Robert Mugabe

Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; Shona pronunciation: [muɡaɓe]; born 21 February 1924) is a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who has been President of Zimbabwe since 1987; he previously led Zimbabwe as Prime Minister from 1980 to 1987. He chaired the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) group from 1975 to 1980 and has led its successor political party, the ZANU - Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), since 1980. Ideologically an African nationalist, during the 1970s and 1980s he identified as a Marxist-Leninist although after the 1990s self-identified only as a socialist; his policies have been described as Mugabeism. Mugabe was born to a poor Shona family in Kutama, Southern Rhodesia. Following an education at Kutama College and the University of Fort Hare, he worked as a school teacher in Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Ghana. Angered that Southern Rhodesia was a British colony governed by a white elite, Mugabe embraced Marxism and joined African nationalist protests calling for an independent black-led state. After making anti-government comments he was convicted of sedition and imprisoned between 1964 and 1974. On release he fled to Mozambique, established his leadership of ZANU, and oversaw ZANU's role in the Rhodesian Bush War, fighting Ian Smith's white-minority government. He reluctantly took part in the peace negotiations brokered by the United Kingdom that resulted in the Lancaster House Agreement. The agreement dismantled white-minority rule and resulted in the 1980 general election, at which Mugabe led ZANU-PF to victory and became Prime Minister of the newly renamed Zimbabw