Mugabe's UMass honor criticized

State lawmaker wants honorary degree voided

University of Massachusetts trustees may consider rescinding Robert Mugabe's honorary degree.

A leading state lawmaker is urging the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to rescind a 1986 honorary degree awarded to Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, whose authoritarian regime is accused of stifling political opposition and of systemic human rights abuses.

Representative Kevin J. Murphy, House chairman of the Joint Committee on Higher Education, said continuing to honor Mugabe despite recent evidence he has terrorized dissidents in a brutal campaign to retain power "runs contrary to every value the University of Massachusetts holds dear."

In a May 9 letter to UMass president Jack M. Wilson calling on the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees to revoke the honorary degree, Murphy denounced Mugabe as "an affliction on the people of Zimbabwe."

"It is reprehensible that Robert Mugabe enjoys the same honor our university bestowed upon luminaries such as Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, and Toni Morrison," Murphy said. A Lowell Democrat, Murphy plans to address the topic at the board's June 12 meeting.

Mugabe's government has targeted supporters of Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai since Mugabe lost the first stage of a presidential election in March.

Tsvangirai announced Saturday he would return to Zimbabwe to participate in a runoff election despite escalating political violence.

Robert Connolly, a UMass spokesman, said yesterday that trustees may consider rescinding the degree in light of recent events.

The board has never revoked an honorary degree.

"The board has an open mind about additional action," he said.

Last June, trustees voted to rebuke Mugabe amid pressure from student leaders but refused to rescind the degree, saying they had no guidelines to do so.

A student petition at the time said Mugabe's actions "have prompted his being scorned worldwide as a tyrannical dictator whose rule has been marked by intimidation, violence, fraud, and robbery."

Connolly said the lack of precedent would no longer prevent the board from rescinding Mugabe's degree.

Last year, the University of Edinburgh in Scotland rescinded an honorary degree it had awarded Mugabe, and students at Michigan State University, which awarded Mugabe a degree in 1990, have unsuccessfully pressed officials there to do the same. Michigan State has a strong exchange program with the University of Zimbabwe.

In 1986, UMass awarded Mugabe an honorary law degree during a special convocation at the school's Amherst campus. UMass chancellor Joseph Duffey said at the time that Mugabe had rebuilt Zimbabwe's economy and "laid the foundation for racial harmony between blacks and whites."

A program for that ceremony referred to Mugabe as a champion of human rights.

During his address, Mugabe spoke of the suffering of blacks under apartheid in South Africa, and one of Nelson Mandela's daughters gave Mugabe his doctoral hood.

Mugabe, Zimbabwe's leader since the country gained independence from Britain in 1980, is now widely blamed for Zimbabwe's economic collapse, brought on in part when his ruling party seized millions of acres of land from white farmers, a change that eventually led to widespread food shortages.

In the 1980s, Mugabe was hailed in the West as a colonial liberator and outspoken opponent of apartheid in South Africa.

But critics contend he was a ruthless tyrant who in the early 1980s launched a crackdown to subjugate a minority tribe, killing an estimated 20,000 civilians.

Joshua Rubenstein, Northeast regional director for Amnesty International USA, said that by 1986, the "public record on Mugabe was clear" and that claims to the contrary seek to "paper over the past."

"In 1986, it was already clear this was a brutal regime that has been murderous," he said. "The idea that he would warrant an honorary degree was very questionable at the time."

Murphy said revoking the degree would be a gesture of solidarity with Mugabe's opponents as they seek to remove him from power.

"Mugabe's brazen disregard for democratic principles and rule of law are paralleled only by his disregard for the well-being of Zimbabwe's people," he said. "Zimbabweans have shown tremendous courage in voting for change despite the violence, and the world should embrace their cause however it can."