By BASILDON PETA
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe has never had much of an ear for dissenting views. This year, the Zimbabwean leader's intolerance of the media reached its most extreme level since he took the helm of this impoverished country in 1980.
The year opened with the bombing of a printing press owned by Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper, the Daily News, on January 28.
It closed with the introduction of a law intended to close all independent publications. The Access to Information Bill, due to be passed on January 8, bans foreign journalists and obliges local journalists to apply for licences every year.
It vests sweeping powers in Mugabe's chief propagandist, the information minister Jonathan Moyo, who will select who works in the media. Moyo's outbursts against proponents of freedom have become depressingly predictable. Last week, he described British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a "boyish leader" and an "ignoramus".
Five days before the bombing of the Daily News, the 77-year-old President's Government had vowed to implement all measures necessary to silence the media, saying it had become "a threat to the security of the nation".
It banned private radio and television stations, entrenching the state's monopoly control over broadcast media. Civic Society activist Mike Auret jun, who had set up a private radio station, immediately went into hiding and has not been heard from since. His equipment was seized by the police and the Army, and the studios of Capital Radio destroyed.
During the year, at least 24 journalists were assaulted by Mugabe's supporters while trying to report on farm occupations. Commercial farms have effectively become no-go areas for independent journalists.
In one of the assaults, Collin Chiwanza of the Daily News escaped death only by hiding in the bush for two days. The Daily News' editor, Geoffrey Nyarota, and others virtually ran their newspapers from prison cells as the police regularly arrested newsroom chiefs. At least Nyarota was recognised abroad; he won four international journalism awards during the year.
There were other arrests. Mark Chavunduka, editor of the Standard, was detained over an accurate report that Mugabe had been sued in a New York court by families of 36 opposition supporters murdered by the Government in the run-up to last year's parliamentary elections. A New York District judge ruled against Mugabe, saying he was liable for the deaths.
Three foreign correspondents, including David Blair of the Daily Telegraph and Joseph Winter of the BBC, were, with varying degrees of force, shown the door.
In August, the Standard revealed the existence of a hit list of journalists to be harmed or killed by the Government. Topping that hit list was myself, the Independent's correspondent in Zimbabwe. Packets of bullets were left on my doorstep on three occasions, with notes saying I would be dead before March's presidential election.
In November, Mugabe's Government formally labelled me and five other foreign journalists as terrorists. It then approved the Public Order and Security Bill (POSB), which imposes death and life sentences on anyone accused of assisting terrorism.
Both the POSB and Access to Information Bill forced a December Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group meeting to put Zimbabwe on its agenda - the first step towards suspending the country from the 54-nation grouping.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's economy virtually collapsed, with foreign currency reserves drying up and donor agencies withdrawing from the country.
Inflation, below 50 per cent at the start of the year, soared to 103 per cent this month. The unemployment rate rose to 60 per cent. The Chief Justice, Anthony Gubbay, was fired and Mugabe appointed a loyalist to take charge of the Supreme Court. About 110 opposition supporters were killed.
But for many of us in the media, despite all the enormous risks we now face, the struggle continues against Mugabe's tyrannical and despotic rule.
How could it not? He is wrong.
- INDEPENDENT
Mugabe determined to silence media
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