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Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe's Future
Robert Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe in 1980 after a long civil war in Rhodesia. The white minority government had become an international outcast in refusing to give in to the inevitability of black majority rule. Finally the defiant white prime minister Ian Smith was forced to step down and Mugabe was elected president. Initially he promised reconciliation between white and blacks, encouraged Zimbabwe's economic and social development, and was admired throughout the world as one of the leaders of the emerging nations and as a model for a transition from colonial leadership. But as Martin Meredith shows in this history of Mugabe's rule, Mugabe from the beginning was sacrificing his purported ideals—and Zimbabwe's potential—to the goal of extending and cementing his autocratic leadership. Over time, Mugabe has become ever more dictatorial, and seemingly less and less interested in the welfare of his people, treating Zimbabwe's wealth and resources as spoils of war for his inner circle. In recent years he has unleashed a reign of terror and corruption in his country. Like the Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia, Zimbabwe has been on a steady slide to disaster. Now for the first time the whole story is told in detail by an expert. It is a riveting and tragic political story, a morality tale, and an essential text for understanding today's Africa.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
29 people are currently reading
555 people want to read
About the author
Martin Meredith
20 books246 followersMartin Meredith is a historian, journalist and biographer, and author of many acclaimed books on Africa.
Meredith first worked as a foreign correspondent in Africa for the Observer and Sunday Times, then as a research fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford. Residing near Oxford, he is now an independent commentator and author.
Meredith’s writing has been described as authoritative and well-documented, despite the pessimism inherent in his subject matter.
He is the author of Diamonds, Gold and War, Mugabe: Power, Plunder – which sold over 15 000 copies in South Africa, and The Struggle for Zimbabwe’s Future, The State of Africa and Nelson Mandela: A Biography, among many others.
His most recent book is Born in Africa, published by Jonathan Ball Publishers.
Meredith first worked as a foreign correspondent in Africa for the Observer and Sunday Times, then as a research fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford. Residing near Oxford, he is now an independent commentator and author.
Meredith’s writing has been described as authoritative and well-documented, despite the pessimism inherent in his subject matter.
He is the author of Diamonds, Gold and War, Mugabe: Power, Plunder – which sold over 15 000 copies in South Africa, and The Struggle for Zimbabwe’s Future, The State of Africa and Nelson Mandela: A Biography, among many others.
His most recent book is Born in Africa, published by Jonathan Ball Publishers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
February 17, 2009
A great book about a horrible man. He does a good job portraying the excitement around Mugabe's election as well as the heart break when Mugabe turned out to be a feckless thug.
June 8, 2016
This book outlines the career of an evil and utterly ruthless man who emerged from being a key figure in a guerrilla war fought against white minority rule, to engineering through intimidation and terror a victory in Zimbabwe's first all-inclusive elections over the moderate Abel Muzorewa's United African national Congress and Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union.
After returning to Salisbury on January 27, 1980. after five years in exile, Mugabe was given a hero's welcome by a large crowd bearing banners with images of rocket grenades, land mines and guns, many wearing youth T shirts with the Kalashnikov rifle, which Mugabe's Marxist Zimbabwe African National Union party had wanted to use as an emblem, but which the British authorities had prohibited.
The scale of intimidation by ZANU was massive. Neither the UANC or ZAPU were allowed to campaign at all in eastern Rhodesia, leading ZAPU leader Nkomo to state that 'the word intimidation is mild, people are being terrorized, it is terror, there is fear in people's eyes."
Therefore Mugabe's landslide win and all of his subsequent electoral victories can not in any way be seen by a fair minded observer as in any way legitimate.
After victory and becoming Zimbabwe's Prime Minister, Mugabe spoke the language of soothing words to the the country's White population and the international community.
But in 1982 he resorted to terror in order to impose the one-party state he dreamed of imposing and his goal of absolute. power. Mugabe unleashed his Fifth Brigade (trained in the brutal communist dictatorship of North Korea in the art of terrorizing populations) on the Ndebele and Kalangas population groups of western Zimbabwe, which had largely supported the opposition ZAPU, in a horrific campaign of genocide known as the Gukurahundi. Entire villages were massacred, men, women and children herded into huts and burned alive, all supplies, transport and drought relief were cut off the starving villages and a deliberate famine created.
A commission of the Catholic Bishops Conference Commission of Peace and Justice contained some damning evidence of 5 Brigade atrocities. The statement accused the army of conducting a 'reign of terror' in Matabeleland including 'wanton killings, woundings, beatings, burnings and rapings".
