Jonathan Steele, writing at well-you-know-where, refers to the 'Mugabe-phobia' of the British media. He's worried that, with elections due this year in Zimbabwe, passions might become inflamed and 'the old battle positions resume in Britain's media as well as Zimbabwe's'. The good news from that country might then be overlooked.
But phobia? I don't suppose it could be a perfectly rational dislike of the Zimbawean leader: on account of, among many other things, the Gukurahundi in 1983, in which some 20,000 people were killed by the 5th Brigade; or Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out the Trash) in 2005; or his vote-rigging and use of violence in the elections of 2008.
What might be forthcoming from the same journalistic source? 'That Stalin, he wasn't such a bad guy'? 'The caring side of Pol Pot'? Etc.
