"What we have done here is like the rabbit chasing the dog".

"I was asked the other day about the ban on The Daily News. I said it was not banned, it banned itself. Our laws say you register when you want to operate a media outfit, but they said they didn't want to register because they didn't recognise the law, and they would go ahead and publish anyway. Well, if you were in another country other than Zimbabwe, you would be saying that from prison," says Dr Tichaona Jokonya, Zimbabwe's new information minister.

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Dr Tichaona Benjamin Jokonya, 66, brings to the government a wealth of experience, integrity, tenacity and exceptional leadership qualities. Born on 27 December 1938 and a holder of MA and PhD degrees (from Sussex University) both in Economic History, Dr Jokonya is an old ZANU hand who, between 1966 and 1968, became the president of both the ZANU student movement in exile and the youth wing of the party.

A graduate of the University of Nairobi where he obtained his first degree in History, he was the chairman of the ZANU party in Europe for four years where he mobilised Zimbabweans for the armed struggle. His portfolio at the time included negotiating for humanitarian support for the liberation struggle and discovered to his chagrin that, unlike the Eastern Europeans, Western Europe did not want to give military support to the liberation struggle.

Dr Jokonya's diplomatic career started in 1981, first serving as his country's ambassador to Ethiopia and permanent representative at the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, and later in 1992 as ambassador to Austria and permanent representative to the UN in Vienna and Geneva. He then moved to New York in 1999 as ambassador to the UN and returned home in 2002 to assume the post of advisor to the minister of special affairs in the Office of the President.

Between 2003 and 2004, he served as the chief executive of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority. Of the 180 countries accredited to the UN, Dr Jokonya, affectionately called "Ambassador", has travelled or lived in 165 of them.

A man of immense negotiation skills, the soft-spoken Jokonya was ZANU's chief negotiator in Europe and at the OAU where he represented Zimbabwe at the negotiations of the Preferential Trade Area Protocols. He was elected five times as chairman of the OAU's powerful Advisory Committee, a body that ran the OAU in between the heads of state's summits. This brought him into direct contact with every political leader in Africa past and present. Between March 1990 and September 1992, he was transferred to the foreign ministry in Harare as senior permanent secretary. Part of his portfolio was bringing together South Africa's civil political and corporate leaders at a meeting in Zimbabwe and preparing them for the then impending change that finally took place in 1994 when President Mandela came to power. Dr Jokonya prepared the political road map for the Frontline States--Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Botswana and Angola--in the task of bringing South Africa back into the international fold. In this, he became intimately linked to all the leadership of South Africa's various political groups--ANC, PAC, Inkatha and, very clandestinely, the Home Land leaders. A man of many parts, Dr Jokonya has also served in various capacities in government and the ruling ZANU-PF party. No better candidate could have been found for his new position. New African interviewed him on his vision for the media in Zimbabwe, especially in these difficult times.

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New African: For the past five years, Zimbabwe has faced severe hostility in the Western media. As the new man at the helm, what will be your road map to combat this hostility?

Jokonya: It is not going to be easy. When you deal with any problem, you look at the root cause, and the root cause of the problem in Zimbabwe is to do with the decision of the government to correct the injustices of colonialism, to regain our birthright and take back our land, the land which had been taken from us by force. This is the source of the problem in Zimbabwe. It has nothing to do with the laws of the country or how we operate other things. And your question is how am I going to deal with that. We are going to deal with it in a number of ways. We take the position that if the root cause is land, then quite obviously, from our point of view, the issue is over and done with. I think even the worst reactionary in the UK today agrees that the land issue is over, it's history now. We are now busily consolidating the gains of the decision we took to take back the land. And as far as I am concerned, we are going to deal with this in the normal way a nation deals with problems of this nature.

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NA: But they also say you have "draconian" laws and you also have problems with democracy, human rights and so on. So it is not only the land issue.

