MUGABE:A Politcal Tyrant!

Robert Gabriel Mugabe (born 21 February 1924) is the second and current President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the guerrilla movements against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980. He served as Prime Minister from 1980 to 1987, and as the first executive head of state since 1987.
Mugabe rose to prominence in the 1960s as the Secretary General of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) during the conflict against the white-minority rule government of Ian Smith. Mugabe was a political prisoner in Rhodesia for more than 10 years between 1964 and 1974. Upon release with Edgar Tekere, Mugabe left Rhodesia in 1975 to re-join the fight during the 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.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). Mugabe then became the first Prime Minister after calling for reconciliation between formerly warring parties, including white Rhodesians and rival political groups.
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.
In 1998, Mugabe's government supported the Southern African Development Community's intervention in the Second Congo War by sending Zimbabwean troops to assist the Kabila government. This was probably a tactic to bolster the foundering Zimbabwean economy by plundering the DRC.
Since 2000, the Mugabe-led government embarked on a controversial fast-track land reform program intended to correct the inequitable land distribution created by colonial rule.^[7] The period has been marked by the deterioration of the Zimbabwean economic situation. Mugabe's policies have been condemned in some quarters at home and abroad, especially receiving harsh criticism from the British and American governments arguing they amount to an often violent land seizure. Eventually a wide range of sanctions  was imposed by the US government and European Union against the person of Mugabe, individuals, private companies, parastatals and the government of Zimbabwe. In 2008, his party suffered a tight^{[clarify][vague]} defeat in national parliamentary elections, but after disputed presidential elections, Mugabe retained presidential power with the signing of a power-sharing deal with opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara of the MDC-T and MDC-M opposition party.
or more than 10 years between 1964 and 1974. Upon release with Edgar Tekere, Mugabe left Rhodesia in 1975 to re-join the fight during the 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.^[3][4] 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). Mugabe then became the first Prime Minister after calling for reconciliation between formerly warring parties, including white Rhodesians and rival political groups.
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.
In 1998, Mugabe's government supported the Southern African Development Community's intervention in the Second Congo War by sending Zimbabwean troops to assist the Kabila government. This was probably a tactic to bolster the foundering Zimbabwean economy by plundering the DRC.^[6]
Since 2000, the Mugabe-led government embarked on a controversial fast-track land reform program intended to correct the inequitable land distribution created by colonial rule.^[7] The period has been marked by the deterioration of the Zimbabwean economic situation. Mugabe's policies have been condemned in some quarters at home and abroad, especially receiving harsh criticism from the British and American governments arguing they amount to an often violent land seizure. Eventually a wide range of sanctions   was imposed by the US government and European Union against the person of Mugabe, individuals, private companies, parastatals and the government of Zimbabwe. In 2008, his party suffered a tight^{[clarify][vague]} defeat in national parliamentary elections, but after disputed presidential elections, Mugabe retained presidential power with the signing of a power-sharing deal with opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara of the MDC-T and MDC-M opposition party.
Mugabe returned to Southern Rhodesia and joined the National Democratic Party (NDP) in 1960. After the administration of Prime Minister Edgar Whitehead banned the NDP in September 1960, it almost immediately reformed as the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU), led by Joshua Nkomo. Mugabe left ZAPU in 1963 to join the breakaway Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), which had been formed 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 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 independence 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.
During early 1964 tension between the two rival nationalist parties boiled over into violent conflict within the black townships. "Many people were killed as rival former colleagues [within the nationalist movement] turned against each other," write David Martin and Phyllis Johnson; "Homes and stores were burned and looted." The government reacted by arresting political agitators for criminal offences and jailing Nkomo in Gonakudzingwa Restriction Camp, a remote detention unit in the south-east of the country.After members of ZANU murdered a farmer, Petrus Oberholzer, on 4 July 1964, ZANU and ZAPU were officially banned on 26 August 1964; their leaders, including Mugabe, were shortly arrested and imprisoned indefinitely.ZAPU figures joined Nkomo at Gonakudzingwa while the leaders of ZANU were briefly held in turn at two similar units near Gwelo (Gweru since 1982), first Wha Wha, then, from 15 June 1965, Sikombela, before being transferred permanently to Salisbury Prison on 8 November 1965. Mugabe earned numerous further degrees by correspondence courses while detained, including three from the University of London: degrees in Law and Economics respectively and a Bachelor of Administration. When his three-year-old son Nhamodzenyika died from malaria in Ghana in late 1966, Mugabe petitioned the prison governor to leave on parole to attend the funeral in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, but was refused permission by Prime Minister Ian Smith personally.
In 1974, while still incarcerated, Mugabe was elected—with the powerful influence of —to take over the reins of ZANU after a no-confidence vote was passed on Ndabaningi Sithole– Mugabe himself abstained from voting. His time in prison burnished his reputation and helped his cause. Following a South African détente initiative, Mugabe was released from prison in December 1974 along with other Nationalist leaders and having initially travelled 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".
Mugabe unilaterally assumed control of ZANU after the death of Herbert Chitepo on 18 March 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 rumoured to have been riddled with bullet holes at the scene of the accident). Additionally, an opposing newspaper's printing press was bombed and its journalists tortured.