Sat 14 September 2019:
Former Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe will be given a state funeral on Saturday with a dozen African leaders expected to pay tribute to a man lauded as a colonial-era liberation hero.
Mugabe, who died last week in Singapore aged 95, left Zimbabwe torn over the legacy of his 37-year rule marked by brutal repression and economic crisis.
He died almost two years after former army loyalists forced him out in 2017, following a power struggle over what was widely perceived as his bid to have his wife Grace succeed him.
His body was returned from Singapore on Wednesday to a country divided and still struggling with inflation and the food and fuel shortages caused by decades of economic crisis.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and a dozen current and former African leaders are expected to attend Saturday’s official funeral at a Harare sports stadium.
But his final burial at a national monument will only happen after a new mausoleum is built, his family said.
While Mugabe ended white-minority rule and gave more access to education and public health to the poor black majority, he soon turned to fear and repression to govern.
Many Zimbabweans will remember Mugabe more for the economic mismanagement and increasingly tyrannical rule that followed the initial hope of liberation.
Millions fled the country during decades of crisis and hyperinflation and a brutal crackdown on dissidents at home.
Many are struggling to survive despite President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s vows of more investment and jobs in the post-Mugabe era.
His family are still bitter over the role Mnangagwa played in his ouster and had pushed for Mugabe to be buried in his homestead of Zvimba, northwest of Harare.
A former guerrilla who fought alongside Mugabe against colonial forces, Mnangagwa was fired as first vice president by Mugabe in 2017. Mugabe branded him a “traitor”.
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