It had brought about the 'maimings of hundreds of people who were neither dissidents nor collaborators."
Over the four year period of the Gukurahundi over ten thousand people were massacred, and thousands more beaten tortured and maimed. An entire people had been victimized. but there was no world outcry, certainly none from the international left, who set themselves up as the great guardians of human rights, and who were great supporters of Mugabe as a revolutionary hero.
Meredith writes of the corruption of the wealthy new elite close to ZANU PF, who enjoyed the best of everything while the people of Zimbabwe grew more and more destitute, of Mugabe's machine of crushing opposition and the de facto one party state in Zimbabwe for 12 years.
He also outlines how the fraudulent so-called 'land reform programme' is nothing but cover to destroy opposition and reward ZANU PF cronies.
While the opposition Movement for Democratic change enjoys overwhelming popularity, it has been prevented from operating freely as Mugabe and ZANU PF continue to operate a reign of terror against Zimbabwe's people.
Opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai rightfully described Mugabe a 'deranged despot', and politician Edgar Tekere called Mugabe 'an insane head of state."
"But there is a crude logic to Mugabe's actions' the author points out "His sole purpose has become to hold on to power. Whatever the cost, his regime has been dedicated towards that end. Violence has paid off in the past. He expected it to secure his future".
And so 6 years after this book was published Mugabe rand his ZANU PF retain a bloody and iron grip on power,
He still enjoys some support from Stalinists and anti-democrats in the world, today and his excesses are defended by such outfits of evil as the monstrous Workers World Party in North America, which supports every evil regime and terror outfit in the world today.
After returning to Salisbury on January 27, 1980. after five years in exile, Mugabe was given a hero's welcome by a large crowd bearing banners with images of rocket grenades, land mines and guns, many wearing youth T shirts with the Kalashnikov rifle, which Mugabe's Marxist Zimbabwe African National Union party had wanted to use as an emblem, but which the British authorities had prohibited.
The scale of intimidation by ZANU was massive. Neither the UANC or ZAPU were allowed to campaign at all in eastern Rhodesia, leading ZAPU leader Nkomo to state that 'the word intimidation is mild, people are being terrorized, it is terror, there is fear in people's eyes."
Therefore Mugabe's landslide win and all of his subsequent electoral victories can not in any way be seen by a fair minded observer as in any way legitimate.
After victory and becoming Zimbabwe's Prime Minister, Mugabe spoke the language of soothing words to the the country's White population and the international community.
But in 1982 he resorted to terror in order to impose the one-party state he dreamed of imposing and his goal of absolute. power. Mugabe unleashed his Fifth Brigade (trained in the brutal communist dictatorship of North Korea in the art of terrorizing populations) on the Ndebele and Kalangas population groups of western Zimbabwe, which had largely supported the opposition ZAPU, in a horrific campaign of genocide known as the Gukurahundi. Entire villages were massacred, men, women and children herded into huts and burned alive, all supplies, transport and drought relief were cut off the starving villages and a deliberate famine created.
A commission of the Catholic Bishops Conference Commission of Peace and Justice contained some damning evidence of 5 Brigade atrocities. The statement accused the army of conducting a 'reign of terror' in Matabeleland including 'wanton killings, woundings, beatings, burnings and rapings".
It had brought about the 'maimings of hundreds of people who were neither dissidents nor collaborators."
Over the four year period of the Gukurahundi over ten thousand people were massacred, and thousands more beaten tortured and maimed. An entire people had been victimized. but there was no world outcry, certainly none from the international left, who set themselves up as the great guardians of human rights, and who were great supporters of Mugabe as a revolutionary hero.
Meredith writes of the corruption of the wealthy new elite close to ZANU PF, who enjoyed the best of everything while the people of Zimbabwe grew more and more destitute, of Mugabe's machine of crushing opposition and the de facto one party state in Zimbabwe for 12 years.
He also outlines how the fraudulent so-called 'land reform programme' is nothing but cover to destroy opposition and reward ZANU PF cronies.
While the opposition Movement for Democratic change enjoys overwhelming popularity, it has been prevented from operating freely as Mugabe and ZANU PF continue to operate a reign of terror against Zimbabwe's people.
Opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai rightfully described Mugabe a 'deranged despot', and politician Edgar Tekere called Mugabe 'an insane head of state."
"But there is a crude logic to Mugabe's actions' the author points out "His sole purpose has become to hold on to power. Whatever the cost, his regime has been dedicated towards that end. Violence has paid off in the past. He expected it to secure his future".
