Diana Mary Mitchell (née Coates; 16 November 1932 – 8 January 2016) was a Zimbabwean political activist and writer, who was an outspoken critic of the governments of Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe.
Her father, Elliott Coates, was a merchant navy officer and her mother, Mary Peck, from Australia,[2] was an actress.
She was educated at Eveline Girls High School in Bulawayo, and later at the University of Cape Town in South Africa,[3] where she studied history and the Shona language.
[1] Mitchell's political activism began in 1966, when she campaigned to save a nursery school which was bulldozed by the government.
Although delighted at Zimbabwe's eventual independence under terms acceptable to the international community in 1980, Mitchell was critical of the Mugabe government's suppression of the media and political opposition.
[1] In 2011, Mitchell's extensive collection of political clippings and papers were donated to the Hoover Institution, which opened them for public access, and to the University of Cape Town.
An African Memoir: White Woman, Black Nationalists: Diana Mitchell (Mwana Wevhu).
"Liberal Women in Rhodesia: A Report on the Mitchell Papers, University of Cape Town" (PDF).