(U1) RUFARO STADIUM, HARARE, ZIMBABWE (FILE - APRIL 18, 1980) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


1.
VARIOUS OF NIGHT SHOTS BRITISH FLAG BEING LOWERED AND ZIMBABWEAN FLAG BEING RAISED AT INDEPENDENCE CEREMONY
0.06

2.
WIDE OF PEOPLE CHEERING
0.09


(U1) SALISBURY, RHODESIA (FILE - OCTOBER 29, 1960) (MONO/MUTE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


3.
VARIOUS OF ROBERT MUGABE ADDRESSING INAUGURAL CONGRESS OF THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY
0.18


(U1) LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (FILE - 1979) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


4.
VARIOUS OF MUGABE, ZIMBABWE AFRICAN PEOPLE'S UNION (ZAPU) PARTY LEADER JOSHUA NKOMO AND BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY LORD CARRINGTON SIGNING LANCASTER HOUSE INDEPENDENCE AGREEMENT
0.29

5.
WIDE OF MUGABE SHAKING HANDS WITH SIGNATORIES
0.37


(U1) BULAWAYO, MATABELELAND, ZIMBABWE (FILE- FEBRUARY
1981) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


6.
VARIOUS OF FUNERAL FOR VICTIMS KILLED IN FIGHTING BETWEEN SUPPORTERS OF MUGABE AND NKOMO
0.52


(U1) HARARE, ZIMBABWE (FILE - DECEMBER 22, 1987) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


7.
VARIOUS OF MUGABE AND NKOMO SHAKING HANDS AFTER SIGNING AGREEMENT MERGING THEIR TWO PARTIES, CREATING A ONE-PARTY STATE
1.07


(U1) CHIPINGE, ZIMBABWE (FILE - MARCH 1996) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


8.
VARIOUS OF MUGABE WITH SUPPORTERS AT ELECTION RALLY
1.19

9.
SLV MUGABE SHAKING HANDS WITH SUPPORTERS/ PEOPLE AT RALLY
1.22


(U1) ZVIMBA, ZIMBABWE (FILE - AUGUST 17, 1996) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


10.
VARIOUS OF MUGABE'S BRIDE, GRACE MARUFU, ARRIVING FOR WEDDING CEREMONY
1.27

11.
VARIOUS OF MUGABE AND MARUFU BEING MARRIED BY ARCHBISHOP PATRICK CHAKAIPA
1.42


(U1) HARARE, ZIMBABWE (FILE - JANUARY 19, 1998) (SABC - NO ACCESS AFRICA)


12.
CLOSE OF BURNING BARRICADE
1.45

13.
VARIOUS OF POLICE MOVING BARRICADES AWAY FROM STREET
1.52

14.
VARIOUS OF RIOT POLICE FIRING TEAR GAS
1.55

15.
VARIOUS OF RIOT POLICE IN TRUCK/ MORE FIRING OF TEAR GAS
1.58

16.
VARIOUS OF RIOTERS RUNNING ALONG STREET
2.01


(U1) DARNDALE, ZIMBABWE (FILE - APRIL, 2000) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


17.
SLV WAR VETERANS OCCUPYING WHITE OWNED FARM, GETTING OUT OF TRUCK
2.09

18.
VARIOUS OF WAR VETERANS OCCUPYING WHITE-OWNED FARM, DANCING AND WAVING CLUBS AND AXE
2.19

19.
WIDE OF WHITE FARMERS AND FARM WORKERS LOADING BELONGINGS ONTO TRUCK
2.23

20.
WIDE OF WHITE FAMILY IN TRUCK LADEN WITH BELONGINGS DRIVING PAST WAR VETERANS
2.34


(U1) HARARE, ZIMBABWE (FILE - FEBRUARY 8, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


21.
WIDE OF OPPOSITION RALLY
2.39

22.
VARIOUS OF OPPOSITION PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE AND LEADER OF MOVEMENT FOR DEMOCRATIC CHANGE (MDC) PARTY MORGAN TSVANGIRAI ADDRESSING ELECTION RALLY, SUPPORTERS CHEERING
2.51


(U1) HARARE, ZIMBABWE (FILE - MARCH 9, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


23.
WIDE/ PAN OF LONG QUEUES OF PEOPLE OUTSIDE POLLING STATION WAITING TO VOTE
3.02

24.
VARIOUS OF VOTERS STRUGGLING TO KEEP THEIR PLACE IN QUEUES
3.11


(U1) HARARE, ZIMBABWE (FILE - MARCH 9, 2002) (ZBC - NO ACCESS ZIMBABWE)


25.
VARIOUS OF MUGABE POSTING HIS VOTE IN BALLOT BOX
3.23


(U1) PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - FEBRUARY 19, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


