Monday
June 20th – Sunday June 26th
2005
Weekly
Media Update 2005-23
CONTENTS
1.
GENERAL COMMENT
2. URBAN
PURGE CONTINUES
3. FUEL
SHORTAGES AND ECONOMIC ISSUES
1.
General comment
THE
media’s disturbing dereliction of duty has made itself evident again after their
failure to inform the public of the enactment of yet another repressive law, the
Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.
The law
was gazetted on June 3rd, but surprisingly none of the media has
reported on this piece of legislation, which tightens the gag on the public’s
voice, among other provisions that further erode the country’s democratic
space.
For
instance, Clause 31 of the Act imposes a fine of $5 million or a jail sentence
of up to 20 years or both for anyone who “ who publishes or
communicates false statements” that are perceived to be
“prejudicial to the State”.
Clause
33 of the Act also imposes stiffer penalties for anyone convicted of
“publicly” making or publishing a statement (including any act or
gesture) that is deemed as “undermining the authority of or
insulting” the presidency.
These
two alarmingly vague and sweeping clauses introduce truly draconian penalties
for similar offences already contained in the repressive Public Order and
Security Act (POSA) and Access to Information and Privacy Act
(AIPPA).
For
instance, under POSA communicating a false statement perceived to be a threat to
the State’s interests attracts a fine of $100 000 or a five-year jail term or
both, while AIPPA’s penalty for “publishing or communicating
falsehoods”, which is also punishable under Section 31 (b)
of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, is a fine of $400 000 or a
maximum of two years in jail.
Notably,
none of the media informed the public of this latest assault by the authorities
on the citizenry’s right to freedom of expression.
However,
The Daily Mirror (23/6) did expose how such repressive laws have been
used to deny citizens their right to access media of their choice when it
reported that the government-appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC)
had “reserved judgment” on the application by the Associated
Newspapers of Zimbabwe - publishers of The Daily News and The Daily
News on Sunday – for an operating licence and the re-licensing of The
Tribune.
The
papers were closed for violating sections of AIPPA.
While
the MIC continues to delay making a determination on these important public
issues, Zimbabweans who have been subjected to incessant propaganda from the
government controlled media, remain starved of diverse alternative sources of
information.
2. Urban
purge continues
AS
the debate on government’s Operation Murambatsvina continued, the
official media stepped up its propaganda portraying the authorities as humane
and sensitive to the needs of the operation’s victims.
For
example, almost all 129 reports that ZBH (Power FM [41], Radio Zimbabwe [34] and
ZTV [54]) carried portrayed government as addressing homelessness caused by the
exercise by providing alternative shelter for the victims. As a result, the
scale of the humanitarian crisis triggered by Murambatsvina was
suffocated.
Neither
did the broadcaster expose the confusion surrounding the objective of the
exercise following the announcement that the operation would be expanded to
include banning offices in residential areas and peri-urban farming. Instead,
the government broadcaster continued to seek comments from pro-government
sources to endorse the exercise.
The
government Press adopted a similar stance in its 46 stories on the
topic.
These
papers passively premised their reports on the authorities’ justification of the
operation presenting Murambatsvina as a “noble” exercise
according to Deputy Minister of Information, Bright Matonga (The Herald
24/6) that would provide better homes for the poor and rid the country of
illegal activities.
These
papers also stifled the human misery the operation has
caused.
In fact,
in an effort to sanitize the humanitarian crisis, ZTV (20/6, 8pm), Power FM and
Radio Zimbabwe (21/6, 8pm) claimed that living conditions for
“2,000 families” resettled at Caledonia Farm “continue to
improve as NGOs have joined government in providing basic
needs…”
There
was no discussion on what percentage of Murambatsvina’s victims the
resettled families represented. Neither did ZBH provide information about the
living conditions of other victims of Murambatsvina and where they were
settled. Instead,
the following day, ZTV (21/6, 8pm) quoted police Inspector Eunice Marange
downplaying the rights violations arising from the mass forced evictions. She
claimed that the treatment of the victims was in accordance with international
law as Caledonia Farm settlers enjoyed “every
human right”
under
the UN Charter and lived “just
like any person with a home”.
To
further mitigate the cruelty of the purge, ZBH (23/6, 8pm) reported vaguely that
“sociologists” had said, “the conduct of police and local
authorities are within the law and international standards of fighting crime.”
But it only quoted one sociologist; Claude Mararike, an advocate of
government policies.
While
ZTV repeatedly ran footage of houses allegedly being built for
Murambatsvina’s victims at Whitecliffe Farm to show government’s
compassion for those affected, it failed to investigate why the authorities had
flattened homes built on the stands that the government itself had parceled out
just before the presidential elections in 2002.
