Monday July 12^th – Sunday July 19^th 2004

Media Weekly Update 2004-28

 

 

CONTENTS

 

1. GENERAL COMMENT

2. ATTACKS ON CIVIC AND RELIGIOUS BODIES

3. LAND REFORM CHAOS

 

 

1. General comment

 

AS this report went to print, Press freedom suffered yet another severe blow with news that the High Court had upheld the decision by the government appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC) to shut down the privately owned weekly newspaper, The Tribune. MIC closed the paper in June on grounds that its publishers, Africa Tribune Newspapers, had not informed the commission about material changes made to the paper as required under the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). In his ruling, Justice Tendayi Uchena noted that the MIC acted “within its discretion”, adding that the commission’s decision to deregister The Tribune “could not be faulted” (The Herald 22/7).

 

The ruling makes it abundantly clear that the provisions of AIPPA are undemocratic and grossly repressive. Instead of necessitating public access to information, this draconian piece of legislation has been used to systematically erode basic information rights of the citizenry.

MMPZ therefore calls for an urgent repeal of the law and indeed other equally repressive pieces of legislation such as POSA for there can never be a free and fair election next year without the free flow of information. This is particularly so in light of revelations by the Zimbabwe Independent’s (16/7) that the authorities were trying to build a case against the South African based weekly Mail & Guardian (M&G) in a bid to silence it. The M&G is increasingly becoming one of the main sources of information among the few remaining alternative media, which are accessible to Zimbabweans. According to the Independent, the authorities obtained a subpoena compelling officials at Century Bank to supply the police with information about the M&G account from January 1 this year and records of all cheque transactions done since the beginning of the year.

This happened barely a week after police visited to the newspapers’ distributors following The Sunday Mail’s (20/6) unsubstantiated allegations that the publishers intended to print the paper in Zimbabwe. Such blatant attempts to gag the M&G fully expose the government’s paranoia of free Press and hatred of alternative viewpoints.

 

 

2. Attacks on civic and religious bodies

 

THIS week the government media intensified their onslaught on civic bodies and the church in a bid to justify government plans to introduce a controversial law that would enable the authorities to exert their stranglehold on the operations of non-governmental and religious organisations ahead of the March 2005 elections.

The proposed law, the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) Bill, would empower the authorities to police the activities of these institutions, which they have accused since the 2000 general election, of advancing foreign interests and supporting the opposition MDC at the expense of their spiritual and humanitarian roles.

Similar repressive laws such as AIPPA and POSA have been enacted under the guise of safeguarding the country’s sovereignty. These have been selectively applied to severely curtail basic rights of those perceived as enemies of the State, including the private media and the opposition MDC.

 

But instead of viewing the impending law as yet another attempt to further erode the country’s shrinking democratic space, the official media merely colluded with the authorities in justifying government’s stance against NGOs and the church. This was demonstrated by the way the government media unnecessarily politicised church and humanitarian aid issues or shielded government from relevant criticism over its alleged human rights excesses by the clergy. Sadly, there was no counter coverage to their reports, as the private media largely remained noncommittal on the matters.

 

In fact, the distribution of allegedly ‘poisonous’ sorghum seeds to farmers in Masvingo by private companies contracted by the international humanitarian organisation, CARE International, provided ZBC with a platform to propagate anti-civic organisations sentiments. For example, ZTV (12/07, 6pm) conveniently ignored facts surrounding the story in an effort to malign CARE and use the issue to vindicate government’s claims that NGOs were bent on sabotaging the country’s programmes.  Radio Zimbabwe and ZTV (13/7, 6pm) even tried to build a conspiracy theory on the issue alleging that the fact that the seed came from Botswana has “raised speculation…of interference on the part of the Americans and the British, who have made it clear that they were working with neighbouring countries to effect a regime change in Zimbabwe”.

 

While grudgingly acknowledging the role CARE played in providing food assistance in the past, ZTV claimed that the organisation, and indeed other relief agencies, were deliberately inducing food shortages in the country to “undermine the agrarian reforms and justify their stay in the country”. No evidence was provided to support this claim.

Rather, selected individuals and farmers’ organisations representatives were quoted calling for “drastic actions against NGOs”, adding that a “law to closely monitor the operations of NGOs” should be put in place. Similarly, Radio Zimbabwe (13/7, 8pm) quoted unnamed individuals saying, “the granting of wrong seeds resembles an attempt to poison all Zimbabweans”. The Sunday Mail (18/7) echoed similar views despite the fact that CARE published a Press statement in the same issue of the paper explaining the matter.

