When he came to power, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe was feted as an African liberation hero in a nation that had endured nearly a century of white colonial rule.
Educated and urbane, Mr. Mugabe took power after seven years of a liberation bush war. But nearly four decades after independence in 1980, many see him as power-obsessed and willing to unleash death squads, rig elections and trash the economy in the relentless pursuit of control.
The 93-year-old is the only leader Zimbabwe, formerly known as Rhodesia, has known since independence from Britain. While the West regards him as an autocrat, some in Africa see him as an anti-colonial champion.
Born on a Catholic mission near Harare, Mr. 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 Rhodesia in 1960, he entered politics but was jailed for a decade for opposing white rule.
After his release, he rose to the top of the powerful Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, known as the “thinking man’s guerrilla”. After the long bush war ended, Mr. Mugabe was elected as the nation’s first black Prime Minister.
Presidential stints
After two terms as Prime Minister, he changed the Constitution and was elected President in 1990, shortly before the death of his first wife, Sally.
When, at the end of the century, he lost a constitutional referendum followed by a groundswell of black anger at the slow pace of land reform, his response was uncompromising.
As gangs of blacks calling themselves war veterans invaded white-owned farms, Mr. Mugabe said it was 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%. Several million Zimbabweans fled, mostly to South Africa. An unapologetic Mugabe portrayed himself as a radical African nationalist competing against racist and imperialist forces in Washington and London.
Britain once likened him to Adolf Hitler but Mr. Mugabe did not mind, saying the Nazi leader had wanted justice, sovereignty and independence for his people: “If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler ten-fold.”