And so 6 years after this book was published Mugabe rand his ZANU PF retain a bloody and iron grip on power,
He still enjoys some support from Stalinists and anti-democrats in the world, today and his excesses are defended by such outfits of evil as the monstrous Workers World Party in North America, which supports every evil regime and terror outfit in the world today.
November 1, 2019
Mugabe was an interesting and complex leader. He was an intellectual. He was a communist. He was a despot. He was corrupt. He was many things. Posterity would judge Mugabe as the ineptitude and autocrat that plunged his country into economic chaos. But he was also one of Africa's most articulate leaders.
Mugabe started his career as a teacher. He became a freedom fighter and eventually President of independent Rhodesia from 1980 until he was removed through a palace coup in 2018. The stuff of this incredible book is how Mugabe became the Mugabe--ruthless, tactless, wayward, megalomaniac, and inept.
Meredith takes the reader through the complex life of Mugabe. His degeneration from a sober, benevolent and benign leader who reconciled the white minority and black majority after taking power to a divisive and paranoid autocrat.
Mugabe was ruthless with his political opponents within and outside his Zanu-PF. He suffers no dissent. He implemented a thoroughly vindictive land reform that pushed Zimbabwe into an economic abyss.
Mugabe came to office as an avowed communist. He read Karl Marx and other Marxist tracts. He was widely disdained and feared within the minority white community as a Marxist ogre who'd upturn the capitalist world in Rhodesia
But on becoming president, Mugabe through carrot and shrewdness won the confidence of his former adversaries. "There is no intention on our part to use our majority to victimise the minority. We will ensure there is a place for everyone in this country... Let us deepen our sense of belonging and engender a common interest that knows no race, colour or creed," he assured them.
But his honeymoon with the whites was short-lived. Mugabe turned against them in no time.
As a communist, Mugabe naively intended to transform Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) to a socialist nation. But his pragmatic impulse suggests that may be difficult to accomplish. He halted the plan but implemented a forceful land redistribution.
When he assumed the prime minister position Mugabe was inexperienced and ignorant. He complained about the lack of political leadership experience of himself and members of the guerilla Zanu force. Therefore, in the aftermath of the election brought him into office Mugabe turned regularly to Christopher Soames, the British appointed Governor, for help and advice.
Obviously, Mugabe initial conciliatory posture with the whites was partly because of inexperience. But more than anything, the precipitous slide of his administration into paranoia and despotism was largely geopolitics.
"What finally put an end to the honeymoon period was the growing confrontation with South Africa." For years the South Africans had bolstered Ian Smith’s war effort, determined to prevent Rhodesia falling into the hands of communist guerrillas. South Africa’s principal objective was to keep Zimbabwe in a weak and defensive position, to destabilise it to ensure that it presented neither a security threat nor an example of a stable African state. Economic disruption by blocking trade routes was used at first, but it was not long before military activists went to work.
These activists and saboteurs were mainly whites. From this point, all love between Mugabe and the white minorities was lost. As his relationship with the white minorities degenerates, Mugabe gradually lost his international goodwill and reputation. He became increasingly confrontational, suspicious and demagoguery. You were either for him or against him. So the man became what he became--tyrannical and short-sighted
When he was growing up, Mugabe was quiet and bookish. "Books were his only friends", recalls his brother. But it wasn't solitary that made Mugabe tyrannical. His personality was largely moulded and driven by patriotism, geopolitics, and socialist utopia.
Mugabe started his career as a teacher. He became a freedom fighter and eventually President of independent Rhodesia from 1980 until he was removed through a palace coup in 2018. The stuff of this incredible book is how Mugabe became the Mugabe--ruthless, tactless, wayward, megalomaniac, and inept.
Meredith takes the reader through the complex life of Mugabe. His degeneration from a sober, benevolent and benign leader who reconciled the white minority and black majority after taking power to a divisive and paranoid autocrat.
Mugabe was ruthless with his political opponents within and outside his Zanu-PF. He suffers no dissent. He implemented a thoroughly vindictive land reform that pushed Zimbabwe into an economic abyss.
Mugabe came to office as an avowed communist. He read Karl Marx and other Marxist tracts. He was widely disdained and feared within the minority white community as a Marxist ogre who'd upturn the capitalist world in Rhodesia
But on becoming president, Mugabe through carrot and shrewdness won the confidence of his former adversaries. "There is no intention on our part to use our majority to victimise the minority. We will ensure there is a place for everyone in this country... Let us deepen our sense of belonging and engender a common interest that knows no race, colour or creed," he assured them.
