Edgar:

I bring a strong message from the people of Great Britain to you, Robert. Once again, I'm forced into the media limelight to say, Robert, what you are doing is an affront to common decency. Robert, what you are doing flies in the face of every non-diplomatic norm established by civilised men. Robert, what you are doing is [crosstalk].

Narrator:

This is dangerous stuff in Zimbabwe.

Edgar:

Classed as indignity. Robert, what you are doing is a fuck up.

Narrator:

Criticise the autocratic president, Robert Mugabe, and you risk harassment, beatings, jail or death. As queen, or as himself, Edgar Langeveltd works the coalface of political, economic and social discontent.

Edgar:

Good evening, good evening, good evening. [crosstalk].

Narrator:

He's got a mother load of material, from soaring inflation and unemployment right through to huge petrol queues that form every day because Zimbabwe can't afford to import enough oil.

Edgar:

You just gotta fit into it. Stop criticising, understand where the government is coming from. Talk about healthcare, health. How many families are seen pushing the station waggon up that hill today? Fitter, stronger Zimbabweans for a healthy future. Push that damn thing. Daddy, mummy, all bonding, quality family time.

Before, it was bad and you made jokes about how much worse it could get. And now, it's so bad now that even the hype, or the hyperbole, even the exaggeration is, can't match the reality

Speaker 3:

You could use some more bouncing lights.

Edgar:

So why'd you bring in another light?

Narrator:

Even at the best of times, it's hard to make ends meet as a performer in Zimbabwe. In fact, Edgar Cleveland's not even been paid to help make this student film. But he perseveres despite the political risks that have led other performers to live outside the country rather than risk angering the government at home.

Speaker 3:

Cut.

Edgar:

Any interest group or power group, it's not just government, but government is definitely a body that you've gotta be careful how you step. It can be dangerous. It can be dangerous, but you gotta then weigh up. Am I contributing anything by keeping on? What do I believe? What do I stand for? So, I try and spin it around. As long as I criticise myself and everyone else, then I'm fairly safe. [foreign language].

Narrator:

Anyone who visits Zimbabwe will find it to be a nation rich in natural resources with an hospitable population that places a premium on educating its children to build a better life. Zimbabwe's got everything going for it. Everything, that is, except a political elite that's been in charge for 21 years of independence and is mired in corruption.

Simba:

We're talking about evils, yeah. We have a saying in one of my vernacular languages which literally translates like, "The child of a snake is a snake." So, little corruption, petty corruption, gross corruption is corruption. And it shouldn't be admitted, it shouldn't be tolerated, it shouldn't be allowed.

Narrator:

As Zimbabwe becomes more corrupt, authoritarian and violent, there's just one voice that daily tries to hold the government accountable. It's the Daily News. Launched 18 months ago, it's now the nation's most widely read paper, surmounting seemingly impossible obstacles to report the true state of the nation.

Geoff:

The motto of the daily news is we tell it like it is, and that's what we've been doing, and this does not please the people in the government. They were used to a situation where the government-controlled newspapers could be easily relied upon to sweep certain stories under the carpet, which the Daily News doesn't do. The Daily News does not respect sacred cows. So long as we're sure of our facts, we will print.

It was hit on the side, and this vehicle, the Discovery, must've been travelling at [crosstalk] speeds.

Narrator:

As editor, Geoff Nyarota has survived assassination attempts, harassment, and arrest under draconian laws first used by white Rhodesian, to suppress black sedition.

Speaker 6:

Blaspheme. We could then [inaudible].

Narrator:

And he's managed to service a readership of many colours with a sense of humour remarkably intact.

Geoff:

I got a call last week from somebody who refused to identify himself. It was his opinion that the coverage of rugby, the Daily News was grossly inadequate. Before you jump to the wrong conclusion, it was a black caller.

Narrator:

The Daily News is fast becoming an international byword among journalists for gutsy, independent reporting under almost impossible conditions. It's broken stories of government-inspired violence and corruption that have left its reporters labelled enemies of the state.

Geoff:

The government has not means to be swayed about how unhappy it is with the Daily News. The government, the ruling party, the War Veterans, the president himself, is denouncing the Daily News. He openly calls it the enemy.

Phillip:

He writes the paper like, say, this country is going towards a total tyranny and all these other things. That's not being patriotic. In essence, it is a mouthpiece that is provocative in nature, and as a result, the provocation lives to actually undermine the sovereignty of this country.

