Edson Zvobgo

Who was Edson Zvobgo?

Edson Jonasi Zvobgo was a founder of Zimbabwe's ruling party Zanu-PF, was the Patriotic Front's spokesman at the Lancaster House in late 1979, a Harvard-trained lawyer, and a poet.

His name is often misspelled by the media, either as Eddison instead of Edson or Zvogbo instead of Zvobgo.

He was born in then Southern Rhodesia in 1935, near Fort Victoria, where his father was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1960, Zvobgo won a scholarship to Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts aged 25. After taking a bachelor's degree there in 1964, he returned home to be arrested and detained for political activism against white rule in Rhodesia, along with Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo.

Zvobgo was freed in 1971, and he spent a period in exile in Canada. He then studied law at Harvard and international relations at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, followed by a position as associate professor teaching criminal law at Lewis University College in Illinois.

Zvobgo played a key role in international negotiations at Lancaster House that ended the bitter bush war and led to British-sponsored all race elections ahead of independence in 1980.