Jokonya: Yes, if you look at what is being said now as the casus belli, for the hostility to Zimbabwe, they try to pretend that the problem is our media laws. They try to pretend that it has to do with the manner in which the country handles its opposition parties, especially the MDC. And some even go to the extreme extent of saying that there is no democracy in Zimbabwe. Now, as far as the media laws are concerned, I don't, and cannot myself, subscribe to the fact that we, in any way, have a draconian media law. I don't know whether you have had the chance to look at the media in the United States, the dissemination of information in the United States, the treatment of individuals in the United States post-September 11. The government has taken decisions to legislate in order to protect the state.

Now if you compare our decision to protect Zimbabwe from its detractors and enemies via our media laws, you find that it is nothing compared to the United States. The laws now governing how you enter the United States, who you talk to, what happens to you if you are suspected, are, to say the least, more than draconian.

Yet, the word draconian is used in respect to Zimbabwe, but it is nothing; it pales into the shadow when you compare it to the laws that restrict the movement of people and freedom of speech in the United States as a result of the panic post-September 11. You see, we were under terrible, terrible siege and this siege was made worse by the fact that our enemies came into our country and decided to create institutions to fight against us. Under normal circumstances when a national joins an enemy to assail or fight his own country, he is a traitor, and every country in the world knows only one way of dealing with a traitor.

They also created the opposition party which they now claim is not being given the freedom to speak. As a matter of fact, I can say to you that with all the disorders that have happened in Africa, including the problems in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Togo, and Cote d'Ivoire, in all these cases, you are dealing with problems that are indigenous, that have to do with the disagreements of the people in those countries. You are not dealing with foreign leaders or people who take their orders from Paris. In Zimbabwe, you have an opposition that was created, supported and is still being supported by the British. Then you had a situation where they came into our country and established radio stations and newspapers that they funded and directed from afar, with remote control. And under normal circumstances, a country has to protect itself. And that is what we did.

Regarding the other matters, as far as we are concerned, we think that the battle on the land issue has been won. The land issue is over and done with. We have had elections which have been hailed as free and fair by every reasonable person in this country. Of course, the British and the Americans are still saying they were not free, and the local opposition quite characteristically, has also said they were not free and fair. This is the kind of opposition we are dealing with, a mole in the nation, a Trojan horse in the form of the MDC! Then you have all these other vestiges of infiltration in the media. So what I am going to do as minister of information is to continue the struggle to consolidate the gains of our independence. My responsibility, first and foremost, is to the people of Zimbabwe, to the nation--that is the responsibility of every minister, indeed it ought to be the responsibility of every Zimbabwean.

NA: That shouldn't be a tall order.

Jokonya: Of course, it shouldn't be. I see the people of Zimbabwe not as supporters of ZANU-PF or as Shonas or Ndebeles. I see them as a nation, all of us together. And I am going to look at all the actors in the field of information, we have been given the mandate and the greatest responsibility now by the people, they have given us now almost a two-thirds majority, and it is time to pay back. It is now time for the government and the party in power to serve the people. We are servants of the people. And the president has declared that the new cabinet is a "development cabinet", a cabinet of unity to move the country forward.

I have always been unhappy about the manner in which sections of the media, and indeed other institutions in the state, have run themselves. Their focus has always been to meet the demands of those who are vocal. This is very unfortunate. In the case of Zimbabwe, the vocal people are the urban and city dwellers. This country has slightly under 25% city dwellers. In other words, because we have been trained and educated in the West, we behave exactly as the Westerners. You look at those who make noise, who throw stones, and you try to catch up with them. The majority, the silent majority, is forgotten. So my responsibility is going to be to the country and to the majority of the people. Therefore I expect the media to serve the people, the majority of the people out there in the rural areas. There is already a disturbing trend in the opposition press of demonising, and indeed, denigrating the majority of the people in the country. They describe our people who live in rural areas as ignorant people--people who don't know how to interpret the fine points of politics or anything. This is because the people in the rural areas choose to vote against the expectations of some journalists and newspapers. But any nation, any people, any organisation that denigrates its own people is not worthy of its calling.

So I would like to see the media serve the people. I believe very strongly that the ordinary people of this country know what they want and how to get it. So my real focus will be to make sure that the media, including the opposition papers serve the majority of the people in the country. I am going to look at the players in the game, which includes the government, the media, and indeed the so-called NGOs. I will tell them: "Hey we are going forward, this is the mandate, this is the objective of the government to develop and serve the people and make sure that they get the benefits of independence, so let's move on together. Of course, if you have any problem, let's sit down and talk."

