The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe

Monday July 5th – Sunday July 11th 2004

Weekly Media Update 2004-27

CONTENT

1. GENERAL COMMENT

2. CONSPIRACIES SHROUD AU REPORT

3. CHAOS IN THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

1. General comment

THE government media’s timidity in demanding accountability from the ruling party leadership when they publicly make potentially harmful pronouncements was exposed by the manner in which they handled President Robert Mugabe’s closing address at the Fourth ZANU PF National Youth Congress. These media merely carried President Mugabe’s speech without analysing it. For instance, The Sunday Mail (11/7) quoted President Mugabe telling his party youths that they should “mount a vigorous campaign across the country to push Tony Blair’s midgets out” as ZANU PF “wanted to teach them a lesson across the whole country that Zimbabwe will never be a colony again”. No attempt was made to disentangle the embedded meaning of such statements.

In fact, suspicions that ZANU PF youths, who have previously been accused of orchestrating violent campaigns against members of the opposition in every election, would again feature prominently in the ruling party’s campaign strategy seemed to be confirmed by the Zimbabwe Independent (9/7). The private weekly reported that government has set aside an unbudgeted $500 million for the current expansion and renovation of the controversial youth training camps in preparation for the 2005 March elections. The renovations, said the paper, would see an increase in the number of youths recruited. About 6 000 youths, who will undergo a crash programme, would graduate before next year’s elections.

Reportedly, government would also use the camps as bases for ZANU PF militia as well as housing the party’s youth wing during the election. An unnamed senior training officer in the ministry of youth was quoted confirming the story saying the plan was “to make up for the time lost during the reconstruction (of the camps)”.

And as if to give a foretaste of what probably awaits the country during next year’s polls, the paper reported that ZANU PF had turned Rusape “into a no go area for the opposition” by deploying graduates from the camps “to harass any suspected MDC supporters”. One of the victims was quoted claiming that he was detained and tortured for four days for allegedly “reading newspapers sponsored by British premier Tony Blair”. He was carrying the Zimbabwe Independent and The Financial Gazette.

MMPZ notes that as long as such political intolerance is allowed to flourish unabated, prospects of a free and fair 2005 election would remain an illusion.

2. Conspiracies shroud AU report

GOVERNMENT claims that reports of gross human rights abuses levelled against it were mere fabrications of Western ‘imperialists’ opposed to Zimbabwe’s land reforms were disproved by the African Union’s Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) damning report on the country’s poor human rights record. The report, which was discussed and “noted” by the African Union (AU) Council of Ministers ahead of the summit of AU heads of State and government held in Addis Ababa, followed ACHPR’s visit to Zimbabwe shortly after the 2002 Presidential poll, to investigate allegations of rights abuses.

It is Africa’s harshest criticism of the government of President Mugabe’s human rights excesses to date. The report censured government for the arrests and torture of opposition MDC MPs and human rights lawyers, the arrests of journalists, the stifling of freedom of expression and crackdown on other civic liberties.

But instead of highlighting and discussing details of the report openly, the official media merely relapsed into government propagandists by siding with the authorities in distorting and concocting conspiracy theories on the matter. These media also censored alternative views on the significance of the findings, which officially adds the African voice to the ranks of other countries outside the continent that have openly voiced their concern about government’s poor human rights record.

To counter the credibility given to the allegations of human rights violations in the country by the commission’s report, the government media tried to vilify the reputation of the ACHPR. They did this by accusing it - without any shred of evidence- of having produced the damning report in collaboration with government’s perceived local and international enemies.

However, the private media was more informative. They exposed ACHPR’s findings and details surrounding the AU’s debate on the report. They also analysed the report’s underlying diplomatic implications on Zimbabwe’s efforts to retain the support of the continent, especially as it faces mounting pressure from the international community for it to reform.

In their initial reports, the government media led by The Herald (6/7) swiftly went for the ACHPR’s jugular vein, arguing that the commission’s work had been dictated to by government’s perceived enemies like Britain, the opposition MDC and local civic groups and NGOs, such as Amani Trust. Government officials, their sympathisers and unnamed analysts were used to foster this allegation.

