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Subjects | Fact sheet | Samples
Geography and politics: Sample biographies
Bhutto, Benazir (1953– )
Pakistani politician. She was leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) from 1984, a position she held in exile until 1986. Bhutto became prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 until 1990, when the opposition manoeuvred her from office and charged her with corruption. She again rose to the office of prime minister (1993–96), only to be removed for a second time under suspicion of corruption. In 1999, while living in self-imposed exile in London, Bhutto was found guilty of corruption and given a five-year prison sentence.
Born into a wealthy, feudal, land-owning family, Benazir Bhutto was educated at Harvard and Oxford universities. She returned to Pakistan in 1977 but was placed under house arrest after General Zia ul-Haq seized power from her father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged in 1979. On her release she moved to the UK and became, with her mother Nusrat, the joint leader in exile of the opposition PPP.
When martial law had been lifted, she returned to Pakistan in April 1986 and became the first female leader of a Muslim state in November 1988. In August 1990, she was removed from office by presidential decree on charges of corruption and abuse of power. Bhutto returned to office in 1993 following a power struggle between President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. She was removed from office in November 1996 amidst increasing concern over government corruption. In January 1998, 12 charges were filed against the Bhutto family by the government, and she and her husband were found guilty of corruption in April 1999. However, in April 2001, Pakistan's Supreme Court quashed the convictions and ordered a retrial.
In November 2000, Bhutto's supporters joined with supporters of her former opponent Nawaz Sharif and 15 smaller parties to
form the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, designed to bring an early end to military rule in Pakistan.
In her first year in office she struck an uneasy balance with the military establishment, improved Pakistan's relations with India, and led her country back into the Commonwealth in 1989. She claimed the charges of corruption brought against her in 1990, as well as charges of mass murder, kidnapping, and extortion brought against her husband Asif Ali Zardari were fabrications, the
government's intention being to strike a deal whereby they would receive pardons on condition that they leave the country and effectively abandon politics. Her party was defeated in the subsequent general election.
In her second period as prime minister, she compromised, supporting a large military budget while trying to foster greater social reform. However, in addition to the further charges of corruption, she faced a great deal of criticism from opposition parties for not curbing ethnic and religious violence, and the PPP endured a crushing defeat in the February 1997 general election. The same year, her husband was jailed, charged with murdering Benazir's estranged brother, Murtaza, and the government secured the freezing of four Swiss bank accounts belonging to Benazir Bhutto's family members with funds reputedly exceeding US$50 million. In August 1998, a Swiss judge asked for Bhutto to be indicted on money-laundering charges.
Buthelezi, Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha (1928– )
South African Zulu leader and politician, president of the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which he founded as a paramilitary organization for attaining a nonracial democratic society in 1975. Buthelezi's threatened boycott of South Africa's first multiracial elections led to a dramatic escalation in politically motivated violence, but he eventually agreed to register his party and in May 1994 was appointed home affairs minister in the country's first post-apartheid government. In December 1995 there were unsubstantiated claims that he had colluded with the security service during the apartheid period. In June 1999 Buthelezi was offered the post of deputy president of South Africa by the new president Thabo Mbeki. Buthelezi refused the post.
Buthelezi, great-grandson of King Cetewayo, became chief minister of KwaZulu, then a black homeland in the Republic of South Africa, in 1970. Opposed to KwaZulu becoming a Black National State, he argued instead for a confederation of black areas, with eventual majority rule over all South Africa under a one-party socialist system. He was accused of complicity in the factional violence between Inkatha and African National Congress supporters that racked the townships during the early 1990s.
Callaghan, (Leonard) James (1912– )
Baron Callaghan of Cardiff
British Labour politician. He was home secretary 1967–70 and prime minister 1976–79 in a period of increasing economic stress. As chancellor of the Exchequer 1964–67, he introduced corporation tax, capital gains tax, and selective employment tax, and resigned following devaluation.
As foreign secretary in 1974, Callaghan renegotiated the UK's membership of the European Community (now the European Union). In 1976 he succeeded Harold Wilson as prime minister and in 1977 entered into a pact with the Liberals to maintain his government in office. Strikes in the so-called 'winter of discontent' 1978–79 led to the government losing a vote of no confidence in the
Commons, forcing him to call an election in May 1979, when his party was defeated by the Conservatives.
Callaghan was born in Portsmouth, England, and educated at Portsmouth state schools. He became a tax officer in the Inland Revenue. After war service in the navy he entered Parliament as Labour MP for South (later Southeast) Cardiff in 1945, and held junior office from 1947 until 1951. Callaghan subsequently made a considerable reputation as chief opposition spokesperson on financial affairs.
Between 1970 and 1974 he was successively opposition spokesperson on home affairs, employment, and foreign and Commonwealth affairs. In March 1974 he became secretary of state for foreign and Commonwealth affairs, holding that office until he succeeded Harold Wilson as leader of the Labour Party and prime minister in April 1976. Between 1967 and 1976 he was treasurer of the Labour Party and was chair of the party 1973–74.