NA: But the NGOs, like the opposition, are not their own masters, they dance to the tune of the sources of their funding.

Jokonya: Indeed, they are not their own masters, and that is the tragedy of Africa. We have in this country some NGOs that are developmental and although they are not self-sufficient in terms of funds, they are committed to the country and the people. I can mention some of them.

But there are others who are not NGOs at all. They are extensions of Western intelligence services. For example, the Scandinavian countries have come out in the most vicious way against Zimbabwean and African development, and they are doing so via the NGOs they have put here who do nothing but serve their masters' voice. We know that some of these Scandinavian NGOs are working against Zimbabwe because of the great friendship now between Britain and the Scandinavian countries. Britain tends to be much closer to the Scandinavians now in Europe, and you see that as the battle wages in Europe, the Scandinavians take completely what the British say without any questioning. And some of the NGOs from those quarters have not been helpful at all.

Nonetheless, we will sit down with all of them and say: "Listen, we know you have a job to do, we know that he who pays the piper calls the tune, but if you've come here to serve the people, you have to serve the people, they are the masters here." I know that if we inform our people so that they know exactly what is going on, in fact they are very much aware of the machinations of the NGOs, they themselves will be able to handle the situation.

No nation can be an island to itself, it doesn't happen, or maybe it has happened only to the big powers like China. When China was moving into the 20th century, the first thing they did was to build walls and keep outsiders out. And if you have a country like China with all the resources--human as well as material--it is quite possible to do that for some time, in fact it has taken them some time for reflection. The Western powers said whatever they wanted about the Chinese Revolution, about Mao Zedong, but if the Chinese had not gone through that revolution, there would be no China as we know it today.

NA: So there is even an inspiration here to draw from your "Look East Policy"--the Chinese Revolution?

Jokonya: In some ways we feel that in Zimbabwe our struggle, in fact yesterday a colleague said to me: "We had to go through what we have passed through in the past five years, if we didn't we would have been in trouble because we would have gone on slowly and slowly". You see, one of the reasons why people took up arms here was that the settler colonialists came to power under Ian Smith and said categorically, unlike the liberals like Todd who had ruled us before, that "there is no room for a black man in this country, not in my life time, not even in 1,000 years". And this sent our people out into the bush, and they said, "OK, we are going to regain our birthright".

You see, we had had all kinds of leaders like Todd, Winston Field and Dr Godfrey Huggins, the first prime minister of Southern Rhodesia when it became a self-governing colony in 1926. Huggins spoke about partnership and when he was asked, "what do you mean by that partnership", he said, "a partnership between blacks and whites". When he was asked to define it, he said: "I am talking about a partnership between a horse and a rider." Southern Rhodesia has now become Zimbabwe. And this was what Huggins said about our people. We were horses and they were riders! So, under Ian Smith, the horses took to the bush and proved to the riders that the time for free rides was over. That is why we find it so amusing that today the British and the Americans have come out and told the whole world that the Zimbabwean people under Robert Mugabe are bad because they have demanded their birthright--the land. But we are saying sorry to no one. The land issue is done and dusted, and we are moving forward.

NA: Let's talk more about what you intend to do to improve the working conditions of the media in the country. Obviously, your Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) is a matter of huge concern here and abroad.

Jokonya: Let me start with your opening statement. We are going to be very open at the Ministry of Information, we will speak to anybody, we will speak to both the state-owned media and the opposition papers--the so-called independent press--even though we know that some of them are serving foreign interests and as such they are not independent.

We are going to talk to everybody, and as I always say it takes two to tango; no government in the world will allow its citizens, let alone the media, to play a destructive role aimed at destroying the nation, to divide the people. One of the things we have done in this country as a result of the struggle for independence is that we have moved from the shackles of tribalism to the current period of nationalism, and we are not going to allow anybody to destroy that. Any government that says we want an independent press and therefore looks on unconcerned as the media destroy the nation, will not be fulfilling its mandate. We are prepared to talk to the media, we want to know what the problem is. I met them the other day and I said to them very, very clearly: "We are in it together, you are Zimbabweans, you may receive money from abroad, but we Africans believe very much in where we come from."

