Exiled
By Andrew Meldrum Posted Wed, Sep 17 2008
Geoff Nyarota fled Zimbabwe in 2003 after he was arrested six times. He received two death threats, and his newspaper’s printing presses were destroyed by massive bombs. In exile in the United States, he edits an online paper, The Zimbabwe Times.
Alagi Yorro left The Gambia in 2005 after he was arrested more than 10 times, his newspaper’s printing presses were bombed and a fellow editor was assassinated. He is currently studying at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Savious Kwinika fled Zimbabwe in 2005 after several arrests and beatings inflicted by government agents. Struggling to eke out an existence in Johannesburg, South Africa, he started a local news service staffed by other African journalists in exile.
African journalists have been forced to flee their countries because governments have tried to silence their reports of corruption, human rights abuse and other evidence of misrule. They find exile in neighboring African countries, Europe and the United States. Most are unable to find jobs in journalism and must survive doing menial work. Committed to their role of informing the public, many develop online services. Many could benefit from further education.
“There is an ongoing problem of African journalists being forced to flee their countries for their safety. Freedom of the press is threatened and so are the journalists,” said Tom Rhodes, program coordinator for Africa at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York.
Of CPJ’s top 10 countries for forcing journalists into exile, six are in Africa, which have forced the most journalists into exile in the period from July 2001 through June 2007. The top three countries are African — Zimbabwe with 48 journalists forced into exile, Ethiopia with 34 and Eritrea with 19. Other African countries on the top 10 list are Liberia with 10 journalists in exile, Rwanda with 9 and The Gambia with 6.
“These are just the official numbers of cases that we have been able to confirm,” Rhodes said. “We have no doubt that the actual numbers are much higher.”
The host countries for exiled African journalists include Kenya, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia as well as the U.S. and Britain, according to the CPJ.
The plight of African journalists is so serious that CPJ director Joel Simon wrote to Alpha Oumar Konare, president of the African Union, on the eve of the group’s summit in January 2008.
“Our ongoing research documenting worldwide press freedom conditions reveals a worrying pattern of deteriorating press freedom in sub-Saharan Africa,” Simon wrote. He said that 10 African journalists were killed in relation to their work in 2007, the highest number since 1999. Simon urged the African Union to uphold guarantees of press freedom in the African Charter of Human Rights.
Nyarota, 57, the exiled Zimbabwean editor, considers himself lucky to have been supported by two journalism fellowships at Harvard University — The Nieman Fellowship, as well as the Joan Shorenstein Centre on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. He was also a fellow of the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy.
Nyarota wrote a gripping book, Against the Grain, about his life as a journalist when his country was white minority-ruled Rhodesia and then when it became majority-ruled Zimbabwe.
Nyarota has continued his journalism career by founding The Zimbabwe Times (thezimbabwetimes.com).
“I believe I am doing good for my country as the editor of an online publication, which has a following inside Zimbabwe where there is no independent daily newspaper, as well as among Zimbabweans living outside the country,” he said.
Nyarota laments that “the great majority of Zimbabwean journalists in exile are not able to support themselves by practicing journalism. Most of those working on online publications do it part-time after they knock off from the jobs they must work on to support themselves and their families.”
Three million Zimbabweans — nearly a quarter of Zimbabwe’s 13 million people — have left the country, most for neighboring South Africa, according to Refugees International. They are fleeing state violence and repression as well as chronic food shortages and inflation, currently raging at more than 160,000 percent.
These Zimbabwean exiles seek news of their country.
Several exiled Zimbabwean journalists have launched innovative publications and broadcasts. Once a popular disc jockey in Zimbabwe, Gerry Jackson started an independent radio station that the Mugabe government quickly shut down. Now she runs Short Wave Radio Africa, which broadcasts from London back to Zimbabwe. Voice of America produces a show for Zimbabweans, “Studio Seven,” that is beamed into Zimbabwe. “Voice of the People” is produced in Holland and then transmitted into Zimbabwe.
Many inside and outside the country consider ZWNews (zwnews.com), a daily digest of press reports on Zimbabwe, to be essential reading. ZimOnline (www.zimonline.co.za) is a lively news service produced by exiled Zimbabwean journalists in South Africa.
Savious Kwinika, 33, was a young Zimbabwean journalist based in the southern city of Bulawayo. He fled the country in 2005 after he was targeted by the Central Intelligence Organization, Mugabe’s notorious secret police.
Since then, Kwinika has battled to support himself in Johannesburg. He banded together with other exiled journalists to start the Center for African Journalists, which runs a news service supplying stories from all over Africa. The network has five exiled Zimbabwean journalists plus three others from Burundi, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have built a network of 27 correspondents in 17 African countries. The fledgling agency has a precarious existence.
“We are still struggling to make ends meet,” Kwinika said. “Our office does not have telephone lines, faxes or Internet. Sometimes our offices are blocked because we are late with our rent.”
The plight of Zimbabwean journalists is not unique. Gambian Alagi Yorro, 42, owner and editor of The Independent, faced similar threats from President Yahya Jammeh.
“I was arrested nearly a dozen times, and my printing presses were bombed,” Yorro said. “I challenged the government in court. But when Deyda Hydara, editor of The Point, was assassinated, I knew I had to leave the country.”
Like Nyarota, Yorro won a Nieman fellowship for a year at Harvard University in 2007. Now he is a Edward S. Mason Fellow studying government at the Kennedy School.
“There are at least 15 Gambian journalists in exile, in Senegal and Ghana and in Sweden, the U.S. and Britain,” Yorro said. “Most are surviving from hand to mouth. The life of a refugee is not easy. They cannot penetrate professional journalism and so must take jobs in restaurants and warehouses.”
Yorro tells of fellow Gambian journalist Fatou Jaw Manneh who went into exile and was a strident critic of the government in an online blog. “She went back to The Gambia for the funeral of her father, but she was arrested at the airport and put in jail,” Yorro said. “She is now out on bail and awaiting trial for publishing false information and insulting the president. It is terrible.”
There is a continuing problem of African journalists being forced into exile, according to Leonard Vincent, head of the African desk at Reporters Without Borders.
“The worst country in the world for press repression is Eritrea,” Vincent said. “There is no private press there. Eight newspapers have been closed. Editors and reporters were rounded up in 2001. Intellectuals and artists have been jailed. Four press people have died in jail. All those who were not arrested have gone into exile.”
A famous Eritrean journalist is now a taxi driver in New York City and another works at a 7-Eleven store in Wilmington, Del., Vincent said.
In 2007, Reporters Without Borders assisted 40 African journalists in exile, of the 109 journalists the group helped worldwide.
“We help them get papers as refugees, so that they are not illegal immigrants,” Vincent said. “But very few of them can find work as journalists. They must get low-level jobs to survive but so many are really dedicated and they build their own media, using the Internet. The determination shown by these African journalists is something to admire.”
After food, shelter and refugee status, further education is what exiled African journalists need most.
“Many do not have much formal schooling, and to work in a foreign country, they need more education,” Vincent said. “There are not enough programs and scholarships to offer good education opportunities to these exiled journalists. That is something that would offer them hope for the future.”