The
official Press was equally silent on this issue. For example, The Sunday
Mail and The Sunday News (26/6) carried five passive reports on
government’s
newly launched $3 trillion reconstruction programme dubbed ‘Operation
Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle’, which is meant to “provide residential and
business accommodation to deserving people” by the end of August
this year.
The two
papers failed to question where government would get the funds for the programme
or the feasibility of the timeframe within which reconstruction was to be
completed, far less explain the criteria that would be used to select
“deserving people”.
In
fact, the government media’s total failure to question the authorities’ policies
resulted in The
Herald (24/6)
failing to find out why “some” organisations were allowed to
continue to operate in CBD offices that Harare City Council had closed for
“breach of licensing regulations, overcrowding and health risks”.
Such
passive endorsement of Murambatsvina on the basis that it was flushing
out “illegality” in urban centres was apparent in most stories
featured by the government Press.
For
example, in a The Sunday Mail, opinion piece, Dr Obediah Mazombwe accused
the Western media of presenting “a mangled, self-serving description of
the clean-up”. While he, for example, accused these media of carrying
“outright non-truths…suggesting that a significant number of legal,
registered, tax-paying companies did business at Bart House”, Mazombwe
made no effort to substantiate his claims that the building “housed mostly
crooks, conmen and outright criminals”.
Similarly,
the vague and generic branding of shack dwellers and informal traders as
criminals was earlier reflected in The Herald (22/6), which reported the
police as checking criminal records of prospective vendors before they were
allocated market stalls by the council. The paper did not clarify what would
happen to ex-convicts and whether there were any laws preventing them from
attempting to earn an honest living. Neither did the paper explain what the
council meant by ominously demanding vendors provide proof of
“legal” residence before being licensed.
The
totally compromised nature of The Herald’s coverage of
Murambatsvina was also reflected by the paper’s failure (24 & 26/6)
to give balanced
coverage of the parliamentary debate on the operation. Its reports
subordinated the MDC’s concerns about the evident suffering caused by
Murambatsvina to ruling party MPs’ support for the exercise. ZTV
(23/6, 8pm) also failed to package the debate in a professional manner as it
only showed footage of MPs debating in Parliament without identifying them or
giving any narrative of the issues raised by the legislators.
In
fact, the official media’s partisan coverage of Murambatsvina was
reflected by their failure to balance the official comment with independent
viewpoints as shown in Fig 1 and 2.
Fig 1
Voice distribution on ZBH
Station
|
Govt |
Police |
ZANU
(PF) |
MDC |
Alternative |
Professional |
Foreign |
Ordinary
people |
Radio
Zimbabwe |
9 |
6 |
2 |
0 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
0 |
Power
FM |
20 |
10 |
4 |
2 |
10 |
1 |
3 |
2 |
ZTV |
23 |
14 |
6 |
4 |
11 |
2 |
1 |
38 |
Total
|
52 |
30 |
12 |
6 |
25 |
6 |
7 |
40 |
Fig 2
Voice distribution in the government Press
Alternative |
Govt |
Local
Government |
Ordinary
people |
Foreign
Diplomats |
ZANU
PF |
MDC |
3 |
20 |
6 |
15 |
5 |
2 |
7 |
Notably,
except for the MDC voices, which were only cited in the context of the questions
they raised in Parliament, most of the commentators used by the government media
endorsed the operation.
In
contrast, apart from three reports carried in the Mirror stable that were
sceptical of the West, especially Britain’s concerns on Murambatsvina,
most of the 74 stories (Studio 7 [30] and private Press [44]) featured by the
private media exposed the cruelty and arbitrary nature of the operation.
The
stories condemned the haphazard and callous manner in which the exercise was
being implemented and highlighted local and international criticism. For
example, contrary to ZBH’s sanitised picture of the humanitarian crisis, Studio
7 (21/6) reported that “the plight
of displaced people in Harare and other areas continued to deteriorate as
authorities fail to come up with means to accommodate them”. While ZBH
glossed over the poor conditions at Caledonia Farm, the private station revealed
that there were “no (proper) sanitation facilities and there are frequent
water shut offs, and most people are sleeping in the open”. The station
(23/6) revealed that similar circumstances prevailed at a holding camp in
Bubi-Umguza, which is used to “hold” victims of the operation in Bulawayo.
It also
reported that “thousands of people” had been left homeless and
were sleeping in the open in Mutare and Chitungwiza amid fears of an outbreak of
disease.
