Stan Mudenge - Telegraph Two months earlier, Mudenge had personally threatened an audience of teachers in his constituency in southern Zimbabwe. "You are going to lose your jobs if you support opposition political parties in the presidential election," he told them in July 2001. As civil servants, you have to be loyal to the government of the day. You can even be killed for supporting the opposition and no one would guarantee your safety. At his worst, he simply echoed his master's racial vitriol. During one rally before parliamentary elections in June 2000, Mudenge said: "Africa is prepared to fight back... If it is going to be a war between blacks and whites, so let it be. Izaak Stanislaus Gorerazvo Mudenge was born on December 17 1941 in Masvingo province in what was then Britain's colony of Southern Rhodesia. He won a place at the University of Rhodesia shortly before Ian Smith's white regime unilaterally declared independence in 1965. This attempt to prevent Britain from imposing black majority rule helped to radicalise the young Mudenge. He became a student campaigner against Smith and spent a year in jail. After his release he moved to Britain, where he read History at York University and made the acquaintance of the president of the National Union of Students - one Jack Straw from Leeds University. Mudenge greatly enjoyed life in Britain. He exemplified a paradox typical of many Zimbabwean politicians - including Mugabe - of being at once a furious critic and devout admirer of Britain and British culture. In private conversation, Mudenge would fondly remember his student days and pay tribute to the natural splendours of Yorkshire. Mudenge went on to London University, where he took a doctorate, before returning to Africa as a history lecturer at Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone and then the National University of Lesotho. Throughout the 1970s, while Mugabe was waging a guerrilla war against white Rhodesia, Mudenge enjoyed the comfort and safety of academic life abroad. The hardliners in Mugabe's Zanu-PF party always saw him as a pampered dilettante. Mugabe himself never took Mudenge seriously and forced him constantly to prove his loyalty. Mudenge tried to keep his master's favour by offering bouts of effusive sycophancy. Introducing Mugabe at an event in September this year, Mudenge declared him to be a "colossal figure, a fountain of knowledge and wisdom, a teacher, father, fearless and consistent politician." Mugabe was, he added, "one of Africa's all-time greatest men." Mudenge began his career in government as a professional diplomat, serving as permanent secretary at the foreign ministry and then Zimbabwe's ambassador to the United Nations. He became foreign minister in 1995 and, for the first few years, enjoyed a placid routine of African summits, Commonwealth gatherings and trips to London, which he particularly enjoyed. Mudenge was scornful of Labour ministers and greatly preferred the company of Conservatives. He would warmly reminisce about Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Foreign Secretary, and Baroness Chalker, the former Overseas Development Minister, commending "Malcolm and Lynda" for their diplomatic finesse, so different from their hapless successors in Tony Blair's government. After Mugabe began his onslaught against the opposition and the invasion of white-owned land in 2000, Mudenge found himself defending one outrage after another. But his shamelessness brought its own reward. Having lied and threatened for Mugabe, Mudenge personally benefited from the land seizures, grabbing Chikore farm in Masvingo province for himself. But his elaborate defences of Mugabe, packed with fantasy and bluster, became embarrassing even by the dictator's standards. In 2004 Mudenge managed to offend Zimbabwe's ever tolerant African allies by telling one of his more absurd lies. He claimed that his government had not been sent an advance copy of a highly critical report on its human rights record compiled by the African Union. On this basis, he argued, the document should simply be suppressed. Mudenge's dishonesty was exposed when it emerged that Zimbabwe's government had written to acknowledge its receipt of the report several months earlier. Eventually, even Mugabe wearied of his apologist abroad. In 2005 Mudenge was abruptly demoted to higher education minister. By then, Zimbabwe's universities had become casualties of the economic ruin which Mudenge had always denied was happening. On his watch, desperate campuses ran out of money and were unable to pay staff, administer exams or even provide working lavatory facilities. One by one, they sent their despairing students home and closed down. Having been the only foreign minister to be excluded from the Western world, Mudenge became the only higher education minister to preside over the closure of every university in his country. This was a fitting epitaph to his career. Stan Mudenge died after being run down and gored by an angry bull on his stolen farm. His first two wives, Ngogo and Eunice, predeceased him. He is survived by his third wife, Mildred. Stan Mudenge, born December 17 1941, died October 4 2012