Narrator:

In January, the Daily News was almost put out of business. Unarmed security guards, there only to deter theft, were lured to the front gate by a commotion, while the bombers broke in through the back wall.

Philip:

I wouldn't actually see an amateur doing what happened with such expertise. It must be a professional guy.

Narrator:

So they knew exactly what they were doing and exactly what they wanted to destroy.

Philip:

That's dead right. And where to destroy as well.

Narrator:

There's little doubt in anyone's mind that the government's unofficial shock troops, veterans of the War of Independence fanatically loyal to Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party, carried out the attack with military precision using anti-tank mines obtained from army stores.

Philip:

There's are my babies actually. They were my babies, but they're gone now.

Narrator:

The attack failed to stop the paper for even one edition, but until it can afford new machines, the Daily News has to pay commercial operators to stay on the streets. Does that threaten the future of the paper?

Geoff:

It does indeed.

Narrator:

Do you assume it was an attempt to close you down?

Geoff:

Oh yes, that's what it was.

Narrator:

No question?

Geoff:

There's no question whatsoever. Two days before the bomb explosion, there'd been a demonstration outside the offices of the Daily News by none other than the War Veterans, and they said they would do something about the Daily News.

Narrator:

The bombing helped remind everyone at the Daily News that they, like others before them, risk harassment, beatings, and torture by dark forces allied to a vengeful government. Conrad Nyamutata reported public information from the US that four Zimbabweans exiled there had brought charges of electoral fraud against the president. The result, Conrad and his editor were bith charged with criminal defamation of the president under harsh laws originally introduced by the hated white Rhodesian regime.

Conrad:

I think there is a prison term which can go up to 20 years, so I think there's also an option of a fine. But I am hoping that our legal team will challenge the constitutionality of criminal defamation. Why should defamation be criminal? We believe it should be civil. It should be just a civil matter.

Geoff:

In media circles, there is a belief that the criminal defamation is being used just to threaten, to intimidate, to harass, or to scare journalists into refraining from reporting such things.

Narrator:

Daily News reporter Colin Chiwanza is on the road. [foreign language]. His assignment is to cover the latest in a spate of attacks on leaders of the MDC, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Security guards at the home of an opposition MP reckon at least 100 men and youths set upon them.

Speaker 10:

So they attacked me with three bricks. Then I fell down, then woke up.

Speaker 11:

Can you get in? Right. See all those, the ledges? [crosstalk].

Narrator:

The MP's house has been comprehensively trashed.

Speaker 11:

They [inaudible] through here.

Narrator:

As stakes for next year's presidential election soar, so do violence and kidnappings directed at anyone seen as a challenge to Mugabe, ZANU-PF or the War Veterans.

Speaker 11:

They stole everything from the fridge. Everything we need. [crosstalk] [foreign language].

Narrator:

Who do you think did this?

Speaker 12:

The War Veterans did. I don't think, I really know that they are the War Veterans who did it. In that there is no, I shouldn't waste my time thinking who did this. The War Veterans in that illegal settlement over there.

Narrator:

[crosstalk] Today, there is small comfort to be drawn from the fact that no others died. Amnesty International estimates at least 30 people have been killed in politically motivated state-inspired violence. Opposition MP Willis Madzimure was working at Parliament House when his home was attacked.

Willis:

Very old tactic of using demolition to do the attacks. They want to intimidate the opposition to make sure that if they start by attacking an MP, this will send a clear message to the ordinary people that if an MP can be attacked, why can't you be attacked?

Narrator:

The highly politicised police force makes an appearance and may make a couple of arrests for the sake of good form, but it's virtually certain that no charges will be pressed. That's the way things work in Zimbabwe.

Willis:

They were attacking from both ends. They went to the gates, they broke the gates. [inaudible]. [crosstalk].

Speaker 14:

An honoured member, attacking an honoured member's house, huh?

Willis:

They took two of my suits.

Speaker 14:

Huh? You can't be serious.

Willis:

They took $165,000.

Speaker 14:

[crosstalk]. You can't be serious. They want to attack people one by one. This is just the beginning.

Willis:

Exactly. There are more petrol bombs, I don't know why they didn't explode. They are [crosstalk].

Speaker 14:

Which ones they wanted to [crosstalk].

Willis:

They wanted to burn it. [foreign language].

Speaker 15:

Something must be done. [crosstalk].

Narrator:

Shocked by events, almost all the MDC's parliamentary members have come to witness the latest outrage.

Speaker 16:

The army commander is going around and using soldiers.

Speaker 17:

It's a very organised, orchestrated [inaudible].