But his honeymoon with the whites was short-lived. Mugabe turned against them in no time.
As a communist, Mugabe naively intended to transform Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) to a socialist nation. But his pragmatic impulse suggests that may be difficult to accomplish. He halted the plan but implemented a forceful land redistribution.
When he assumed the prime minister position Mugabe was inexperienced and ignorant. He complained about the lack of political leadership experience of himself and members of the guerilla Zanu force. Therefore, in the aftermath of the election brought him into office Mugabe turned regularly to Christopher Soames, the British appointed Governor, for help and advice.
Obviously, Mugabe initial conciliatory posture with the whites was partly because of inexperience. But more than anything, the precipitous slide of his administration into paranoia and despotism was largely geopolitics.
"What finally put an end to the honeymoon period was the growing confrontation with South Africa." For years the South Africans had bolstered Ian Smith’s war effort, determined to prevent Rhodesia falling into the hands of communist guerrillas. South Africa’s principal objective was to keep Zimbabwe in a weak and defensive position, to destabilise it to ensure that it presented neither a security threat nor an example of a stable African state. Economic disruption by blocking trade routes was used at first, but it was not long before military activists went to work.
These activists and saboteurs were mainly whites. From this point, all love between Mugabe and the white minorities was lost. As his relationship with the white minorities degenerates, Mugabe gradually lost his international goodwill and reputation. He became increasingly confrontational, suspicious and demagoguery. You were either for him or against him. So the man became what he became--tyrannical and short-sighted
When he was growing up, Mugabe was quiet and bookish. "Books were his only friends", recalls his brother. But it wasn't solitary that made Mugabe tyrannical. His personality was largely moulded and driven by patriotism, geopolitics, and socialist utopia.
October 22, 2012
Incredibly biased. Not to downplay Mugabe's crimes, but the book posits him as coming from nowhere, as opposed to the hideous white racism of British colonialism or the homegrown variety in Rhodesia.
December 15, 2016
bobby liked power.
December 25, 2020
This book highlighted the history of Zimbabwean politics, the reason why we are we are we now, the struggles and hardships Zimbabwe has were not born overnight but over years and years. Got a new perspective of the man who ruled Zim for over 40 years.
August 20, 2008
I'll admit it: I used to like Mugabe. Back in the 80s, he was one of the loudest and most articulate African leaders busting the balls of South African apartheid, and in the dewy idealism of my youth I had a knee-jerk fondness for humorless straight-edge Catholic Marxists.
But after reading this book, I'm convinced Mugabe is the absolute worst socialist head of state ever. Not in terms of body count of course (Stalin's got that record down), but in his ability to efficiently marshal the sloppiest human traits -- corruption, venality, bigotry, homophobia, violence -- in order to sink his country into ridiculous depths of poverty. While keeping his paranoid ass in office. For twenty-eight years. Dude's older than Gore Vidal for chrissakes!
Meredith's book works more as a disturbing chronicle of events than historical analysis. And it doesn't let up either: corruption and violence get nastier and the blood-tide rises higher and higher up through the 2008 elections. When hyperinflation got so comical the government had to print a Z$100 billion bank note.
Takes some doing to make Ian Smith look like a wise, enlightened leader...
But after reading this book, I'm convinced Mugabe is the absolute worst socialist head of state ever. Not in terms of body count of course (Stalin's got that record down), but in his ability to efficiently marshal the sloppiest human traits -- corruption, venality, bigotry, homophobia, violence -- in order to sink his country into ridiculous depths of poverty. While keeping his paranoid ass in office. For twenty-eight years. Dude's older than Gore Vidal for chrissakes!
Meredith's book works more as a disturbing chronicle of events than historical analysis. And it doesn't let up either: corruption and violence get nastier and the blood-tide rises higher and higher up through the 2008 elections. When hyperinflation got so comical the government had to print a Z$100 billion bank note.
Takes some doing to make Ian Smith look like a wise, enlightened leader...
