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Revision as of 03:57, 5 March 2002 by 62.253.64.7 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Robert Gabriel Mugabe (February 21, 1924 - ) has been the head of government in Zimbabwe since 1980.
He was born a Shona at Kutama Mission, Zvimba District, north-west of Harare, in then Rhodesia. He was raised as a Roman Catholic and was educated in Jesuit schools. He qualified as a teacher but left to study at Fort Hare University in South Africa, graduating in 1951. He then studied at Drifontein in 1952, Salisbury (1953), Gwelo (1954), in Tanzania (1955-1957), and then Accra, Ghana (1958-60) where he married a local teacher.
Returning to Rhodesia in 1960 as a committed Marxist he joined Joshua Nkomo and the National Democratic Party (NDP), which later became the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). He left ZAPU in 1963 to form the rival Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).
He was detained with other nationalist leaders in 1964 and remained in prison for ten years. On his release he resumed leadership of ZANU and left Rhodesia for Mozambique in 1974 and led the Chinese financed ZANU military arm, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), fighting in the war against the Ian Smith government. In 1976 ZANU allied itself with ZAPU as the Popular Front (PF).
After negotiations the 1979 Lancaster House accord led to free elections and independence, Mugabe returned home as a revolutionary hero and was elected to head the first government as Prime Minister on March 4, 1980 with ZANU winning 57 out of 100 seats in the new parliament.
He was initially part of a coalition government with Nkomo. But in 1982 ZAPU was accused of plotting a coup and Nkomo was dismissed from government. A brutal crackdown on ZAPU supporters followed, Mugabe's Fifth Brigade killed many members of the minority Ndebele tribe, supporters of Joshua Nkomo. The collapse of the coalition allowed Mugabe to strengthen his hold on power. After his re-election in 1985, Mugabe signed a "unity agreement" with Nkomo to end the continuing ZANU-ZAPU rivalry and brought Nkomo into government as a vice-president. Mugabe was re-elected in 1990 and 1996.
Mugabe improved health and education for the black population at the beginning of his regime. In 1991 he was forced to ditch his Marxist leanings and began a programme of free-market reforms, but the International Monetary Fund suspended aid because the reforms are not on track. Mugabe has become an increasingly bellicose and autocratic nationalist, attacking the remaining white Zimbabweans for the country's economic collapse. Mugabe has been criticised for his intervention in the civil war in the Congo. The war has raised accusations of corruption, with officials alleged to be plundering the Congo's mineral reserves.
He faces Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in presidential elections in March 2002. His ZANU-PF party dominates the government, holding 147 out of the country's 150 parliamentary seats. Growing discontent over the country's economy with inflation and unemployment at record levels are threatening his authority. Mugabe has pushed his long stated aim of handing over large tracts of land from whites to blacks by allowing the illegal occupation of white-owned farms by black 'war veterans'.
Mugabe has made much of his return to devout Catholicism and worships at Harare's Catholic Cathedral. Following the death of his popular first wife, Sally, in 1992 he married his former secretary, Grace Marufu, in 1996.