Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Media Update # 2001/38
September 17th to September 23rd, 2001

CONTENTS
1. Summary
2. Abuja & CHOGM
3. Political Violence and Bita Farm deaths
4. Constitutional Court

1. SUMMARY

The week under review witnessed increasingly hysterical attempts
by the state controlled media to convince its audiences that the
government had fulfilled its obligations to the Abuja Accord but that
white farmers and ex-Rhodesian racists resident in Australia were
attempting to bury the agreement by discrediting the government’s
land reforms at the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Brisbane.
In order to reinforce this profoundly warped perspective, the state
media again abandoned all standards of ethical journalism by
attributing the recent deaths of two “settlers” on one commercial
farm in Wedza to the white farm owner who is alleged to have
instructed his farm workers to attack the settlers as they arrived to
occupy allocated plots on the farm.
It is notable that the state media were able to do this by relying on
police statements and the fact that the farmer and 30 of his
workers were brought to court facing charges of murder. They have
not yet been convicted.
Relying on the observation of a government official, the state Press
(17/9) referred to the incident as an attempt to discredit the
government’s land reform programme and linked it to the earlier
death of a settler in Odzi attributed to a white farmer and an alleged
attack on settlers by white farmers in the Chinhoyi area which led
to widespread looting.
The incident provided President Mugabe with the opportunity to
warn white farmers to “stop inciting farm workers to attack
resettled farmers” Zimpapers (22/9).
Thus an impression was created that white farmers were
responsible for the violence on the farms, and The Herald’s editorial
(18/9) confirmed this view: “Reports of fresh farm occupations
are nothing but creations of unrepentant white commercial
farmers bent on rolling back land reforms in Zimbabwe. They
have stage-managed beatings, massive looting and now fresh
farm occupations…. as part of a wider campaign to discredit
the government,” the paper said.
The privately owned Press however, provided readers with
profoundly different perspectives of the events during the week and
their political implications, including reports in two newspapers
(The Financial Gazette 20/9, and The Zimbabwe Mirror 21/9) that
the settlers themselves were responsible for the deaths of their two
colleagues at Bita Farm in Wedza, although the papers’ versions of
how they died differed.

2. ABUJA & CHOGM

In a well orchestrated campaign to promote the government’s
perspective of the Abuja meeting at the expense of all other
interpretation, ZBC and Zimpapers provided extensive coverage of
government officials responding to the ruling party Politburo’s
endorsement of the agreement.
ZTV (17/9 8pm) quoted ZANU (PF)’s secretary for administration,
Emmerson Mnangagwa saying: “We believe that a way has been
found to move forward. We also took cognizance of the fact
that now the British government has come on board to support
land reform in this country.”
The next morning (18/9), Zimpapers’ dailies (The Herald and The
Chronicle), reported that the Politburo had hailed “Britain’s
confirmation of its commitment to make a significant
contribution to a land reform programme and undertaking to
encourage other international donors to do the same….”
The papers also quoted Information Minister Jonathan Moyo,
saying: “The Politburo noted that the next step to move the
Abuja agreement forward is for the donor community, co-
ordinated by the UNDP…to prepare a project proposal for the
purpose of setting up a fund to support Zimbabwe’s land
reform in terms of the Abuja agreement.”
And by merely referring to the conditions relating to Zimbabwe’s
commitment to the agreement as “reaffirming its commitment to
implement the (land reform) exercise according to the
country’s constitution and laws,” the paper gave the impression
that it was now up to the international community to devise a
mechanism for Britain to hand over the funds.
That evening (18/9) on ZTV (8pm) Moyo was again quoted echoing
the comments of Mashonaland East resident Governor, David
Karimanzira, in the previous day’s Herald blaming white
commercial farmers for stage-managing fresh farm occupations and
new incidents of violence.
In the story announcing the death of two settlers on Bita Farm in
Wedza, The Herald (17/9) quoted Karimanzira responding to recent
allegations in the privately owned Press that previous incidents of
violence in his province were a result of clashes between resettled
farmers and local villagers: “These are obvious lies. Commercial
farmers are inciting their workers to stop settlers from being
resettled.”
But the paper never asked for any evidence to support his claims.
On ZTV (18/9) Moyo was quoted contradicting his claim of the
previous week that there had been no new farm invasions: “As far
as allegations of new occupations, yes there have been some,
but these have been isolated. And some of them appear to
have been instigated by pseudo-criminal elements from some
political parties and some working in collusion with some
commercial farmers who are trying to undermine the Abuja
agreement...”
Moyo was not asked to provide evidence for his claims either and
nor were political parties or commercial farmers asked to comment
on them.

