Robert Mugabe, the longtime leader of Zimbabwe who was forced to resign in 2017 after a military takeover, has died. His successor Emmerson Mnangagwa confirmed Mugabe’s death in a tweet Friday, mourning him as an “icon of liberation.” Mugabe was a former guerrilla chief who took power after the end of white minority rule in 1980 and presided over a country whose early promise was eroded by economic turmoil and human rights violations.