26.
WIDE OF DEMONSTRATORS PROTESTING AGAINST MUGABE ATTENDING FRANCO-AFRICAN SUMMIT, OUTSIDE JUSTICE MINISTRY
3.26

27.
CLOSE OF PROTESTORS HOLDING UP ANTI MUGABE POSTERS
3.31


(U1) PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - FEBRUARY 20,2003) (FRENCH TV POOL - ACCESS ALL)


28.
VARIOUS OF FRENCH PRESIDENT JACQUES CHIRAC GREETING MUGABE WITH HANDSHAKE
3.41


(U1) HARARE, ZIMBABWE (FILE - JULY 23, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)


29.
WIDE OF MUGABE STANDING ON PODIUM
3.47

30.
VARIOUS OF MUGABE REVIEWING GUARD OF HONOUR
4.12

31.
WIDE OF MOUNTED TROOPS SURROUNDING PRESIDENTIAL LIMOUSINE
4.15

32.
PAN OF MUGABE AND WIFE GRACE SEATED IN BACK OF ROLLS ROYCE
4.27







Initials



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Profile on Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe, who turns 70 on Saturday.



Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is celebrating his
80th birthday on Saturday (February 21).

Mugabe suggested on Friday in an interview marking his
birthday that he would retire as president within five
years. He said he will not leave politics, but will have
retired in five years.

Mugabe has been in power since his country's
independence from Britain in 1980. He has left his
retirement plans open over the past year despite
speculation he wants a graceful exit in the face of a
severe economic and political turmoil critics blame on his
misrule.

Mugabe won another six-year term as president in 2002
polls contested as fraudulent by the opposition, and has
previously dismissed speculation he would not sit out his
term.

Mugabe denies mismanaging Zimbabwe's economy, which has
record unemployment and inflation, as well as shortages of
foreign currency, fuel and food. He says the economy has
been sabotaged by opponents of his forcible redistribution
of white-owned farms among landless blacks.

Hailed at independence in 1980 as a model African
democrat, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is now widely
seen as a tyrant who destroyed his once rich southern
African state.

During the war for independence he was known in liberal
international circles as the thinking man's guerrilla. His
political career began in 1960 with the formation of the
National Democratic Party. A teacher by profession he was
jailed in 1964 for 10 years for fighting white minority
rule. After his release he went into exile in Mozambique
where he and nationalist leader Joshua Nkomo joined forces
to form the Patriotic Front guerrilla alliance.

The turning point in the seven-year war came when
Mugabe and Nkomo agreed to attend talks convened by the
British government. Three months of intensive negotiations
led to the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement which
oversaw the transition to majority rule. After his election
as the country's first black prime minister Mugabe offered
forgiveness and reconciliation.

In spite of their military alliance the old rivalries
separating Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU)
and Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) were
never quelled. In 1987, two years of talks culminated in an
agreement to merge the two parties, creating a one-party
state.

In 1990 Mugabe stood unopposed for the newly created
post of Executive President incorporating the roles of
prime minister, president and chief of the armed forces. He
won re-election in 1996 after again standing unopposed, his
two challengers having withdrawn their candidacy shortly
before polling day.

In August 1996 Mugabe married his former secretary
Grace Marufu, mother of two of his children, at a formal
wedding ceremony attended by African leaders and barefoot
villagers. Mugabe's first wife Sally died in 1992. Mugabe
and Marufu, who is 40 years his junior, are reported to
have married months later the same year in a traditional
African ceremony.

As Zimbabwe's debt burden began to weigh heavily and a
younger generation of voters responded less
enthusiastically to his liberation war record, Mugabe
shored up his base with patronage. An increasingly
independent trade union movement defeated his attempts to
raise fuel and food prices and rejected a proposed tax to
fund war-veteran grants.

Mugabe tasted defeat for the first time when voters in
a referendum rejected a new constitution that would have
given him yet more powers. He turned on the small white
minority, blaming them for the referendum defeat.

He pushed legislation through parliament allowing the
seizure of more than half the white-owned farms and did
nothing to stop self-styled war veterans, many of them too
young to have fought in the liberation conflict, from
occupying farms, often with violence.

In 2000 Mugabe's ZANU-PF party narrowly won
parliamentary elections, gaining 62 parliamentary seats to
the opposition MDC's (Movement for Democratic Alliance) 57
seats.

Two years later Mugabe succeeded in beating the MDC's
candidate Morgan Tsvangirai in violence-scarred
presidential elections that observers condemned as flawed
and unfair. Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth
and Western countries imposed travel and economic sanctions
on Mugabe and his government.

In spite of the travel restrictions Mugabe was invited
by French President Jacques Chirac to attend a
Franco-African summit in Paris in February 2003. The
invitation sparked protests and angered a number of Western
countries.

As unemployment and inflation have soared and severe
shortages of food and fuel have dramatically increased the
desperation of the already beleaguered population, Mugabe
continues to blame Zimbabwe's dwindling white minority and
an alleged British-led Western conspiracy for the country's
economic woes.

JRC/