Robert Gabriel Mugabe is
Zimbabwe’s long-standing president who has led the country for over thirty
years. He qualified as a secondary school teacher and graduated with a Bachelor
of Arts in English and History from the University of Fort Hare before teaching
in both northern and southern Rhodesian high schools.
Mugabe was heavily influenced
by Ghana’s independence in 1959 and returned to his home country after a visit
there intent on the liberation of his people and land from the governing
colonialists. His political involvement with ZANU led to his incarceration for
ten years, a time during which he and his Ghanaian wife Sally lost their three-year
old son.
Mugabe was released and sent
into exile to neighbouring Mozambique from where he and his party, ZANU, would
fight during Rhodesia’s guerilla war; a bush war that ended with the Lancaster
House Agreement that led to the birth of Zimbabwe and the demise of Ian Smith
and his whites-only government.
Mugabe hit worldwide
headlines when war veterans took over white-owned land without compensation.
Following the take-overs, Zimbabwe suffered severe drought, hyper-inflation and
food shortages which made him the pariah of the Western world, who blamed the
country’s confiscation of land and Mugabe’s sanctioning of these actions, for
the economic deterioration suffered by the country in the early and mid-2000s.
Join us on People of the South for an exclusive interview with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe at State House in Harare. In a rare and insightful interview with Dali Tambo, Mugabe speaks frankly about growing up on his grandfather’s stories of brutal land grabs by Rhodes and his men, his relationship with Grace Mugabe while married to his wife Sally, and his acute disappointment with the Lancaster House talks and the betrayals of the UK government that would later lead to the confiscation of land from white farmers a decade later. Viewers will see a side of the president never before seen on television and will gain a greater understanding of the 89-year old president, who has been one of the most controversial leaders of his time.
People of the South this week features Dali Tambo’s exclusive intimate
interview with long-standing Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe, as you have
never seen or heard him before.
Catch the long standing Zimbabwean President, Sunday on People of the South, SABC 3 - 20:30 CAT - 8:30pm (local time).
By Pheello Francis Mofokeng
By Pheello Francis Mofokeng
Total Exposure
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