Archival Significance
Written by Peter Niesewand, a journalist arrested and held in solitary confinement for 73 days in 1973 after his reporting on the guerrilla war and conditions under Ian Smith’s government angered the Rhodesian Front government. He was tried in secret, sentenced to two years’ hard labour for revealing official secrets, and deported after an international outcry saw the sentence commuted; he was named 1973 International Journalist of the Year for the case. His detention took place under the same Ministry of Law and Order later headed by Desmond Lardner-Burke, whose own account, Rhodesia: The Story of the Crisis, is also held in this Archive.
Institutional Context
Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, the year of Niesewand’s deportation.
Content Summary
Recounts Niesewand’s arrest, secret trial and detention, and the press censorship regime operating in Rhodesia at the time.
Research Utility
A primary source for researchers of press freedom, censorship and the treatment of foreign correspondents under the Rhodesian Front government. Read alongside Lardner-Burke’s own account, the two titles offer directly opposed perspectives on the same government apparatus.
Abantu Archives Note
Held in-house.