The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mugabe dies at 95; liberated country, then ruled it 37 years
Former Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, an ex-guerrilla chief who took power after independence from white minority rule in 1980 and presided over a country whose early promise was eroded by economic turmoil and allegations of human rights violations, has died in Singapore at the age of 95.
Mugabe enjoyed strong support among the population and even the West soon after taking over as Prime Minister and Zimbabwe’s first post-colonial leader. But he was reviled in later years as the economy collapsed and human rights violations increased. His often violent takeover of farms from whites who owned huge tracts of land made him a hated figure in the West and a hero in parts of Africa.
His successor President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced Mugabe’s death in a tweet Friday, mourning him as an “icon of liberation.”
Singapore’s Foreign Ministry later said he died Friday at the Gleneagles Hospital there, and that it was working with Zimbabwe on arrangements for Mugabe’s body to be flown home.
Mugabe had received medical treatment at the hospital in recent years.
Mugabe’s popularity began to rise again after Mnangagwa failed to deliver on promises of economic recovery and appeared to take an even harsher and more repressive stance against critics. Many began to publicly say they missed Mugabe.
Forced to resign amid pressure from the military, his party and the public in November 2017, Mugabe was defiant throughout his long life, railing against the West for what he called its neo-colonialist attitude and urging Africans to take control of their resources — a populist message that was often a hit, even as many nations on the continent shed the strongman model and moved toward democracy.
A target of international sanctions over the years, Mugabe nevertheless enjoyed acceptance among peers in Africa who chose not to judge him in the same way as Britain, the United States and other Western detractors.
“They are the ones who say they gave Christianity to Africa,” Mugabe said of the West during a visit to South Africa in 2016. “We say: ‘We came, we saw and we were conquered.’”