Callaghan was the first prime minister since Ramsay MacDonald to be forced into an election by the will of the Commons. In 1980 he resigned the party leadership under left-wing pressure, and in 1985 announced that he would not stand for Parliament in the next election. He was created a life peer in 1987.
de Klerk, F(rederik) W(illem) (1936– )
South African National Party politician, president 1989–94. Projecting himself as a pragmatic conservative who sought gradual reform of the apartheid system, he won the September 1989 elections for his party, but with a reduced majority. In February 1990 he ended the ban on the African National Congress (ANC) opposition movement and released its effective leader Nelson Mandela. By June 1991 he had repealed all racially discriminating laws. After a landslide victory for Mandela and the ANC in the first universal suffrage elections in April 1994, de Klerk became second executive deputy president. He shared the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1993 with Mandela for their work towards dismantling apartheid and negotiating the transition to a non-racial democracy.
Trained as a lawyer, he entered the South African parliament in 1972. He served in the cabinets of B J Vorster and P W Botha 1978–89, replacing Botha as party leader in February 1989 and as state president in August 1989.
He entered into negotiations with the ANC in December 1991, and in March 1992 a nationwide, whites-only referendum gave him a clear mandate to proceed with plans for major constitutional reform to end white minority rule. In February 1993 he and Mandela agreed to the formation of a government of national unity after multiracial elections in 1994, but in May 1995 he withdrew the National Party from the governing coalition in order to develop a 'strong and vigilant opposition'.
Despite winning the Nobel Prize for Peace, De Klerk's reputation was badly damaged by revelations to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the body charged with exposing the truth about the apartheid years. In August 1997 de Klerk resigned as leader of the National Party claiming that he was retiring to rid the Afrikaner-dominated party of the remains of apartheid. He was
succeeded by Marthinus van Schalkwyk in September 1997.
Gore, Al(bert Arnold, Jr) (1948– )
US politician, vice-president 1993–2001. A Democrat, he was a member of the House of Representatives 1977–79, and was senator for Tennessee 1985–92. He was on the conservative wing of the party, but held liberal views on such matters as women's rights, environmental issues, and abortion. As vice-president he was unusually active in foreign affairs, and put forward proposals for 'reinventing government' by cutting red tape and improving efficiency. Gore narrowly failed to become president when, in November 2000, he won a plurality of the popular vote (48.3%) but won four fewer electoral college seats than the Republican, George W Bush, who won 48.1% of the vote. His lack of warmth as a campaigner and failure to attach to himself credit for the Clinton administration's economic success was suggested to explain this failure.
Gore was raised in Washington, DC, and Tennessee, where his father was senator, and worked as a journalist, a property developer, and a farmer before going into politics. He was known to have strong views on arms control, military, and foreign policy. An unsuccessful contestant for the Democrats' presidential nomination in 1988, he easily won the nomination in 2000. At one point his prospects appeared somewhat damaged by the Justice Department's investigations into potentially illegal fund-raising for the Democrats in 1996, to which Gore, through making fund-raising telephone calls from the White House, was found to be linked. However, in November 1998, after a preliminary inquiry, the attorney general Janet Reno decided not to recommend the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate further. In November 2001, Gore became vice chair of Metropolitan West Financial, a financial services holding company in Los Angeles, California.
Kohl, Helmut (1930– )
German conservative politician, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) 1976–98, West German chancellor (prime minister) 1982–90, and German chancellor from 1990–98. He oversaw the reunification of East and West Germany 1989–90 and in 1990 won a resounding victory to become the first chancellor of a reunited Germany. His miscalculation of the true costs of
reunification and their subsequent effects on the German economy led to a dramatic fall in his popularity, but as the economy recovered, so did his public esteem, enabling him to achieve a historic fourth electoral victory in 1994. He was defeated by Gerhard Schroeder of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the elections of September 1998, a year in which unemployment reached record levels. In December 1999, Kohl admitted to receiving secret and therefore illegal payments on behalf of his party when he was chancellor, and he was fined 300,000 marks/US$143,000 in January 2001.
Kohl studied law and history before entering the chemical industry. Elected to the Rhineland-Palatinate Land (state)
parliament in 1959, he became state premier in 1969. After the 1976 Bundestag (federal parliament) elections Kohl led the CDU in opposition. He became federal chancellor in 1982, when the Free Democratic Party (FDP) withdrew support from the socialist Schmidt government, and was elected at the head of a new coalition that included the FDP. His close working relationship with President Mitterrand of France was the foundation for accelerating progress towards closer European integration, and Kohl was a strong backer of the idea of a single European currency.
From 1984 Kohl was implicated in the Flick bribes scandal over the illegal business funding of political parties, but he was cleared of all charges in 1986. However, in December 1999 he admitted to keeping secret party bank accounts when he was chancellor. He refused to name the source of the illegal payments, which amounted to two million marks/US$950,000.
