This is the story from May’s South Sydney Herald that I alluded to in the previous entry. It is by Michele Freeman:
You may read that in clearer form on page 10 of the PDF copy. You can learn (and hear) more of Thomas Mapfumo on his MySpace page. See also Wikipedia:
Mapfumo released the album Corruption in 1989. It criticized Mugabe and his government, with which Mapfumo was becoming more and more disillusioned. Mugabe wasn’t happy with Mapfumo, either, and Mapfumo became the target of government harassment. Mapfumo was accused of being involved with a stolen-car ring. Things got uncomfortable enough that Mapfumo moved to Oregon in the late 1990s, where he lives now.
I find it such a sad example of post-colonial correctness gone to seed that the stubborn old man in Harare who has brought ruin to a country that could be the jewel of Africa is still treated by so many African leaders, not to mention by the Chinese, as if he has some kind of legitimacy. There is nothing racist about despising Robert Mugabe.
NOTE: The opening lines of Michele Freeman’s article do need to be qualified: 1970 in fact was the year that Ian Smith’s Rhodesia declared itself a republic after unilateral independence from Britain five years earlier. See Zimbabwe. Her article too would have been written in April, so since then we now have, for what it is worth, a run-off presidential election agreed to.
