“The government feels cornered, unpopular and relies on the true force of violence,” Nyarota says.

Nyarota said that the newspaper’s new chief executive—whom, he says, has direct ties to the government—dismissed him on December 30 without giving him any reasons.

The following day, the police searched the newspaper’s headquarters for Nyarota, that night, they searched his house just after midnight, he says.

After consulting with friends and coworkers, Nyarota says he decided to take the next available plane from Harare to Johannesburg. He fled with his wife, daughter and youngest son. His eldest son remains in Harare.

Nyarota was born and raised in Zimbabwe, and attended was then the University of Rhodesia. He received his B.A. in 1974 and went into teaching, the only field open to young black college-graduates in colonial Rhodesia.

When the “war for liberation” forced many rural schools to close in the mid-’70s, Nyarota switched careers and became one of the nation’s first black journalists.

For the past two decades, Nyarota has shuttled from paper to paper, writing expose stories and coming into frequent conflict with the country’s government.

While at Harvard, Nyarota says he hopes to gain some insight into “what goes wrong” in countries such as Zimbabwe.

He says this will prepare him for an even more meaningful involvement in the growth of the media in his country.

“Living through what I’ve lived through, one has to be an optimist,” Nyarota says. “It is my philosophy that what is happening in Zimbabwe today cannot be the destiny of my people. Change must come.”