My OperaPresident Robert Gabriel Karigamombe Mugabe
Thursday, February 25, 2010 3:32:05 PM
Robert Gabriel Karigamombe Mugabe (born 21 February 1924) is the current President of Zimbabwe. He has held power as the head of government since 1980, as Prime Minister from 1980 to 1987, and as the first executive head of state since 1987.[1] In 2008, his party suffered a defeat in national elections, but Mugabe retained power after his party's violence against opposition supporters caused the opposition candidate to pull out of a subsequent run-off.[2]
Mugabe rose to prominence in the 1960s as the Secretary General of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). For many years in the 1960s and 1970s Mugabe was a political prisoner in Rhodesia. His goal was to replace white minority-rule with a one-party Marxist regime.[3] Having been a political prisoner for 10 years, on release with Edgar Tekere, Mugabe left Rhodesia in 1975 to join the Zimbabwe Liberation Struggle (Rhodesian Bush War) from bases in Mozambique. At the end of the war in 1979, Mugabe emerged as a hero in the minds of many Africans.[4][5] He won the general elections of 1980, the second in which the majority of Black Africans participated in large numbers (though the electoral system in Rhodesia had allowed Black participation based on qualified franchise), amid reports of violent intimidation by the militants he now controlled. Mugabe then became the first Prime Minister after calling for reconciliation between formerly warring parties, including the white people as well as rival parties.
The years following Zimbabwe's independence saw a split between the two key belligerents who had fought alongside each other during the 1970s against the government of Rhodesia. An armed conflict between Mugabe's Government and dissident followers of Joshua Nkomo's pro-Marxist ZAPU erupted. Following the deaths of thousands, neither warring faction able to defeat the other, the heads of the opposing movements reached a landmark agreement, whence was created a new ruling party, ZANU PF, as a merger between the two former rivals.[6]
Since 1998 Mugabe's policies have elicited domestic and international condemnation. Mugabe's government supported the Southern African Development Community's intervention in the Second Congo War; expropriated thousands of white-owned farms;[7] printed hundreds of trillions of Zimbabwean dollars, causing hyperinflation;[8] and harassed and intimidated such political opponents as the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).[9] The resulting downward spiral in Zimbabwe's economy[10] has been accompanied by oil and food shortages,[11] massive internal displacement[12] and emigration.[13][14] During this period Mugabe's policies have been denounced in the West and at home as racist against Zimbabwe's white minority.[15][16][17] In July 2008, referring to the Mugabe regime, the Group of Eight released a collective statement saying that they "do not accept the legitimacy of a government that does not reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people".[18]
On September 15, 2008, a power-sharing agreement brokered by then-South African President Thabo Mbeki was signed. Under the deal, Mugabe remained President, Morgan Tsvangirai became Prime Minister,[19] the MDC controls the police, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front commands the army, and Arthur Mutambara became Deputy Prime Minister. This deal has remained precarious, with Mugabe's party ceding little actual power and pursuing questionable legal proceedings against MDC members.
Early life
Robert Gabriel Karigamombe Mugabe was born near Kutama Mission in the Zvimba District north east of Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia to a Malawian father Gabriel Matibili and a Shona mother Bona. He had two older brothers, and one of them, Michael, was very popular in the village. Both his older brothers died, leaving Robert and his younger brother, Donato.[20] His father, Gabriel Matibili, a carpenter,[10] abandoned the Mugabe family in 1934 after Michael died, in search of work in Bulawayo.[21]
Mugabe was raised as a Roman Catholic, studying in Marist Brothers and Jesuit schools, including the exclusive Kutama College, headed by an Irish priest, Father Jerome O'Hea, who took him under his wing. Through his youth, Mugabe was never socially popular nor physically active and spent most of his time with the priests or his mother when he was not reading in the school's libraries. He was described as never playing with other children but enjoying his own company.[10]
He qualified as a teacher, but left to study at Fort Hare in South Africa graduating in 1951, while meeting contemporaries such as Julius Nyerere, Herbert Chitepo, Robert Sobukwe and Kenneth Kaunda. He then studied at the University of Oxford in 1952, Salisbury (1953), Gwelo (1954), and Tanzania (1955–1957). Originally graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Fort Hare in 1951, Mugabe subsequently earned six further degrees through distance learning including a Bachelor of Administration and Bachelor of Education from the University of South Africa and a Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Laws, Master of Science, and Master of Laws, all from the University of London External Programme[22] The two Law degrees were earned while he was in prison, the Master of Science degree earned during his premiership of Zimbabwe.[23]
After graduating, Mugabe lectured at Chalimbana Teacher Training College, in Zambia from 1955–1958, thereafter he taught at Apowa Secondary School at Takoradi, in the Western Region of Ghana after completing his local certification at Achimota School (1958–1960), where he met Sally Hayfron, whom he married in April 1961.[24] During his stay in Ghana, he was influenced and inspired by Ghana's then Prime Minister, Kwame Nkrumah. In addition, Mugabe and some of his Zimbabwe African National Union party cadres received instruction at the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute, then at Winneba in southern Ghana.[25][26]
Early political career
Main article: History of Zimbabwe
Mugabe returned to Southern Rhodesia and joined the National Democratic Party (NDP) in 1960.[27] The administration of Prime Minister Ian Smith banned the NDP when it later became Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU). Mugabe left ZAPU in 1963 to join the rival Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) which had been formed in 1963 by the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, Edgar Tekere, Edson Zvobgo, Enos Nkala and lawyer Herbert Chitepo.
