Fighting fire, with words as weapons

As President Robert Mugabe continues to reduce the country to rubble, the editor of its biggest-selling paper, The Zimbabwean, reports on chilling tactics of suppression: "Despite having an arsenal of anti-press laws at his disposal, the leader of Zimbabwe's military junta, Robert Mugabe, has resorted to using brute force and the threat of assassination to silence the independent media. Yet another list, prepared by Mugabe's much-loathed Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), is doing the rounds of internet websites. I take a cursory look at the list, and yawn. The same old names are there - all the stalwarts of our profession who endeavour constantly to bring to the world's attention through our writings the appalling atrocities being committed in the name of sovereignty by the Mugabe regime."