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I will also meet the proprietors of the various media houses and we will talk very clearly. I know that some of them are not based here, especially the funders, and it is not going to be easy for them to say we forget all; they have got their own mandates, but of course if they don't want to play ball according to the laid down rules, we will say no, stop.

NA: But isn't this the problem with Zimbabwe's so-called "draconian" media laws--if you don't play ball, we ...

Jokonya [cuts in] ... Come on. I was in the United States when they started this carnage against the Iraqis. We saw as the war went on how the Bush administration gave instructions that when bodies of dead American soldiers came from Iraq in coffins, no media should be allowed to report it. And so the bodies and coffins came, in fact, they were landed at a military base so that no media would have access and report it. Nobody has, in fact, ever seen the bodies coming back from Iraq, but they have lost thousands of people there. We have not seen the bodies or coffins because a decision was taken by the government of the United States. They may not have passed a law in the Congress, but they took a decision that made it impossible to report. And their media played ball. If they didn't, we know what happens to people they send to Guantanamo Bay.

We have also seen the BBC chief being hurled before the authorities and humiliated in the UK in a manner that would not have happened here in Zimbabwe, because one BBC correspondent spoke the truth.

So what I am saying to my colleagues in the media in Zimbabwe is this: "If you start behaving in a destructive manner, then obviously we are going to take action." But generally they are going to be free to meet with our officials. I am going to meet them as well.

Indeed, if they can show us that AIPPA, as it stands now, has any problems that are fundamental, we will look at them together. But quite frankly when I met the journalists the other day, and I went through with them by comparing AIPPA with what the Americans have, their media laws post-September 11, it was very interesting that our journalists themselves were telling me: "Yes, minister, you are right, but the application of AIPPA is the problem".

Perhaps the application needs looking at, but you can say that about any law, any law whatsoever, the application depends on times--times of war, times of national danger, threats to national security--the application changes because the circumstances have changed. And it was very interesting that it was coming from the journalists themselves. They said maybe the application might be something we need to look at. Sure, if there is anything wrong with the application, we can talk about that. And there are actors in the application, people who enforce the law, the police, the law enforcement officers, we can meet them with the media, we can talk about this, they can bring up their grievances, and one would be crazy to suggest that the law enforcement officers always enforce the law uniformly, they don't; they are human. So if these are the issues, we can talk about them.

NA: And then you have your former metier, the diplomatic field, the diplomatic community in Zimbabwe. Do you see any role for the Ministry here?

Jokonya: Yes, I will also talk with the diplomatic community here, because there is a lot of work to be done there. Sometimes one laughs--I won't mention the country, but at the state banquet held in honour of the Mozambican president, Armando Guebuza, in late April, a lot of foreign diplomats attended and I think I was the minister who was the beauty queen, and they all surrounded me, I don't remember any other ministers being surrounded as much by diplomats.

Generally, they said to me: "Minister we are very happy about what you've said", and opening up the media scene. But I was shocked by one ambassador from a country whose media laws would never be taken as an example. He said to me: "I would like to have an appointment with you minister, because your press laws are ... er ... we should talk about them. We want cooperation between our media and yours." I said fine, but as I walked away, I said to myself: "Oh my God, Zimbabwe really is an island of Western imperialism, you know even our own brothers accredited here are speaking almost the same language as the Americans. It's incredible."

So I am going to talk to the diplomatic community. I want to know why Zimbabwe which has no political detainees should be vilified by the Americans when they have a penal colony at Guantanamo Bay where prisoners have no access whatsoever to the Red Cross and to anything. And the international community has pronounced very clearly that the detentions at Guantanamo are illegal and inhuman. And the Americans dare criticise us on human rights and media laws. But we are going to live with it. We think we have done a lot already. The battle has been won on the most important issue--the land. And you know that in any war even opposing forces sometimes play soccer together on Sundays. And so we will play soccer together. But we now want some reciprocation as well from some countries.