ZANU was influenced by the Africanist ideas of the Pan Africanist Congress in South Africa[28] and influenced by Maoism while ZAPU was an ally of the African National Congress and was a supporter of a more orthodox pro-Soviet line on national liberation. Similar divisions can also be seen in the liberation movement in Angola between the MPLA and UNITA. It would have been easy for the party to split along tribal lines between the Ndebele and Mugabe's own Shona tribe, but cross-tribal representation was maintained by his partners. ZANU leader Sithole nominated Robert Mugabe as his Secretary General.
In 1964 Mugabe was arrested for “subversive speech” and spent the next 11 years in Salisbury prison. During that period he earned three degrees, including a law degree from London and a bachelor of administration from the University of South Africa by correspondence courses. Smith did not allow Mugabe out of prison to attend the funeral of Mugabe's four-year-old son.[10]
In 1974, while still in prison, Mugabe was elected—with the powerful influence of Edgar Tekere—to take over the reins of ZANU after a no-confidence vote was passed on Ndabaningi Sithole[29] - Mugabe himself abstained from voting. His time in prison burnished his reputation and helped his cause.[10] Following a South African détente initiative, Mugabe was released from prison in November 1974 along with other Nationalist leaders and having initially traveled to Zambia, where he was ignored by Kenneth Kaunda, returned then left once again in April 1975 for Mozambique assisted by a Dominican nun, where he was later placed in temporary protective custody by President Samora Machel. According to Eddie Cross who participated in interviews of the leadership at that time to determine their views on the "longer term future", Mugabe's political viewpoint was that "a new 'progressive' society could not be constructed on the foundations of the past [and] that they would have to destroy most of what had been built up after 1900 before a new society, based on subsistence and peasant values could be constructed".[30][31][32]
Mugabe unilaterally assumed control of ZANU after the death of Herbert Chitepo on March 18, 1975. Later that year, after squabbling with Ndabaningi Sithole, Mugabe formed a militant ZANU faction, leaving Sithole to lead the moderate Zanu (Ndonga) party. Many opposition leaders mysteriously died during this time (Including one who allegedly died in a car crash, although the car was rumored to have been riddled with bullet holes at the scene of the accident).[10] Additionally, an opposing newspaper's printing press was bombed and its journalists tortured.[10]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mugabe rose to prominence in the 1960s as the Secretary General of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). For many years in the 1960s and 1970s Mugabe was a political prisoner in Rhodesia. His goal was to replace white minority-rule with a one-party Marxist regime.[3] Having been a political prisoner for 10 years, on release with Edgar Tekere, Mugabe left Rhodesia in 1975 to join the Zimbabwe Liberation Struggle (Rhodesian Bush War) from bases in Mozambique. At the end of the war in 1979, Mugabe emerged as a hero in the minds of many Africans.[4][5] He won the general elections of 1980, the second in which the majority of Black Africans participated in large numbers (though the electoral system in Rhodesia had allowed Black participation based on qualified franchise), amid reports of violent intimidation by the militants he now controlled. Mugabe then became the first Prime Minister after calling for reconciliation between formerly warring parties, including the white people as well as rival parties.
The years following Zimbabwe's independence saw a split between the two key belligerents who had fought alongside each other during the 1970s against the government of Rhodesia. An armed conflict between Mugabe's Government and dissident followers of Joshua Nkomo's pro-Marxist ZAPU erupted. Following the deaths of thousands, neither warring faction able to defeat the other, the heads of the opposing movements reached a landmark agreement, whence was created a new ruling party, ZANU PF, as a merger between the two former rivals.[6]
Since 1998 Mugabe's policies have elicited domestic and international condemnation. Mugabe's government supported the Southern African Development Community's intervention in the Second Congo War; expropriated thousands of white-owned farms;[7] printed hundreds of trillions of Zimbabwean dollars, causing hyperinflation;[8] and harassed and intimidated such political opponents as the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).[9] The resulting downward spiral in Zimbabwe's economy[10] has been accompanied by oil and food shortages,[11] massive internal displacement[12] and emigration.[13][14] During this period Mugabe's policies have been denounced in the West and at home as racist against Zimbabwe's white minority.[15][16][17] In July 2008, referring to the Mugabe regime, the Group of Eight released a collective statement saying that they "do not accept the legitimacy of a government that does not reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people".[18]
On September 15, 2008, a power-sharing agreement brokered by then-South African President Thabo Mbeki was signed. Under the deal, Mugabe remained President, Morgan Tsvangirai became Prime Minister,[19] the MDC controls the police, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front commands the army, and Arthur Mutambara became Deputy Prime Minister. This deal has remained precarious, with Mugabe's party ceding little actual power and pursuing questionable legal proceedings against MDC members.