Mugabe, Robert (Gabriel) (1925– )
Zimbabwean politician, prime minister from 1980 and president from 1987. He was in detention in Rhodesia for nationalist activities 1964–74, then carried on guerrilla warfare from Mozambique as leader of ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union; ZANU-PF (-Patriotic Front) after 1980). He became the first prime minister of an independent Zimbabwe. He was in an uneasy alliance with Joshua Nkomo of ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People's Union) from 1976 until 1987, when the two parties merged under Mugabe's leadership. Mugabe came under increasing criticism in the 1990s and in 2000 as Zimbabwe suffered economic decline and growing political violence.
The merger of ZANU-PF and ZAPU in 1987 effectively established a one-party state, but Mugabe's proposals to establish this constitutionally were rejected in 1990. His failure to anticipate and respond to the 1991–92 drought in southern Africa adversely affected his popularity, but he was re-elected, unchallenged, in February 1996.
In May 1998, he faced student demonstrations against alleged government corruption and in November there were violent protests in Harare at the rise in fuel prices and the country's involvement in the Congo war. Further protests followed in February 1999 and October 2000.
In 2000 Mugabe supported the invasion of white farms by veterans of the struggle for independence, and invoked special presidential powers in order to seize land without compensation. The policy was condemned as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and further contributed to Zimbabwe's economic problems. In June the human rights group African Rights produced a scathing report on his government, accusing it of corruption, human rights abuse, and lack of respect for the rule of law.
In 2002 Mugabe was re-elected as president in controversial elections marred by corruption and violence.
Mugabe is a member of the Shona people, and was educated at Fort Hare University, South Africa.
Pinochet (Ugarte), Augusto (1915– )
Chilean military dictator 1973–89. He came to power when a coup backed by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ousted and killed President Salvador Allende. He governed ruthlessly, crushing all political opposition (including more than 3,000 people who 'vanished' or were killed), but also presiding over the country's economic expansion in the 1980s, stimulated further by free-market reforms. He was voted out of power when general elections were held in December 1989, but remained head of the armed forces until March 1998 when he became senator-for-life. In January 2001, he was arrested on the charge of organizing the killings of 77 left-wing activists and union leaders. However, in July 2001, Chile's appeal court ruled that he was mentally unfit to stand trial, ending lengthy efforts to prosecute him for human rights abuses.
His decline in power began in 1988 when he called and lost a plebiscite to ratify him as sole nominee for the presidency. His position of senator-for-life, a position created by a constitution Pinochet wrote while he was president, was intended to give him legal immunity, but the Chilean courts stripped him of this immunity in May 2000. In October 1998, he was arrested in London, England, where he was undergoing medical treatment, on a warrant from Baltasar Garzon, a Spanish lawyer investigating the crimes of his regime and seeking his extradition. However, he was deemed medically unfit to stand trial, and allowed to return to Chile in March 2000. Legal proceedings there took 10 months before Pinochet was finally arrested.
Extradition and trial
After his arrest in England, Pinochet appeared at Belmarsh magistrates' court, south London, in December 1998, and said that he did not recognize the jurisdiction of any court other than that of Chile. The law lords ruled he must face extradition proceedings to Spain, but Pinochet's lawyers successfully argued one of the judges was tainted by bias. Legal history was made when, on 17 December, the law lords ordered a fresh hearing into whether the general was immune from prosecution. The hearing began in September 1999 at Bow Street magistrates' court, London. Pinochet faced 35 counts alleging conspiracy to 'abduct, inflict severe pain and suffering, and causing grievous bodily harm'. In November he was formally committed to face extradition to Spain.
The court ruling fuelled the continuing political and diplomatic controversy that had raged since the general had been arrested. Baroness Thatcher led a succession of Conservatives in campaigning for the general to be freed, and made an impassioned speech at the 1999 annual party conference condemning the government. In January 2000, British Home Secretary Jack Straw ruled that medical evidence exempted Pinochet from an extradition order and therefore from trial in Spain. Pinochet's return to Chile in March was protested by European countries and human rights campaigners, as it seemed unlikely he would be prosecuted in Chile due, in part, to his immunity as senator.
The Chilean government distanced itself from the public welcome, which was staged by the military. With thousands of Chileans demanding Pinochet's prosecution, the socialist president-elect, Ricardo Lagos, said that it would be up to the Chilean courts to decide whether Pinochet should stand trial in Chile. The state prosecutor set a legal precedent by requesting the Chilean Appeals Court to lift Pinochet's immunity to prosecution, after the Chilean government concluded that Pinochet was physically able to stand trial, in spite of the British medical report. This request was upheld by an appeals court in May. On 1 December, Judge Juan Guzman ordered Pinochet's arrest, but 10 days later, a Santiago appeals court ruled that the arrest warrant violated legal procedures because the judge did not first question the defendant. After further medical tests in January 2001 established that Pinochet was still fit to stand trial, Guzman questioned Pinochet and then placed him under house arrest. However, the appeal court ended the efforts to prosecute the former dictator on 9 July. Theoretically, the trial could be resumed if Pinochet's health was to improve, but as he had reportedly suffered three mild strokes since 1998, it was considered a remote possibility.
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