Zim Notables
Lobengula (circa 1833-94) was the last king of the Ndebele (or Matabele) in what is now Zimbabwe. His father, Mzilikazi, had led the Ndebele to the area in the 1840s in flight from the expanding Zulu. After Mzilikazi died, however, Lobengula fought a 2-year civil war to succeed as ruler (1870). Faced with growing white encroachment in the 1880s, Lobengula granted (1888 or so) exclusive mineral rights in his lands to the British colonialist Cecil Rhodes. Ensuing white influx and activities far exceeded any Ndebele concessions, but Lobengula, trying to avert a war he knew would be disastrous to his people, was forced to acquiesce to massive white settlement. Rising passions on both sides, nevertheless, led to an armed confrontation in 1893, and the Ndebele were routed. Lobengula died while fleeing the white onslaught northward.
Rhodes was born 5 July 1853, in Bishop's Stortford, England. In 1870, he was sent to live with his brother in Africa in the area now known as South Africa. Diamond fields were discovered at Kimberley in Cape Colony that year, and Rhodes became a diamond prospector. By the time he was 19 years old, he had accumulated a large fortune. In 1873, he returned to England to study at the University of Oxford; until 1881, when he received his degree, he divided his time between the university and the diamond fields. His most important achievement during this period was the amalgamation of a large number of diamond-mining claims to form De Beers Mining Company, which he controlled. In 1881, he entered the Cape Colony Parliament and held the seat for the rest of his life. Rhodes was largely responsible for the annexation to the British Empire of Bechuanaland (now Botswana) in 1885. In 1888, with the founding of De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited, Rhodes monopolized the diamond production of Kimberley. In the same year, he wrested exclusive mining rights from Lobengula, the ruler of Matabeleland (now in Zimbabwe). In 1889, Rhodes was granted a charter to incorporate the British South Africa Company. Until 1923, it controlled what are now Zimbabwe and Zambia; the area was named Rhodesia in 1894 in honour of Rhodes.
In 1890, Rhodes was made prime minister of Cape Colony. Five years later, he supported a conspiracy by British settlers in the South African Republic, in what is now northeastern South Africa, to overthrow the government of the republic, which was dominated by the Afrikaners, or Boers. The revolt was to be backed by a British South Africa Company force led by Sir Leander Starr Jameson, British administrator of the lands constituting present-day Zimbabwe. On December 29, 1895, Jameson invaded the South African Republic prematurely and unsuccessfully. Rhodes was acquitted of responsibility for the invasion, known as Jameson's Raid, but he was censured for his role in the plot against the government of the South African Republic and was forced to resign his premiership the following month. He then devoted himself to the development of Rhodesia. During the Boer War, he was prominent in the defense of Kimberley. He died at Cape Town on March 26, 1902, before the war was over. In his will, Rhodes left most of his fortune to the establishment of the Rhodes scholarships.
Cecil John Rhodes, b. 5 July 1853. d. 26 March 1902.
Imperialist/Entrepreneur/Colonizer.
(Buried atop granite dome in Rhodes Matopos National Park)
Joshua Nkomo (1917- ), Zimbabwean nationalist leader and co-vice president of Zimbabwe (1990- ). Born in Matabeleland, the son of a lay preacher and teacher, Nkomo was trained as a social worker. Entering politics in 1952, he led a succession of banned nationalist movements, notably the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). Held in detention (1964-1974) by Ian Smith's white minority government, he symbolized the struggle for black majority rule in Rhodesia. In 1976, he joined Robert Gabriel Mugabe to form the Patriotic Front which fought a guerrilla war against Smith's regime in the late 1970s. When majority rule was achieved in 1980, ZAPU lost the first free elections, but Nkomo became a minister in Mugabe's cabinet. He was dismissed in 1982, charged with plotting to overthrow the government. He reclaimed his cabinet position in 1988 after the union of ZAPU and Mugabe's party, and in 1990, he was named to the newly created position of second vice president of Zimbabwe.
In 1962, Smith founded the Rhodesian Front, a party dedicated to the continuation of white supremacy, and two years later, he became prime minister of the colony. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was dissolved in 1963; Northern Rhodesia became independent as Zambia in 1964, and that year, Southern Rhodesia changed its name to Rhodesia. In 1965, when Britain's Labour government insisted on the extension of political rights to black Africans, Smith unilaterally proclaimed Rhodesia independent, severing all ties with the United Kingdom. For 13 years, he defied economic sanctions imposed on the new state by the United Nations and scuttled every attempt at a compromise solution that included black African rule.
By 1978, however, worn down by years of guerrilla war and pressured by the United Kingdom and the United States, Smith finally agreed to include black African ministers in his cabinet and to extend voting rights to black Africans. He stepped down as prime minister following elections in 1979, and Rhodesia became independent as Zimbabwe in 1980. Smith kept his seat in the Zimbabwe parliament until 1987.
