Robert Mugabe

2nd President of Zimbabwe from 1987 to 2017

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Fame78.6
Momentum10.0
Politicians rank#147
Wikipedia76.3K

Lived 1924–2019, aged 95

PoliticiansPolitician

Wikipedia
121 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1924–2019
Aged 95
Awards
17
recognised works

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

He led Zimbabwe from colonial liberation to international pariah state, turning a 37-year grip on power into a case study in how revolutionary credibility decays into dictatorship, famine, and the world's highest inflation rate.

Biography

About

Mugabe was born into poverty in Southern Rhodesia in 1924, trained as a schoolteacher, and spent a decade in prison for sedition after joining the fight against white minority rule. Released in 1974, he fled to Mozambique, took command of ZANU, and waged the Rhodesian Bush War until the Lancaster House Agreement ended it. In the 1980 election he won the premiership of newly independent Zimbabwe, expanded healthcare and education, and called for racial reconciliation. But relations with rival Joshua Nkomo collapsed: between 1982 and 1987 Mugabe's 5th Brigade killed at least 20,000 in Matabelela…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Robert Mugabe

Robert Mugabe

said8 Sep 2000

What we hate is not the colour of their skins but the evil that emanates from them.

— Speech at the Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem, New York (8 September 2000), quoted in Michael Radu, "State of Disaster", National

Robert Mugabe

said8 Sep 2000

Of the twelve million hectares that the farmers have, we said we needed about half of that for a start.

— Speech at the Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem, New York (8 September 2000)

Robert Mugabe

said2 Jul 2000

It was an act of madness. We killed each other and destroyed each other's property. It was wrong and both sides were to blame. We have had a difference, a quarrel.

— Remarks at a memorial for Joshua Nkomo (2 July 2000), referring to the Gukurahundi massacres. Quoted in Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the

Robert Mugabe

said6 Nov 1999

We are still exchanging blows with the British government. They are using gay gangsters. Each time I pass through London, the gangster regime of Blair 'expresses its dismay'.

— Chimaima Banda, "Gays seeking sexual asylum in South Africa", The Independent, 6 November 1999, p. 18.

Robert Mugabe

said1994