MEDIA MONITORING PROJECT ZIMBABWE
NOVEMBER 25TH - DECEMBER 1st 2002
MEDIA UPDATE # 2002-44

CONTENTS

* GENERAL COMMENT
* FOOD SECURITY
* PRICE CONTROLS

1. GENERAL COMMENT

In the months since the presidential election the privately owned media have
been consistently reporting incidents of political violence around the country,
mostly against opposition MDC officials or those perceived to be the party's
supporters. The government-controlled media on the other hand, has virtually
ignored the development of this frightening "norm" in Zimbabwean society,
giving the impression that politically motivated violence no longer occurs in
Zimbabwe.
And in the week that the Human Rights NGO Forum was reported to have
noted that the nationwide campaign of political violence was still continuing
eight months after the disputed presidential election, the private Press
recorded 10 such incidents, with not a single story on these events from the
government controlled media. This manifest failure by the public media to
record these serious human rights violations once again clearly demonstrates
their inability to live up to their public mandate to inform their audiences of
important national issues.
Instead, the public media complemented this censorship with sanitized
reports seeking to market Zimbabwe to tourists intending to visit the country
for the solar eclipse and the Miss Malaika beauty pageant as a safe and
peaceful destination.
The private Press carried 12 stories on political violence in which 10 incidents
of violence were recorded. Of the 12 stories, The Daily News carried 11 and
The Zimbabwe Independent one.
Ten of The Daily News stories were event reports that relied largely on the
victims as the primary source of information while the remainder was a follow-
up to the alleged banishment of a Catholic Church priest from Nyanga by CIO
operatives and war veterans.
The Daily News cited ZANU PF supporters as the perpetrators of violence in
eight of its stories and state security agents and war veterans in the remaining
three. All the victims were either MDC members or its alleged sympathizers.
The paper reported that it had sought police comment in four of these stories
but did not let its readers know whether it had sought police comment in the
others.
The Zimbabwe Independent carried the report based on the findings of the
independent Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and quoted the Forum's
report as saying: "Reports indicate that ZANU PF remain the main
instigator of politically-motivated violence in the month of October, with
the opposition MDC party being responsible for only 9.6% of reported
cases."
Similarly, SW Radio Africa reported six incidents of political violence in the
monitored bulletins. ZANU PF supporters were reported as being responsible
in four of them while the rest were attributed to members of the army in
Matabeleland North. MDC supporters were the victims in five of the cases,
while the other one was a white farmer whose house was attacked by ZANU
PF supporters.

Meanwhile, the public media's observations that the collapse of the African,
Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states and European Union meeting in Brussels
last week illustrated the Third World's undying support for Zimbabwe and a
victory over Britain's machinations, were belied by The Zimbabwe
Independent's (29/11) article, 'ACP MPs slam Zimbabwe'. The paper reported
that MPs from Botswana, Mozambique and Ghana "distanced themselves
from the ACP's position and condemned Zimbabwe for scuttling
investment initiatives".