June 4, 2023
When we first came to South Africa as missionaries almost two decades ago, we were repeatedly told by the whites in the town near the villages where we worked with the Tsonga people, that South Africa was “going the way of Zimbabwe!” The statement was repeated, always adamant and exclamatory. Being ignorant Americans, we did not know much about Zimbabwe. But living about an hour from the border, we soon learned. During the depression of 2008, which happened the year after this book’s publication, we met many Zimbabweans, blistered and bare feet, illegally emigrating here in an effort to live, escaping from the wreckage of a ruined and plundered skeleton of a country. We heard the horror stories of no food on shelves, of taking a teacher’s paycheck out of the bank with a wheelbarrow to carry all the inflated cash, and by the time you tried to check out at the grocery store with whatever you happened to find on the shelves, the price had already inflated higher than you could afford to pay with your worthless bills. If you’ve lived where we have and seen what we have, you read this book with faces and names in your mind, pictures of the buildings and Harare or Bulawayo streets from your visits there to help those people, of tent cities of homeless victims of corrupt government displacement, of a white farmer’s wife in SA who blames her divorce and alcoholism on the trauma of the war and squatters afterwards, of the breaths held in hope when the news forecasted that Mugabe had finally died a few years ago, of 29 police stops in only 30 hours in the country. We are filled with compassion and concern for the Zim people—compassion because it’s almost impossible to live there due to the governmental corruption and decay, and concern because their worldview, informed by their religion, makes it hard to think they’ll ever get any better as a whole so long as the youth see these examples and follow the same trails in their lust for power and wealth.
What concerns me the most is that not only SA is going the way of Zim, but also the US, something I don’t think I would have said a decade ago. But no American could read this and not see the similarities in the Marxism of the Democratic party in the last decade: rank corruption, so much election interference and fraud, slander, lies, hypocritical (because actually they’re the ones guilty of doing what they accuse their opponents of) libel of opposition, wanting to stack the courts, obstruction of the justice system, using political power for private enrichment, not caring about the common man or country so long as they have power and wealth (such as loss of infrastructure—see Eskom in SA—, and even starvation in Zim due to the collapse of agriculture from the seizure of white farms and subsequent loss of jobs to hundreds of thousands of blacks), incriminating and imprisoning their opponents, changing laws to suit them so they can take more power, red herring rhetoric, attacks on Christian values and Western culture, senseless destruction of the country hurting our economy and causing inflation, recessions, and depressions (all while blaming scapegoats of the opposition party as well as racism—at least in the case of Africa, there is real racism to be spoken of from the whites—but now that the blacks have the power, it’s racism towards the whites now, at least from the government).
So many stories I could tell to prove what I have written in this review, but I’ll stop. Unfortunately most Americans wouldn’t find this book interesting or see the danger the US is in, but history really does repeat itself. This book shows clearly yet one more example of the dismal failure of Marxist and Communist ideology. It’s been tried repeatedly, failed miserably each time, and the common man has died in droves with few to remember him—he became part of a number or statistic.
4.5 stars rounded up, because it was very well-written. But for some reason, when I read Meredith’s histories on Africa, I struggle to understand the way he organizes both topically and chronologically, so sometimes he’s skipping a bit on the timeline to keep with a topic. I’m not sure he could have done anything different, however, so overall, he deserves a very high rating.
What concerns me the most is that not only SA is going the way of Zim, but also the US, something I don’t think I would have said a decade ago. But no American could read this and not see the similarities in the Marxism of the Democratic party in the last decade: rank corruption, so much election interference and fraud, slander, lies, hypocritical (because actually they’re the ones guilty of doing what they accuse their opponents of) libel of opposition, wanting to stack the courts, obstruction of the justice system, using political power for private enrichment, not caring about the common man or country so long as they have power and wealth (such as loss of infrastructure—see Eskom in SA—, and even starvation in Zim due to the collapse of agriculture from the seizure of white farms and subsequent loss of jobs to hundreds of thousands of blacks), incriminating and imprisoning their opponents, changing laws to suit them so they can take more power, red herring rhetoric, attacks on Christian values and Western culture, senseless destruction of the country hurting our economy and causing inflation, recessions, and depressions (all while blaming scapegoats of the opposition party as well as racism—at least in the case of Africa, there is real racism to be spoken of from the whites—but now that the blacks have the power, it’s racism towards the whites now, at least from the government).
So many stories I could tell to prove what I have written in this review, but I’ll stop. Unfortunately most Americans wouldn’t find this book interesting or see the danger the US is in, but history really does repeat itself. This book shows clearly yet one more example of the dismal failure of Marxist and Communist ideology. It’s been tried repeatedly, failed miserably each time, and the common man has died in droves with few to remember him—he became part of a number or statistic.
4.5 stars rounded up, because it was very well-written. But for some reason, when I read Meredith’s histories on Africa, I struggle to understand the way he organizes both topically and chronologically, so sometimes he’s skipping a bit on the timeline to keep with a topic. I’m not sure he could have done anything different, however, so overall, he deserves a very high rating.