NA: Reciprocation from your friends or foes? What I know is that sometimes even the friends do not have all the information at hand to make an informed decision in support of your cause.

Jokonya: I agree completely. So we are going to strengthen our relations with our neighbours in the area of information dissemination. Our neighbours in the SADC have solidly stood behind us, sometimes one or two may waver, but we have had nothing but concrete support from them.

What is important, I think, for any minister of information is that there are many countries in the world that support you but sometimes you don't provide them with the necessary information about what your problems are. We take for granted that they must know. But we need to inform our brothers in Africa and the developing world about what is going on here.

When we went to Cuba for the first summit of the G77 in 2000, I remember one prime minister from the Caribbean region telling my president: "Robert, you are under siege but one of the mistakes you make is that you think we know why you are under siege and the extent of that siege. But we don't. What we see on CNN and BBC is what they choose to let us hear. And it will never be the truth. So keep us informed. Send your information minister, foreign minister or whoever you want to send, and give us all the facts, and we as your brothers will have to speak from our hearts with the facts."

So that is what we are going to do to ensure that our neighbours and brothers in the Diaspora are completely informed about our situation.

NA: And the facts on the ground speak for themselves.

Jokonya: Absolutely. You know, I remember one German journalist (a female) who came here last year at the time the British were saying it was not safe for their cricketers to come here. She said she wanted to tour the country on bicycle to see things for herself and that she didn't need any security.

The young girl spent two weeks cycling up and down the country. It so happened that she lost her passport and purse while on her way to Chinhoyi, in the north. There was something like 3,000 euros plus several thousands of US dollars in the purse. And she couldn't believe it when she was told at Kariba, on the border with Zambia, by our officials that her passport and purse had been found with her picture and details by ordinary people on the road, and they had handed them over to the authorities. She checked the money and everything was there. She was writing about her journey as she went up and down the country, and she wrote about this, and many German papers, including the Spiegel and other respectable papers, ran the story. And this was at the time the British were saying their cricketers were not safe here. So, yes; the facts on the ground speak for themselves here.

That is why I think we have an obligation to let our brothers and friends in Africa and beyond to understand what is actually happening here because this fight is not only for Zimbabwe. Here in Southern Africa the land issue is hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles, and one of the reasons why we have become the epitome of evil to the British and their Western friends is that there are 56,000 white farmers in South Africa and the British just shudder to think of what will happen if the people of South Africa suddenly said "we want our land". They have in fact started it in South Africa, and the government is under tremendous pressure. Fortunately, like we did, you remember we took 20 years to address the land issue, you cannot address the land issue as soon as you take over. And the situation is far bigger in South Africa. We had only been colonised for 100 years, the South Africans had been for 500 years! And there are major, major things to be done there. And this is what the British are worried about.

NA: Not only them, the Germans are equally worried about their farmers in Namibia, so they see Zimbabwe as a bad example.

Jokonya: Of course, how could I forget? The Germans are worried about Namibia. So, we owe it to the people of Africa, especially Southern Africa, to consolidate our gains here. Of course, there will be more battles ahead, and battles by nature exist in any political system and society, but the openness with which we fight them is absolutely fundamental.

NA: Does this openness also include lifting the ban on the BBC from coming here to report?

Jokonya: Yes, indeed, you know the issue of the BBC has been shrouded in fog. Here, again, the BBC itself is responsible for all kinds of lies. You know that Sky News was here and interviewed the president. Later, at a press conference, the president was asked about the ban on the foreign media, including the BBC, and he said there was no such ban but in fact there were laws here that had to be obeyed. You apply for a licence, you get your licence, and so on. But they are not asking for a licence because they object to the law. They behave exactly like The Daily News.

I was asked the other day about the ban on The Daily News. I said it was not banned, it banned itself. Our laws say you register when you want to operate a media outfit, but they said they didn't want to register because they didn't recognise the law, and they would go ahead and publish anyway. Well, if you were in another country other than Zimbabwe, you would be saying that from prison. Interestingly, The Daily News then crossed over to South Africa and set up a web version of the paper, and they had to register prior to their publishing the web version in South Africa! But here in Zimbabwe, they said they wouldn't register the hardcopy version of the paper. Such arrogance! Because they thought they had the backing of their foreign sponsors. But those sponsors were not the authority here.

