Cartoonist launches website
Known for tongue-in-cheek cartoon strips, Namate is however more popular for his hard-hitting political cartoons featuring Mugabe and members of his inner circle, who are accused of ruining Africa's once most promising economy; currently inflation is over 100,000%.
He courted the ire of regime when in 1998 a local newspaper published a cartoon which suggested Mugabe was the next to flee after two despots, Zaïre's 66-year-old Mobutu Sese Seko fled to escape marauding rebels and Indonesia's Suharto fled Djakarta following mass street protests in 1998 at the peak of the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. The state labelled him a treasonous element for his cartoons.
There was a wave of public protests during the year, but Mugabe managed to crush uprising against his government by unleashing the army and the police.
The web address for Namate's cartoons is http://www.africancartoonist.com.
The website will also feature other African cartoonists in the near future, a statement on the site said.
The website will also display cartoons about the world's hotspots for international audiences.
Namate said he would upload five political cartoons every week and would feature a new cartoon strip called madhouse.
“Madhouse is a series of comic strips that take a candid look at ongoing social and political events in Zimbabwe. The comic strips are one-offs, meaning that each strip is complete in itself. None of the characters is central, but appears once in each strip.
While the names are fictional, the issues behind the cartoons are real,” he said on the website.
Namate has refused to register as journalists under Zimbabwe's draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, saying doing so would be like “a Jew registering with the Nazis”.
Namate's cartoons have previously appeared in the Daily News, Zimbabwe Independent, Standard and the Financial Gazette among other publications.
He had been the resident cartoonist for the Daily News before its forced closure by the government in 2003.
In 2000, Namate was a runner-up of the UN Raman Lorie Political Cartoon Award, and was awarded the 2003 CRN Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award.
