Robert Mugabe Passed Away!

Robert Mugabe passed away. Zimbabwe's most prominent president ruled the country for nearly 40 years.

The colorful and controversial Zimbabwean president who reigned for years until his ouster passed away in Singapore.

Robert Mugabe died at the age of 95 years old. He ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years until he was toppled in a military coup in 2017. At first many called him a liberator. He would order troops to seize land from colonial white settlers saying that the African land was never European and the settlers were impeding on natural land.

The West called him a dictator and a ruthless thug. Many Black extremists said that he retook the land from the European invaders.

Two years after he was forced out of Zimbabwe, he was settling in Singapore. His wife Grace who wore designer jewelry and drove around in expensive cars confirmed her husband passed away.

Current president Emmerson Mnangagwa confirmed that the death happened on Thursday.

Mugabe had been in poor health and looking pretty frail was being care for by his family.

The former president was praised for broadening access to health and education for the black majority.

But later years were marked by violent repression of his political opponents and Zimbabwe's economic ruin.

He was born in February 1924 in what was then Rhodesia, then a British colony, run by its white minority.

After criticizing the government of Rhodesia in 1964 he was imprisoned for more than a decade without trial.

In 1973, while still in prison, he was chosen as president of the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu), of which he was a founding member.

Once released, he headed to Mozambique, from where he directed guerrilla raids into Rhodesia but he was also seen as a skilled negotiator.

Political agreements to end the crisis resulted in the new independent Republic of Zimbabwe.

With his high profile in the independence movement, Mugabe secured an overwhelming victory in the republic's first election in 1980.

After his ouster, Mugabe took asylum in Singapore with his family in toe.

The country he finally led to independence was one of the continent's most promising, and for years Zimbabwe more or less flourished. But when the economy faltered, Mr Mugabe lost his nerve. He implemented a catastrophic land reform program. Zimbabwe quickly slid into hyperinflation, isolation, and political chaos.

The security forces kept Mugabe and his party, Zanu-PF, in power - mostly through terror. But eventually even the army turned against him, and pushed him out.

Few nations have ever been so bound, so shackled, to one man. For decades, Mugabe was Zimbabwe: a ruthless, bitter, sometimes charming man - who helped ruin the land he loved.

In 2000, he seized land from white owners, and in 2008, used violent militias to silence his political opponents during an election.

He famously declared that only God could remove him from office.