Early life
Robert Gabriel Karigamombe Mugabe was born near Kutama Mission in the Zvimba District north east of Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia to a Malawian father Gabriel Matibili and a Shona mother Bona. He had two older brothers, and one of them, Michael, was very popular in the village. Both his older brothers died, leaving Robert and his younger brother, Donato.[20] His father, Gabriel Matibili, a carpenter,[10] abandoned the Mugabe family in 1934 after Michael died, in search of work in Bulawayo.[21]
Mugabe was raised as a Roman Catholic, studying in Marist Brothers and Jesuit schools, including the exclusive Kutama College, headed by an Irish priest, Father Jerome O'Hea, who took him under his wing. Through his youth, Mugabe was never socially popular nor physically active and spent most of his time with the priests or his mother when he was not reading in the school's libraries. He was described as never playing with other children but enjoying his own company.[10]
He qualified as a teacher, but left to study at Fort Hare in South Africa graduating in 1951, while meeting contemporaries such as Julius Nyerere, Herbert Chitepo, Robert Sobukwe and Kenneth Kaunda. He then studied at the University of Oxford in 1952, Salisbury (1953), Gwelo (1954), and Tanzania (1955–1957). Originally graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Fort Hare in 1951, Mugabe subsequently earned six further degrees through distance learning including a Bachelor of Administration and Bachelor of Education from the University of South Africa and a Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Laws, Master of Science, and Master of Laws, all from the University of London External Programme[22] The two Law degrees were earned while he was in prison, the Master of Science degree earned during his premiership of Zimbabwe.[23]
After graduating, Mugabe lectured at Chalimbana Teacher Training College, in Zambia from 1955–1958, thereafter he taught at Apowa Secondary School at Takoradi, in the Western Region of Ghana after completing his local certification at Achimota School (1958–1960), where he met Sally Hayfron, whom he married in April 1961.[24] During his stay in Ghana, he was influenced and inspired by Ghana's then Prime Minister, Kwame Nkrumah. In addition, Mugabe and some of his Zimbabwe African National Union party cadres received instruction at the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute, then at Winneba in southern Ghana.[25][26]
Early political career
Main article: History of Zimbabwe
Mugabe returned to Southern Rhodesia and joined the National Democratic Party (NDP) in 1960.[27] The administration of Prime Minister Ian Smith banned the NDP when it later became Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU). Mugabe left ZAPU in 1963 to join the rival Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) which had been formed in 1963 by the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, Edgar Tekere, Edson Zvobgo, Enos Nkala and lawyer Herbert Chitepo.
ZANU was influenced by the Africanist ideas of the Pan Africanist Congress in South Africa[28] and influenced by Maoism while ZAPU was an ally of the African National Congress and was a supporter of a more orthodox pro-Soviet line on national liberation. Similar divisions can also be seen in the liberation movement in Angola between the MPLA and UNITA. It would have been easy for the party to split along tribal lines between the Ndebele and Mugabe's own Shona tribe, but cross-tribal representation was maintained by his partners. ZANU leader Sithole nominated Robert Mugabe as his Secretary General.
In 1964 Mugabe was arrested for “subversive speech” and spent the next 11 years in Salisbury prison. During that period he earned three degrees, including a law degree from London and a bachelor of administration from the University of South Africa by correspondence courses. Smith did not allow Mugabe out of prison to attend the funeral of Mugabe's four-year-old son.[10]
In 1974, while still in prison, Mugabe was elected—with the powerful influence of Edgar Tekere—to take over the reins of ZANU after a no-confidence vote was passed on Ndabaningi Sithole[29] - Mugabe himself abstained from voting. His time in prison burnished his reputation and helped his cause.[10] Following a South African détente initiative, Mugabe was released from prison in November 1974 along with other Nationalist leaders and having initially traveled to Zambia, where he was ignored by Kenneth Kaunda, returned then left once again in April 1975 for Mozambique assisted by a Dominican nun, where he was later placed in temporary protective custody by President Samora Machel. According to Eddie Cross who participated in interviews of the leadership at that time to determine their views on the "longer term future", Mugabe's political viewpoint was that "a new 'progressive' society could not be constructed on the foundations of the past [and] that they would have to destroy most of what had been built up after 1900 before a new society, based on subsistence and peasant values could be constructed".[30][31][32]
Mugabe unilaterally assumed control of ZANU after the death of Herbert Chitepo on March 18, 1975. Later that year, after squabbling with Ndabaningi Sithole, Mugabe formed a militant ZANU faction, leaving Sithole to lead the moderate Zanu (Ndonga) party. Many opposition leaders mysteriously died during this time (Including one who allegedly died in a car crash, although the car was rumored to have been riddled with bullet holes at the scene of the accident).[10] Additionally, an opposing newspaper's printing press was bombed and its journalists tortured.[10]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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