After 33 years in power, Zimbabwe’s colorful and controversial president, Robert Mugabe has been overthrown in a military coup. Regarded by the West as a monster and an economic incompetent who wrecked his country’s once-flourishing economy, to many in Africa, he was regarded as a hero who in 1980 emerged as the victor in a bitter15-year guerrilla war against the white-dominated regime.

It may prove an irony that even with the forces that overthrew him, he remains a figure of some respect. But at 93, though he appeared to be in full control of his faculties, his long political career was drawing to an inevitable close. This coup has been all about who would take over power when he died.

This year, he sacked his vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, a long-standing political ally in the ruling Zanu-PF party and the obvious candidate to follow his chief to his country’s leadership. The move was seen to have been motivated by his wife Grace, who had built up a body of support that she hoped would enable her to take over the presidency on her husband’s death. Grace Mugabe is 53. She is the president’s former secretary whom he married in 1994 after his first wife died of cancer.

But one important background player in Zimbabwe has always been the army. Not only did it ensure the security of Mugabe and his government, but it also enjoyed lucrative rewards from the country’s abundant natural resources. Despite the parlous state of the economy in which the collapsed currency, the Zimbabwean dollar was abandoned in 2009, in favor of the US dollar and other foreign currencies, particularly the South African rand, Zimbabwe is actually extremely rich.

The West has chosen to focus on the collapse of the country’s once highly-profitable agricultural sector, following the enforced takeover of 4,000 colonial-era white farms. Given to members of Mugabe’s personal militia, said to be made up veterans from the guerrilla war, the new farmers lacked the expertise, capital and impetus to maintain output.

But the country also has substantial gold, platinum and gemstones. The Marange diamond fields, discovered a decade ago, are said to be the world’s biggest. And Zimbabwe’s stunning natural beauty remains a major lure for tourists. Properly managed, the income from all these resources could long ago have transformed the lives of the 16 million population. But instead there is widespread unemployment. The official figure of four percent is laughable. No one is sure of the real number but it seems certain that at least half those of working age are without a job.

It is unrest among the young that has contributed to regular unrest on the streets. It seems probable that in 2008, the vote was rigged against Mugabe’s popular presidential challenger Morgan Tsvangirai. And there is another irony to the ousted president’s rule. It was not all venal and incompetent. Mugabe invested consistently in education. Some 90 percent of Zimbabweans are literate, the highest rate in Africa. Yet literacy breeds a greater social awareness and more vigorous communication among those who are disaffected. An adviser once warned Mugabe that by expanding education, he was digging his own grave. But in the end it was not angry demonstrators who brought down Mugabe but his soldiers. What will literate Zimbabweans do next?