So, when the president was asked about the ban on the BBC, he said as a matter of fact, the BBC had applied to cover our recent parliamentary election and had initially asked for three people to be allowed to come, and they were allowed to come. But four days later, the BBC changed its mind and said that they no longer wanted three people to come, but 36.

NA: The BBC? Wanted 36 people to cover the elections?

Jokonya: Yes! The president said that at the press conference. Now, how do you explain that? And obviously we knew what they were up to. They wanted journalists to come here together with a pack of intelligence guys. You see the kind of arrogance these people display, the arrogance which Nkrumah fought against and died for, which does not accept that an African has a say in anything if that say is not accepted by the West? Thank God, we have gone over that kind of arrogance. We are the products of Osagyefo, our boys were trained in Ghana. And we have never been able to really appreciate him and Nyerere and Lumumba. For us, these people are Zimbabweans! And I remember Nkrumah used to say: "You are a guard dog, your business is to guard, and when a thief comes and you happen to be a toothless guard dog, you bark; because the thief does not know that you have no teeth". But they don't want us to bark, they want us to be like sheep, slaughtered quietly, but that we will not do in Zimbabwe! Not anymore.

You see, when I addressed the media here in late April, two journalists from the private press asked me, "Why this Look East Policy, why the focus on China, the Chinese are bad tourists because they don't spend as much as the British. Why this obsession with China, they are coming here and setting up companies all over the place".

I said: "Well, you don't understand what tourism is, tourism is about receiving the people who want to come and see your country. We are Africans, we cannot shackle people like they did during the slave trade and bring them over to Zimbabwe. Fortunately, we are endowed with things that everybody, including the British Queen, wants to see. If people decide to come, then we make facilities available for them. And if the British don't want to come, they don't want to come."

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And I reminded them that some years back, the definition of a tourist in this country was a tall blonde guy who comes from the North. It was never thought an African would ever be a tourist or an Indian or a Chinese. He was an Indian. Full stop. But anybody from Scandinavia would be a tourist. So I asked the two journalists: "What is your problem about five Chinese companies in Zimbabwe? Five companies! And this is a superpower that sends satellites into space when the British cannot send a satellite into space. But we have over 400 British companies here, and you talk about five Chinese companies? My dear friends, I wish we had over 400. I'm sorry we have only five. And if you have a problem with five, that's your problem." But you can see the mindset.

NA: Interesting. But let's clear the bit about the BBC. You are saying the BBC is free to come here and report?

Jokonya: I am not only saying the BBC is free, I am saying every media in the world is free to come here and report provided they respect the laws of the country. You see, regarding Zimbabwe, the BBC has taken a very racist and pro-Blair position. Very solid! And it would have been inconsistent of Blair's obsession with Zimbabwe and all the lies thereof for the BBC to come here and report the truth, because to them "this is a dangerous country", they tell the British people and the world. The BBC reporters, like the British cricketers, would be killed if they came, they say. So if they choose to report from across the Limpopo River, at Beit Bridge, that's up to them. But I will receive any media from anywhere that come to see me.

NA: Your media laws are said to be "draconian", but as you pointed out earlier, if you look at media laws elsewhere, especially in the USA post-September 11, theirs are no better than Zimbabwe's. And yet they want you to repeal or amend yours.

Jokonya: Well, because they own the private media here, they think they can get their way, through sheer sophistry. We know they are encouraging our journalists to say all kinds of things about our country. Thank God, we now have the mandate and obligation to shame the world especially on our media law--the AIPPA, perhaps the most maligned law on our statute books. I have already said that I am interested in looking at it, not alone but with all the stakeholders. And I am challenging them to come up with what is "draconian" about AIPPA. They have to come out very clearly and tell me, and I will look at it.

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NA: You said earlier that the battle over the land has been won. But going around the country, I find that you still have a lot of work to do.