David:

This government is in effect waging a war against its own people. They started on the farms with farm workers and that has progressed to the media, to the judiciary, to industry. This is no uncoordinated.

Colin:

[inaudible] that is the executive for what in the MDC?

Narrator:

It's a big story for the Daily News. Another instalment of violence that's almost a daily diet. But the story won't make news in the nation's other daily newspaper, because that one, the Herald, was once owned by the white Rhodesian government, and is now owned by the black Zimbabwean one.

Bornwell:

We have to publish stories that put government in a positive light, and that, you know, the opposition, you know, MDC, in a negative light. That was actually a directive, it was actually an instruction.

Narrator:

Bornwell Chakaodza was sacked from the Herald last year as the government forced it to tow the official line. He watched the paper's credibility and readership collapse.

Bornwell:

It seems to me that I think it was mana from heaven as far as the Daily News is concerned, because before then, it was a struggling newspaper, and the Herald was outselling the Daily News be a very wide margin before the referendum.

Narrator:

So really what happened breathed life into the Daily News.

Bornwell:

Precisely, yes.

Narrator:

So far as reporter Colin Chiwanza is concerned, there is little doubt that war veterans are responsible for the attack on the MP's house, but for him, it's a dangerous angle to pursue.

Colin:

Many times, you find that government-aligned people do not want to see members of the independent press. They are perceived as targets, and they would obviously want to harm us, but they always try and play it safe.

Narrator:

The veterans in question are squatting just across the road from the MP's town, on land they've seized from a British company. They say they're simply a charitable organisation building for the homeless. We are received civilly. All right, so this is the plan for this area where there's [crosstalk]. The squatters' plans call for hundreds of homes, although so far, the only ones actually going up are reserved for the cooperative's chairman, Benjamin Sitiya, and his comrades.

Benjamin:

Here. The whites bugged this whole thing, was that there was cross-propagation from this unused [crosstalk].

Narrator:

As for the violence just across the road, Benjamin not only maintains absolute innocence, but says they started it.

Benjamin:

I'm very positive with this, because I'm a ZANU-PF supporter, I've never gone to an MDC attacking, but they've attacked us, and by being attacked, we can retaliate [inaudible]. This is not our aim. Our goal is to make this country prosperous, and that when you come yourselves, you enjoy, you will stay.

Narrator:

You accept the fact that there is violence and that is unacceptable.

Simba:

Absolutely.

Narrator:

Clearly, is it not the responsibility of the government and of the police force to bring that to a halt now?

Simba:

It is.

Narrator:

And to reign in the veterans or the so-called veterans who are perpetrating the violence.

Simba:

To reign in whoever is perpetrating the violence.

Narrator:

And are you seeing that happening?

Simba:

I'm seeing that happening to some extent but not to the full extent. It needs to happen more. You wouldn't believe these are the people who [crosstalk].

Narrator:

Simba Makoni was appointed to the Finance Ministry only last year in an attempt to win over business confidence. He's Zimbabwe's most forthright minister. Too honest, some say, to last long.

Simba:

Government itself is being perceived and being projected as not only unconcerned, unresponsive, but in certain cases as motivating and instigating the state of violence. We are concerned about that, and we do need to affirm the fact that the government is committed to a lawful, peaceful conduct of national affairs including national politics.

Narrator:

And really, that statement of intent needs to come from the president very clearly, doesn't it?

Simba:

It needs to come from all national leaders.

Narrator:

And yet it's not.

Simba:

It has to.

Geoff:

No, no, it's not advised, genuine. I don't know about being a veteran, but he was in the war. You see what's happening is that everybody who set foot in Mozambique, even if it was for two days, becomes a war veteran, but that's not real.

Speaker 23:

Completely misleading to describe a 15 year old as a so-called war veteran. Let's call a spade a spade, it's not.

Narrator:

It's difficult to get the editorial battles right, because with the Herald and radio and television under tight government control, the Daily News is one of the few ways the MDC has of getting its voice heard. What's more, the government has virtually banned anyone within its ranks from speaking to the paper's reporters.

Geoff:

We are very encouraged by the fact that there are people within government who are prepared to take risks, to cooperate with a paper that is officially regarded as an enemy of the government, but this paper is sustained by sources within the same government.

Narrator:

Heroes Acre, where veterans of the War of Independence are laid to rest. Where the nation's Defence Minister is being buried today. He was part of President Mugabe's old guard, which still draws its legitimacy and its loyalties from that liberation struggle. 20 years on and Zimbabwe has a government that talks about modernising and a president who prefers the rhetoric of struggle, and still peppers his speeches with accusations against the international community for causing his nation's woes at home and abroad.

