Mugabe 'No 5' in Africa

2005-02-21 11:07

Harare - Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born in Kutama Mission, 80km northwest of Harare, and was educated in Catholic missionary schools, qualifying as a teacher at the age of 17.

He took his first steps in politics when he enrolled at Fort Hare University in South Africa, where he met many of southern Africa's future black nationalist leaders.

He then moved to Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Ghana before returning home to what was then Southern Rhodesia in 1960.

As a member of various nationalist parties which were banned by the white-minority government, he was detained with other nationalist leaders in 1964 and spent the next 10 years in prison camps or jail.

He used those years to consolidate his position in the Zimbabwe African National Union and emerged from prison in November 1974 as Zanu leader. He then left for Mozambique, from where his banned party was launching guerrilla attacks on Rhodesia.

The former guerrilla leader announced a policy of reconciliation with the country's white minority at independence, a policy which Mugabe says has been spurned by many whites.

Mugabe swept to power in elections in 1980, initially holding the post of prime minister which was later changed to executive president in 1987.

In his early years Mugabe was widely credited with improving health and education for the black majority. But social services later declined, and the Aids epidemic, drug shortages and a severe brain drain have shattered gains in health care.

The octogenarian is the fifth longest-serving African leader after Omar Bongo of Gabon, in power since 1967, Moammar Gaddafi of Libya, who has ruled since 1969, and Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema and Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, in office since 1979.

- AFP