Another day, another death list. Despite having an arsenal of anti-press laws at his disposal, the leader of Zimbabwe's junta, Robert Mugabe, has resorted to using brute force and the threat of assassination to silence the independent media. Yet another list, prepared by Mugabe's Central Intelligence Organisation, is doing the rounds of internet websites. I take a cursory look at the list, and yawn. The same old names are there - all the stalwarts of our profession who endeavour constantly to bring to the world's attention the appalling atrocities being committed in the name of sovereignty by the Mugabe regime.
Nobody on those lists panics - we've seen and heard it all before. Mugabe's dirty tricks department has been circulating similar ones since 2000. We know this is just another hazard of working as a Zimbabwean journalist - our so-called president wants to kill us.
Since his power began to wane in the late 1990s, Mugabe has seen the independent media as his enemy. In 1999, the establishment of the country's first independent national daily, the Daily News, rattled his cage. He ordered the arrest and torture of the journalists, Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto. Both were eventually released.
