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Robert Mugabe

Robert Mugabe35 posts
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1996

Mugabe, Marufu marry

Marriage0 Comments

mugabeMugabe marries Grace Marufu in a Catholic mass, in Kutama, 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of Harare. The church wedding has been criticised by some Catholic leaders, who argue Christian doctrines brand polygamy as adultery. President Chissano of Mozambique is best man. After the three-hour ceremony the couple emerge from the church to thousands of well wishers singing and and cheering. Nelson Mandela and leaders from Botswana and Namibia attend the reception.

Oct 1986

Honorary degree

Other Awards0 Comments

University of Massachusetts awards Robert Mugabe an honorary law degree. for his “exemplary devotion to social justice. University president:

[Mugabe’s] gentle firmness in the face of anger and intellectual approach to matters which inflame the emotions of others, are hallmarks of quiet integrity.

1982

Edinburgh University honorary degree

Other Awards0 Comments

University of Edinburgh awards Mugabe the Honorary Degree of Doctoris Honoris Causa for services to education in Africa.

Honoured not only for his extraordinary intellectual discipline and energy but for those qualities of statesmanship which made him one of the great figures of modern Africa.

4 Mar, 1980

Elected president

Wins Election0 Comments

_40878779_mugabe_238Zimbabwe elects Mugabe as the first black prime minister in a landslide victory. Mugabe:

If yesterday I fought you as an enemy, today you have become a friend and ally with the same national interest, loyalty, rights and duties as myself. If yesterday you hated me, today you cannot avoid the love that binds you to me and me to you…Is it not folly, therefore, that in these circumstances anybody should seek to revive the wounds and grievances of the past? The wrongs of the past must now stand forgiven and forgotten. If ever we look to the past, let us do so for the lesson the past has taught us, namely that oppression and racism are inequities that must never again find scope in our political and social system. It could never be a correct justification that, because whites oppressed us yesterday when they had power, the blacks must oppress them today because they have power.

21 Feb, 1924

Robert Mugabe born in Southern Rhodesia

Birth0 Comments

Robert Gabriel Mugabe is born to Gabriel (a Malawian) and Bona Mugabe in Khutama Mission, Zvimba District north east of Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia. In 1934 his father, who was a carpenter left for South Africa and then to Bulawayo to look for work and never came back leaving his mother to bear the burden of taking care of him alone. He is the third born of six children. He has two older brothers Michael and Raphael, young brother Donato and two sisters Bridget and Sabina. His older brothers both die young. He is educated by Jesuits and attended secondary school at Kutama College. Speaking in 2014:

Michael was born in 1919 and Raphael in 1922. I played together with Michael until 1934 when he died of poisoning. Raphael died when he was only six months so I could not see him. Donato also died then Sabina, now Bridgette. That was Mbuya Bona’s family. Michael and Raphael passed on, so I became the first born. After the poisoning, my father was not happy and said there was something wrong at our home before going to Bulawayo in 1934. Bulawayo was fine, actually better than Harare in terms of social life. So most of the young men from different areas preferred to go to work in Bulawayo. I was not happy after he had taken his time to come back home and wrote a letter to him expressing my displeasure.