February 1, 2020
I have always been intrigued by the complexity of Zimbabwe's history and its former leader. I had read briefly about Mugabe in Martin Meredith's other book The State of Africa. This book however, gives much more detail and does a great job in detailing the injustices that the Zimbabweans have faced pre- and post-independence. I found this book to be largely balanced. It takes you to the moments and circumstances just before 'liberation' in 1980. Mugabe was a intelligent revolutionary who had a real, important and justified cause. His persistence and tenacity to lead the revolution struggle can only be admired. He was however feared particularly by the white Zim community and the opposition from the very beginning. This book details the atrocities and multiple Human Rights abuses that Mugabes regime committed early into his leadership. There is a whole chapter on Gukurahundi, which is a heart-breaking era of post-independence violence. It talks about the land invasions, the greed and corruption by the elites who grossly mismanaged the countries resources. This was all set against a backdrop of international pressure and estrangement, which Mugabe attributes to the cause of economic collapse through his anti-imperialist rhetoric. Yet there is no question that corruption was the big enemy of Zimbabwe and the love of money at the root of all evil. As Paulo Friere, the Brazilian philosopher stated "The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom". Despite his admirable role in the liberation struggle, Mugabe was ultimately a man who was obsessed with power and very much fearful of freedom. Perhaps my only gripe could have been some more insights into his approach to education in the 'good years'. This was widely praised post-indepence for a time but then like so many things in Zim it faltered. But overall a very good book.
August 10, 2023
Author’s point: What started as a quest for freedom in Robert Mugabe’s heart became a lust for power that pressed further and further as time went on.
My evaluation: Mugabe, inspired by African traditional religion, fits with numerous other dictators on the continent who cared nothing about the misery of their people or the ruin of their countries if by any means he might keep power and wealth during his life.
My evaluation: Mugabe, inspired by African traditional religion, fits with numerous other dictators on the continent who cared nothing about the misery of their people or the ruin of their countries if by any means he might keep power and wealth during his life.
February 4, 2018
A pretty unapologetic attack on the reign of Robert Mugabe. Not that that is unfair in any way but the author makes his own opinions known throughout the book. Truly a psychotic individual and very hard to fathom even in comparison to other historical dictator fascists. The living embodiment born of the sins of the colonial past. Made me hungry to read further into the country's past.
Read
December 24, 2019Very well written Chronicle of the corruption and power hunger of Mugabe that ruined a once prosperous country.
August 29, 2020
Excellent
January 2, 2025
i wish i could give it 3.5 stars. really engaging book about mugabe, but VERY detailed about his political cronies and keeping track was rather difficult without a glossary
March 24, 2017
I enjoyed reading this book and i though I knew about Gukurahundi this is the first book I have read that talks about Gukurahundi in depth. The book devotes an entire chapter on the topic. It also manages to capture so many aspects of Mugabe that we take for granted like how he has used corruption for patronage, how or violence to maintain power, and more surprising the younger generation all this began at independence. He has not changed tactic ever since
May 11, 2012
Robert Mugabe received his early education from Jesuits. Mugabe studied Marxism at Fort Hare University College in South Africa in 1949-1952. He was also exposed to Marxism when he visited Ghana in the late 1950s. Originally, he planned to become a teacher.
But he became politicized upon his return to Rhodesia in 1960. Mugabe was one of the leaders of a long military struggle against white rule. The white Rhodesian Front leader, Ian Smith, put Robert Mugabe in prison in 1964. Mugabe spent eleven years in prison.
A settlement with Great Britain was eventually reached in 1980, when Rhodesia was split into Zambia in the north and Zimbabwe in the south, both given over to black rule. When he obtained control over Zimbabwe in 1980, Robert Mugabe promised that he would respect the property rights of white land owners. He had to say that, to stop the whites from fleeing. Many of them still did, mostly to South Africa.
In the 1980s, although Mugabe had promised a socialist equality, what actually happened was that the white upper class was simply replaced with a black upper class of those loyal to Mugabe. The majority of blacks remained mired in poverty. In the 1990s the War Victims Compensation Fund ( assessor) was set up to help veterans of the war for independence. Its chairman, Chenjerai Hunzvi, and many other government officials received much of the money and little money was left over for the actual veterans, who then protested in the streets. Mugabe felt that the blacks had the right to take white farmer land without compensation, because the whites had not paid the blacks for the land originally.
