TREVOR NCUBE, 44, owns The Zimbabwe Independent and Zimbabwe Standard newspapers in Harare. A former Executive Editor of The Financial Gazette, Ncube also owns South Africa’s newspaper Mail & Guardian. Ncube, born in Zimbabwe of a Zambian father and Zimbabwean mother, has fought several court battles with the Robert Mugabe government. He has been arrested for writing about Mugabe’s marriage, had his passport confiscated and citizenship cancelled by the government until the court declared him a Zimbabwean last month.
While in Kampala last week, Ncube spoke to RICHARD M. KAVUMA about the situation in Zimbabwe

Were you surprised that you won the court case in Zimbabwe?
I think the Zimbabwean government had no particularly vested interest in me losing this case. It is trying to project an image of a government that is trying to rehabilitate itself. They are trying to build bridges with the international community and my case would have been a fly in the ointment.

The Zimbabwe you see in the international media appears to be on its death bed; is it that the situation couldn’t be worse?
What you read in the papers is a fraction of what is taking place. Zimbabwe is a victim of a president that has been in power for too long. The situation is very dire. Unemployment is at 80 percent. Inflation is at 1,500 percent. Interest rates are 300-500 percent.

There is grinding poverty. Zimbabweans have been dehumanised by President Mugabe because of his economic mismanagement, the corruption, and the basic abuse of people’s human rights.
Yesterday there were demonstrations; the leader of the opposition party Morgan Tsvangirai got a court order for these people to be able to demonstrate. He waved the court order at the Police; the Police don’t give a damn at what court is saying. They went ahead and banned that demonstration.

How hard is it for an ordinary Zimbabwean to get by?
It is very difficult. People are starving. There have been reports of people surviving on roots. A lot of us in South Africa are supporting our parents in Zimbabwe through sending food because it doesn’t matter if you have the money; the food is not available in the shops.

Basic things – sugar, cooking oil, salt, fuel – are not available. The black market has taken over. The politicians have chipped in; they are the ones now importing fuel and making a killing out of the people’s poverty.

What is it like to be the publisher of an independent Zimbabwean newspaper?
For me personally, it is the victimisation at citizenship level. But mostly it is the journalists who are arrested. Two weeks ago the editor of my Sunday paper received an envelope with a bullet and a message that said “watch out”.

This is psychological intimidation. But it’s also just seeing the difficulties that my colleagues in Zimbabwe are operating under. We are having to review salaries every three months just to make sure that our colleagues survive. We suffer power cuts on a regular basis.

You can’t find spare parts because foreign currency is in short supply. It is an environment where you have impediments placed in your path on an everyday basis.

So, how have your papers survived?
God! I pray everyday for God’s protection and the papers continue to survive. We have an amazing group of journalists in Zimbabwe; patriotic people that want Zimbabwe to change. Those are the people who have kept the company going; the people that have ensured that we play by the rules, that we pay our taxes.

You also own Mail&Guardian, a big continental brand; what is the trick?

I am afraid it’s God. My mother was a domestic worker.
If I tried to find worldly ways to explain it, I would fail. How many kids born of a domestic worker and a cook have risen to where I am? Mail&Guardian is an international brand.

As a newspaper, what has a paper like Mail&Guardian done right that explains its success?
I am passionate about journalism as a vital instrument of shaping the course of Africa and our country; that journalism should be used as platform upon which we hold our leaders to account. For us to be able to do that we must ensure that our journalists are adequately educated, properly trained.

But every African government should see the creation of strong media houses as a big calling. We should see our presidents – President Museveni must have the challenge of creating a university [or academies] to train journalists because it’s a strong and vibrant media that calls all of us to account; it’s a mirror… It’s a one thing to want the East African Federation but if the federation has weak media, it will perform as poorly as Uganda and Tanzania have performed.

It’s important that we create an environment where the media flourishes; the same tax breaks that we give to foreign investors we should give to media – the same kind of concession for importing newsprint and machinery.

You have had trouble with the Mugabe government as journalists here have had with Museveni. Do you see any similarities between Mugabe and Museveni?

There’s something in common. Both men I looked up to. Robert Mugabe was my hero; he liberated us; he is an eloquent man; I used to admire him; he embodied everything I wanted the Zimbabwean president to be. But he’s gone astray.

He is a disappointment. He’s no longer the patriot he was, the man that helped South Africa fight apartheid. And the thing really is that he’s been in power for too long. The same thing with President Museveni. Staying in power too long is never a good thing. This notion of president for life, this notion that only I can be president of this country and that no body can do better than me, is foolishness and should be discouraged.

Zimbabwe has of course had a unique land crisis. Are you satisfied with the way Mugabe has handled the land issue?
Absolutely not. There is no way one can ever justify the fact that the whites in Zimbabwe own the majority of the land and the black people own little land. But you don’t resolve that by killing the whites, by taking away their property without compensating them, and prostituting land for political reasons.

That’s what Mugabe has done; he prostituted land, which is a legitimate cry of the people, for political reasons. He was about to be unseated by the MDC and he had to use land to draw support from our African brothers across the continent who have completely misunderstood the Zimbabwean situation and supported Robert Mugabe.

How do you see the Zimbabwe crisis ending?
Robert Mugabe would like to see the crisis ending by him remaining in office forever and dropping dead in office. But Zimbabweans want a situation where Robert Mugabe gives them an opportunity to live again, dream again; we need to go back to the basics, draw up a new constitution.

But you won’t do that with Mugabe in power.
We need to discount him. Robert Mugabe is irrelevant to Zimbabwe as a people right now. He’s 83! How long is he going to live?

Is Zimbabwe waiting for Mugabe to die?
We don’t have to wait for him to die. We need to start talking and organising ourselves now. We need to plan for tomorrow today; to look at structures; identify people in the Diaspora.

Nature might take its course with Mugabe before Zimbabweans have a say. But let’s not get fixated with one man; the future of Zimbabwe is much more important than Robert Mugabe.