Robert:

He also witnessed the complicity of the international world, which has sought to demonise Zimbabwe and her soldiers for upholding internationally recognised principles in the face of innumerable and often hostile obstacles personified in the main by an unwarranted British-sponsored campaign.

Phillip:

It is that Mugabe himself is the revolutionary, who is like Che Guevara. He didn't go all over the world trying to intervene in other people's countries because he was looking for money, no. He simply wanted everybody to be free and don't interfere.

Simba:

I have no doubt that the president knows exactly where our responsibility as Zimbabweans starts and ends, and where the responsibility or accountability of foreigners. At the end of the day, Zimbabweans have primary responsibility for their condition. Zimbabweans in government, Zimbabweans in politics, Zimbabweans in business, Zimbabweans in other walks of life, and I wouldn't hold other people primarily responsible for what we are.

Narrator:

Paradoxically, it's the poor black Zimbabweans, rural and urban alike, who pay the cost for policies supposed to improve their lot. They suffer because local and foreign investment has dried up, while foreign donors the IMF and the World Bank have been scared off. No one wants to take a chance on a country where official policy of land redistribution is now carried out by war veterans invading white-owned farms, or where those same veterans this year invaded businesses, international aid offices, and even threatened diplomats all in a specious cause of advancing workers' rights. Minister, when do you think the farm invasions will end?

Simba:

They should not have taken place in the first place. I hope they will end soon. I can't give you a timetable. But we do need to restore normalcy on the farmlands as quickly as possible.

Narrator:

Are the business invasions over and done with now?

Simba:

I don't know. I haven't heard of any new ones since the actions that government has taken were initiated nearly two weeks ago.

Narrator:

But it should be made clear that they cannot be tolerated in Zimbabwe?

Simba:

They should not be tolerated in Zimbabwe or anywhere else for that matter.

Narrator:

The pressure on the judiciary, that should be brought to an end?

Simba:

I don't know that there's still any pressure on the judiciary.

Narrator:

Well, listen, the judiciary certainly seems to think so.

Simba:

Well, they shouldn't be. You know, we are all Zimbabweans. We all must have a common interest in the prosperity of this nation.

Narrator:

But many have already given up. There's a veritable flood of Zimbabweans leaving the country in search of a better way of life. An estimated 300,000 a year. Two who'd like to join them are reporter Conrad Nyamutata and his wife Ellen. They find it tough to live on two professional wages. Add to that the pressure Conrad faces every day in his job, plus Ellen's disillusion as a public prosecutor who daily witnesses the way the government now routinely interferes with the independent judicial process, and you have two more Zimbabweans who'd love to get out.

Ellen and Conrad live behind bars, locked day and night, because of a massive increase in burglaries by desperate people. Hi, hi.

Conrad:

How you doing?

Narrator:

Good. They make ends meet by rarely going out or socialising.

Ellen:

Oh great, no milk.

Narrator:

What they now own came as wedding presents. They can't afford anything else.

Ellen:

When I was able to walk into any department store and get what I wanted, I could spoil myself and spend part of his money, but now I can't. Buying new shoes or clothes has become a luxury.

Narrator:

For Ellen, the politicisation of the job she loves as a prosecutor has been a final straw.

Ellen:

If it doesn't change, if the situation does not change, I am slowly becoming very, very disillusioned with the system.

Narrator:

And is that likely to change unless there is a change of government?

Ellen:

It's difficult. It's probably not likely to change. Maybe they might stop interfering after the 2000 elections and after they get the outcome that they want. If I had an opportunity to get away, out of Zimbabwe, I would. Everybody's talking of wanting to get away out of Zimbabwe but they don't know how to, or where to even begin.

Narrator:

Sad state of affairs though.

Ellen:

Yes. Many people have left. They're professional people in different fields, but they're going to England as nurses or anything to get them there, so I'm also willing to do the same thing.

Narrator:

And it's part of the thing that is damaging, though, to Zimbabwe, isn't it? You're losing the educated part of the population.

Ellen:

True, but the way you look at it is that Zimbabwe is already damaged, so, you know, you can't really do much, 'cause I really don't think I'm contributing anything at the rate we're going.

Narrator:

Would you be ready to pack up and move with Ellen, or do you think you'd rather stay?

Conrad:

Any time. I'm sure I would. If an opportunity arises to leave this country, I will leave.