The private press, however, highlighted the missing ingredient from
the state media’s interpretation of the Abuja agreement by
explaining that unless and until the government put an end to the
illegal invasion of commercial farms and restored the rule of law,
the agreement was simply a waste of time and paper.
Viewing the accord as “a God-sent opportunity for Mugabe to
tactfully retreat from his most unfortunate ego trip without
appearing to surrender or losing too much face…” an editorial
in The Daily News (22/9) explained that British funding could only
be released once Zimbabwe had fulfilled the conditions in the Abuja
agreement relating to government’s obligations.
In a clear response to Zimpapers’ reportage, The Daily News
dismissed the Politburo’s endorsement of the agreement as a “little
ceremony” meant to buy time and avert the imposition of
sanctions. The editorial endorsed observations originally published
by The Zimbabwe Independent the previous week that President
Mugabe was using the pact as a way of avoiding hostility at
CHOGM. The daily specifically disputed the Politburo’s
expectations that the next step would be for the UNDP to co-
ordinate a project proposal for the hand-over of British funds, saying
that government was first obliged to restore law and order before
Zimbabwe could expect any external support. According to the
paper, this means, “disbanding Joseph Chinotimba’s
paramilitary group of outlaws; ending all farm invasions;
dismantling all “war veterans bases” set up strategically all
over the country; removing all illegal farm occupants;
restoring the police force’s full autonomy; restoring the
independence of the Judiciary; ending the harassment of
journalists and political opponents and restoring Press
freedom.”
Surprisingly however, The Daily News completely ignored a
parliamentary debate on the Abuja accord in which MDC MP
Munyaradzi Gwisai, defied party policy by objecting to the idea of
compensating white farmers, as reported in The Herald (20/9) and
repeated on Saturday (22/9). In its Behind the Words column, The
Zimbabwe Mirror (21/9) did not blame any political party for the
violence, but insisted that war veterans’ representative, Joseph
Chinotimba, should be stopped in his violent actions.

In the week under review, Zimpapers resorted to the extensive use
of anonymous “sources” and “analysts” to manufacture propaganda
about white farmers who had “teamed up” with hundreds of ex-
Rhodie racists resident in Australia to bankroll the MDC’s
delegation to the CHOGM summit with plans to discredit the
government and “rubbish land reform in Zimbabwe”. The paper
provided no evidence to support any of these wild claims.
This first appeared in a front-page story in The Herald (20/9). The
following day, The Herald accused the Australian government of
sponsoring the travel costs of an MDC plan to send youths to
CHOGM to demonstrate against President Mugabe. It stated
without a shred of corroborative evidence that there was bitter
hatred in Australia against Zimbabwe, especially among its Cabinet
ministers, and wrongly estimated the ex-Rhodesian population in
Canberra alone to be between 300 000 and 400 000 and “about
80000” in Brisbane. It made no effort to check these figures and
no comment was sought from the Australian government or any
other identifiable source to lend this nonsense any credibility. So it
was hardly surprising that the state daily was obliged to carry a
sharp rebuke in its letters column the next day (22/9) from the
Australian High Commissioner to Zimbabwe, Jonathan Brown. He
told The Herald’s readers that Australia was only sponsoring two
youths from the Youth Ministry of Zimbabwe for a separate agenda.
And, citing a 1996 census, Brown said the population of the whole
of Canberra was 307 000 and the number of all Zimbabwean-born
people living in Australia was only 8 953.
MMPZ strongly condemns such crude misinformation and the
peddling of lies as fact.

Despite this rebuke however, President Mugabe took the
opportunity provided by the inventions of his own media to attack
the MDC. The Herald (22/9) published the story of the President
insisting that CHOGM was a meeting for Commonwealth heads of
state and ZBC also weighed in with its own coverage of the
President’s remarks. Describing the MDC leadership as ‘mad
men’ ZTV (22/9 7am) also quoted the President as saying,
“...look at them they want to go to Brisbane. As what?
Brisbane is for heads of states and he (MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai) is not a head of state. They are sending the youths
to do what? Of course they have a lot of money to waste…”
ZBC (ZTV, 21/9,8pm) castigated the international media for
reporting new farm invasions and quoted unnamed observers
saying that such reports were meant to discredit the government
ahead of the CHOGM summit. The police and the minister of
Agriculture, Joseph Made, were quoted denying the reports.
However, since Jonathan Moyo had agreed that there had been
isolated new farm invasions (see above ZTV 18/9) these denials
should be dismissed as futile attempts to create the impression
that there had been no new occupations. No comment was sought
from the CFU for corroboration.

But it could be found in The Financial Gazette (20/9), which
reported that violence had intensified on the farms despite the
Abuja agreement. Referring to CFU statistics, the weekly reported
that 20 new farms had been invaded since the signing of the Abuja
agreement and that 570 tobacco farms were currently affected by
work stoppages related to the land issue, resulting in a loss of
US$225 million. The paper also quoted the CFU’s deputy director
Gerry Grant saying:
“There is no change regarding the situation on the farms. In
actual fact, there is increased violence.”

