Wilf Mbanga: 'I'm glad our paper has the Mugabe regime rattled'

Against the odds, The Zimbabwean has reached its first birthday. Geneviève Roberts meets the driving force behind a rare voice of dissent against Robert Mugabe

Over the past year, Wilf Mbanga has been denounced by the Zimbabwean government, his reporters have been threatened, and cartoonists have depicted him kneeling before Tony Blair, having his head patted.

The editor and publisher of The Zimbabwean has antagonised his former friend Robert Mugabe, but his newspaper has not only survived - it has now started to sell advertising online and in the paper. This month, it has increased its distribution in Zimbabwe, and Mbanga hopes to increase it further this year as demand for an independent voice in the country increases.

"I am glad we have got them rattled. It makes us more determined," Mbanga says. "They have responded by saying, in the state-run Herald newspaper, that I am using dirty money to fund the paper from the US and British governments. The government is giving us a lot of publicity through their reaction."

The newspaper is printed in Johannesburg and flown into Harare. It is also distributed to Zimbabweans in England, Europe and the US. The paper's website, run from Mbanga's dining room in his house in the south of England, where he lives in exile, has won the Highway Africa award for the most effective use of new technology.

"So far, the government has been letting The Zimbabwean into Harare without hindrance," Mbanga says. "The government owns The Herald, The Chronicle, nine or 10 other newspapers, the radio and the television. We come out once a week, so for six days there is a constant feed of propaganda with just one day when there is a challenge to it. Letting The Zimbabwean be distributed allows the Government to play the democracy card, which gives them credibility. If I were to publish daily, it would be banned."

The paper's reporters use pseudonyms and face up to 20 years in jail for doing their work. Mbanga, who describes his journalists as "unnamed heroes", says: "Last week, we reported on a journalist being beaten up in Harare because the government was suspicious of him writing for the foreign media. In Mutari, a journalist was locked up for four days on suspicion of working for foreign media. The minister in charge of the intelligence services has said the net is closing in on journalists working for foreign news services."

Mbanga "worries all the time" for his staff, but cannot phone a reporter if he is concerned in case the phone is tapped. "Some send their stories from their Yahoo! addresses in internet cafés. They cannot go to press conferences, or get confirmation on stories from the government, but they get the stories. They use sources who will not shop them and confirm stories with extra sources."

He is funded by the Open Society Institute and a Dutch donor organisation, who are backing the non-profit Zimbabwean for another year. It prints 12,000 copies for the UK, 15,000 for South Africa and 15,000 for Zimbabwe. Its lawyer, accountants and journalists are all volunteers. He and his wife Trish are the only full-time staff. Mbanga, 58, is editor, publisher and copytaster; she is chief sub, deals with all the admin and makes the tea.

It's a far cry from his life in Zimbabwe when he was friends with Mugabe, travelling with him to India, East Africa and London. They met in 1974 when Mbanga was a reporter. Mbanga believed in Mugabe's love for Zimbabwe. Mugabe gave him exclusive interviews and asked Mbanga to become the founding editor of the state-run news agency in 1981.

In 1983, Mbanga heard rumours of massacres in the south-west of the country. At first, he did not believe Mugabe was responsible. Years later, he found out that Mugabe had been responsible for the Matabeleland killings of up to 20,000 people.

By the 1995 elections, with the economy in free fall, Mbanga had realised that Mugabe had turned into a "monster". The erosion of human rights could not be ignored. "I was left disillusioned by the man I had had absolute faith in," he says.

In 1999, he had been the founding managing director of the Daily News in Zimbabwe, a daily opposition paper. It was silenced by Mugabe in 2003.

In the past year, life for Zimbabweans has worsened. More than 70 per cent are unemployed and 80 per cent need food aid. Inflation was 600 per cent. Mbanga says: "In 1980, I bought a four-bedroomed house with a pool and an acre of land for Z$23,000. Today, a loaf of bread costs Z$65,000. People in the diaspora send money home. The monthly wage of a domestic worker is Z$500,000 - 10 loaves of bread. We have a send-a-sub scheme so people can subscribe to The Zimbabwean on behalf of someone living there." The paper now costs Z$50,000.

Mbanga works so that people inside and outside the country are informed. "They say the darkest hour is before the dawn. In the past, Mugabe could buy people. Now he cannot do that because inflation has taken over the country. The police set up roadblocks and demand people pay them because they cannot survive on their salaries. With ministers looting and police looting, lawlessness has spread.

"I live in hope and will produce the paper to fight for a better system. We feel that if people know what is going on in the country, they will get angry."

Mbanga is confident The Zimbabwean will outlast Mugabe, and when that happens he will return to his country. "I am very patriotic, and look forward to running the paper from there."

'Seretse & Ruth' by Wilf and Trish Mbanga (Tafelberg, £14.95) is available from the Africa Book Centre ( www.africabookcentre.com)