Mercedes Sayagues
My mouth was dry as I walked up to the immigration officer at Harare airport. My future as a journalist in Zimbabwe was hanging on the officer’s reaction. He just took a look at the name on my passport and said “Go to line eight”. Then I knew. Within a few minutes my valid work permit was revoked and I was denied entry into Zimbabwe.
“My nine-year-old daughter is in the country, how am I going to get her?” I asked. “I don’t know,” replied the officer. “I have no instructions concerning your daughter. I only have instructions to deny you entry.”
I had been out of Zimbabwe on a two-day business trip to Johannesburg. I learned while there that Robert Mugabe’s government had given me 24 hours to leave the country.
I was never officially notified by the immigration department, although I went to their offices the day before leaving for Johannesburg. I only learned of the trouble through the state-owned Herald newspaper, by an announcement from the office of President Robert Mugabe.
After nine years in Zimbabwe I was ordered to wrap up our lives in 24 hours. Why? No answers have been given, but I can only assume it is because of my reporting on the growing lawlessness and gross human rights abuses committed by the Mugabe regime.
By the time I was boarding my flight back to Harare, a BBC reporter was also kicked out. It appears the Zimbabwe government does not want any foreign journalists to record how it turns into a fully-fledged dictatorship.
As a journalist in Latin America I lived under military regimes. I’ve seen the signs in Zimbabwe. The illegal arrests and torture of journalists. The intimidation of the judiciary. The rise of extra-legal militia and the terror they inflict across the country. Gross disregard of rule of law. Gross corruption. The list could go on and on.
It pains me to see this. When I first came to this country in 1992 I would say proudly, “Zimbabwe proves that an African country can work.” I chose not to return to Rome with the United Nations because I was happy to see Esmeralda, my daughter, grow up in what was a friendly and peaceful country. She was nine months old when we came. She learned to walk here, she learned to read. She had something so special: childhood in Africa.
A year ago a desperate Mugabe started ruining the country. And now he’s expelling us.
I am not panicking. During Zimbabwe’s parliamentary elections in June last year, I wrote about ordinary Zimbabweans who had their humble homes ransacked and destroyed by the Zanu-PF militias. They were threatened and beaten up. And yet, even while their bruises were still fresh, they were queuing up to be registered as poll monitors to try and ensure that the voting was free from intimidation. They had much fewer material possessions and opportunities than I did, but they stood up for their principles, and so can I. My daughter will understand.
The immigration officer made a couple of phone calls and I was allowed 24 hours to collect Esmeralda and leave.
The task is made more difficult because it is the weekend. I cannot get to my bank account, pay the phone bill or take my car to a sales dealer. Esmeralda cannot say goodby to her classmates or teachers. I feel as if I am caught in a hurricane and yet I am strangely calm.
My friends and colleagues are around me. I have fought for press freedom in Latin America. Now I am doing the same in Africa. I know the majority of Zimbabweans will return their country to democracy and then my daughter and I will be welcomed back.
On Sunday, A Zimbabwean court ordered the government to allow Mercedes Sayagues, the Mail & Guardian’s correspondent in Zimbabwe, and Joe Winter of the BBC, to remain in Zimbabwe for an additional five days to February 23 to wind up their affairs. Government officials refused to acknowledge receipt of the order, which prompted Winter and his family to leave Zimbabwe immediately. At the time of going to press, Sayagues was still at liberty in Zimbabwe and planning to leave on February 23