The guide pleaded and for a few minutes the torrent subsided. But then it resumed, and as it did the rhino caught our scent. There was a fierce snorting from the other side of the bush, a loud rumble and then the sound of huge animals galloping – away from us. I pictured the headline: “BBC undercover man gored by rhino.” Then came the thought of leaving hospital only to enter the tender care of Mr Mugabe’s security police.The ban on the BBC was imposed by his loathsome Minister of Information, Jonathan Moyo. At least Mr Mugabe suffered for his beliefs (a long stint in the jails of the racist Smith regime) and fought for his country. But Mr Moyo is a third-division chancer who has come to prominence in the dying days of the regime. I will be following his long-term career with interest.I suspect Moyo’s slithery hand behind the fairytales in The Bulawayo Chronic.

The paper has devoted a large portion of its front page to claiming that Sweeney, Basildon Peta and I are the advance guard of an Anglo-American military offensive to be launched if Robert Mugabe wins Zimbabwe’s presidential elections. Let me quote a paragraph of this fascinating tale:”The plan will take shape after the presidential elections An insurgency will start in rural Matabeleland. These people will supposedly be fighting the outcome of the polls. When the government moves in to crush the insurgency, the West will intervene and topple President Mugabe.”The report quotes a “highly placed source”. This source is indeed “highly placed”, for the story has come from the top of somebody’s head. For one thing the Panorama film I have been working on has unearthed evidence that is hardly complimentary about British policy in Zimbabwe. Hardly the work of a nest of British agents.I was called by a reporter with the wholly unsuitable name of “Innocent” Madonko earlier this week.

He said he was calling from Bulawayo and when pushed claimed to be on the staff of the Zimbabwe Independent. As the Independent is one of the country’s more truthful organs I decided to answer his questions, nothing more than a brief rundown of what was in our film.At the end of our conversation I asked who he thought would win the election. Was there any chance Mugabe and Tsvangirai could settle things peacefully, I asked? “I doubt it,” said Innocent.It was close he said, too close to call I pushed a little more Innocent told me Tsvangirai might win. Now that I know Innocent was working for one of Mugabe’s propaganda rags, I can see a cracking headline: “Mugabe hack admits Tsvangirai could do it”. It’s not a headline you will ever read in the Bulawayo Chronic though.

At least not until there is a change of government.BBC1 is showing ‘Mugabe: The Price of Silence’ – Fergal Keane’s film for ‘Panorama’ – tomorrow at 10.15pm. Three score and five in a day? That was the regular casualty figure during the Lebanese civil war, the average cull of lives in another conflict in which America called for “restraint”, another war in which Israel could blast down apartment blocks with impunity while pursuing its war against “terror”. In June of 1982, Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners were executed by the Israelis and secretly buried in Sidon; Israeli jets bombed Palestinian hospitals. Yes, a PLO anti-aircraft gun was positioned on the roof of a hospital in Sidon but the Israelis went ahead and destroyed the hospital anyway – and all the patients inside it. The Palestinians murdered prisoners – let’s not have any romanticism here – and the Palestinians tortured and executed Arabs who were working as Israeli collaborators.