Who is Robert Mugabe and why is everyone talking about him?
In southern Africa there used to be country called Rhodesia. It was part of the white dominated colonies on the southern part of the continent. In the 1970s and 1980s there was a revolution in Rhodesia and the white government was overthrown. The revolutionaries (led by Robert Mugabe) took over the government and renamed the country Zimbabwe. One of the key bargaining chips that Mugabe used to get people to fight for him was to play the class/color warfare chip. He convinced people that the white farmers had stolen their land, and if he came to power he would take their farms and redistribute the land. Mugabe has successfully redistributed almost all white owned land, and the land of anyone who speaks up against him. In the process he has taken Zimbabwe from being the most successful agricultural economy in Africa to the brink of starvation. The farms are not producing, corruption and inflation are out of control, and the government is becoming more and more repressive and more violent
