For years President Mugabe’s regime had been making it increasingly difficult to work in Zimbabwe as a journalist, and of the foreign press corps I was one of the last survivors. But this week it become obvious that with an election looming, and Mr Mugabe wishing to steal it with a minimum of prying by the outside world, my time was up as well.

The intimidation had begun at 2.30am on Monday with loud banging on the locked gate to my home. Two men tried to force it open. I kept my light off and waited until the car finally drove off.

Later that morning two young plainclothes policemen appeared at the run-down office I shared with Angus Shaw, of the Associated Press, and Brian Latham, of Bloomberg — what we called “the Old Gentleman’s News Co-operative” in No 20 Birdcage Walk.

They said that they were investigating a tip-off that there were spies inside. Beatrice Mtetwa, my indomitable lawyer, laughed when she heard this, and told the young policeman: “My friend, if you are looking for spies, you should go to Zanu (PF) headquarters.” He guffawed, gave her a high-five and left.

An hour later, three more detectives arrived in a large white Toyota with no numberplates. They were not friendly. They refused to identify themselves and tried to chase Beatrice away. They said that we were working illegally as journalists — an offence that carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison.

We had applied for accreditation, but the state Media Commission had sat on our applications for the past three years.

On Tuesday the authorities stepped up the pressure. A gang of ten policemen arrived for an intensive search while none of us was there. A young computer hacker was digging into Angus’s hard drive when Beatrice arrived. She asked whether they had a warrant, and was told to go to hell.

When the telephone rang the hacker answered: “This is the new receptionist.” Later, believing that she had found details of foreign currency transfers ordered by Angus, she shouted: “Now we’ve got him!”

For three days they poked around our office and tried out four possible offences. It was obvious that they were looking for anything they could stick on us. On the third visit, they were led by the head of the CID’s “Law and Order” section, suggesting that the orders to raid us must have come from the very top.

The consecutive raids had made me begin to turn over the vague emergency plans we had all discussed as the repression increased over the past five years.

Then a colleague who talks to tame operatives in the Central Intelligence Organisation, Mr Mugabe’s secret police, asked me to meet her urgently. In my car, she said she had been told that they were “gunning for you”.

She went on: “This time they are going to be rough. You must get out now.” She was crying.

Shortly after Beatrice telephoned to say she had information that they wanted to lock all three of us up.

The warnings induced the sensation of having a large, cold knife pushed down the middle of my stomach that I get when seriously afraid.

Since Monday I had not slept at home, and was talking in code over the telephone. I was alarmed by the sight of strange cars passing slowly outside. At times like these, making a distinction between paranoia and reality is hard. I made up my mind. I had to leave. Officials at the South African Embassy promptly processed a visa for my Zimbabwean passport. I parked my car at a friend’s home, and borrowed his to slip home. In 15 minutes I had packed clothing for a week, toiletries, personal documents, my laptop, shortwave radio, binoculars, camera, penknife — most of which would be pounced on by zealous policemen as a standard espionage outfit — and Z$1.5 million. A few years ago that would have bought several houses. Now it is worth about £130. I revealed my plans only to my closest friends, and then only face-to-face, and set off through the night for the 342-mile (550km) drive to the border, exhausted and in a state of acute anxiety. At the Plumtree border post into Botswana, I held my breath as the Zimbabwean immigration officer rifled through the pages of my passport, stamped it forcefully and smiled back at my frozen grin. He sent me to a door marked CID to present my police vehicle-clearance certificate. The officer asked where my name came from, and I said that my Dutch ancestors had settled at the Cape 300 years ago. “You are an African,” he said pleasantly. Mr Mugabe had for the past five years been telling me and all other whites to “go back to Britain”. I drove slowly away towards Botswana, and at the first opportunity telephoned my girlfriend, Sarah, in Cape Town. She burst into tears of relief, but my own relief was tempered by immense sadness at what had become of my country. When Mr Mugabe was first elected in 1980, he was unlike any African leader. He spoke with a plummy accent and won my heart with his policy of reconciliation between whites and blacks, and between the two sides of the seven- year guerrilla war against the minority rule of Ian Smith’s colonial regime. But gradually, as in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the new regime grew more repressive and authoritarian than the one it replaced. In 2000, Mr Mugabe was challenged for the first time, and very nearly beaten. Since then his Government has become blatantly tyrannical, determined to stamp out any opposition, and a byword for misrule. Most white farms have been seized in the name of land redistribution, and left to rot. Millions of black Zimbabweans now live in hunger and abject poverty, with the country’s dwindling food supplies used as a political tool to reward supporters. Unbridled inflation has left the currency worthless. The independent media has been silenced. Those who can have abandoned the country in droves. There has been no joy in recording Zimbabwe’s steady descent into a subsistence economy. Changing view of a state in crisis How Jan Raath cronicled the rise of a tyrannical regime:

The economy remains the most sophisticated in black Africa, and the Government, headed by President Mugabe, represents a leading political and military force in one of the world’s most complex regions, holding the key to a wide range of vital issues . . . the predictions that “the wheels will fall off” five years after independence have been more than disproved Friday, September 2, 1988 The party political side of Mr Mugabe is the enigma in his character, and in direct contradiction to the erudite, articulate diplomat, negotiator and efficient technocrat who has adhered meticulously to the restraints imposed by the Lancaster House Constitution, retained the vigour of black Africa's most sophisticated economy, and acceded readily to appeals from the genuinely aggrieved if they are unrelated to party politics. Thursday, March 29, 1990 The bullet-proof black Mercedes-Benz comes to a halt and from behind the limousine’s black curtains emerges President Mugabe, acknowledging the adulation . . . A plainclothes policeman notices me counting the number of vehicles in the motorcade, and demands to know why. ”So you want to report negatively on Zimbabwe,” he says. The contents of my wallet are minutely scrutinised, and the group of men in sunglasses swelling around me writes down details of my press card and my blood donor's card. An hour later they let me go. Monday, March 11, 1996 Coins have become a nuisance. The only useful unit of currency is the Z$500 note, which is called the Ferrari because it is red and goes fast. Ask after the health of any Zimbabwean below the rank of executive and invariably the reply will be: “Hungry.” Thursday, September 5, 2002 My maid, Nyarai, failed to turn up for work yesterday. There was no public transport and private minibuses have doubled their charges since a 283 per cent increase in petrol prices a month ago. She was unable to call because the telephone boxes no longer work . . . Zimbabwe is a country rich in resources and with great potential . . . but it has now reached the point of collapse. Friday, May 16, 2003 “Anybody who can get a job overseas has left,” said John Mufakare, the director of the Employers' Confederation of Zimbabwe. “The spark that distinguished Zimbabwe from the rest of Africa has gone.” Monday, August 16, 2004