 

The church was not spared either. The government media lambasted the local Catholic Church and its Bulawayo archbishop, Pius Ncube, for allegedly causing chaos in the country by misrepresenting the human rights situation in Zimbabwe to the international community. As a result, the Chronicle (12/7) ran an emotionally-charged comment calling on the “Pope (to) discipline Archbishop Ncube” for having allegedly stopped “preaching repentance to the people” but taking “every opportunity afforded him to lie about his own country and President Mugabe”. The paper’s comment followed a Sunday News (11/7) report, which reported Ncube as having criticised Mugabe’s leadership qualities and expressing doubts about the fairness of next year’s general elections. The Herald (13/7) followed suit. It quoted ZANU PF’s secretary for information in South Africa, Gadzira Chirumanzu attacking Ncube saying he was agitating for “ chaos and insurrection”. Said Chirumanzu: “The archbishop has abandoned his flock and seems to have decided to become a full time politician. Surely that is his right, but he must not weep when he is treated as such by other politicians.”

 

The Catholic Church in South Africa was also targeted. The Chronicle (14/7) castigated it for having joined the crusade to lobby its government to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe at the “spirited” instigation of Ncube. So incensed by the activities of the church was government that it reportedly urged the Roman Catholic church to “rein in one of its arms, the Catholic Commission of Justice and Peace (CCJP)” which, the authorities claimed, had been calling on the Australian government to tighten screws on the country, The Daily Mirror (13/7). The paper said the call came in the wake of the resumption of communication between the CCJP and Brisbane’s Justice and Peace Commission, which resulted in the Australians writing a letter to their government on behalf of the CCJP, asking for its continued opposition to Zimbabwe.

 

The Mirror quoted Department of Information secretary George Charamba describing the CCJP’s actions as electioneering and as a fundraising activity ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections. But the CCJP national director, Alouis Munyaradzi Chaumba, defended his organisation’s activities saying, “Government is intolerant to other views and that is destroying our country.” He said that the recent African Commission on Human and People’s Rights report, which accused government of excessive human rights abuses, reflected a true “observation that there was harassment of journalists, lawyers and civil society”. Reminding readers of the CCJP’s role during the liberation struggle and the Matebeleland and Midlands disturbances in the mid-1980s, the Mirror cited the Catholic Church insisting that contrary to government’s claims, its role as champions of civic liberties had not changed.

 

Meanwhile, The Herald and Chronicle (12/7) tried to politicise last month’s appointment by Pope John Paul II of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Hwange, Robert Ndlovu, as the archbishop for Harare. In their reports, which bordered on tribalism, the papers cited unnamed sources as contesting the appointment, which they described as irregular and “a slap in the face”, saying it had created “a rift” in the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe because church members were questioning the “rationale of appointing someone from Matebeleland to head the Harare archdiocese” ahead of “suitable” candidates from Mashonaland. The appointment, highlighted the papers, would mean that Zimbabwe’s archbishops would both come from Matebeleland since archbishop Pius Ncube of the Bulawayo Diocese also hails from the same region.

 

The papers did not, however, detail how the touted Mashonaland candidates were better suited for the job than Ndlovu. Instead, they merely cited “concerned church members” as being “particularly incensed” by the approval given to Ndlovu’s appointment by vocal government critics such as Mike Auret, the former director of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, and Father Nigel Johnson, a cleric based in Bulawayo. Based on the presumption of political machinations in the appointment of Ndlovu, the papers then quoted part of a petition that the “concerned church members” intended to send to the Pope “so that he would rescind his decision”. They argued that Ndlovu’s appointment “should have put aside the politics of the day, racism, regionalism, tribalism…”

In fact, the extent to which the government media politicised the issue was further illustrated by the way The Herald (13/7) reluctantly accepted clarification on Ndlovu’s appointment by the Pope’s representative in Zimbabwe, Apostolic Nuncio Father Edward Adam. Though the paper quoted Father Adam as saying the appointment was non-political and was done “through the regular process required by Roman Catholic Church” it still maintained that there were suspicions by some church members that the selection was “unprocedural”.

ZBC and the private media ignored the story.

