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Monday
May 10th – Sunday May 16th
Weekly
Media Update 2004-19
1. RIGHTS
ABUSES
2. LUPANE
BY-ELECTIONS
3. FOOD SECURITY
ISSUES
News
of the ill-treatment of Iraqi prisoners by members of the US army at Abu Ghraib
jail in Baghdad presented the government media with a platform to dismiss
legitimate condemnation of Zimbabwe’s human rights record by the West as
hypocritical.
For
example, ZTV and Power FM (10/5, 8pm) claimed the revelations demonstrated that
America and Britain were “far from being the champions of
democracy and human rights” and were “gross human rights
violators” who have no “right to lecture other countries
about human rights”.
ZTV’s
Face the Nation programme (13/5,
9.30pm) then featured the government’s Media and Information Commission
chairman, Tafataona Mahoso, to defend ZBC’s slanted coverage of the issue.
But
instead of a rational analysis of human rights abuses, Mahoso claimed that
Britain was condemning Zimbabwe’s human rights record because it had become
“the apartheid
State” after the collapse of apartheid South
Africa.
Said
Mahoso: “… Apartheid
has gone back to where it came from. Britain now has to intervene directly in
the affairs of Zimbabwe because apartheid is no longer there in South Africa to
always wield its threats over the heads of Zimbabwe… So Britain is the power
that now feels it must protect not only white racist interests but even
cooperate with all those who benefited from
apartheid…”
Four
viewers called in during the programme and praised Mahoso for his “incisive” analysis
of the issue. Only one viewer was critical saying, “Zimbabwean prisons were worse
off”. He was however abruptly cut off air.
The
government media have consistently ignored vocal domestic criticism of the
government’s human rights abuses.
The
Editor’s Memo column in the
Zimbabwe Independent (14/5)
provided some credible analysis of the government media’s preoccupation with
human rights abuses in Iraq.
The
column pointed out that while the government media were “voyeuristically fascinated”
by the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, they have remained silent on
widespread human rights violations in Zimbabwe.
It
noted that the government media was trying to “fudge what is
happening in Iraq” in an attempt to “mask the difference between
sadistic abuse of prisoners of war by soldiers on the one hand, and human rights
violations by government on the other”.
However,
the author’s argument was undermined by his apparent attempt justify the
ill-treatment of Iraqis saying, “American and British soldiers are
fighting a deadly war, they are not human rights campaigners…what does
constitute human rights abuses is the role and attitude of the political
authorities”.
While
the government media capitalized on America and Britain’s human rights abuses,
Studio 7 and Short Wave Radio Africa carried about 13 fresh reports on
continuing rights violations by government officials and security force
personnel during the week.
Some
of the reports also appeared in the private Press, particularly the violent
dispersal by the police of NCA demonstrations in several cities during the week
and a civic society meeting in Gweru at the weekend. The government media all
but ignored these events.
2.
LUPANE BY-ELECTION
The
media, especially those from the government-controlled stable, failed once more
to encourage transparency in the conduct of local elections as illustrated by
their inability to demand unconditional accountability in the way the
authorities prepared for and held the just ended Lupane by-election.
As
a result, this compromised the fairness and quality of the news the electorate
received, and indeed, the atmosphere under which the poll was
held.
For
example, all 11 stories the national broadcaster carried on the electoral
process were handouts from the Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) and merely
echoed the commission’s sentiments on the poll without
question.
Consequently,
a thorough examination of the electoral process was ignored. The government
media
merely gave information on the number of registered voters, election
monitors and the location and the total number of polling stations.
Even
then, this crucial information was only made available to the electorate on the
eve of the election.
The
private media did not fare any better in the 13 reports they carried on the
elections. These media largely quoted the MDC accusing ZANU PF of intimidating
the electorate without corroborating the veracity of the claims.
Neither
did they cover the election manifestos of the candidates for the electorate to
make informed choices.
Typically,
the government-controlled Press carried nine articles campaigning for ZANU PF’s
candidate while ignoring the campaign activities of the opposition MDC and its
candidate. In fact, the opposition and its candidate were either denigrated or
blamed for causing violence in Lupane in the four articles in which they were
mentioned.
ZBC
followed a similar trend in the eight stories it dedicated to ZANU PF’s campaign
activities. Only Studio 7 aired the activities of the MDC candidate on two
occasions but featured none on the ZANU PF candidate.
But
while reports in the government media were saturated by either the ESC’s
one-sided assessments of the poll as generally free and fair or partisan reports
on ZANU PF’s campaign trails, only the private media queried the environment in
which the by-election was being held by raising concerns of alleged violence and
intimidation against the MDC by ruling party supporters.