In the 1990s, Strive Masiyiwa created a mobile phone network in Zibabwe, Econet Wireless, independent of the Zimbabwean government, and overcoming the governments attepts to stop him. Newspaper editor Mark Chavunduka and reporter Ray Choto were tortured by the Mugabe government for criticizing the goverment's military intervention in the Congo. Zimbabwe had no national interest in the Congo, but hoped to make deals to obtain some of its rich natural resources.
In the year 2000, Mugabe had the war veterans invade the lands of the white farmers. Mostly, they just squated there, hoping the white owners would initiate the violence. But they often raped and looted not only the white owners, but also their black workers. A few people were killed. Mugabe wanted to intimidate people from voting against him in the next election. Mugabe refused to compensate the owners for the land that he stole, instead asking Britain to pay the farmers. Mugabe gave most of the land he stole from the white farmers to his political supporters. Later, Mugabe began also seizing urban businesses.
The Movement for Democratic Change, lead by Morgan Tsvangirei, was the main opposition political party. Mugane used violence and terror against its supporter to intimidate people from voting for it. Food became scarce, due to the abandonment of farms by their white landowners, and the Mugabe directed food aid primarily to the supporters of his own party and not the opposition party. Millions of both whites and blacks fled to South Africa.
But he became politicized upon his return to Rhodesia in 1960. Mugabe was one of the leaders of a long military struggle against white rule. The white Rhodesian Front leader, Ian Smith, put Robert Mugabe in prison in 1964. Mugabe spent eleven years in prison.
A settlement with Great Britain was eventually reached in 1980, when Rhodesia was split into Zambia in the north and Zimbabwe in the south, both given over to black rule. When he obtained control over Zimbabwe in 1980, Robert Mugabe promised that he would respect the property rights of white land owners. He had to say that, to stop the whites from fleeing. Many of them still did, mostly to South Africa.
In the 1980s, although Mugabe had promised a socialist equality, what actually happened was that the white upper class was simply replaced with a black upper class of those loyal to Mugabe. The majority of blacks remained mired in poverty. In the 1990s the War Victims Compensation Fund ( assessor) was set up to help veterans of the war for independence. Its chairman, Chenjerai Hunzvi, and many other government officials received much of the money and little money was left over for the actual veterans, who then protested in the streets. Mugabe felt that the blacks had the right to take white farmer land without compensation, because the whites had not paid the blacks for the land originally.
In the 1990s, Strive Masiyiwa created a mobile phone network in Zibabwe, Econet Wireless, independent of the Zimbabwean government, and overcoming the governments attepts to stop him. Newspaper editor Mark Chavunduka and reporter Ray Choto were tortured by the Mugabe government for criticizing the goverment's military intervention in the Congo. Zimbabwe had no national interest in the Congo, but hoped to make deals to obtain some of its rich natural resources.
In the year 2000, Mugabe had the war veterans invade the lands of the white farmers. Mostly, they just squated there, hoping the white owners would initiate the violence. But they often raped and looted not only the white owners, but also their black workers. A few people were killed. Mugabe wanted to intimidate people from voting against him in the next election. Mugabe refused to compensate the owners for the land that he stole, instead asking Britain to pay the farmers. Mugabe gave most of the land he stole from the white farmers to his political supporters. Later, Mugabe began also seizing urban businesses.
The Movement for Democratic Change, lead by Morgan Tsvangirei, was the main opposition political party. Mugane used violence and terror against its supporter to intimidate people from voting for it. Food became scarce, due to the abandonment of farms by their white landowners, and the Mugabe directed food aid primarily to the supporters of his own party and not the opposition party. Millions of both whites and blacks fled to South Africa.
April 17, 2008
I knew very little about Zimbabwe until recently and then it was as the country experiencing one of the highest recorded inflation rates in the world (estimates are at about 130,000%). I wanted to know what kind of government would so recklessly impoverish its people and I found my answer in Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe's Future.
Meredith traces Zimbabwe's struggle for independence and with it, the rise of Robert Mugabe. How a man once viewed as a visionary and liberator of his people turned into a brutal dictator who proved no better than the colonial regime before him is something I'm not sure can ever be adequately answered, but Meredith provides a nuanced picture that goes a long way to filling in the gaps.
This book is less about a character study of Mugabe and more about the Zimbabwean people themselves. It is about their suffering as well as their attempts to reclaim their destinies in a society in which fear, violence and corruption are endemic. In this sense Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe's Future is unsatisfying. It is more political chronicle than psychological insight. At the end of the book, Mugabe and his motivations still remain a mystery (and maybe that level of venality cannot be explained or analysed).