3. POLITICAL VIOLENCE & BITA FARM

The Herald carried 11 reports of political violence in the week, eight
of them about the incident at Bita Farm. By comparison, The Daily
News carried 16 far more diverse reports of political violence,
including an extraordinary attack on senior Harare City Council
employees led by Joseph Chinotimba (18/9).
The Zimbabwe Independent (21/9) carried a harrowing story about
“a campaign of violence against white commercial farmers
(that) continues unabated on undesignated farms…”
Quoting unnamed commercial farmers the paper said “senior
politicians were operating in cahoots with army officers, the
police and CIO officers to spread terror and evict the farmers.”
It reported that CIO officers had settled on properties evacuated by
farmers and attempted to obtain comment from the CIO and the
police without success.

ZBC’s coverage of political violence was constructed in such a way
as to portray white commercial farmers as the perpetrators. The
state broadcaster also used the Bita Farm incident as a new
phenomenon calculated to undermine the Abuja agreement. ZANU
PF officials were widely quoted accusing farmers of instigating
violence to discredit the government in the eyes of the international
community.
In its initial report of the Bita farm incident (ZTV, 17/9, 8pm), ZBC’s
news reader, stated that there was confusion over how the two
settlers had died, with some reports alleging they had been
murdered, while others stated that they had died in an accident.
Any professional broadcaster would have pursued both angles. But
this was not the case at ZBC; the reporter ignored the ‘accident’
angle and emphasized the ‘murder’ angle. A settler, war vets,
Home Affairs Minister, John Nkomo, and police spokesman,
Assist. Comm. Wayne Bvudzijena, were quoted to corroborate
ZBC’s stance.
The incident was only reported on Radio 2/4 the following day
(18/9, 8pm).
One of the settlers (ZTV, 17/9, 8pm) stated that when the settlers
were attacked the police were there. But the police were not asked
why they did not intervene. In the same bulletin Nkomo was
quoted accusing white farmers of perpetrating violence, saying,
“It is an unfortunate development given that we had hoped
that the farmers were now ready to reconcile and of course,
given that we just had the Abuja understanding…and some
farmers still assign themselves that task of being violent”
The farmers were not given the right of reply.
The Herald that day (17/9) only reported that police in Marondera
and Harare had confirmed the attack and merely stated, without
any attribution, that the settlers had been stoned to death in a
stampede after the windscreen of the truck they were in had been
shattered.
MMPZ condemns the publication of such serious allegations
without any corroboration whatsoever.
Bvudzijena was also quoted (ZTV, 20/9, 8pm) accusing commercial
farmers of perpetrating violence, further reinforcing ZANU PF’s
stance without being questioned by the national broadcaster to
provide some evidence for his claims:
“We will like to believe that some of these incidences are
calculated to uphold that notion that there is no rule of law in
the country. We find entrenched positions particularly by the
white farmers whom, in our opinion and from a policing
perspective, would not like to release the land hence create
situations where violence erupts…”
Mugabe went a step further and warned the farmers not to take the
law into their own hands by evicting resettled farmers (all radio and
ZTV, 21/9, 8pm). Implications of such threats were not subjected to
any interrogation by ZBC or Zimpapers, which carried his threats
the next day.
Zimpapers’ first report of the Bita Farm incident (17/9), gratuitously
stated that “The latest attacks on resettled farmers by
commercial farmers fly in the face of both Abuja and SADC
initiatives to see an amicable end to the country’s land crisis.”
The Financial Gazette however, rekindled ZBC’s ‘accident’ angle to
the Bita Farm incident. Quoting the farmer’s son, Peter, the paper
reported that the resettled farmers had been sent to attack his
father. The source also said that those who had died had fallen off
a truck and were crushed to death in a stampede. This theory was
partly supported by evidence in a Zimbabwe Mirror story (21/9),
which quoted guards at the farm as saying that one of the settlers
had been crushed when one of the trucks bringing them had run
him over by accident, while the second was axed to death by a
colleague who had mistaken him for a farm worker. Zimpapers
(21/9) carried an article quoting Minister Moyo denying the
existence of any violence in Zimbabwe, which he described as
“phantom.”

The incident also resulted in the assault of journalists. The Daily
News (18/9) gave front-page prominence to the assault of its news
crew, reportedly by farm invaders, and merely reported the deaths
and injuries at the farm at the end of its story. The paper reported
that the news crew was accused of being sent by the MDC and the
British and that The Daily News was “scuttling” government’s land
reforms. Significantly however, the paper did not report that the
news team had misrepresented themselves as coming from The
Herald.
In an attempt to justify the attack, The Herald picked up the story
the next day, blaming the victims for having invited their assault by
lying about which news organization they belonged to. Quoting
villagers, it was reported that The Daily News journalists had falsely
introduced themselves as Herald reporters. In both reports, the
army presence was referred to without questioning their role in the
land programme.

4. CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

The judiciary returned to the headlines during the week; this time
as a result of the government’s application to have its current fast
track resettlement programme endorsed by the Supreme Court,
sitting as a constitutional tribunal. The story received wide
coverage in the media when it took on controversial proportions
after the CFU’s legal representative, Adrian de Bourbon, had
requested that Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku recuse himself
from hearing the application.
Initially, The Daily News (18/9) reported that Chidyausiku had
sidelined three of the country’s most senior judges who had
opposed the present manifestation of land reform. It also provided
background to the application.
The Daily News (20/9) simply reported the heated exchanges in the
proceedings of the court during which De Bourbon earned the ire of
the Bench when he accused the Chief Justice of being biased in
favour of the government’s present land reforms. He also
questioned why Chidyausiku had not selected the three most
senior judges to hear the application.
But unforgivably, The Daily News (21/9) failed to report the second
day’s proceedings at all; the case simply disappeared from the
paper, except for a rather clumsy comment reminding its readers
that government’s campaign to remove Chidyausiku’s predecessor
had contained racist sentiments.
The Herald (20/9) also carried a detailed report of the first day’s
proceedings under the front-page headline, CFU Application
Dismissed, which also contained Chidyausiku’s assertion that
remarks in the CFU affidavit were “absolute (sic) racist”. And the
state daily continued to follow the proceedings on it front page the
following day.
But earlier, The Herald (19/9) set the tone of the debate before the
hearing had even started when it discovered the CFU’s application.
It quoted unnamed “legal experts” “a senior white judge” and “a
diplomatic source” to construct an argument that the CFU’s efforts
to have the Chief Justice recuse himself was racist and that the
selection of Supreme Court judges and their objectivity were more
open to question before Chidyausiku became Chief Justice.
The Zimbabwe Independent (21/9) however, set the record straight
with an incisive and irrefutable editorial that brought together the
rationale for the violence on the farms, the selective activities of the
police and the bias of the judiciary under the headline, Courts Can
No Longer Uphold Rights. It pointed out that two of the judges
appointed to hear the government’s application “…are listed by
the Ministry of Lands as recipients of leases of land originally
earmarked for peasant resettlement. In other words, they are
beneficiaries of government patronage in a scheme riddled
with controversy.”
“What we have in Zimbabwe now is the appearance of law
without the substance,” the editorial noted and concluded:
“Whether the courts are any longer able to defend the
democratic rights of Zimbabweans remains to be seen. Going
by this week’s proceedings this looks unlikely.”

But while the upper echelons of the judiciary are now clearly mired
in controversy, persistent reports in the privately owned Press in
recent weeks indicate that there are magistrates who are resolutely
standing up to the pressure that is being brought to bear on the
judicial system.
In the week under review, The Daily News (19/9) reported that
Harare magistrate Weston Nyamwanza refused to place on remand
the MDC’s vice-chairman of Mashonaland Central on allegations of
attempting to murder a ZANU PF supporter in Bindura in the run-up
to the by-election there.
The paper reported that the police arrested the man the previous
week despite the fact that Bindura magistrate Munamato
Mutevedzi, had thrown out the State’s request to place him and six
other MDC members on remand in July, facing a lesser charge of
public violence over the same incident.
Nyamwanza was reported as accusing the police of treating the
judicial system as a “shopping forum for magistrates”.
The incident related to an attack on MDC president Morgan
Tsvangirai’s convoy in Bindura, which the state media originally
described as an MDC attack on a ZANU PF base in the
constituency.
The story follows an earlier report in The Zimbabwe Independent
(14/9) of the previous week of a Bulawayo magistrate accusing
senior police officers in Matabeleland of “panel-beating” a case in
order to prosecute three MDC security officers who were arrested
and detained on the eve of the Bulawayo mayoral election on
charges of illegally possessing weapons, described by the police
as “arms of war”. Despite evidence submitted to the court that the
MDC had provided licences for the weapons to the police at the
time, the state media reported that the police had found “massive
arms caches” at the homes of the accused. The paper reported
provincial magistrate, John Masimba, as saying: “Actually, there
was a lot of panel-beating in this case in a bid to enable the
state to prosecute the accused. Most of the evidence in this
case is incoherent…I do not see any reason why this court
should not grant bail to the three accused because, according
to the evidence…this case is not as serious as the police want
it to appear.”
The state media has made no effort to report these cases to
correct the impressions it first gave its audiences at the time the
incidents occurred. MMPZ condemns the complicity of the police
in its biased and selective conduct and the state media for
perpetuating these unbalanced and shameful efforts by the police
to subvert justice.
Ends

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