Harare - Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe was feted as an
African liberation hero and champion of racial reconciliation
when he first came to power in a nation divided by nearly a
century of white colonial rule.
Nearly four decades later, many at home and abroad denounced
him as a power-obsessed autocrat willing to unleash death
squads, rig elections and trash the economy in the relentless
pursuit of control.
Mugabe, who died in Singapore aged 95, was ultimately ousted
by his own armed forces in November 2017.
He demonstrated his tenacity - some might say stubbornness -
to the last, refusing to accept his expulsion from his own
Zanu-PF party and clinging on for a week until parliament
started to impeach him after the de facto coup.
His resignation triggered wild celebrations across the
country of 13 million. For Mugabe, it was an "unconstitutional
and humiliating" act of betrayal by his party and people, and
left him a broken man.
Confined for the remaining years of his life between
Singapore where he was receiving medical treatment and his
sprawling "Blue Roof" mansion in Harare, an ailing Mugabe could
only observe from afar the political stage where he once strode
tall. He was bitter to the end over the manner of his exit.
On the eve of the July 2018 election, the first without him,
he told reporters he would vote for the opposition, something
unthinkable only a few months before.
Educated and urbane, Mugabe took power in 1980 after seven
years of a liberation bush war and - until the army's takeover -
was the only leader Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, knew since
independence from Britain.
Former president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace. Picture: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Reuters/African News Agency (ANA)
But as the economy imploded starting from 2000 and his
mental and physical health waned, Mugabe found fewer people to
trust as he seemingly smoothed a path to succession for his wife
Grace, four decades his junior and known to her critics as
"Gucci Grace" for her reputed fondness for luxury shopping.
"It's the end of a very painful and sad chapter in the
history of a young nation, in which a dictator, as he became
old, surrendered his court to a gang of thieves around his
wife," Chris Mutsvangwa, leader of Zimbabwe's influential
liberation war veterans, told Reuters after Mugabe's removal.
Born on February 21, 1924, on a Roman Catholic mission near
Harare, Mugabe was educated by Jesuit priests and worked as a
primary school teacher before going to South Africa's University
of Fort Hare, then a breeding ground for African nationalism.
Returning to then-Rhodesia in 1960, he entered politics but
was jailed for a decade four years later for opposing white
rule.
When his infant son died of malaria in Ghana in 1966, Mugabe
was denied parole to attend the funeral, a decision by the
government of white-minority leader Ian Smith that historians
say played a part in explaining Mugabe's subsequent bitterness.
After his release, he rose to the top of the powerful
Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, known as the
"thinking man's guerrilla" on account of his seven degrees,
three of them earned behind bars.
Later, as he crushed his political enemies, he boasted of
another qualification: "a degree in violence".
After the war ended in 1980, Mugabe was elected the nation's
first black prime minister.
"You have inherited a jewel in Africa. Don't tarnish it,"
Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere told him during the
independence celebrations in Harare.
Initially, Mugabe offered forgiveness and reconciliation to
old foreign and domestic adversaries, including Smith, who
remained on his farm and continued to receive a government
pension.
In his early years, he presided over a booming economy,
spending money on roads and dams and expanding schooling for
black Zimbabweans as part of a wholesale dismantling of the
racial discrimination of colonial days.
Former president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe preside over a student graduation ceremony at Zimbabwe Open University on the outskirts of Harare. Picture: Ben Curtis/AP/African News Agency (ANA)
With black and white tension easing, by the mid-1980s many
whites who had fled to Britain or South Africa, then still under
the yoke of apartheid, were trying to come home.
But it was not long before Mugabe began to suppress
challengers, including liberation war rival Joshua Nkomo.
Faced with a revolt in the mid-1980s in the western province
of Matabeleland that he blamed on Nkomo, Mugabe sent in North
Korean-trained army units, provoking an international outcry
over alleged atrocities against civilians.
Human rights groups say 20 000 people died, most of them
from the minority Ndebele tribe from which Nkomo's partisans
were largely drawn. The discovery of mass graves prompted
accusations of genocide.
After two terms as prime minister, Mugabe tightened his grip
on power by changing the constitution, and he became president
in 1987. His first wife, Sally, who had been seen by many as the
only person capable of restraining him, died in 1992.
A turning point came at the end of the decade when Mugabe,
by now a leader unaccustomed to accommodating the will of the
people, suffered his first major defeat at the hands of voters,
in a referendum on another constitution. He blamed his loss on
the white minority, chastising them as "enemies of Zimbabwe".
Days later, a groundswell of black anger at the slow pace of
land reform started boiling over and gangs of black Zimbabweans
calling themselves war veterans started to overrun white-owned
farms.
Mugabe's response was uncompromising, labelling the
invasions a correction of colonial injustices.
"Perhaps we made a mistake by not finishing the war in the
trenches," he said in 2000. "If the settlers had been defeated
through the barrel of a gun, perhaps we would not be having the
same problems."
The farm seizures helped ruin one of Africa's most dynamic
economies, with a collapse in agricultural foreign exchange
earnings unleashing hyperinflation.
The economy shrank by more than a third from 2000 to 2008,
sending unemployment above 80 percent. Several million
Zimbabweans fled, mostly to South Africa.
Brushing aside criticism, Mugabe portrayed himself as a
radical African nationalist competing against racist and
imperialist forces in Washington and London.
The country hit rock bottom in 2008, when 500 billion
percent inflation drove people to support the challenge of
Western-backed former union leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Facing defeat in a presidential run-off, Mugabe resorted to
violence, forcing Tsvangirai to withdraw after scores of his
supporters were killed by ZANU-PF thugs.
South Africa, Zimbabwe's neighbour to the south, squeezed
the pair into a fractious unity coalition but the compromise
belied Mugabe's grip on power through his continued control of
the army, police and secret service.
As old age crept in and rumours of cancer intensified, his
animosity towards Tsvangirai eased and the two men enjoyed
weekly meetings over tea and scones, in a nod to Mugabe's
affection for British traditions.
On the eve of the 2013 election, Mugabe dismissed cries of
autocracy and likened dealing with Tsvangirai to sparring in the
ring. "Although we boxed each other, it's not as hostile as
before," he told reporters.
Even as he spoke, Mugabe's agents were busy finalising plans
to engineer an election victory through manipulation of the
voters' roll, according to the Tsvangirai camp.
It was typical of Mugabe's ability to out-think - and if
necessary out-fight - his opponents, a trait that drew grudging
respect from even his sternest critics.
Writing in a 2007 cable released by WikiLeaks, then-US ambassador to Harare Christopher Dell reflected the views of
many: "To give the devil his due, he is a brilliant tactician."