The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe

Monday November 29th – Sunday December 5th 2004

Weekly Media Update 2004-48

CONTENTS

1. GENERAL COMMENT

2. ZANU PF AFFAIRS
3. RIGHTS ABUSES AND THE LAW

1. General Comment

DESPITE the existence of several pieces of repressive legislation curtailing the citizenry’s basic rights, The Standard (28/11) revealed the extent to which yet another Draconian Bill will erode freedom of expression.

The paper reported that the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Bill proposes a fine of $5 million or a jail sentence of up to 20 years for “anyone who publishes or communicates to another statements that are perceived to be prejudicial to the State”.

The proposed law, the paper noted, “will make it extremely difficult for journalists to operate and will certainly be the most repressive piece of legislation in Zimbabwe’s Statute books”.

The Financial Gazette (2/12) and The Daily Mirror (3/12) echoed similar views in their follow-up reports on the matter. What none of the media reported however, was that the relevant section of the Bill is intended to replace similar sections contained in the Public Order and Security Act but which do not contain the same terrifyingly punitive penalties.

But while the private media at least informed the public of this unprecedented plan to silence all criticism of the presidency, the uniformed forces and State interests, the government media conveniently suffocated the whole issue.

In fact, their failure to expose the promulgation of such aggressively self-serving repressive legislation under the guise of upholding the rule of law and defending the country’s sovereignty, resulted in the official media allowing Information Minister Jonathan Moyo to defend AIPPA and the Broadcasting Services Act unchallenged.

For instance, ZTV and Power FM (1/12, 8pm) passively quoted Moyo as having said AIPPA was “meant to protect the sovereignty of the country from mischievous people intending to use local media as a tool for regime change”.

Without questioning this claim, the stations then quoted Moyo trying to give the patently authoritarian piece of legislation a democratic face by saying that in any democracy journalists who publish falsehoods are punished “in terms of the law (that) is permissible by the Constitution” and that was “the basis of AIPPA”.

The Herald (2/12) carried a similar report.

And like its broadcasting counterpart, it allowed Moyo to mislead the public into believing that AIPPA had sailed smoothly through Parliament.

These media conveniently failed to remind their audiences of the stormy circumstances leading to the enactment of the law, which the Parliamentary Legal Committee had originally found to be so profoundly unconstitutional.

Such docile coverage by the official media of this systematic erosion of citizens’ constitutional rights further affirms them as government lapdogs that cannot be relied upon to provide accurate information.

In fact, their failure to expose government’s disdain for constitutionally guaranteed freedoms establishes them firmly as accomplices of the authorities in the curtailment of these rights.

2. ZANU PF Affairs

NOTHING clearly illustrates the extent to which the government media have unashamedly become willing tools of ZANU PF propaganda more than the manner in which they handled the just-ended ruling party’s National Congress.

These media swamped their audiences with uncritical stories and programmes on the party’s Congress at the expense of other important news stories.

For example, of the two hours and 37 minutes ZTV allocated to its 8pm bulletins (excluding arts, business, weather and sport segments) during the week, nearly half of it (48 percent) was devoted to the Congress. Similarly, Radio Zimbabwe carried 12 Congress reports or 40 percent of the total news items that featured in its 8pm bulletins of the week. In addition, Radio Zimbabwe, Spot FM and ZTV broadcast live three days of the four-day event and even changed their evening programming to allow for repeats of proceedings at the Congress.

Further, ZTV’s current affairs programmes, such as Behind The Camera (1/12, 9.30pm) and Face the Nation (2/12, 9.30pm), were on the Congress.

The trend was similar in the government Press, which carried 54 reports on the event.

But this unparalleled allocation of space to ZANU PF, did not translate into a critical analysis of the power struggles that preceded the Congress.

Rather, most of their stories simply glossed over the matter and portrayed the ruling party as a highly successful democratic and united institution, which, contrary to its Western detractors, still commanded respect in Asia, Africa and even in Europe and America.

The endorsement of Water Resources Minister Joyce Mujuru as the party’s vice-president and the presence at the Congress of representatives from 21 foreign political parties and movements, particularly Mozambique’s out-going President Joaquim Chissano, were used to buttress this argument.

As a result, the in-house squabbles that resulted in a six-month suspension of the party’s six provincial chairpersons and a strong rebuke for Information Minister Jonathan Moyo were not fully explored.

For example, out of the 54 stories the government Press devoted to the Congress and related matters, only five tried to unravel the exact causes of the dispute.

