Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday June 23rd - Sunday June 29th 2003
Weekly update 2003-25

CONTENTS:

1. GENERAL COMMENT: LIBERALIZATION OR FRAUD?
2. CRIMINALIZING THE NATION
3. TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT OR SNAP POLL?
4. TREASON TRIAL EVIDENCE MANIPULATED

1. General comment: liberalization or fraud?

THIS week saw the rekindling of hopes that new players would be allowed to enter the broadcasting arena before the end of the year. The Chronicle (26/06) story “Airwaves to be opened soon” quoted Information Minister Jonathan Moyo alluding to this. Administrative policies and technical instruments for licensing new players would be put in place before the end of this month (July), the minister said.
MMPZ notes that this announcement comes nearly three years after the Supreme Court struck down ZBC’s monopoly of the airwaves. This delay brings into question Government’s commitment to allow new players into the broadcasting arena. Despite many calls by civic organisations for Government to revisit the Broadcasting Services Act to bring it into line with international norms and standards on freedom of expression, this has not happened.

Meanwhile, The Zimbabwe Independent (27/6) carried a disturbing report which suggested that ZBC would transfer two radio stations to Government‘s New Ziana. However, the media have not given a clear outline of the New Ziana project and its relationship to other government-controlled media institutions since the dissolution of the Mass Media Trust and the subsequent formation of the Multi-Media Investment Trust. If New Ziana were to become another national “free-to-air” broadcaster, it will leave no room for alternative opinion since it is a requirement of the Broadcasting Services Act that there can only be one other national broadcaster besides ZBC. MMPZ cautions that such a move would be an abuse of the “legally available” frequency spectrum. The current broadcasting legislation however, undermines any hope for an alternative independent broadcasting station. The Act allows political interference in the operations of broadcasters in the form of a government minister who is the final licensing authority. The airwaves belong to all Zimbabweans and should be administered in a non-partisan and transparent way that is geared towards fulfilling the information needs of all, including rural communities.

2. Criminalizing the nation

LACK of detail marred media coverage of a government proclamation outlawing motorists from carrying fuel in containers in a bid to uproot a thriving black market in the commodity. The Press carried 19 stories on fuel-related issues, 11 of which appeared in the government-controlled Press and the rest in the private Press.
The ban on fuel containers closely follows another government pronouncement also curbing the liberties of economically stressed out Zimbabweans by making it a crime for individuals to move around with large sums of money as officials battle to arrest a severe shortage of cash. Only comments in The Daily News (25/6), The Herald and The Business Tribune (26/6) probed government on why it was criminalizing motorists over issues arising from its own mismanagement of the economy, and none examined the source of the black market and the question of whether it was better to have expensive fuel or none at all. The Daily News even failed to report the government’s announcement and its only other contribution to the new fuel regulations debate was an uninformative front page picture caption (26/6) of motorists filling a car from a container.

The government-controlled media performed little better. Although they carried stories reflecting “mixed reactions” to the ban at street level, there was little interpretation of official pronouncements on the matter. For example, The Herald, (24/6 & 27/6); Chronicle (24/6 & 26/6) and ZBC (ZTV, 24/06, 8pm & 3FM, 25/06, 6am) largely restricted themselves to the Energy Ministry’s announcements of the ban on fuel in containers unless motorists first obtained government permission. Even the reports by ZBC (ZTV, 24/06, 8pm & 3FM, 25/06, 6am) and The Herald (25/6) that government had introduced a coupon system for all public transport vehicles “in a move aimed at reducing excessive leakage of fuel on the black market” were mere government announcements. There was no explanation how the latest government regulation would be implemented. Instead, ZTV (25/06, 6pm & 8pm) quoted Energy Minister, Amos Midzi, revealing how confused the government was on the issue. He was quoted as saying, “The public can … carry fuel as long as that fuel is not for sale and that this fuel has been obtained legally and bought from licensed premises. … We have no problems in people ferrying fuel for purposes of doing that.”
ZTV did not make any attempt to question how government would differentiate between fuel for sale and that for personal use. And a follow-up statement from Deputy Energy Minister Reuben Marumahoko published in the Chronicle (26/6) and The Herald (27/6) “clarifying Press reports” did not do this. It only announced the exemption, from the fuel ban, of individuals or visitors “bringing fuel into Zimbabwe for own use”.