The Herald, for example, heavily relying on Foreign Affairs Minister Stan Mudenge and unnamed diplomatic sources, claimed the report had borrowed “the language of Britain and its allies”, and that it was “similar to reports produced by the British-funded Amani Trust, which is well-known for its anti-Zimbabwe stance and falsifying the situation in the country”. Said one unnamed source: “The hand of the British in this matter is evidenced by the leaking of the report to some British media”. ZTV (6/7, 6pm) quoted more “observers” supporting this argument. It also quoted Information Minister Jonathan Moyo lambasting the former Law Society of Zimbabwe President, Sternford Moyo, whom he alleged was “one of the Commission’s sources, who has no integrity”.

Moreover, The Herald passively misinformed the nation that the AU had rejected the commission’s report when, in actual fact, the union had only deferred the publication of the report following Zimbabwe’s claims that it had not been accorded the right of reply.

ZTV, Power FM and Radio Zimbabwe (6/7, 6pm) even distorted this position further by claiming that the AU had dismissed the commission’s report as “inaccurate”.

However, it emerged through the Zimbabwe Independent (9/7) that, contrary to government media’s claims, the AU had not rejected the report but had postponed its release by seven days, within which Zimbabwe said it would have responded. Subsequently, the report would then be finalised and presented to the AU member States. The paper also quoted one of the report’s authors, South African academic Barney Pityana, dismissing government claims that it had not seen the report, saying according to the commission’s practice, its findings are presented to the “relevant African state as soon as they were completed”.

Another SADC delegate corroborated Pityana’s claims saying, “If the Zimbabweans arrived here (Addis Ababa) ignorant of the report, they were the only delegation in that position. We have reason to believe the report reached Harare at least six months ago”.

Studio 7 (9/7) quoted Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum’s Albert Musarurwa dismissing Mudenge’s claims that government was unaware of the existence of the report, as it had been handed over to the Justice Ministry some time in February.

Musarurwa said Mudenge’s apparent bureaucratic delaying tactic merely hinged on the fact “that the document should not have been presented to the Ministry of Justice but instead to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”.

The Herald (9/7) also acknowledged the fact that the report had been sent to Zimbabwe in February this year. But in an effort to downplay this and support Mudenge’s allegation that he had not seen the report, the paper then claimed that the commission had violated protocol by sending the report to the Justice Ministry instead of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It then continued to peddle government’s unfounded conspiracies at the expense of the commission’s findings. The paper quoted Mudenge claiming that a Tunisian delegate, who is a former member of the ACHPR, had told him “in confidence” that the report was not compiled by the commission but by a “certain non-governmental organisation in Harare and one member of the commission pushed for its endorsement”. He did not identify the commissioner or the responsible NGO.

The Sunday Mail (11/7) columnists William Nhara, the faceless Lowani Ndlovu and Tafataona Mahoso joined the attack on ACHPR’s credibility. For example, Ndlovu alleged that the document demonstrated that the AU and the ACHPR have “been infiltrated by spineless running dogs of (neo-colonialists) who are following the footprints of Judas Iscariot in pursuit of 30 pieces of silver”. Nhara agreed: “There is an axis of neo-colonialism permeating the structures of the AU and real Africans like Zimbabwe should stand up and fight”. The validity of the columnists’ views was not tested.

However, MDC spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi was quoted on SW Radio Africa (7/7) saying the government claims that the British had compiled the ACHPR report “was subscribing to the racist view that blacks can’t think or act on their own”.

The Standard (11/7) concurred. It observed: “No sane Zimbabwean would disagree with such general truth so eloquently expressed… It is common knowledge that the Zimbabwe authorities have allowed over the past years human rights to be violated with impunity”.

But the government media’s hypocrisy in handling views that seemingly exposed government’s bad governance was fully underscored by their silence on the UN secretary general Kofi Annan’s strong criticism of intractable rulers, which the Zimbabwe Independent viewed as a “thinly veiled criticism of President Mugabe” and other such rulers. The private weekly quoted Annan saying at the opening of the AU summit; “Let us pledge that the days of indefinite one-man or one party governments are behind us. There is no greater wisdom and no clearer mark of statesmanship than knowing when to pass the torch to a new generation”.