2. FOOD SECURITY

Agriculture Minister Joseph Made's ultimate admission that Zimbabwe is
indeed faced with a critical food shortage - after more than a year of repeated
denials - not only exposed the blundering nature of government but also the
complicity of the public media in covering-up the effects of government's
agrarian reforms.
For months, since Made falsely assured the nation that government's
wholesale fast track land reforms would be implemented without
compromising the country's food security, the public media has been
endorsing this lie.
Not once did they question the practicability of such a move, or indeed the
rationality behind Made's dismissal of early warnings of serious maize
shortages by agricultural experts, on the basis that he had done an aerial
inspection of the country and was convinced Zimbabwe would have adequate
grain.
Only the private media exposed these claims.
The minister's belated admission, reported in The Standard (1/12), that
government "has failed to ensure food security for the famine-stricken
nation", vindicates the private media's tenacity in uncovering these fairy
tales.
In fact, the paper quoted Made as having told a parliamentary committee on
agriculture that his ministry did not have "the purse to buy adequate maize
supplies" for the nation. For example, he said his ministry was only able to
import 22,000 tonnes of grain per month instead of the required 35 000
tonnes.
More importantly, the minister acknowledged the chaos surrounding
government's land reforms by claiming that his ministry, which manages the
reforms, had no idea of the amount of grain the newly resettled farmers were
likely to produce this season.
The Standard quoted him as saying: "At the moment, we don't have the
projected figures of what we have planted this season and this is a big
problem.We only hope the new farmers will be able to produce enough
grain to feed the country."
No other media reported on this profound revelation.
In contrast, ZTV (25/11, 8pm and radio stations, 26/11, 6am) painted a rosy
picture of the food situation. It quoted the ministerial committee for food
procurement and distribution chairman, Nicholas Goche as saying:
"Government, using its own money and without donor aid, has imported
1,2 million tonnes of maize" adding "very soon maize will be available in
the country".
There was no explanation about whether the maize was bought in bulk and if
so for how long the tonnage would last.
Instead, the station, just like the other public media and The Daily Mirror
(25/11) blamed the shortages on sabotage by white farmers.
For example, The Herald (27/11) blamed the wilting of "10 000 hectares of
knee-high sugar cane" in Masvingo on white commercial farmers whom it
accused of vandalizing irrigation equipment "to sabotage resettled farmers"
although government "agreed to compensate them" for both the equipment
and the sugar cane.
The Daily Mirror carried a similar report in which it quoted an unnamed farmer
as attributing such vandalism to "this British mentality".
Both stories criminalized white commercial farmers at the expense of a fair
and coherent analysis of the agricultural sector.
This professional negligence was also evident in The Herald (29/11), when
the paper reported President Mugabe as urging newly resettled farmers "to
till the land in preparation for the coming agricultural season" while in
actual fact, the farming season is already underway.
The paper did not question why Mugabe would encourage the resettled
farmers to use ox-drawn ploughs and not wait for government tractors to till
their land.
Nonetheless, ZBC (Radio Zimbabwe, 28/11, 8pm; ZTV, 29/11, 8pm) seemed
to offer an explanation when it quoted a local government official, Abiot
Maronge as having said the government controlled District Development Fund
(DDF) was "overwhelmed" as "the demand is too huge to the extent that
it has not, up to now, managed to cover . even a quarter of the
hectarage required to be tilled by DDF".
The report did not ascertain the underlying implications of DDF's failure to till
enough hectarage, one month into the farming season.
Such analysis appeared in the private media.
The Zimbabwe Independent (29/11) noted that the first rains had not "stirred
resettled farmers into land preparation and planting, raising fears of
another serious famine next year".
The paper's largely descriptive report also quoted land experts, as saying only
about 40 percent of the government-acquired land would be put to productive
use while the rest would be held for speculative purposes. Thus, it put the
initial production estimate of yields at between 720,000 and 960,000 tonnes of
maize as compared to the national requirement of about 1.8 million tonnes.
The Financial Gazette (28/11) also carried a report by the United States
Agency for International Development's Famine Early Warning System as
predicting a 62 percent fall in wheat production in the 2002 season. It said
wheat production would fall from the 2001 final harvest of 340 000 tonnes to
212 000 this year, forcing the country to import 200,000 tonnes to meet
demand until the 2003 harvest season.
The public media, on the other hand, ignored this shortage aspect altogether,
preferring instead to report on an ultimatum by the Grain Marketing Board
(GMB) threatening all grain producers to either deliver their stocks within 14
days or face prosecution, The Herald (27/11) and ZBC (ZTV, 27/11, 7am;
3FM, 1pm).
In fact, the story was based on assumptions and not on statistical evidence.
There was no clarity on how much wheat the GMB expected to be delivered,
how much had been delivered and whether the total yields would be enough
to feed the nation. The Herald story merely stated: "It remained unclear how
much of the winter wheat crop had so far been delivered to the GMB.
but the GMB has strong suspicions that farmers were holding onto
grain, especially wheat which they will sell to private buyers at higher
prices".
The paper and the Chronicle (29/11) also carried editorials that only
welcomed the hiking of wheat prices from $40 000 to $70 000 a tonne without
establishing whether the new prices were enough to cushion the farmers from
high production costs.
While The Herald assumed that the new wheat price hike would force former
white commercial farmers to "eat humble pie as black Zimbabweans will
produce plenty of food on their new farms", The Daily Mirror of the same
day quoted a leader of a black farmers organisation dismissing the price hike
as "inadequate". However, the paper also failed to ask him to provide a clear
breakdown on why he felt the new producer price was insufficient.
While the public media continued to gloss over Zimbabwe's food insufficiency,
the private media warned its readers of increased hunger.
The Financial Gazette reported that a deal struck between government and
the US to swap organic maize for genetically modified (GM) grain, to feed
close to seven million Zimbabweans had collapsed because government did
not have sufficient maize stocks.
The paper reported that an initial shipment of at least 17,000 tonnes of the
GM maize, enough to feed 1.6 million hungry Zimbabweans, was lying idle at
a warehouse in South Africa because government did not have a similar
quantity to exchange it with.
More disturbing was the admission by the UN World Food Programme (WFP)
that both government and foreign aid agencies were failing to cope with the
mobilisation of food aid to feed the hungry because the food crisis in
Zimbabwe was deteriorating rapidly, The Daily News (29/11).
The paper quoted WFP as saying although they distributed 20,000 tonnes of
food to two million Zimbabweans in October, they were still struggling to get
sufficient resources for the critical months ahead.
Said WFP: "We are approaching the very worst period of the crisis, when
6.7 million Zimbabweans would need food aid and yet WFP does not
even have the resources to meet our target of three million beneficiaries
in November."
The Daily News (30/11) ran another WFP alert in which it quoted the donor
agency's Deputy Country Director, Gawaher Atif as warning that the
humanitarian crisis in the country had deteriorated to the point where "we are
very close to famine".
The Financial Gazette reported hungry people of Insiza, in Matabeleland
South, as imploring the WFP to resume its food relief distribution in the area
to stave off starvation. The agency withdrew its services after suspected
ZANU PF supporters allegedly confiscated some of its relief food during the
run-up to a parliamentary by-election in the constituency.
Moreover, the paper cited the villagers as accusing ZANU PF of abandoning
them after truckloads of maize, which the party allegedly used to lure support
just before the by-election, "disappeared in a cloud of dust" following the
party's victory.
In fact, the private Press also carried regular updates on the alleged
politicization of food aid by ZANU PF as exemplified by The Daily News
(28/11) as well as the continued forced evictions of white commercial farmers
or the looting of their farms by chefs and state security agents, The Financial
Gazette and Daily News (29/11).