For
example SW Radio Africa, which alone carried six stories on the matter, quoted
several MDC officials complaining about various electoral irregularities during
the poll.
MDC
Secretary-General Welshman Ncube told the private radio station (10/5) that the
level of intimidation in Lupane was “very high” and
that local villagers had been threatened with “the return of the Gukurahundi
should they not vote for ZANU-PF”. MDC spokesperson Paul Themba
Nyathi (SW Radio Africa (14/5) echoed Ncube’s claims, adding that traditional
leaders were also involved in the harassment of opposition supporters.
Studio
7 (15/5) cited three incidents where chiefs were said to have been moving around
polling stations wearing ZANU-PF regalia and mobilizing people to
vote.
The
government media suffocated this apparent abuse of traditional chiefs by ZANU PF
to win elections for them. For example, the Chronicle (13/5) merely reported Local
Government Minister Ignatius Chombo telling 600 Lupane “traditional leaders… that the
government was committed to improving their welfare” during a
campaign rally.
In
fact, the Zimbabwe
Independent
(14/5) revealed that government had set aside an “unbudgeted
$27,5 billion on chiefs’ vehicles and other perks”. The
paper viewed this as a “move calculated to win their support ahead of
parliamentary elections currently scheduled for March.”
However,
the Council of Chiefs secretary-general Fortune Charumbira defended the move
saying the scheme was similar to that for parliamentarians where government
provided them with loans to buy vehicles.
The
Chronicle
(13/5) reported without question that chiefs from Silobela and Lower Gweru had
“pledged
to ensure that ZANU PF regains the two parliamentary seats in their areas it
lost in 2000 after they were given a prominent role in the selection of
candidates”.
The
government media were clearly unwilling to examine these unorthodox electoral
campaign tactics and largely ignored the ruling party’s intimidation of the
Lupane electorate.
And
where they were obliged to admit to outbreaks of violence in the constituency,
they vaguely referred to them as “clashes”, (Radio
Zimbabwe 13/5, 1pm) or “skirmishes” (Power
FM 11/5, 8pm) to obscure the identity of the perpetrators and soften the ugly
impact on the conduct of the poll.
Only
where the MDC was accused of being responsible for the violence were these media
specific (Power FM, 11/5, 8pm, 12/5, 1pm; the Chronicle, 12/5; and Radio Zimbabwe, 14/5,
1pm). No due care was made to balance or corroborate these accusations with
independent sources.
For
example, the Chronicle
(12/5) reported that a ZANU PF supporter was “suddenly
attacked”
and allegedly axed by MDC’s “weapon
wielding activists”
while putting up campaign posters for the ruling party’s candidate. The paper
claimed that the campaign had been “peaceful
until (the) incident”.
But
contrary to this report by the Chronicle (and Radio Zimbabwe), The Tribune (14/5) quoted the MDC district information
secretary David Nyathi giving more context to the circumstances leading to the
violence.
He
claimed MDC supporters had retaliated after ZANU PF supporters had attacked them
while they were putting up their own campaign posters. Nyathi said the police
had only arrested MDC activists, including the party’s polling agents. He said:
“There
is no justice for us. We cannot complain to the police because ZANU PF
supporters will never be arrested.”
Nyathi’s
account found corroboration from reports in The Zimbabwe Independent and The Daily Mirror (13/5).
SW
Radio Africa (13/5) reported a Lupane magistrate discharging 11 of the arrested
MDC activists for lack of evidence.
The
Standard
(16/5) reported that the police had arrested two other MDC activists who claimed
they had been kidnapped and tortured by war veterans but who the police accused
of perpetrating violence against ZANU PF supporters.
The
two were allegedly arrested when they went to report their ordeal to the police.
However, no comment was sought from the police.
3.
FOOD SECURITY ISSUES
Government’s
decision to stop a joint crop assessment team from two international food relief
agencies seeking to establish Zimbabwe’s food needs, captured the imagination of
the media in the week under review.
The
Harare authorities stopped the team from the Food and Agricultural Organization
(FAO) and the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) from completing its work on the
grounds that Zimbabwe no longer needed food handouts because the country was
expecting a “bumper harvest”.
The
move, reminiscent of the misleading declaration by Agriculture Minister Joseph
Made in May 2001 (The Herald)
that Zimbabweans would have adequate food during that year, seemed to replay
itself this year with the same minister again predicting a surplus food output
amid independent forecasts to the contrary.
Radio
Zimbabwe (11/5, 12/5, 6pm & 8pm) and The
Herald (12/5) quoted Made saying results from the “final crop
assessment” for the 2003/2004 season showed that more than 2,4
million tonnes of maize would be produced this season. He added that if the
total tonnage of sorghum and millet were to be included, the country would have
more than 2,8 million tonnes of cereal, a figure he said, that surpassed the
country’s requirement of between 1,5 million and 2 million
tonnes.