But even then, the stories largely sought to defend Moyo, the alleged architect of the purported “Tsholotsho Declaration” whose covert objective was reportedly aimed at removing the party leadership, except President Mugabe.

However, the private media were more exploratory.

They belied the government media’s portrayal of a united ZANU PF by examining the fissures created by the ‘Tsholotsho Declaration’, which besides implicating Moyo and the provincial chairpersons, also sucked in War Vets leaders Jabulani Sibanda and Joseph Chinotimba, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa, and several chiefs, among other senior ZANU PF officials.

Nonetheless, the private media’s coverage was compromised by their fixation with discussing the punishment ZANU PF was likely to impose on Moyo almost to the exclusion of some of those who had supposedly connived with the minister in the matter. For instance, of the 45 stories the private media carried on the Congress, 28 were on Moyo. Thus, the fates or involvement of such people as Mnangagwa, Chinamasa or Chinotimba were surprisingly not adequately addressed.

Early in the week, The Daily Mirror (30/11) correctly predicted that ZANU PF would take action against its “unscrupulous members” bent on “prising apart” what is left of the party’s “fragile unity in the face of a stiff challenge from the opposition MDC”.

According to unnamed insiders quoted by the paper, the first phase of the punishment would entail barring the accused from attending Congress through suspension or even expulsion from the party followed by decisive action chiefly against Moyo, the alleged “architect of the unsanctioned indaba”.

Subsequently, the paper (1/12), The Financial Gazette (2/12), Zimbabwe Independent (3/12), The Standard and Sunday Mirror (5/12), Studio 7 (1-5/12) and SW Radio Africa (1-3/12) all approvingly reported on Moyo’s pending disciplinary action, especially after the ZANU PF leadership had chastised him for his role in the Tsholotsho meeting, including dropping him from the party’s Central Committee despite the fact that he had earlier been elected into the committee by Matabeleland North province.

In contrast, the government media tried to obfuscate the extent of the divisions within ZANU PF by either giving them scant attention or downplaying their importance by deliberately starving these reports of their proper backgrounds. Their professional deficiencies manifested themselves in Radio Zimbabwe, Power FM (1/12, 6am) and ZTV (1/12, 8pm) trying to hide the identity of other Politburo members who were also questioned by the party’s leadership about their involvement in the Tsholotsho meeting. The stations merely reported that ZANU PF’s supreme decision-making body had also called on “two Politburo members…to explain themselves” without revealing their identity.

Such dishonesty was also apparent in the official media’s coverage of the election of the ruling party’s new Central Committee members. Radio Zimbabwe and ZTV (5/12, 8pm), The Sunday Mail and Sunday News (5/12) merely announced Moyo’s exclusion from the Central Committee and conveniently failed to link it to the Tsholotsho adventure, as did The Standard, The Sunday Mirror and Studio 7 (5/12).

Neither did the official media put into context what President Mugabe meant when he warned his supporters against behaving like “political prostitutes” whose hearts and souls could be bought by money when he officially closed the Congress.

In fact, such passive journalism was earlier demonstrated by The Herald and Chronicle (29/11, 30/11 and 1/12). On the eve of the suspension of the six ZANU PF provincial chairpersons both The Herald and Chronicle (30/11) unquestioningly carried attempts by Transport and Communications Minister Christopher Mushowe and Tsholotsho’s Ward 15 councillor, Memeza Mtombeni, respectively to exonerate Moyo of having convened the Tsholotsho “prize-giving” ceremony by arguing that the meeting was actually a local community initiative with no “sinister motive”.

This contradicted the confession by Matabeleland South governor, Angeline Masuku, whom The Daily Mirror (30/11) reported as telling President Mugabe: “Your excellency, we are fully behind the nomination of Joyce Mujuru, Joseph Msika and yourself as the party’s presidium. This is the original list that the province had proposed but was later changed by the comrades who attended the Tsholotsho meeting. The people…have confessed that they erred and that money exchanged hands.”

Despite this, the next issue of the Chronicle (1/12) was extraordinary for its presentation of three stories covering the whole of its front page emanating from a document purportedly “leaked” to the paper that Moyo had used the previous day to defend himself before the ZANU PF Politburo meeting over the Tsholotsho saga.

Most extraordinary of all was the fact that none of this defence, which the paper carried without challenge, appeared in the Zimpapers’ national daily flagship, The Herald.

