Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
June 2- June 8 2003
Weekly update 2003-22

CONTENTS

1. GENERAL COMMENT
2(a). WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE…
2(b). SUCCESS, OR FLOP?
2(c). AND THEN THE VIOLENCE...

1. General comment
The Media Monitoring Project deplores the assault and harassment of journalists from the private media by ZANU-PF youths and state security agents during the MDC’s week-long mass action. Such attacks terrorize those going about their lawful business and stifle the free flow of information and therefore undermine the foundations of democratic society.
Following the failure of the police to bring to justice those ZANU-PF youths who destroyed numerous copies of The Daily News during the stay-away, the law enforcement authorities also turned a blind eye to the assault of two journalists from the private radio station, Voice of the People by ruling party youths on June 2. The journalists had gone to cover events unfolding at the University of Zimbabwe and later mistakenly interviewed the youths at Avondale shopping centre believing they were students who had escaped the police crackdown on a campus demonstration.
The journalists were assaulted and had their cell phones and recording equipment “confiscated” and were then dropped off at the ruling party’s headquarters in Harare where they were again allegedly assaulted and forced to reveal how they packaged their programmes for broadcasting from outside the country. They were eventually taken to Harare Central Police Station where they were released without charge. But the police have done nothing to bring to justice those responsible for the assaults. This represents a clear breach of the constitutional right of individuals to the full protection of the law and reinforces the generally held impression that this protection is only selectively applied.

MMPZ also condemns the illegal raid on the family home of the journalist and film-maker, Edwina Spicer, on the night of June 6th by individuals believed to be state security agents. The Spicer family is away on holiday, but the raiders assaulted staff at the premises and removed millions of dollars worth of equipment from the home. Such illegal, violent and clandestine activity clearly terrorizes Zimbabwe’s media community and echoes the violent and illegal manner in which government authorities abducted and deported the journalist Andrew Meldrum recently.

In another incident, ZTV (6/6 & 8/6, 8pm bulletins) dismissed video footage broadcast by SkyNews allegedly featuring the attempts of an individual described as a war veteran trying to confiscate a video camera from a freelance journalist filming the last day of the protests in Harare. The war veteran, hanging onto the back of the moving truck in which the journalist was filming, threatened to burn the vehicle if he was not given the camera. ZTV claimed the footage was “concocted… in order to portray imaginary stories on the situation in Zimbabwe”. But the report provided no proof of this, although it attempted to speculate how the video had been stage-managed.
Meanwhile, the media have failed to inform the public adequately on the changes to the amendments to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act that government has tabled before Parliament. Nor have they provided detail of the manner in which they were introduced and how the second amendments escaped further scrutiny by the parliamentary legal committee.

2(a) When push comes to shove….

The week saw the MDC pressing ahead with its efforts to galvanize the public to stage mass protests aimed at forcing President Mugabe to negotiate a settlement to Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis. In response, government fulfilled its promise to flood the country’s towns and cities with heavily armed state security forces to quell the MDC organized nationwide mass action.
The issue attracted extensive coverage in all the media. The Press carried about 178 reports on “the final push” and related developments. Of these 105 appeared in the private Press while the rest were published by Zimpapers’ titles.
ZTV allocated one hour seven minutes to the issue, or 26 percent of the four hours 18 minutes devoted to its 8pm bulletins (excluding, arts, business, weather and sport segments) during the week. 3FM carried about 42 reports (including repeats) on the protests while Radio Zimbabwe carried 49 reports (including repeats) in the monitored bulletins.

Predictably, there were stark differences in coverage of the unfolding developments between the two sections of the media. The public media dismissed the mass action as a “flop”, narrowly misinterpreting the failure of street marches to mean the public had snubbed the MDC. For example, Radio Zimbabwe (3/06, 6am) reported that the scheduled street marches flopped due to “non participation from the public.”
Conversely, the private media acknowledged that few people had turned up for the street protests, but observed that this was due to the overwhelming presence of heavily armed security forces that terrorized the public.
And while the public media went to extraordinary lengths to convince their audiences that the stay-away aspect of the mass action had barely affected business activity, the private media observed that the unprecedented support for the national strike clearly demonstrated the public’s support for the MDC call since this was the only way the nation could express itself.
Perhaps those they reported commenting on the issue on the first day of the protests best illustrated the gap between the two sections of the media. The public Press (2/6) described the planned protests as “illegal” and quoted police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena warning the MDC that it would face the “full wrath of the law” if it defied the High Court order barring its mass action. The Daily News of the same day, on the other hand, quoted the MDC saying it would go ahead, dismissing the court interdict as “a legal nullity” and not binding. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was quoted saying his party had not received “proper notice” for a court hearing. This was, however, denied by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, The Herald and Chronicle (3/6).

