1. GENERAL COMMENT
2. MAYOR MUDZURI’S SUSPENSION
3. THE SUCCESSION DEBATE
4. MAY DAY SHAME

1. Now scrap this law!

THE Media Monitoring Project welcomes the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down clauses in the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) that criminalized the publication of falsehoods as unconstitutional. This indeed, represents a measure of success for those fighting to protect Zimbabweans’ gravely threatened rights to freedom of expression and opinion.
However, it is likely to be short-lived. AIPPA contains many other repressive clauses that are unlikely to survive a test of constitutional scrutiny and while some of these are being challenged by media organizations, government already has tabled amendments to the Act, including those sections that have just been struck down, which will reverse the gains of this court action, assuming they are passed by Parliament.

Mediating Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo were led to believe these amendments would reform what was widely acknowledged to be a crudely crafted law designed to muzzle the independent media. Far from it. The amendments actually intensify the repressive nature of this reprehensible piece of legislation. While they do now qualify the criminal publication of falsehoods, adding intent, malice and recklessness as the test of their criminality, these conditions remain vague and ill-defined and almost certainly will need to be tested again for their unconstitutional nature. The amendments also include sections that give unprecedented powers to the Media and Information Commission, set up to enforce the Act, that allows it to act as a court of law in its own right and negates any efforts by those appealing against its decisions from seeking recourse to justice through the judicial system. This blatant attempt to subvert the administration of justice is so extreme it is unlikely to survive Parliamentary debate when the amendments are presented to the House.

Government hailed the Supreme Court’s ruling, describing it as proof that Zimbabwe was “a functional democracy under the rule of law”.
MMPZ believes however, that such a blatantly unconstitutional law should never have been presented to Parliament in the first place and that those who drafted it were well aware of its assault on Zimbabweans’ constitutional liberties. Creating these laws and forcing them through Parliament against the advice of its own legal portfolio committee does not suggest a functional democracy; rather, it demonstrates the cynical nature of a government intent on circumventing the law at any cost. MMPZ appeals to all legislators to revisit this dysfunctional Act when its amendments are debated in the House and throw it out in its entirety. Beyond its unconstitutional and anti-democratic restriction on the practice of journalism and access to information, this Act and its amendments represent an attempt to circumvent the administration of justice, which surely, even those in the ruling party would not wish to see.

THE Supreme Court’s ruling came in the week following the commemoration of the United Nations’ World Press Freedom Day on May 3rd. In Zimbabwe speakers from throughout the country’s media fraternity denounced AIPPA and other laws restricting civil liberties at an event celebrating the occasion in Harare. The privately owned media all carried stories commemorating the occasion, and commenting on the quality of the media. The Daily News (3/5) quoted the Media Institute of Southern Africa reporting that Zimbabwe led the region in media freedom abuses and the harassment of journalists; 63 independent media workers had been arrested since March 2002 providing clear evidence of a government “crackdown” against the independent media. It is also a fact (not reported) that there has not been a single successful prosecution arising from these arrests. The author of the Behind the Words column in The Sunday Mirror (4/5) noted MISA’s comments and suggested that AIPPA be scrapped. Reports of the event itself however, particularly the messages from the journalists’ organizations, the UN and UNESCO’s comments, were somewhat thin.

The government-controlled media ignored the event altogether. Instead, The Sunday Mail and its Sunday News sister carried a long vitriolic conspiracy article from the Department of Information’s permanent secretary, George Charamba, accusing the privately owned media of being “puppets” of Western imperialist interests. “Responsible public policy…must protect the nation against this very grave threat to our independence and sovereignty (which is) often pushed and disguised as Press freedom,” said Charamba, presumably in defence of AIPPA and other offensive laws restricting constitutional liberties. The article also contained vituperative, personalized attacks on individuals within the local media community. MMPZ condemns this divisive attempt to vilify and isolate sections of Zimbabwe’s media community. If nothing else however, the commentary was instructive of the extreme levels of paranoia now afflicting government.

2. Mayor Mudzuri’s suspension

THE fierce political rivalry that has dogged relations between the government and the opposition MDC-run Harare City Council assumed a more disturbing dimension with the sudden suspension of the city’s executive mayor, Elias Mudzuri, by Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo “on various allegations of misconduct”. This development elicited interest in the Press, which carried 32 stories on the matter. The private Press carried 19 stories and the public Press published the rest.
But this interest was not reflected in the electronic media. ZTV broke the news as a late breaking item at the end of its 8pm bulletin (29/4) and radio carried the development in their late evening news summaries the same evening. The story appeared in their morning bulletins too, but thereafter ZBC made no attempt to follow up the event for their main evening bulletins. No independent sources were accessed and neither did they attempt to clarify the vague nature of Chombo’s allegations who was quoted in the morning saying Mudzuri had been suspended for his “failure…to deliver and publicize the strategic turn-around plan for the city (and) his arbitrary suspension and dismissal of both key management staff and other personnel…without a definitive human resources audit…” (Radio Zimbabwe 6am 30/4).