 

 

3. Land reform chaos

 

WHILE The Herald and Chronicle (15/7) recorded President Mugabe as having told a visiting Chinese delegation that Zimbabweans had “successfully” reclaimed their land from “whites” adding that agriculture was thus set to “propel the country to prosperity”, other media reports seemed to indicate otherwise. They reflected the deep-seated chaos in the agriculture sector as far from being over. Even the government media, which the authorities have often used to give government’s land reforms a veneer of normalcy, belied President Mugabe claims.

 

However, these media did not comprehensively view the issues as indicative of the chaos that has generally marred the reforms since their inception four years ago. For example, Radio Zimbabwe (13/7, 1pm) and ZTV (13/7, 6 & 8pm) reported that more than 15,000 people that were “illegally resettled” in conservancies in Masvingo province had been ordered off the properties. The stations, however, did not ask the authorities why those people were allowed to settle in those conservancies in the first place. The Herald (15/7) further exposed the fallacy surrounding government’s one-man-one-farm policy. This was after the Lands Ministry sent out withdrawal letters to several government ministers and ZANU PF cabinet members who allegedly owned more than one farm. These included Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo and Agriculture Minister Joseph Made.

 

However, instead of verifying the substance of the multiple ownerships with the relevant authorities or conduct its own investigations on the matter, the paper was content with downplaying this development by using mainly faceless sources to either trivialise or divert attention from the issue. Besides, The Herald did not put to task the implicated ministers that it talked to.  For example, it allowed Moyo to cloud the issue by irrelevantly roping in the MDC into the multiple farm ownership saga. Similarly, the Lowani Ndlovu column in The Sunday Mail (18/7), merely peddled conspiracy theories about the matter and drowned its readers in semantics by painstakingly trying to draw differences between multiple farm ownerships and multiple farm allocations.

 

In contrast, the privately owned media was more categorical in its coverage of multiple farm ownership by ruling party leaders. The Sunday Mirror (18/7), for example, viewed the “annoyed” response from some of the recipients of Lands Minister John Nkomo’s letters as stemming from a “ deep-seated defiance” to Mugabe’s renewed clampdown of multiple farm ownership which the presidency has failed to tackle. Some of these recipients, it argued, had simply “secured technical immunity from charges of multiple farm ownership by having ‘eligible’ relatives assume occupation of the extra properties”.

 

Interestingly, Moyo told The Herald (15/7) that one of the farms that Nkomo’s officials had associated with him was actually allocated to his cousin, while Transport Minister Chris Mushowe claimed that another farm linked to him actually belonged to his son, “a grown up man with his own family”. It is against such responses that Nkomo noted in the Sunday Mirror; “Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said his wife gave up the farm, Moyo says his cousin is now occupying the Hwange farm …the point is they had more than one farm.” 

 

Meanwhile, the private media exposed the continued farm invasions, violence and looting that is taking place on the few remaining white owned farms. For example, Studio 7(12/7 & 13/7) revealed that ZANU (PF) youth militia and war veterans had ordered two white commercial farmers, Eric Harrison of Mkwasine and John Winwood of Karoi off their farms in two separate incidents. Harrison was said to be “holed up” in his farm as the youths vowed not to leave the property, while Winwood was reportedly arrested for “refusing to vacate the farm” by the police and was later released without charge. The station quoted a Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) official confirming the arrest. However, a comment from the police was missing.

SW Radio Africa (13/7) also reported the incidents adding that violence had been  “escalating in the past few weeks” in the white owned farms, particularly in Karoi and Chiredzi sugar plantations. In fact, the Zimbabwe Independent (16/7) carried a CFU statement saying at least six white wheat commercial farmers in Karoi faced expulsion from their properties after they were given 48-hour eviction notices by the Mashonaland West governor, Nelson Samkange. Their pending eviction was despite the fact that they had already applied to the courts for a stay of execution to harvest their wheat crop while challenging Section 8 notices in court.

 

In another classic example of the lawlessness gripping government’s agrarian reforms, the Zimbabwe Independent revealed that the government organ, the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (ARDA), had seized 152 cattle worth more than $304 million from opposition MP Roy Bennett’s Charleswood Estate and relocated them to one of its farms in Chikomba district.  Bennett’s lawyer, Arnold Tsunga, described ARDA’s action as constituting “stock theft under common law”.

SW Radio Africa and Studio 7 (12/7) also carried the report.  

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: monitors@mmpz.org.zw

 

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