Life & Times of Robert Mugabe

ZIMBABWE’S President Robert Mugabe, who turned 83 last Wednesday arrived for a two day State visit in Namibia yesterday.

Still appearing fit for his age and combative in the face of a crumbling economy, social unrest and a looming battle over who will succeed him, Mugabe has been in power since the country gained independence in 1980. Here are some key facts on Mugabe: EARLY LIFE: – Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born in February 1924 on the Kutama Mission northwest of Harare and educated by Jesuits.He went on to win seven university degrees, three of them while in prison.- Mugabe was jailed for 10 years in 1964 for opposing white minority rule.Guerrilla war began in 1972 against Ian Smith’s white government of the then-Rhodesia.POLITICAL LEADER: – Mugabe became leader of the ZANU liberation movement in the mid-1970s after his release from jail.The renamed ZANU-PF won independence elections in 1980 and Mugabe became prime minister.He took office as president in 1987 following a change in the constitution.- Once hailed as a model African democrat, the former Marxist guerrilla has held fast to power despite a deepening political and economic crisis that has ruined the country he fought so hard to free from white rule.A DOWNTURN: – In February 2000, Mugabe tasted defeat for the first time when voters in a referendum rejected a new constitution that would have given him more power.He turned on the small white minority, blaming them for the referendum defeat, and told them to go to Britain.- He pushed legislation through parliament allowing his government to seize more than half the white-owned farms.Self-styled war veterans, many of them too young to have fought in the liberation conflict, occupied many other farms, often with violence.- ZANU-PF won a narrow victory in parliamentary elections in 2000 but lost most seats in the major towns to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).- Mugabe was elected to his third six-year term as president in 2002 but his crackdown against the MDC and other opponents, including journalists, increased his international isolation.- Zimbabwe’s economic crisis has been worsened by international donors’ suspension of lending due to policy differences with Mugabe.Mugabe has denied criticism that he has mismanaged the economy – Zimbabwe’s inflation is the world’s highest – and has accused the West, which has imposed sanctions, of engaging in economic sabotage to punish him for land reforms.Nampa-ReutersHere are some key facts on Mugabe: EARLY LIFE: – Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born in February 1924 on the Kutama Mission northwest of Harare and educated by Jesuits.He went on to win seven university degrees, three of them while in prison.- Mugabe was jailed for 10 years in 1964 for opposing white minority rule.Guerrilla war began in 1972 against Ian Smith’s white government of the then-Rhodesia.POLITICAL LEADER: – Mugabe became leader of the ZANU liberation movement in the mid-1970s after his release from jail.The renamed ZANU-PF won independence elections in 1980 and Mugabe became prime minister.He took office as president in 1987 following a change in the constitution.- Once hailed as a model African democrat, the former Marxist guerrilla has held fast to power despite a deepening political and economic crisis that has ruined the country he fought so hard to free from white rule.A DOWNTURN: – In February 2000, Mugabe tasted defeat for the first time when voters in a referendum rejected a new constitution that would have given him more power.He turned on the small white minority, blaming them for the referendum defeat, and told them to go to Britain.- He pushed legislation through parliament allowing his government to seize more than half the white-owned farms.Self-styled war veterans, many of them too young to have fought in the liberation conflict, occupied many other farms, often with violence.- ZANU-PF won a narrow victory in parliamentary elections in 2000 but lost most seats in the major towns to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).- Mugabe was elected to his third six-year term as president in 2002 but his crackdown against the MDC and other opponents, including journalists, increased his international isolation.- Zimbabwe’s economic crisis has been worsened by international donors’ suspension of lending due to policy differences with Mugabe.Mugabe has denied criticism that he has mismanaged the economy – Zimbabwe’s inflation is the world’s highest – and has accused the West, which has imposed sanctions, of engaging in economic sabotage to punish him for land reforms.Nampa-Reuters