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As
Mugabe's net closed in, I was forced to flee the country I love
Jan
Raath, The Times
February 17, 2005
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1490549,00.html
With
sadness in his heart, a journalist reflects on the increasing intimidation
that finally drove him out of Zimbabwe
AT 11.30AM on
Wednesday I completed my flight from Zimbabwe. After 30 years in
Harare, and a final, frantic overnight drive to the border, I had
left the sad, wrecked country that I love, and I don’t know if I
will return. For years President Mugabe’s regime had been making
it increasingly difficult to work in Zimbabwe as a journalist, and
of the foreign press corps I was one of the last survivors. But
this week it become obvious that with an election looming, and Mr
Mugabe wishing to steal it with a minimum of prying by the outside
world, my time was up as well.
The intimidation
had begun at 2.30am on Monday with loud banging on the locked gate
to my home. Two men tried to force it open. I kept my light off
and waited until the car finally drove off.
Later that morning
two young plainclothes policemen appeared at the run-down office
I shared with Angus Shaw, of the Associated Press, and Brian Latham,
of Bloomberg — what we called "the Old Gentleman’s News Co-operative"
in No 20 Birdcage Walk.
They said that
they were investigating a tip-off that there were spies inside.
Beatrice Mtetwa, my indomitable lawyer, laughed when she heard this,
and told the young policeman: "My friend, if you are looking
for spies, you should go to Zanu (PF) headquarters." He guffawed,
gave her a high-five and left.
An hour later,
three more detectives arrived in a large white Toyota with no numberplates.
They were not friendly. They refused to identify themselves and
tried to chase Beatrice away. They said that we were working illegally
as journalists — an offence that carries a maximum penalty of two
years in prison.
We had applied
for accreditation, but the state Media Commission had sat on our
applications for the past three years.
On Tuesday the
authorities stepped up the pressure. A gang of ten policemen arrived
for an intensive search while none of us was there. A young computer
hacker was digging into Angus’s hard drive when Beatrice arrived.
She asked whether they had a warrant, and was told to go to hell.
When the telephone
rang the hacker answered: "This is the new receptionist."
Later, believing that she had found details of foreign currency
transfers ordered by Angus, she shouted: "Now we’ve got him!"
For three days
they poked around our office and tried out four possible offences.
It was obvious that they were looking for anything they could stick
on us. On the third visit, they were led by the head of the CID’s
"Law and Order" section, suggesting that the orders to
raid us must have come from the very top.
The consecutive
raids had made me begin to turn over the vague emergency plans we
had all discussed as the repression increased over the past five
years.
Then a colleague
who talks to tame operatives in the Central Intelligence Organisation,
Mr Mugabe’s secret police, asked me to meet her urgently. In my
car, she said she had been told that they were "gunning for
you".
She went on:
"This time they are going to be rough. You must get out now."
She was crying.
Shortly after
Beatrice telephoned to say she had information that they wanted
to lock all three of us up.
The warnings
induced the sensation of having a large, cold knife pushed down
the middle of my stomach that I get when seriously afraid.
Since Monday
I had not slept at home, and was talking in code over the telephone.
I was alarmed by the sight of strange cars passing slowly outside.
At times like these, making a distinction between paranoia and reality
is hard. I made up my mind. I had to leave. Officials at the South
African Embassy promptly processed a visa for my Zimbabwean passport.
I parked my car at a friend’s home, and borrowed his to slip home.
In 15 minutes
I had packed clothing for a week, toiletries, personal documents,
my laptop, shortwave radio, binoculars, camera, penknife — most
of which would be pounced on by zealous policemen as a standard
espionage outfit — and Z$1.5 million. A few years ago that would
have bought several houses. Now it is worth about £130.
I revealed my
plans only to my closest friends, and then only face-to-face, and
set off through the night for the 342-mile (550km) drive to the
border, exhausted and in a state of acute anxiety.
At the Plumtree
border post into Botswana, I held my breath as the Zimbabwean immigration
officer rifled through the pages of my passport, stamped it forcefully
and smiled back at my frozen grin.
He sent me to
a door marked CID to present my police vehicle-clearance certificate.
The officer asked where my name came from, and I said that my Dutch
ancestors had settled at the Cape 300 years ago. "You are an
African," he said pleasantly.
Mr Mugabe had
for the past five years been telling me and all other whites to
"go back to Britain".
I drove slowly
away towards Botswana, and at the first opportunity telephoned my
girlfriend, Sarah, in Cape Town. She burst into tears of relief,
but my own relief was tempered by immense sadness at what had become
of my country.
When Mr Mugabe
was first elected in 1980, he was unlike any African leader. He
spoke with a plummy accent and won my heart with his policy of reconciliation
between whites and blacks, and between the two sides of the seven-
year guerrilla war against the minority rule of Ian Smith’s colonial
regime.
But gradually,
as in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the new regime grew more repressive
and authoritarian than the one it replaced. In 2000, Mr Mugabe was
challenged for the first time, and very nearly beaten. Since then
his Government has become blatantly tyrannical, determined to stamp
out any opposition, and a byword for misrule.
Most white farms
have been seized in the name of land redistribution, and left to
rot. Millions of black Zimbabweans now live in hunger and abject
poverty, with the country’s dwindling food supplies used as a political
tool to reward supporters.
Unbridled inflation
has left the currency worthless. The independent media has been
silenced. Those who can have abandoned the country in droves.
There has been
no joy in recording Zimbabwe’s steady descent into a subsistence
economy.
Changing
view of a state in crisis
How
Jan Raath chronicled the rise of a tyrannical regime:
- The economy
remains the most sophisticated in black Africa, and the Government,
headed by President Mugabe, represents a leading political and
military force in one of the world’s most complex regions, holding
the key to a wide range of vital issues . . . the predictions
that "the wheels will fall off" five years after independence
have been more than disproved. Friday, September 2, 1988
- The party
political side of Mr Mugabe is the enigma in his character, and
in direct contradiction to the erudite, articulate diplomat, negotiator
and efficient technocrat who has adhered meticulously to the restraints
imposed by the Lancaster House Constitution, retained the vigour
of black Africa's most sophisticated economy, and acceded readily
to appeals from the genuinely aggrieved if they are unrelated
to party politics. Thursday, March 29, 1990
- The bullet-proof
black Mercedes-Benz comes to a halt and from behind the limousine’s
black curtains emerges President Mugabe, acknowledging the adulation
. . . A plainclothes policeman notices me counting the number
of vehicles in the motorcade, and demands to know why. "So
you want to report negatively on Zimbabwe," he says. The
contents of my wallet are minutely scrutinised, and the group
of men in sunglasses swelling around me writes down details of
my press card and my blood donor's card. An hour later they let
me go. Monday, March 11, 1996
- Coins have
become a nuisance. The only useful unit of currency is the Z$500
note, which is called the Ferrari because it is red and goes fast.
Ask after the health of any Zimbabwean below the rank of executive
and invariably the reply will be: "Hungry." Thursday,
September 5, 2002
- My maid,
Nyarai, failed to turn up for work yesterday. There was no public
transport and private minibuses have doubled their charges since
a 283 per cent increase in petrol prices a month ago. She was
unable to call because the telephone boxes no longer work . .
. Zimbabwe is a country rich in resources and with great potential
. . . but it has now reached the point of collapse. Friday,
May 16, 2003
- "Anybody
who can get a job overseas has left," said John Mufakare,
the director of the Employers' Confederation of Zimbabwe. "The
spark that distinguished Zimbabwe from the rest of Africa has
gone." Monday, August 16, 2004
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