Nevertheless, except for The Financial Gazette (8/7), none of the media fully discussed the underlying implications of the damning ACHPR’s report in relation to the support Zimbabwe has all along been getting from Africa, which has studiously supported Zimbabwe on various international platforms, parrying attempts by the international community to censure it for its alleged rights abuses. The paper quoted analysts observing that the report “signifies a clear break with the continental body’s tradition of unquestioningly accepting Harare’s version of events … ever since the political and economic crisis deepened in 2000”.

But as government continued to dismiss the ACHPR findings on human rights abuses as an invention of its detractors, private radio stations continued to unearth more such cases. For example, SW Radio Africa (5, 6 and 7/7) carried seven stories on rights violations by the ruling ZANU PF and state security agents against government’s perceived enemies. It recorded five incidents.

3. Chaos in the Agricultural sector

CONTRARY to government claims that its controversial agrarian reforms have been a success and a catalyst to the country’s economic turnaround, reports highlighting symptoms of an ailing agricultural sector continued to find space in the media.

Most prominent was the protracted dispute between the newly resettled cotton farmers and the commercial buyers of cotton, particularly the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco), over the producer price of the cash crop, which is now the country’s main foreign currency earner following the demise of the once vibrant tobacco industry.

Cotton buyers were reportedly refusing to budge to the farmers’ demands that they should increase their buying price from $1,800 to $3,000 per kilogramme of cotton.

Although all media reported on the issue, none of them fully gave a cohesive background to the price-row impasse and comprehensively explained its root causes.

ZBC was worse. It chiefly viewed the problem as part of a conspiracy by elements bent on derailing government’s land reforms. ZTV (5/7, 6pm) first hinted at this when it quoted Agriculture Minister Joseph Made as threatening to “intervene” if the cotton farmers and buyers failed to agree on the pricing within seven days. The nature of government’s intervention was however not specified although the station cited “agricultural experts” urging the authorities to investigate the disagreement between the two “since there are elements who (sic) want to reverse the land reform programme”.

And its main bulletin of the same day, ZTV developed this further when it reported analysts as having accused buyers of “of under-invoicing and sabotaging the Land reform programme” although none of the buyers was accorded the right of reply.

In fact, Cottco’s initial refusal to buy cotton from the farmers provided ZBC with a chance to advance its conspiracies on the possible reason behind the pricing impasse. For example, ZTV, Power FM and Radio Zimbabwe (6/7, 8pm) politicised Cottco’s resolution when it quoted unnamed farmers condemning the move as an act of sabotage.

Power FM quoted unnamed farmers describing the action “as nothing short of sabotage” while ZTV cited unnamed observers depicting it “as consistent with organisations playing opposition politics sponsored by the British and Australians in their numerous attempts to discredit the country”.

The Herald (10/7) did not make the situation any better. It strangely argued that the slump in international price for cotton from US 71 cents to about US60 cents per kilogramme was irrelevant as “this is not the true price merchants sell the lint as they get a premium price, which is higher”. The paper seemingly took the side of the farmers saying they had a “strong case for an increased producer price”, adding that “farmers are not greedy in demanding a higher price as buyers have over the years made super profits at their expense”.

The Financial Gazette differed, noting that the fall in international cotton prices was one of the reasons for the stalemate but did not fully explain how that would affect the merchant’s profit margins if they were to cave in to the farmers’ demands.

The Independent quoted Cottco Corporate Communications executive Maria Pangidzwa dismissing the government media’s view that cotton buyers were short-changing farmers. Said Pangidzwa: “Those farmers who are demanding an increase in the producer price of cotton are covering up for their failure to produce maximum quantities on their pieces of land”. MDC’s shadow agriculture minister Renson Gasela was also quoted in the same story blaming government’s “agricultural mismanagement” for the dispute.

In fact, the Gazette reported that government was mulling plans to “forcibly acquire” Cottco, in a move described by the paper’s unnamed sources as “an emotional decision which lacks reasoning and economic basis”. However, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made denied the report.

But as the problems in the cotton industry threatened to cause havoc in the agricultural sector so did the confusion surrounding the illegal invasion of the few remaining productive farms in the country. For example, SW Radio Africa (5/7) and The Standard reported two fresh farm invasions by ZANU PF militia at the instigation of state security agents and top government officials. The invaded properties comprise of a citrus farm in Mkwasine, which exports oranges to Russia and Newton Farm in Wedza, which is reportedly the country’s largest vineyard.

The government ignored these reports.

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]

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