The
Standard (26/6)
reported the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe estimating that as many as
300 000 children had dropped out of school after their homes had been destroyed.
The paper also revealed that the operation had claimed six lives so far, among
them four children.
The
government Press’ only report on a Murambatsvina-related death was
carried by The Herald (23/6), which passively allowed the police
to distance themselves from the fatality while apparrently blaming it on the
reckless way people were “demolishing illegal structures at their
properties”. Notably, the police comments and the paper’s report
followed the fatal crushing by rubble of 18-month-old Terence Munyaka, the son
of a police officer.
Besides
attempting to accurately convey the scale of the humanitarian crisis, the
private media continued to give space to growing international criticism of the
exercise.
For
example, Studio 7 (20/6) reported calls by South Africa’s opposition on
President Thabo Mbeki to “speak out and condemn” the operation,
and quoted World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz describing
Murambatsvina as “inhuman and
tragic”.
The
government media ignored these reports and only made reference to them in the
context of government’s vicious response to the international community’s
concerns. They also used South Africa and the African Union’s supportive
statements to present criticism as driven by the West’s hatred of
Zimbabwe.
For
instance, ZBH (24/6, 8pm) reported President Mugabe dismissing Wolfowitz’s
statements as “ridiculous” because many “people have been
supportive of the programme”, adding that criticism only came from
“the West.”
The
government Press carried five stories projecting such views.
As
a result, the
official papers avoided interpreting the visit by the UN special envoy, Anna
Kagumulo Tibaijuka, to assess the damage caused by Murambatsvina as a
vindication of the international community’s concerns over the exercise.
Instead, The Herald (21/6) simply quoted Secretary for Information George
Charamba attributing it to the “misplaced hue and cry” over the
exercise “and an apparent reluctance by the Western media” to
acknowledge that “government has put in place measures to rehabilitate and
accommodate” the victims.
While
the government media relied
on pro-government voices in a bid to endorse Murambatsvina, the sourcing
pattern in the private media was more diverse. All official voices quoted in the
private Press supported Murambatsvina while most the other voices were
critical. Notably, only diplomats from South Africa and the AU did not query
government’s actions. See Fig 3.
Fig 3
Voice distribution in the private Press
Alternative |
Govt |
Local
Government |
Ordinary
People |
Editorial |
Foreign
Diplomats |
ZANU
PF |
MDC |
13 |
10 |
6 |
5 |
11 |
16 |
9 |
7 |
3. Fuel
shortages and economic issues
THE
government media also failed to properly report the
intensifying economic crisis, characterised by acute fuel shortages and an
increasingly inflationary environment.
For
instance, the government Press carried 11 stories on the subject as compared to
30 featured by the private papers.
Notably,
most of the stories carried in the government papers were a passive echo of the
authorities’ reasons for the country’s economic decline. For example, of the
four reports these papers published on fuel shortages, half of them stemmed from
government responses to MDC legislators’ questions on the fuel crisis while the
remainder were mere events describing how commuters were having difficulties in
finding transport.
Likewise,
more than half of the 23 stories ZBH (ZTV
[8], Radio Zimbabwe [8] and Power FM [7]) rehashed the government’s explanation
for the self-evident fuel crisis. The rest were uncritical reports on the impact
of foreign currency shortages on government’s projects.
None
of the official media’s reports took the authorities to task over how they were
going to address the fuel crisis.
Studio
7’s two reports also failed to challenge the authorities on the
issue.
It was
only the private Press that demanded answers in most of its eight stories on the
crisis. Such was the papers’ tenacity that The Daily Mirror (20, 21 and
25/6) carried editorials all criticising government’s silence on the
crisis.
In fact,
the Zimbabwe Independent (24/6) revealed that the IMF team currently in
the country had learnt that, “Zimbabwe has no plan in place to save the
country from the crippling fuel shortage,” and that, “Zimbabwe
does not currently have any fuel in reserve as the shortages have continued to
bite”. However, Reserve Bank
Governor Gideon Gono told the paper that, “a solution to the fuel problem
was in sight”. He did not elaborate.
Although
the private papers’ coverage on the galloping cost of living was almost as thin
as that of the government Press, they tried to explain the causes of the
economic ills afflicting Zimbabwe. They cited foreign currency shortages, the
high inflation and government overspending, which has resulted in it
accumulating a ballooning domestic debt of $10 trillion to finance its budget
deficit, as some of the main culprits.
The
government Press evaded these matters.
Instead,
The Herald (23/6) merely cited Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa telling
Parliament that Zimbabwe’s economic crisis stemmed from the sanctions imposed on
the country by the international community.
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
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