SW Radio Africa (30/4) however, included comments from the Combined Harare Residents’ Association (CHRA) castigating Mudzuri’s suspension as “an unfounded political ploy” and quoted its acting chairman, Mike Davies, declaring it to be “ a gross interference in the affairs of the city which have nothing to do with central government.” The station followed this up the next day (1/5) reporting councillors saying they would not recognize the suspension. Notably however, SW Radio Africa carried no comment from Mudzuri himself.

Predictably, the public and private media differed in their interpretation of his suspension. The public media echoed Chombo’s portrayal of Mudzuri as an incompetent, arrogant official who had failed the city’s residents due to his sense of self-importance, while the private Press saw him as a victim of ZANU PF’s vindictive resentment of MDC’s grip on the capital.
Typical of the government controlled Press’ perspective of the mayor was the story Mudzuri’s myriad shortcomings, in The Herald (1/5), which revisited a number of issues that has plagued the council in the past year but presented them in such a biased fashion in support of Chombo’s allegations that the same issue of the paper was able to adopt a summary of the story and present it as opinion. Peddling such unsubstantiated allegations as fact and presenting them as news severely misrepresented the true context of those claims and misinformed the public.

In suspending Mudzuri, the minister cited – among other reasons – the mayor’s “higher level of arrogance, distortion and misconduct” that had resulted in the arbitrary suspension and dismissal of staff, abuse of authority, mismanagement of public finances and manipulation of council procedures, reported in all four dailies (30/4). But The Daily News and The Financial Gazette (1/5) were more inquisitive as illustrated by their reports that sought to provide additional opinion to the official view provided in the public media. For example, The Daily News’ story, Mudzuri ouster angers residents, (1/5) deviated from Press release journalism by sourcing comments from ordinary Harare residents, including the vice-mayor of Harare’s twin city of Munich in Germany, Hep Monatzeder. Those recorded all voiced their disapproval of Mudzuri’s suspension.

Monatzeder aptly summed up the sentiments of the residents accessed when he was quoted as saying the mayor’s suspension was hardly justified “in our eyes” since they had known Mudzuri as a “highly qualified, responsible and engaged partner who is working hard to turn around the situation in Harare”, which had been previously mismanaged. Said Monatzeder: “The decision to suspend the mayor on the grounds of general and unproven allegations is contrary to our understanding of basic democratic principles...”

The Daily News (1/5) also solicited comment from various quarters of civil society, including CHRA, who all condemned Chombo’s decision. So did The Financial Gazette (1/5), which quoted CHRA’s Davies echoing the sentiments of many residents accessed in the private media: “the problems facing the city are a legacy of mismanagement by a ZANU PF council and a government appointed commission…” The Daily News’ perception of Mudzuri’s removal as political was underlined in its editorial, Mudzuri’s suspension a case of sour grapes (1/5), where it argued that it symbolized “the political animosity between ZANU PF and MDC”. Surprisingly however, none of the media compared the plight of Harare’s service delivery with other struggling councils around the country or investigated the impending collapse of all their service delivery operations, which according to reports, appear to reflect the growing intensity of the country’s foreign currency crisis emanating from central government itself.

The public media also tried to downplay the crisis caused by Mudzuri’s removal by implying that deputy mayor Sekai Makwavarara had already “…assumed the role of acting mayor…” (The Herald, 1/5). Only readers of The Financial Gazette (1/5) learnt that contrary to The Herald’s insinuations, Makwavarara had not accepted her appointment. She told the paper that such a decision would only be made during a full council meeting at the weekend.