Jokonya: Very much so. But let me tell you one story. I was once invited by an American group in New York to speak at a luncheon. The director of the group had come up with a section on Zimbabwe--Politics, Land and Democracy--and I was to give the keynote address that day. But they had also brought in Zimbabweans like Margaret Dongo and Professor Makamure; and from the US, Chester Crocker and one professor from the State Department. The star witness on that day was Margaret Dongo, she was at Harvard at that time. She had broken away from ZANU-PF and formed her own party, the Zimbabwe Union of Democrats (ZUD), the first opposition party in the country.

So I arrived just before lunch and Margaret was going to speak. And I met her in the corridor and said to her, "Margaret, you are going to sell." And she responded, "No, I have been a freedom fighter before, I will never sell." I said, "Do they know that you are not going to sell? They've given you a ticket, that's why you are here." She said, "Well, come and hear for yourself."

And so her time came, and everybody thought Margaret, the arch enemy of Mugabe, was really going to put the knife in. And she started: "I know what all you people here want, including you Mr Director." And the people had come from the US, Canada and afar. She told them: "I know why you brought me here--to speak against the land reform in Zimbabwe. Please, let me tell everybody here that I joined the struggle as a young girl of 17, and even at that tender age I very well knew why I was joining. I very well knew the state of the land in my country, I very well knew that an African was not allowed to possess his own land. I spent all these years in the struggle, and you want me to come here and say Mugabe is wrong on the land? You think because I am in the opposition and I had left ZANU-PF, I would oppose him on the land? Please let me say this: I have got my own problems with Mugabe and these have nothing to do with the land. In fact, I am terribly disappointed with Mugabe because he talks about compensation, but there can be no compensation over a property that was stolen and has been found in the hands of a thief, and the courts decide that the property must go back to its rightful owner."

It was devastating! I could see Mr Director and his audience shaking in their seats. And Margaret went on and on. Then Prof Gambari, the Nigerian diplomat, the chairman for the meeting, said: "Margaret, perhaps we are not talking about the land." And she said: "Professor Gambari, what is the title of this debate? Democracy and Land in Zimbabwe. And the major issue in Zimbabwe is land. So I am talking about the land because it really is the issue."

And she went to town! It was absolutely devastating, and some of the people left the room. So when it came to my turn to address the luncheon session, I looked up and asked: "My president, Mugabe, where are your accusers?" They had left the room because Margaret told them the truth! So, yes, we have a lot of work to do. And the work is to continue to tell nothing but the truth, to continue to stand firm over the land issue, to continue to consolidate the support we've always had from all our people, and to continue to lead the way. We have led the way in the region about the issue of land, and we will continue to do so. But as far as the white farmers and their British and American supporters are concerned, what we have done is like the rabbit chasing a dog. To them, that can never be accepted, it is a bad omen for posterity. A rabbit chasing a dog?

NA: Wouldn't it have been better for them then, especially Blair's government, to have genuinely assisted you before all hell broke loose in 2000?

Jokonya: Well, I have said again and again at the UN, in fact it is sometimes forgotten that Mugabe himself did not initiate the land seizure as they call it. The people did! I was with the president in Cuba at that time, at the G77 summit, when the people of Svosve moved on to the land, and they literally defied the government to shoot them. But no government would have shot its people because they were reclaiming their land. And what Mugabe did when he came back--and I remember there were thousands of people at the airport waiting to hear from the president. And we had a very embarrassing situation because the acting president, Msika, had actually asked the police to move people off the land. So Mugabe returned and the people asked him at the airport: "Mr President, are you going to move us away from our land?" And he said: "You stay where you are. If we move you away from there, we will move you to somewhere else, but we won't move you to nowhere."

So how does anybody come up with theories about Mugabe seizing land, and using the word "seizure". You were earlier talking about terminology--our own people, our journalists here and in South Africa, were the ones who started using the world "seizure, seizure of white man's land", they actually said it. And then, of course, they created an opposition that publicly said if we come to power, we would reverse the seizure of land and give it back to their owners. This is in black and white. The MDC cannot deny this.

And so the battle-lines were drawn, and the fight was on. But certainly, with the land issue over and done with, I repeat, there is going to be a period of debate and dialogue, especially with the media. I am a diplomat, and diplomats are the first line of fire except we don't use guns. We use diplomacy and negotiation.