On the other hand, because of the focus on events, there is a luminous thread of hope in this book that probably would have been lost in a strict Mugabe biography. In the end, I think that is Meredith's real triumph. I was really moved by the tireless efforts of the opposition party to dismantle Mugabe's one party system and especially the determination of the High Court to uphold justice even when the lives of judges were at stake. This does not even mention the bravery of ordinary citizens who risked their lives to simply go out and vote.
I don't know what will become of Zimbabwe but with that kind of determination I can only believe that one day, Zimbabweans will no longer have to ask "Watchman, how much longer the night?" Recommended for anyone interested in development and current events.
Meredith traces Zimbabwe's struggle for independence and with it, the rise of Robert Mugabe. How a man once viewed as a visionary and liberator of his people turned into a brutal dictator who proved no better than the colonial regime before him is something I'm not sure can ever be adequately answered, but Meredith provides a nuanced picture that goes a long way to filling in the gaps.
This book is less about a character study of Mugabe and more about the Zimbabwean people themselves. It is about their suffering as well as their attempts to reclaim their destinies in a society in which fear, violence and corruption are endemic. In this sense Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe's Future is unsatisfying. It is more political chronicle than psychological insight. At the end of the book, Mugabe and his motivations still remain a mystery (and maybe that level of venality cannot be explained or analysed).
On the other hand, because of the focus on events, there is a luminous thread of hope in this book that probably would have been lost in a strict Mugabe biography. In the end, I think that is Meredith's real triumph. I was really moved by the tireless efforts of the opposition party to dismantle Mugabe's one party system and especially the determination of the High Court to uphold justice even when the lives of judges were at stake. This does not even mention the bravery of ordinary citizens who risked their lives to simply go out and vote.
I don't know what will become of Zimbabwe but with that kind of determination I can only believe that one day, Zimbabweans will no longer have to ask "Watchman, how much longer the night?" Recommended for anyone interested in development and current events.
February 24, 2013
God bless Africa, guard her Children, guide her Rulers & give her peace.
The words to the prayer appear to have fallen on deaf ears before & after independence in Zimbabwe. Thank God Hitler didn't have a role model like Mugabe in the late 20s.
Meredith portrays a well educated man broken by the pre-independence system into wanting revenge. He's main aim to gain the ballot at the barrel of a gun. This never happened with the Lancaster House accord. The rest is history I guess.
I enjoyed this book, however I found at times I was both angry and sad at the abuse of power and the fate of ordinary Zimbabweans who saw Mugabe as the saviour.
The words to the prayer appear to have fallen on deaf ears before & after independence in Zimbabwe. Thank God Hitler didn't have a role model like Mugabe in the late 20s.
Meredith portrays a well educated man broken by the pre-independence system into wanting revenge. He's main aim to gain the ballot at the barrel of a gun. This never happened with the Lancaster House accord. The rest is history I guess.
I enjoyed this book, however I found at times I was both angry and sad at the abuse of power and the fate of ordinary Zimbabweans who saw Mugabe as the saviour.
January 2, 2008
This book is a great look at what Robert Mugabe has done to the once beautiful Zimbabwe. It follows his rise to power, and then details quite well what he did to keep that power, all at the expense of his people and his country.
March 16, 2008
Gives an historical account of what happened since the victory of Robert Mugabe and ZANU, although it's short on the analysis of why things happened as they did. As someone who cheered the vistory at the time, it provided one piece to my understanding of what when wrong.
May 7, 2009
Easily one of the more compelling political biographies I've read in a long time. I think a few more on how Mugabe himself degenerated from an idealistic revolutionary to the current clown would have been nice.
April 18, 2012
His name was on the news all the time that I decided I wanted to know who he is. This book is written dryly, thus, unbiased, of Mugabe, the ruthless despot. It gives you full information how he turned from a promising leader to a paranoid dictator.
May 2, 2020
Martin Meredith is great. This is a good one for getting an intro to Zim. Well researched and an easy and enjoyable read.
March 15, 2009
Never has a book manifested physical anger in me as much as this book did.
October 23, 2010
A concise, well narrated history of modern day Zimbabwe unfortunately it just stops short of when things really got interesting. Maybe this would be a good place to start for the sequel.
October 10, 2012
I really enjoyed this as I didnt know anything about this man before I visited Zimbabwe. He's an odd but intelligent guy.
March 17, 2013
Haunting.
July 29, 2019
Endlessly fascinating.
June 18, 2015
Wow...interesting...looks like a hazardous duty-pay kind of country!
July 3, 2016
Sad commentary on how Mugabe plundered his country and forced it's citizens live in abject poverty. And he is a so called man of God????
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