Mugabe turns 91 with million dollar birthday bash

February 28, 2015 17:28

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe today will celebrate his 91st birthday will a million dollar bash attended by thousands of faithful party supporters.

As elephants are slaughtered for the feast at a luxury hotel in Zimbabwe's famed Victoria Falls, critics are questioning the scale of the festivities, calling them "obscene" in a country where millions live in poverty.

Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, is the world's oldest leader.

While he is hailed by many of his African peers as a liberation hero, critics say that over the following decades he turned the "breadbasket of southern Africa" into a basket case, trampling human rights, justice and democracy.

Mugabe's violent seizure of white-owned farms triggered food shortages and hyper-inflation, while Europe and the United States imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe over elections seen as rigged.

In an interview marking his birthday, Mugabe admitted he blundered by giving ill-equipped black farmers vast tracts of farmland under his controversial land reforms.

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