Florence:

It doesn't matter what you are or where you come from [crosstalk].

Narrator:

One place to start finding ways of getting out, at least for those with enough money, might be the Borrowdale Brook Country Club, just outside Harare.

Florence:

It has a turnover 50 million [crosstalk].

Narrator:

Immigration agents from Australia find if profitable to come here to search out affluent clients desperate to get out and to start again somewhere else.

Florence:

Millions all the time, don't you? However, [crosstalk].

Narrator:

It's in this genteel location that Perth immigration agent Florence Borshoff is making her pitch.

Florence:

And I just want you to know that Australia desperately needs business people. [crosstalk].

Narrator:

She's chosen a deliberately upmarket location to discourage hundreds of people who show up to seminars in town, but have no chance of cracking Australia's tight immigration requirements.

Florence:

So if you're doing your sums on your own financials later on, you use those exchange rates to see whether you meet that criteria.

Speaker 27:

I'm born and bred here, which obviously hurts quite a bit as well. [crosstalk].

Narrator:

Afterwards, white and Asian families are happy to talk about why they want to get out.

Speaker 27:

And then obviously the current political situation. Whites have been targeted. The President has made no bones about it. I see our friends around us leaving, and they're also heading off at an alarming rate. Basically, I feel like now a foreigner in my own country.

Speaker 28:

I think we'll make a home in Australia. When we've done it here, I don't see why we can't do it again. We'll just make the most of it.

Speaker 29:

I will be sad. Zimbabwe's been good to us. It's been very good, but yeah. Time has come for a change.

Narrator:

You're at the end of your tether.

Speaker 29:

Not really, but I will be pretty soon if things carry on the way they are.

Speaker 30:

They may change things for the better. [crosstalk].

Narrator:

Less open are the black couples, though one with a fistful of university degrees between them agrees to talk anonymously. What changes would you like to see that would convince you to stay here?

Speaker 30:

A nice lady in the first place. It's both political and economic. I need stability and security. If I'm not secure economically, not secure politically, the political environment is so fragile and almost exploding, you don't want to stay in such an environment.

Narrator:

You don't want to be identified at this seminar. Why is that?

Speaker 30:

They'll start hunting for me.

Narrator:

Why would they do that?

Speaker 30:

They are doing that because they think that I'm selling out.

Narrator:

So they would see you as making a political statement just by leaving?

Speaker 30:

Exactly, that's exactly what I mean.

Simba:

We used to be UNICEF, UNDP's, World Bank's torch bearer for white developed, white investment in people, in education, in training can do to a country, and all that resource is now being drained away, and this little country cannot afford that.

Narrator:

And stopping that outflow of course depends on what we've been talking about.

Simba:

Absolutely.

Narrator:

Returning the sense of stability, both at an economic level and at an individual level.

Simba:

Precisely. It depends on this country changing the way it does its business.

Narrator:

Do you think it did turn people off voting for the opposition?

Geoff:

Mm (affirmative). This is your typical rural setting, and the people here are very gullible, and they also fear for their lives. [crosstalk].

Narrator:

The Daily News editor doesn't sense much change in government, but he has detected the desire for change, even in traditionally ZANU-PF territory around his home village, up country from Harare. It's sort of the way of travelling about [crosstalk]. At the last parliamentary elections, he says people showed they were no longer scared into voting for the dominant party.

Geoff:

General election. This was the first time that a serious opposition party emerged and presented a serious challenge to the ruling party, and this had the effect of swaying the minds of voters in many constitutions. This was the first time that ZANU-PF was seriously challenged at the polls.

Narrator:

If the government or its shock troops, the veterans, win out and force the Daily News to close, Geoff Nyarota's bolt hole will be the general store and bottle shop that he's built with his wife in the village. It has one phone working sometimes, no electricity, no running water. But it'll be a safe haven for a journalist to fade into in a climate that he fears will get worse before it gets better. Geoff Nyarota does not have much hope, but believes that Robert Mugabe should step down to save his nation the agony.

Geoff:

He's stayed in power for too long. I think this is where the problem stems from. There are people who think that if he were to step down, even the fortunes of his party would immediately improve, that he's now more of a liability to his party, a liability to the government, a liability to the country. More of that than an asset.

Narrator:

With a powerful and compliant state behind him backed up by the war veterans as enforcers, Mugabe gives every appearance of clinging on regardless of cost. So long as it can, the Daily News intends to go on acting as a democratic watchdog in a nation where democracy exists on an ever shorter chain.