Ian Douglas Smith (1919- ), prime minister of Rhodesia from 1964 to 1979. Born in Shurugwi in what was then Southern Rhodesia, Smith was a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II (1939-1945). He turned to politics and was elected to the assembly of Southern Rhodesia in 1948. At that time, Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing colony of the United Kingdom. In 1953, it became part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
EARLY LIFE AND CAREER
Mugabe was born at the Jesuit mission of Kutama in northwest Mashonaland, in the north of the British colony of Southern Rhodesia. He was educated at mission schools and attended the University at Fort Hare in South Africa from 1950 to 1951 before becoming a teacher. In the late 1950s, Mugabe taught in Ghana, where he became interested in Marxism and African nationalism. After returning to Southern Rhodesia in 1960, he became publicity secretary for the National Democratic Party (NDP). Led by Joshua Nkomo, the NDP was a nationalist political party that opposed white rule in the colony. After the NDP was banned in 1961, Mugabe became secretary general of Nkomo's new party, the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) which was also soon banned due to its opposition to white rule. Mugabe broke with Nkomo and ZAPU in 1963 and helped form the more radical Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) with Ndabaningi Sithole. He soon became the secretary general of the banned ZANU. In 1964, he was arrested for his political activities and detained by the Rhodesian authorities for 10 years. Mugabe studied law during his time in prison, receiving degrees from the University of South Africa and the University of London by correspondence. While imprisoned, Mugabe remained an extremely popular nationalist figure, and many ZANU members came to support him as leader of the party instead of Sithole.
After a series of small raids into Zimbabwe by exiled ZANU and ZAPU forces in the early 1970s, the war between black nationalists and the Rhodesian government began in earnest in 1972. Mugabe was freed in 1974 and became active in the further development of ZANU's guerrilla army. Under Mugabe's inspiration, ZANU evolved as a Marxist-Leninist party fighting a popular war of liberation. With the backing of radicals within ZANU, Mugabe formally replaced Sithole as leader of ZANU in 1976, and ZANU and ZAPU joined forces militarily as the Patriotic Front (PF). The combined guerrilla force successfully fought government troops in the late 1970s, eventually forcing the government to negotiate with moderate black leaders. The white government tried to compromise by installing a coalition government in 1979 but later the same year, agreed on a transition to a full black majority rule. This was achieved in 1980, when the first free elections were held in the country which was renamed Zimababwe.
LEADER OF ZIMBABWE
ZANU, now known as the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), convincingly won the 1980 elections, and Mugabe became Zimbabwe's first prime minister. Mugabe, whose political support came overwhelmingly from his homeland of Mashonaland in the north, attempted to build Zimbabwe on a basis of reconciliation with whites and with his ZAPU rivals, whose support came from Matabeleland in the south. He also had to meet the expectations of his own radical followers for a complete restructuring of the country. He sought to incorporate ZAPU into the government and ZAPU's military wing into the army, but he was thwarted by an abortive ZAPU rebellion and discontent in Matabeleland. In 1982, Mugabe dismissed Nkomo, who had held a series of cabinet positions, and between 1982 and 1985, the military brutally crushed armed resistance in Matabeleland. In the 1980s, Mugabe's government was criticized for taking strong action against striking trade unions and student protestors as well as for moving slowly on the redistribution of white-owned land to black farmers.
Reelected in 1985, Mugabe moved towards a conciliation and merger between ZANU-PF and ZAPU. He became president of Zimbabwe in December 1987 after constitutional reform merged the posts of president and prime minister. ZAPU was incorporated into ZANU-PF, and Nkomo was appointed to a senior cabinet position in 1988 (he would become co-vice president in 1990). Corruption scandals in 1988 and growing unrest in the country led to the creation of more opposition parties, keeping Mugabe from achieving his goal of leading a unified, one-party state.
FOREIGN POLICY
Before South Africa's transition to majority rule in 1994, Mugabe dealt with Zimbabwe's powerful southern neighbour cautiously. Mugabe played a key role in the success of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (now the Southern African Development Community) in decreasing the economic dependence of southern African nations on South Africa. Because of its minority-rule apartheid system of government, Mugabe advocated economic sanctions against South Africa. However, for fear of reprisal, he refused to allow the African National Congress, the major South African anti-apartheid movement, to base its military operations in Zimbabwe.
In addition, Mugabe was an important supporter of the Frelimo (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) government in Mozambique during the Mozambican civil war of the 1980s and early 1990s. For much of the 1980s, the Zimbabwean army protected the movement of arms and goods through the Beira corrider, the strategic rail and road link between the Mozambican port of Beira and Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, in support of the Mozambican government. Mugabe acted as a mediator between Frelimo and the rebel guerrillas, helping to bring about their 1992 peace treaty.
MUGABE IN THE 1990'S
In 1990, a struggling economy forced Zimbabwe to adopt a World Bank Structural Adjustment Program, which called for Zimbabwe to move away from Marxism in favour of a freer economy. Mugabe dropped ZANU-PF's Marxist rhetoric while retaining a general commitment to socialism. He was reelected in 1990. In 1989 and again in 1994, Mugabe was forced to dismiss ministers and party associates when corruption was revealed at the highest levels of government. In spite of unrest resulting from drought, unemployment and the slow progress of land reform, ZANU-PF won elections in 1995, and Mugabe was reelected president in 1996. Both opposition candidates withdrew from the 1996 elections, maintaining that election regulations unfairly favoured the ruling party.
Mugabe's opponents have accused him of not adequately dealing with corruption and of failing to meet the needs of both the poor and the business sector. However, he has succeeded in steering Zimbabwe relatively smoothly through the years of crisis, reconciling political enemies and avoiding a civil war that at one time seemed inevitable. Under Mugabe, the economy has come to prosper modestly in spite of the severe disruption caused by war and drought.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe (1924- )
