' and the British politicians allowed/caused more bloodshed in Zimbabwe that Bob Mugabe. Who is the despot here! Read the history and you will find that the British were many times worse for far longer and did not bring democracy to Zimbabwe - Bob did!

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SP4: Really?Jun 30th, 2008 - 18:08:58

Well...in view of what is happening, any reasonable person would have to conclude that Mugabe isn't really much different from either the British or his other adversaries...

Often, I'm impressed at how, for the sake of safety or preference, a people will trade one kind of totalitarianism for another. I guess this is why they call it 'revolution'...it just keeps coming back around...

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NoharnessJul 2nd, 2008 - 09:42:01

Remember Ian Smith? Bye Bye whitie..hahahahahahahaha

White devil is mucho baaaaaaaad

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Donulvi DolamJul 4th, 2008 - 15:12:35

'the British were many times worse for far longer'--- That's like saying that we shouldn't hate Hitler because he really wasn't as bad as the Devil himself. There is not much difference between a streak in your underpants and the sh!t that caused it in the first place , you know.
Maybe the man did bring democracy to his country but in the end the word democracy had absolutely no meaning to him only the power it gave him coupled with a desire to bring ruin to half of his people whom he considered enemies. ArseholesRus just got a new member to its club. Robert Mugabe.

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Old Dog's TurdJul 4th, 2008 - 15:17:34

Don't worry about it Mr Mugabe, you will always be like a brother to me, I'm sure one day you'll dry and change color just like I did.

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juhaJul 10th, 2008 - 04:15:49

Mugabe is evil.....Mugabe wraps himself up in a black skin...and walks like the grim reaper, providing nothing to the world economy but higher prices and refugees to his neibhours.

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