So supine was the Chronicle’s coverage of the document that it did not even ask why Moyo and his colleagues were so desperate to attend a “prize-giving day” at a nondescript rural secondary school that they chartered a plane for the purpose.

The Sunday Mirror columnists, The Scrutator and Behind the Words, were the only ones that offered possible answers to the puzzle, while SW Radio Africa (3/12) and The Saturday Mirror (4/12) reported that Secretary for Information George Charamba had censured the paper’s editor, Stephen Ndlovu, over his paper’s unprecedented attempt to exonerate Moyo from the so-called ‘Tsholotsho Declaration’.

Not surprisingly, the government media ignored the issue.

Instead, they continued to drown such matters, with glowing coverage of ZANU PF, whose policies they claimed were “people-centred” and had resuscitated the country’s ailing economy.

3. Rights abuses and the law

THE country’s dismal human rights record continued to attract media attention with the private media reporting that government intended to enact more legislation that will further erode the remnants of whatever rights Zimbabweans still attempted to exercise under the country’s Constitution.

The Financial Gazette (2/12) and The Daily Mirror (3/12) followed up on an earlier Standard (28/11) report revealing that the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Bill proposes punishment of up to 20 years imprisonment for anyone communicating statements perceived to be prejudicial to the State.

The papers quoted independent analysts describing the Bill as unconstitutional saying it amounted to the consolidation of repressive laws that are inconsistent with democratic principles. This tallied with earlier but generally inadequate coverage of the Parliamentary Legal Committee’s findings that the proposed legislation contained several provisions that violated the constitution.

The Daily Mirror quoted lawyer Sternford Moyo saying the Bill contained certain “aspects of the Rhodesian era Law and Order Maintenance Act and the South African apartheid era Internal Security Act of 1982”.

University of Zimbabwe political scientist Eldred Masunungure and human rights lawyer Brian Kagoro agreed.

Masunungure told the Gazette that the Bill was part of government’s “grand scheme or total strategy to strangulate the media or those still expressing views contrary to those of government or the ruling party,” while Kagoro told the same paper that the aim of the legislation was to outlaw Zimbabweans from criticising the State.

Said Kagoro: “It’s probably worse than AIPPA. The State itself is not infallible, so as such it is bound to make mistakes. The safeguard of every citizen is to be a critic of the State.”

Once again, the government media ignored this issue.

Besides exposing the erosion of the citizenry’s rights through the promulgation of patently unconstitutional laws, the private media also highlighted the continued harassment of opposition supporters by ZANU PF activists and the authorities’ politicisation of food aid.

These media carried about 22 stories on these issues.

In one of the stories, SW Radio Africa (01/12) reported that two MDC officials from Buhera South in Manicaland Province had been arrested for convening a rally where slogans denouncing President Mugabe were allegedly made. However, no police comment was sought to balance the report, which solely relied on the MDC provincial spokesperson Pishayi Muchauraya.

More evidence of intolerance of the opposition in Manicaland appeared in The Standard (5/12). The paper reported on the alleged “brutal attack” on four MDC activists in the province by a group of war veterans, who accused them of being “saboteurs”.

Muchauraya was quoted saying the assault was part of a “purging exercise” that ZANU PF had started in the area ahead of next year’s general election.

However, police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka told the paper that he was not aware of the violence report although the paper cited the MDC as saying the matter had been reported at Chipfatsura Police Station, which took no action against the suspects.

The paper also reported on the brief hold-up of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai by immigration officials at the Harare International Airport on his return from overseas.

Meanwhile, SW Radio Africa (30/11) and Studio 7 (2/12) reported that a delegation of civic organisations from Zimbabwe had made submissions to the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights in Dakar on the continued rights violations in the country and had petitioned the Commission to release it’s report on Zimbabwe’s human rights record.

Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa (2/12) also reported that the International Crisis Group had released a report noting that the situation in Zimbabwe continued to deteriorate.

The ICG noted that there was still widespread abuse of human rights in the country, including political repression and the politicization of food aid.

SW Radio Africa (2/12) quoted ICG South Africa director Peter Kagwanja saying: “We are saying that we have to mount pressure on the Zanu PF government to institute electoral reforms. We are arguing that if electoral reforms are put in place without political reforms then elections will not be free and fair.”

Typically, the government media ignored such 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] [2]

Feel free to write to MMPZ. We may not able to respond to everything but we will look at each message. For previous MMPZ reports, and more information about the Project, please visit our website at http://www.mmpz.org.zw [3]