Zimbabwe’s longtime president Robert Mugabe has died. He was 95. Mugabe’s death was announced by the office of Zimbabwe’s president.
Mugabe came to power at independence from Britain in 1980, after a guerrilla war ended white-minority rule in then-Rhodesia. He was heralded as a model leader
Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born in 1924 in Zvimba, southwest of the capital (which was then called Salisbury, and is now Harare).
Educated by Jesuit priests, he became a teacher before joining the liberation struggle. Mugabe, the intellectual — with his many academic degrees — was considered the political leader and the brains behind the guerrilla war, and was imprisoned for 11 years.
Mugabe preached a message of harmony and promised to pursue a policy of inclusion for all Zimbabweans. In 1980, he said, “The phase we are entering, the phase of independence should be regarded as a phase conferring upon all of us — the people of Zimbabwe — whether we are black or white — full sovereignty, full democratic rights.”