3. The Succession Debate

President Mugabe’s comments in an interview broadcast by ZBC the previous week re-ignited private media speculation over his retirement plans and subsequent succession. This was given fresh impetus during the week under review with news that Presidents Mbeki, Obasanjo and Malawi’s Bakili Muluzi were due to visit Harare to facilitate a negotiated political settlement between ZANU PF and the MDC.
It attracted 43 stories in the mainstream newspapers, 33 of them in the private Press. As the statistics illustrate, the government controlled Press (and the state-owned electronic media) downplayed this development, responding defensively to the stories in the private media.
For example, out of the 10 stories the public Press devoted to the matter, only half were related to the visit of the three presidents, The Herald and Chronicle of the same day (29/4), The Herald (30/4 and 3/5) and The Sunday Mail (4/5). Even then, four of the stories either denied private Press reports claiming the leaders were on a mission to help work out an early exit package for Mugabe, or questioned the motive behind their visits. Only one story, an AFP report carried in The Herald (3/5), just announced that the leaders were coming “to advance negotiations between President Mugabe and opposition leader Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai”. Similarly, Radio 3FM (3/5, 6am and Radio Zimbabwe 3/5, 1pm) simply echoed this announcement but shed no more light on what must have been a sudden and mysterious development for the stations’ listeners. ZTV only reported the news briefly the following evening.
The remaining stories in the public Press were merely conspiracy theories generally accusing the West of wanting “to undermine the gains of independence”.

By comparison, The Daily News (28/4) got a whiff of South African media reports that Mbeki and his two counterparts intended to visit Zimbabwe to help “iron out Mugabe’s exit plan” as early as Monday. The Daily Mirror also carried a story on the topic that day, but merely reported senior ruling party officials dismissing gross speculation by “some foreign news reports”.
Radio Zimbabwe (28/4, 8pm) also dismissed the story of Mugabe’s possible retirement as “misinterpretations” and “speculative”. This was reinforced the next morning by The Herald and Chronicle (29/4) and ZTV (29/4, 7am), which ran a statement from Jonathan Moyo’s Information department describing reports of a possible transitional government as “wishful thinking”. They also denied that Mbeki and his counterparts would be in the country to work out President Mugabe’s “exit plan”. Instead of reporting Mbeki’s own confession that the three leaders would be visiting Zimbabwe to mediate between ZANU PF and the MDC, the papers quoted the statement as saying they were coming to update themselves on “our situation in the context of their protracted mediation efforts between Zimbabwe and Britain”.

This misinformation however, was immediately discredited by a second round of stories in The Daily News and The Daily Mirror the same morning reporting Mbeki telling the South African Broadcasting Corporation on Sunday that “he was sure…Zanu PF had been engaged in the process of renewing its leadership. We want to wait for them to finish that process before we can take matters up.” Mbeki also confirmed that Mugabe had, in the past, told him he was willing to step down.

Given this extraordinary revelation, it was not surprising that of the 33 stories the private Press carried during the week, 28 of them were on Mugabe’s exit plan. Two of them appeared in the Zimbabwe Independent (2/5), including, ‘Mnangagwa pushes for presidency’, which reported the visit of the African leaders in the context of the effects the succession debate is having within the ruling party. The other appeared in the Editor’s Memo, which provided an enlightening interpretation of Mbeki’s remarks: “Everybody in the region (is) now focused on regime change in Harare. When and how are the only questions.
“President Mbeki was unusually adroit in this respect. He pounced on reports of what Mugabe had said in his (TV) interview to tie him firmly down….
“The news that Zanu PF is undergoing ‘leadership renewal’ will come as a surprise to many, including Mugabe, who evidently had not expected his remarks to have such far-reaching consequences. What is clear now is that he is no longer in control of events. There is a process underway linked to the restoration of the rule of law and presidential legitimacy…Mugabe can no longer dictate either the pace of change or the date of his departure.”
Before Mbeki’s telling remarks, SW Radio Africa accessed informed speculation (29/4) from political analyst Brian Raftopoulos who reflected sentiment aired by other private media organizations: “I think it’s true there is a great deal of pressure on him to step down now…He’s seen as a stumbling block by all parties concerned...”

4. May Day shame

MMPZ endorses the observations contained in The Sunday Mirror’s Behind the Words column relating to the appalling media coverage of Workers’ Day celebrations. The media, it said, confused readers with conflicting reports of the same events.
For example, The Daily News (2/5) grossly inflated the attendance at the ZCTU’s Rufaro Stadium event and stated baldly “…the ZFTU event was reportedly poorly attended,” despite the fact that ZTV had screened footage of a well attended occasion in its bulletin the previous evening (1/5). What ZTV and The Herald (2/5) failed to explain adequately was that the attendance at the ZFTU function was greatly enhanced by the top-flight football match and the musical gala it had arranged for the occasion. The crowds attracted to these events at Gwanzura were then dishonestly used by the public media to give the impression that Joseph Chinotimba’s ZFTU had become more popular than the traditional ZCTU, which staged no crowd-pulling stunts. Shame on you all!
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]

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