I will call again and again upon all our journalists and media houses here, and say to them if any group wants to identify themselves as being different from the rest of the community, they are asking for trouble. We all have to obey the law of the land, including the president of the republic. And we all have to be guided by the needs of the majority, whether we are journalists or the president or ministers, and this minister of information would not be exempt from looking after the interests of the majority of the people.

We will work together with the media and with all friends to find the best way forward. Sometimes you have to reconcile a profession like journalism, and we are determined to do so, and we want journalists themselves to do so. I told them the other day that when they come to my constituency, they should not report falsehoods--the roads there are bad, there is very little development in certain areas. I would be a fool if I didn't want this to be reported. That is what we should be doing now together with our media. We should be looking at the needs of the Zimbabwean people. The media cannot depend on paid handouts form abroad without thinking about the national interest. As long as we have the national interest as the objective, I wouldn't expect all of us to walk the same road to get there. I am saying let's walk towards there.

There will not be, and there has never been, any unnecessary harassment of the media in this country. But our journalists must know there are rules everywhere--even in America and the UK from where some of them take their inspiration. So the media, and the ministers--ministers must behave as leaders of the people; and if they don't the media will report their misdemeanor. So nobody is exempt, and the media cannot claim to be exempt. I want to believe that even those of them who are paid from outside, agree that the national interest is paramount. And to that extent, I think we are in very, very exciting times.

NA: If I should pretend that you are a diviner, can you tell me how the future looks like?

Jokonya: I know that if we get our things right, you remember Lee Kwan Yu of Singapore, a no-nonsense man, and there never was an opposition worth talking about in Singapore; but Lee Kwan Yu was a successful leader who liberated his people. And eventually the West realised that he was a source of investment, and today you don't hear a word against Lee Kwan Yu. In fact, people forget that he is still in power. He is the senior minister. After his retirement as prime minister, he assumed the post of senior minister in government, and nobody ever knew what a senior minister was. As it turned out, the senior minister was higher than the prime minister! Now, he has worked out for his son, an army commander, to take over. And he, Le Kwan Yu, now in his 80s, is still the senior minister. But the West doesn't talk about this. Yet they are trooping all over the place in Africa, in Zimbabwe, where they shout about this and that.

So what we need here is a success story, we need to consolidate our independence, to make sure that our people have the advantages and benefits of independence, and they are a resilient people. I know that one day the British will come. We are open. We have never fought against them, we have never said we want to fight against them. I know they will come. They are here already. They have over 400 companies here.

So they will come, they will talk to us, we are too central to be ignored by anybody. Like Ghana, which is not the largest country in West Africa, but in the days of the Osagyefo, Ghana was Africa! And Zimbabwe is central, and if anybody wants to come to Africa and be heard, you cannot ignore Ghana and Zimbabwe. Sometimes we have influence quite beyond our capacity and our size, because we have been the vanguard of Africanism, that's what the West is afraid of. They don't want to see an African able to hold his own, they want to see an Uncle Tom, that's why Nkrumah and Lumumba had to die. It is a story that is very well known by everybody.

And we have lived 30 years after Nkrumah and Lumumba, and we know better now how to protect our leaders. And Mugabe will be protected. I remember when we were in Havana for the G77 summit, President Fidel Castro told his colleague leaders who had assembled there from all over the world: "The Americans think they are great; yes, they are a mighty power, they may challenge the Soviet Union and so on, but they cannot challenge a united people. I have had 27 assassination attempts against me from the United States. And the most bizarre of all was the one in which they tried to remove my beard."

NA: They tried to remove his beard?

Jokonya: Yes, the CIA came up with the story that the magic in Castro was the beard. And they prepared a poison which, if he had drunk it, would have caused his beard to fall off. And they actually tried to get the poison to him. This is a well-recorded fact. And Castro mentioned this to his colleague leaders to prove the point that he had survived all these 27 attempts because his people were united solidly behind him.

So we will protect our president, we will do anything to protect him. The idea of regime change--he has always said that when his time comes, he will retire. In fact, he has now announced it--2008! We shall see what his detractors at home and abroad will do now.