3. PRICE CONTROLS

ZBC's blind endorsement of official policies was evident in the public
broadcaster's coverage of the announcement of price controls introduced by
government, ostensibly to cushion the nation from the run-away cost of living.
The public broadcaster (ZTV, 29/11, 8pm) merely announced the news and
tried to give it a general consensus by quoting seven members of the public
who predictably welcomed the price controls.
No comment was accessed from industry.
Instead, 3FM (30/11, 1pm) blamed industrialists for the price increases
saying: "The irresponsible manner in which the industry is being run has
been castigated as it is ripping off consumers taking advantage of the
weak monitoring system".
The public Press carried six stories, of which three were mere government
announcements listing the goods under price freezes, while the rest were
either hard news stories or editorials. All the reports sought to endorse
government price controls as exemplified by The Sunday Mail (1/12)
comment, 'Govt must wage all out war on prices'.
The paper argued that since government's clampdown on bureaux de change
had resulted in the "crashing" of the rates of convertible currencies on the
parallel market, manufacturers no longer needed to "pass on non-existent
costs to consumers".
However, the paper did not tell its readers by how much the exchange rates
had "crashed". Neither did it provide detailed information on how the new
rates would significantly cut down production costs.
Conversely, the private Press, which carried nine stories on the issue,
preferred to treat the matter with a more open mind.
For example, The Weekend Tribune (1/12) reported workers and consumers
as querying government's logic in extending price controls to cover more
goods when the same government has admitted that the price controls it
previously slapped on most basic commodities had failed.
The paper cited Finance Minister's budget statement in which he
acknowledged the failure of price controls.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions economist Tendai Makwavarara
described the move thus: "It goes beyond economics. We don't know
the justification of adding more (price controls on) commodities. There
is no economic.and social support for it."
The Financial Gazette, The Daily News (30/12) and SW Radio Africa (28/11)
also noted this government contradiction.
They further observed that contrary to government's announcement of the
prices freeze, prices of most of the targeted goods had actually skyrocketed.
Nonetheless, while the private media was more inquisitive in its coverage of
the matter than the public media, both sections of the media failed to question
government on what mechanisms it had put in place to police its expanded
price control policy.
ZBC (ZTV, 28/11, 8pm; Radio Zimbabwe, 29/11, 6am) merely reported that
government had set up a price freeze taskforce "to monitor the effective
monitoring of the price freeze introduced by government.", without
clearly explaining how the taskforce was to police prices.
However, The Daily News (26/11), ZANU PF supporters attack vendors and
The Daily News (30/11), Chaos as National Service Youths raid forex
dealers, offered some possible clues on who might monitor prices, although
the paper seemed to have been unable to pin-point them.
Similarly, SW Radio Africa (28/11) reported that ZANU PF youth militias in
Rusape were forcing shop owners, including big retailers such as OK and TM,
to reduce their prices.
Ends

The MEDIA UPDATE was produced and circulated by the Media Monitoring
Project Zimbabwe,15 Duthie Avenue, Alexandra Park, Harare, Tel/fax: 263 4
703702, E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

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