Besides dismissing the protests as illegal, the public Press created the impression that Zimbabweans were against the demonstrations. For example, The Herald (2/6) reported that “hundreds” of Mbare youths and a further “15,000 people” in Marondera had demonstrated against the MDC’s mass action.
That same day, The Herald and the Chronicle carried front-page comments calling for Tsvangirai’s arrest. The Herald comment, Tsvangirai must pay for his sins, stated: “The MDC leader must be put into protective custody so that he does not further endanger the lives of innocent people who might be caught up in the crossfire of his reckless actions”. The Chronicle (2/6) was even more inflammatory. “…We demand that police should now move with speed and arrest the confused opposition leader and his cronies and throw the keys into the sea. Enough is enough,” it stated.
Indeed, as if taking a cue from the papers, the police briefly arrested Tsvangirai that same morning for allegedly defying the court order (ZBC, 2/6, 8pm and all dailies 3/6).

2(b) Success, or flop?

When it emerged that the security forces had successfully thwarted plans to arrange for the public to march in their “millions”, the government-controlled media deliberately misinterpreted this to be a demonstration of the public’s lack of interest, which then allowed it to describe the protests as a “flop” and claim that the situation was “normal”. For example, ZTV (2/05, 8pm) quoted ZANU-PF senior official, Didymus Mutasa, as claming that in Harare, “Everybody else is going about their business normally except a few things in Highfield… and a few banks which are in fact part and parcel of the Movement for Democratic Change. The rest of the town is doing its business normally. I am going about my own business normally, they have not managed to stop me…”
The following day, ZTV (3/05, 8pm) struggled to stick to this blatant misrepresentation of facts. It reported on what it called normal business activities in several small regional centres around the country before reporting that, “…life in Harare was normalizing and economic activity (was) picking up”. ZBC failed to explain why the situation in Harare was “normalizing” if it was already normal, as initially reported. Notwithstanding this contradiction, ZTV (3/06, 6pm) further quoted the police describing the situation countrywide as “very normal and very calm”.

However, The Daily News (3/6) disputed these claims, saying that business had ground to a halt as people stayed at home and that the police and the army were out in full force. Still, the public media blamed any appearance of a strike on the lack of transport and sympathetic businesses bent on embarrassing the government. The Chronicle (3/6) for example reported that “thousands of workers” who wanted to report for duty failed to get transport and that “hundreds” who walked to their workplaces found their companies closed as business people “chose to close their premises, apparently in support of the so-called “final push”’. The Herald of the same day echoed similar claims.

While the public media dismissed the impact of the protests, the private media observed that the action had managed to send a strong message to government. For instance, The Daily News (3/6) comment observed: “The nationwide shutdown dramatized in no uncertain terms…that the people will no longer be cowed and that people power is now on the ascendancy”, adding that the kind of public response would have forced any government to be “aware of an embarrassing loss of popular support”. The paper also carried an interview with Tsvangirai echoing these sentiments and clarifying the objectives of the “final push”, which he said was not an end-event, but the beginning of a protracted struggle. The Zimbabwe Independent (6/6) concurred. It observed that, “there is no initial big bang. Just a series of increasingly louder eruptions”.
Although the private Press described the mass action as a success, it also highlighted the weaknesses in the MDC strategy. The Financial Gazette (5/5) quoted some analysts, including National Constitutional Assembly chairman Lovemore Madhuku, querying the MDC’s strategy, saying, “ people were lost as to the ultimate intention and result of the protest.” The Daily News (7/6) also quoted Madhuku in a similar story. The Weekend Tribune’s comment (7/6) blamed the MDC for failing “to read the mood of the people.”
Despite this, the public Press maintained that the mass action had failed because Tsvangirai had no support. The Herald comments, Tsvangirai overestimating popularity (4/6) and Tsvangirai loses legitimacy to lead party (7/6) and Chronicle (6/6), The West in discord illustrated this point. The public Press further interpreted the opening of some shops towards the end of the week to mean people had snubbed the MDC. However, The Daily News (4/6) attributed this to soldiers and police who, it said, were forcing businesses to open. And it noted that two Zimbank officials had been arrested in Bulawayo for not heeding police orders.

