Official media ignores urban purge
BY A CORRESPONDENT
This is typical of how thousands of
people are living now, having had their houses trashed - they retrieve some
marata or asbestos and then make a "kennel" in which to sleep.
HARARE - In a sharp critique of local
coverage of the razing and torching of township homes and markets by police and
soldiers, the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe said that all the
state-controlled media have endorsed the operation, and ignored both the human
suffering and the international outcry.
“Only private media reported on local and
international condemnation of the programme, and exposed the brutal and inhumane
nature of the ‘clearances’,” the project said in a report on the June 13-19
coverage.
“The passive nature of the official media’s coverage was
illustrated by the way in which they only echoed or amplified government’s
justification for the ‘clean-up’ by mainly depicting the authorities as working
flat out to ensure that no one was disadvantaged by the operation,” it
added.
The report cited Power FM, ZTV and the Chronicle, for example, as
using “fatuous comments” from the Zimbabwe Institute of Regional and Urban
Planners and the Urban Councils’ Association of Zimbabwe to suffocate the real
scale of the human suffering.
ZTV quoted the Urban Planners group as
urging “environmental stakeholders to maintain the glow that has been awarded to
cities by the clean-up exercise,” while the Urban Councils defended the denial
of shelter as a “bitter medicine that healed people.” But Police Chief Augustine
Chihuri best illustrated the regime’s contempt for the victims of Murambatsvina
by describing them in the Herald as a “crawling mass of maggots.”
In
contrast, most of 62 stories carried in the private media continued to focus on
the suffering, and carried local and international criticism including from the
UN, the EU and church leaders, the report said. Just the Daily Mirror expressed
support and urged extending the purges to illegal gold panners.
The state
media also portrayed the authorities as providing alternative accommodation,
failed to give any idea of the huge number of people who have lost their homes,
or of the outcry of the confiscation of merchandise and other property. The
Independent, however, reported that the authorities had barred humanitarian
groups from helping thousands of homeless families because they feared this
would be an acknowledgement of the humanitarian crisis.
30th
June 2005
Zimbabweans
call for Boycott of South Africa
Zimbabwean
exiles and human rights campaigners in the
UK
are to launch a campaign on Monday, 4th July, to boycott South
African products because of President Mbeki’s support of the Mugabe regime.
South
African fruit is to be trampled into the pavement and South African wine poured
down the gutter at a demonstration outside the Guildhall in the City of
London.
The
occasion is a one-day meeting at the Guildhall (map attached) organised by the
New Partnership for Africa’s
Development. NEPAD, as it is known, is
largely a Mbeki idea and is aimed at boosting investment and aid in
Africa. In return it promises good governance.
There
are reports that President Mbeki himself will attend the meeting, which is to
report to the G8 Summit being held later in the week in
Scotland.
Zimbabweans
are angry that South
Africa
has again accepted rigged elections in
Zimbabwe
and are appalled at the treatment of Zimbabwean exiles fleeing to
South
Africa. The recent sale of South African military
equipment to Zimbabwe
used in the recent devastation of the homes and businesses of the poor was the
last straw.
The
campaign is organised by the Zimbabwe
Vigil,
which has been demonstrating outside the Zimbabwe Embassy in
London
every Saturday for nearly three years in support of free and fair elections in
Zimbabwe.
Venue: Outside St Lawrence Jewry Church
on the piazza opposite the Guildhall
Time: 11
am – 2 pm
Media
call:
12.30 when South African fruit and wine will be trashed in a symbolic
start to the boycott
Facilitator: Rose Benton, Vigil
Co-ordinator 07970 996
003
Spokespeople on
the day
Patson Muzuwa 07908 066
392
Dumi Tutani 07960 039
775
Addley
Nyamutaka 07939 292
231
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 |
