Who is Robert Mugabe?
Robert Mugabe, the 83-year-old president of Zimbabwe, may not have the military titles of Idi Amin — or his great girth — but in many other ways the two dictators are extremely similar. Like Amin, Mugabe has run Zimbabwe as if it is his own kingdom, with little regard for his citizens. Where Amin expelled Asians and took their businesses, Mugabe has grabbed land from white farmers. Both Uganda and Zimbabwe have suffered economically from these shortsighted moves. Mugabe was hailed as a great liberation hero, the man who brought independence to the former British colony of Rhodesia, and the father of modern-day Zimbabwe. So what went wrong? Or was he always a tyrant? Mugabe was educated in the Catholic faith by Jesuits and grew up on a mission station. He is alleged to have been very strongly influenced by this, and it may also be the root of his homophobia, as well as his love of cricket. He trained as a teacher and married his first wife, Sally, a Ghanaian, in the early ’60s. By 196