However, The Herald and the Chronicle (24/6) did manage to fuse Marumahoko’s announcement to the reactions from motorists, most of whom voiced reservations about the policy and urged government to stop resorting to stop-gap measures. Similar reservations were recorded in stories published by The Business Tribune (26/6) and The Daily News on Sunday (29/6). The Business Tribune, for example, quoted Zimbabwe Rural Transport Organisation President Ben Mucheche dismissing the move as impractical. Manicaland President of the Affirmative Action Group, Isau Mupfumi, was also quoted in The Daily News on Sunday urging government to revise the regulations urgently.

Meanwhile, the government-controlled media tried to give the impression that President Mugabe’s trip to Libya would soon bring the fuel shortage to an end. For example, The Herald (25/6) quoted Midzi promising that, “fuel supplies would improve at the end of this month following a deal struck with Libya oil suppliers”. That same evening, ZBC (25/06, 8pm) quoted Midzi as having said Mugabe’s visit “ will further strengthen the agreement signed between NOCZIM (National Oil Company of Zimbabwe) and Tamoil”.
However, Studio 7 (26/06) was not so sure. It quoted social scientist Elphas Mukonoweshuro as saying, “unless and until the fundamental cause, which is a crisis of governance, is resolved, I don’t see any possibility of either a general economic turn-around or specifically, fuel coming into the country”. The Zimbabwe Independent (27/6) also cautioned that President Mugabe and his delegation “was likely to return from Libya empty handed unless he mortgages what his government has classified as ‘strategic assets’ as part of the deal”. Notably, the success of Mugabe’s trip became a bone of contention between ZBC (ZTV & 3FM, 27/06, 8pm; Radio Zimbabwe, 28/06, 6am) and the Chronicle (28/6) on one hand, and The Standard (29/6) on the other. Whereas ZBC and Chronicle said Libya and Zimbabwe had signed a “bilateral agreement” that would resume fuel supplies to the country “soon”, The Standard claimed that Mugabe returned home “without any clear indication that he has won a deal to resume crucial Libyan fuel supplies”.

Perhaps Deputy Finance Minister Chris Kuruneri’s admission to business leaders that government was governing through “guesswork” (The Daily News, 27/6) most aptly described government’s impulsive policy decisions such as the new fuel regulations. The paper quoted him: “Some of the policies that we implement are contradictory… Everything that we as government have been doing is that in many ways we have thrown shots in the dark… We don’t have a module for our economy….” The Zimbabwe Independent story, Government muddles through economic policy vacuum, recorded similar views from economic analysts.

3. Transitional government or snap poll?

LOCAL and international pressure for Zimbabwe to set up a transitional government that would pave the way for a fresh presidential poll stubbornly resurfaced during the week. The demands were made ahead of a scheduled trip to five African states by US President George Bush.
Setting the tone for Bush’s agenda on Zimbabwe, Secretary for State Colin Powell reportedly promised an unspecified US economic rescue package as an incentive for the ruling ZANU PF and the opposition MDC to embark on a peaceful resolution to the Zimbabwe crisis. This latest US call for a transitional government stirred up a hornet’s nest within the government-controlled media, which responded with a barrage of criticism, accusing the Bush administration of plotting to “topple a legitimately elected” president.

In fact, out of the 30 stories the government-controlled Press carried on the US calls for a transitional government and related issues, 19 of them directly condemned the Bush administration for its interference in the affairs of sovereign states. The rest comprised public relations stories on the good relations between Zimbabwe and its neighbours or vitriolic attacks on the MDC and other perceived local and regional opponents of government. So emotional was the government-controlled media’s response to Powell’s calls for a speedy resolution to the Zimbabwe crisis that some of its stories descended to the level of crude racial slurs. For example, The Herald (26/6) ran a story headlined, Powell a House Negro. It also carried a front-page story in the same issue in which Information Minister Jonathan Moyo described Powell as “an ordinary liar” and “crude international outlaw”. 3FM (26/06, 1pm) also carried the same response by Moyo.
The hate speech was not restricted to attacking Powell alone. An unnamed correspondent in The Herald (27/6) equated MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai to international fugitive, Osama Bin Laden, describing Tsvangirai as “a terrorist who is supposed to be shot on sight” for the “terrorism” he has “inflicted on Zimbabwe”.

