As Mugabe’s net closed in, I was forced to flee the country I love

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