2© And then the violence…

The Daily News and The Weekend Tribune (7/6) reported that ZANU PF had bussed about 2,000 youths into Harare to foil the MDC’s final day of the protests. ZANU PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira was actually quoted in The Daily News (4/6) confirming that his party had brought the youths in to “ensure peace” and protect ZANU PF property. The private Press revealed that contrary to Shamuyarira’s claims, the youths, together with state security forces, were indiscriminately assaulting and robbing perceived MDC supporters of their possessions. It recorded 43 such incidents including two deaths.

In an effort to counter these reports the public Press reported 24 incidents, including one death, which all blamed MDC supporters and university students for the violence. It portrayed the security forces as having conducted their duties professionally. ZTV also carried about four incidents of violence which all blamed the MDC.
However, both sections of the media lumped incidents of violence together and as a result their reports lacked detail of the circumstances surrounding most cases. For example, no media fully explained the events leading to the stoning of Amon Nyadongo of Mbare, reported in all the media. The Herald (6/6) later claimed he was a ZANU-PF activist. In fact, this was the only death the public media recorded. They ignored that of an MDC activist, Tichaona Kaguru, who died after he was allegedly abducted and tortured by security agents (The Daily News, 5/6). They only got interested in the story when the MDC retaliated and allegedly petrol-bombed a ZANU-PF official’s house in Mbare (ZBC 6/6, 6pm and The Herald 7/6).

The brutal assaults of perceived MDC supporters were coupled with the mass arbitrary arrests of party activists. For example, the Press carried 81 stories on the arrests. Forty-five of these were in the private Press and 36 in Zimpapers’ titles. However, only the private media condemned them. The government-controlled media reported them as lawful, and The Herald and Chronicle actually colluded in the arrest and harassment of MDC activists with inflammatory comments. They held the MDC leader guilty of treason before trial. It is not surprising therefore that The Sunday Mail’s (8/6) Munyaradzi Huni celebrated Tsvangirai’s arrest, arguing that his incarceration would “stem destruction” and that if let free, the “loose canon” would “explode and destroy all that we had built since 1980”.
Tsvangirai was arrested, for the second time in the week and charged with treason for allegedly “calling for the unconstitutional removal of President Mugabe”, ZBC (6/6) and all papers (7/6).

Meanwhile, the private media revealed that those arrested were further subjected to inhuman treatment while in custody. For example, The Daily News (4/6) and the Zimbabwe Independent quoted the director of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, Arnold Tsunga, stating that 40 people detained in Goromonzi were being tortured and crammed into a cell meant for six people. Studio 7, the privately owned short wave radio station broadcasting from the US, reported (5/6) that police were harassing lawyers attempting to visit their clients. And the next day The Daily News reported Tsunga saying that 165 human rights lawyers were handling “hundreds of cases” of citizens who had been detained beyond the legally prescribed 48 hours.
Those admitted to hospital were not spared either. The Daily News (5/6) reported how “dozens” of security forces besieged Harare’s Avenues Clinic where injured MDC supporters were receiving treatment. The Standard (8/6) captured the extent of the harassment when it reported “an estimated 150 cases of politically motivated beatings, torture and harassment were brought to the clinic between Wednesday night and Thursday morning alone.” None of this appeared in the government-controlled media. By the close of the week, The Daily News on Sunday (8/6) reported that the protests had resulted in the arrest of “more than 1,000 people, with nearly 200 beaten, two deaths and more than a dozen reported missing.”
These gross rights abuses attracted the condemnation of the international community, but could only be found in the private media (The Daily News 3/6, 4/6 & 5/6, and the Zimbabwe Independent).

All the media recorded President Mugabe’s vindictive and inflammatory address to party supporters at Mamina in Mhondoro where he reinforced earlier government threats to withdraw operating licences from businesses that closed during the strike (ZBC 6/6, 6pm and 8pm). He stated, “We now know their political allegiance. We now know what they stand for”, adding that they must be “ready with proper answers”. The Press carried his comments the following day. But none sought expert opinion on this unprecedented threat or asked whether it was illegal for them to support a party of their choice.
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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