While
Made reportedly arrived at his 2001 harvest predictions on the basis of an
aerial view from a helicopter, the methods used to assess this year’s crop were
not disclosed. Neither would the government media challenge him to explain how
and when government conducted the evaluation.
On
the contrary, they quoted Social Welfare Minister Paul Mangwana simply saying
the country will “not
require food imports or food aid”.
Again,
these media did not quote alternative food experts or carry independent
investigation to verify the claims.
However,
the private media wondered at the timing of the mysterious development,
especially as it came amid unprecedented economic turmoil less than a year
before the country’s next parliamentary election.
The
varied opinion accessed by these media either interpreted the government move as
designed to spruce up the image of its controversial agrarian reforms or a
calculated move to cause State-induced hunger among the citizenry, which it
would capitalize on in the 2005 parliamentary poll to buy votes from a famished
electorate.
In
fact, despite the authorities’ claims that the UN food assessment team had been
sent home on the basis of a projected harvest surplus, SW Radio Africa (10/5)
revealed that Made had admonished the group “a few days into the
mission” for being in the country “without his
approval”.
The
radio station claimed this was in spite of the fact that “a government newspaper has seen a
letter from Made’s ministry dated 30 March, 2004, inviting UNWFP officials to
come and estimate the country’s food aid
needs”.
The
report quoted journalist Andrew Meldrum attributing the reasons for the
expulsion of the UN team to government’s fears that independent observations of
the real crop situation in the country were likely to discredit government’s
assertions that its land reforms had boosted productivity.
Meldrum
reported public fears that the government intended to deliberately starve people
with the aim of using the maize in its custody as a “political weapon”
in the forthcoming election.
Studio
7 (14/5) supported this sentiment when it cited Amnesty International raising
the same suspicions. It noted that government had “manipulated” food
aid “over the past
couple of years”, with little regard to people’s “fundamental right to food, upon
which all other rights are dependent”.
So
did The Zimbabwe Independent
(13/5). It observed that government’s
inflated crop yield projections to justify its decision to turn down food aid
would leave the electorate “at the mercy of the ruling party,
which in the past has demonstrated a penchant for using food as the carrot in
its often vicious campaign strategy”.
But
the government media censored the government’s banishment of the UN crop
assessment group from the country, choosing instead to celebrate Made’s projections in their reports
saying the development demonstrated the success of the land reform
programme.
For
instance, in its comment, Bumper harvest
shames detractors, The
Herald (14/5) observed that the projected yields had shown that
previous food shortages were not due to land reforms but “four
consecutive droughts”
which “coincided
with the massive exercise to redistribute land”.
Similarly,
ZBC used government’s unverified predictions of plentiful food as a tool to
“shame”
Zimbabwe’s “detractors” over
what they thought government’s agrarian reforms “will never
achieve”, ZTV
(12/5, 6pm and 8pm).
Amid
this euphoria, Studio 7 (13/5) reminded its listeners that last year government
had made similar claims of projected good harvests only for it to make a
surprising U-turn later and approach the UN for aid.
The
station (12/5) also quoted Harare-based independent agro-economist Roger Mupande
watering down government’s bumper harvest predictions as “surprising” since
the current season had been impacted negatively by late rain, under-utilization
of resettled farms and shortages of equipment and inputs.
Mupande
noted that the projections would have been more authentic “if other agencies like FAO and
WFP were allowed to assess the crop situation”, the results of
which would then be fed into the SADC Early Warning Food
Systems.
SW
Radio Africa (11/5), Studio 7 (13/5), The
Zimbabwe Independent and The
Sunday Mirror (16/5) also cited other farming experts, as revising
government’s maize output forecasts for the year from the estimated 2.4 million
tonnes to between 600 000 and 900,000 tonnes.
The
Independent quoted the UN as
describing the projected harvest as an “impossibly
big figure”
and a “complete
nonsense”.
Meanwhile,
SW Radio Africa (12/5), revealed that government was working on a
tobacco-for-maize deal with an unnamed American bank, to ship maize over to
Zimbabwe, package it in GMB sacks and then claim it as local produce.
Likewise,
Studio 7 (13/5) and the
Independent reported that government was clandestinely importing
maize from Zambia and storing it in Mashonaland West GMB silos.
However,
Studio 7 also quoted Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union’s Silas Hungwe denying
the allegations saying, “the government has never imported
maize from Zambia”.
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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free to write to MMPZ. We may not able to respond to everything but we will look
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reports, and more information about the Project, please visit our website at http://www.mmpz.org.zw