The private media was less emotional. For example, in the 35 stories the private Press carried, they generally bemoaned the fact that the Zimbabwean crisis had been allowed to deteriorate unchecked, (The Daily News, 24/6, 26/6 and 27/6). The Daily News (25/6) headline, Zimbabwe tops Bush’s agenda, as compared to the Chronicle’s (25/6) US announces plans to oust Zimbabwean government, summed up the contrasting perspectives the private and government-controlled media attached to the US calls for a transitional government in Zimbabwe. In fact, the Chronicle deliberately doctored Powell’s calls for ZANU PF and the MDC to “legislate constitutional changes to allow for a transition” by paraphrasing it to mean that “Cde Mugabe should be overthrown so that a transitional government is put in place”. Similarly, ZTV (25/06, 8pm) distorted Powell’s remarks and alleged that he “admits” that the US government “is working with the opposition with a view to toppling President Robert Mugabe and his government”. The Herald (26/06) echoed this distortion in its sub-headline, Powell calls for coup.
There was no such misrepresentation in The Daily News (25/6), which also quoted Powell’s article on the Zimbabwe crisis, first published in the New York Times. Actually, a reproduction of Powell’s article by The Herald, Daily News (26/6), and The Zimbabwe Independent (27/6) showed that the US Secretary for State never referred to the term “overthrow”.

While the government-controlled media tried to further dismiss Powell’s remarks by giving the impression that African leaders supported Zimbabwe’s leadership, Studio 7 (26/06) revealed otherwise. It quoted Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, who agreed with Powell “that there is need to bring pressure on President Mugabe to change his ways” but expressed reservations about how this could be done. “My view is that when you condemn openly, the person you are condemning is going to put up a defensive stance”, said Mwanawasa.

The private Press speculated that Mugabe’s recent call for an early campaign for the 2005 parliamentary polls during his tour of rural areas could have been a signal that he might call for a snap election. The Financial Gazette (26/6) reported that Mugabe was unlikely to give up power until he had helped his party regain ground lost during the 2000 parliamentary elections, while The Zimbabwe Independent felt that he intends to amend the constitution and hold both presidential and parliamentary elections concurrently in 2005. This speculation was fuelled by Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa’s announcement on ZTV (26/6, 8pm) that “government will soon embark on a massive voter registration campaign countrywide to capture the movement of people that came about as a result of the agrarian reform” in preparation for 2005 elections. However, ZTV did not carry any independent investigation on why Mugabe and his government were preparing for an election so ardently when it is still two years away.
Instead, the government-controlled Press persisted with its passionate dismissal of a transitional government while continuing to feature the comments of senior ZANU PF officials on the issue of Mugabe’s succession (The Herald, 28/6). For example, The Sunday News (29/6) claimed that ZANU PF’s succession debate was “stealing thunder from opposition and is likely to render presidential aspirants such as Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC irrelevant if managed properly by the ruling party”. However, as the transitional plot thickened no newspaper explored whether ZANU PF’s sudden talk of a government of national unity and Mugabe’s succession was a calculated move to circumvent calls for an internationally-supervised return to democracy. According to MMPZ’s understanding, there is no constitutional restriction preventing Mugabe from calling an early parliamentary election.

4. Treason trial evidence manipulated

THE treason trial of the MDC leader and two other senior party members on allegations of plotting to assassinate President Mugabe yet again demonstrated the difference between a media dedicated to defending government interests at the expense of the facts and a media attempting to record those facts according to their relevance.
Although both sections of the Press each carried 12 stories on the same court proceedings, there was a stark contrast to their coverage. The government-controlled Press attempted to highlight the alleged strengths in the State’s case while the opposite was true of the private Press. The following headlines make classical examples. ‘MDC offered me $10m’, (The Herald, 25/6) & Tsvangirai accused of enticing Air Marshal Shiri, (Chronicle, 25/6), versus Shiri’s testimony contradicts Ben-Menashe, (The Daily News, 25/6). Tsvangirai video tape not doctored, expert tells court, (The Herald, 26/6) & Video tape on Tsvangirai genuine: expert, (the Chronicle, 26/6) versus Ben-Menashe’s tape inaudible, valueless – State transcriber, (The Daily News, 26/6). In both the examples, the relevant facts were the contradictory nature of a state witness’s evidence and the inaudible nature of the tape. The fact that Shiri had been offered money and that the tape was genuine were not a source of dispute.
The electronic media was equally divided. For example, while Studio 7 (24/06) quoted Air Marshal Shiri as having testified that “the MDC offered him $10 million to pacify the army in the event of Zanu PF losing the presidential election”, ZTV (25/06, 7am) grossly distorted this fact by claiming that Shiri had said the MDC had offered him money “in an attempt to secure his backing for an unconstitutional seizure of power”. This blatant misrepresentation of court evidence should be of concern to those responsible for the administration of justice, let alone the Media and Information Commission whose partisan nature is already well known.
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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