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A 'Chronicle' of International Relations - Excerpt from Weekly update
2003-15
Media Monitoring
Project Zimbabwe
April 14th - April 20th 2003
Zimbabwe’s impending
independence anniversary was not solely responsible for the xenophobic
rhetoric that emerged in the government-controlled Press during
the week. America’s renewed demands for a transitional government
leading to an internationally supervised re-run of the presidential
election must also have contributed to exacerbating this fear. The
Chronicle (16/4) reported news of this development under the headline
‘United States plots to oust President’, quoting an Australian newspaper
report and accessing Information Minister Jonathan Moyo for reaction.
The same day
The Daily News carried a wire service story from AFP on the same
subject sourced directly from Washington confirming the American
demands and its intention to step up the pressure on Zimbabwe’s
neighbours. Unforgivably though, the paper inaccurately headlined
the story, ‘Zimbabwe’s neighbours ditch Mugabe’, pre-empting events
that ironically the Chronicle itself had suggested had happened
in its controversial lead story entitled ‘Mbeki U-turn on Zim’,
the previous day.
The story, written
by the paper’s editor, Stephen Ndlovu, claimed that Mbeki had "revised
his so-called ‘quiet diplomacy’ over Zimbabwe" in order to
secure support for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development
(Nepad) from Britain and the United States. It claimed Mbeki was
being described by diplomats in South Africa as "fast becoming
a George Bush of Africa", adding that he was "frantically
trying to be ‘on the good books’ of former colonial powers and Zimbabwe’s
major opponents Britain and the United States by doing what he calls,
‘engaging’ Harare". Unnamed "sources", "activists"
and "diplomats" were quoted or reported to have criticized
the South African President for "selling out".
The Daily News
(18/4) reported that ZANU PF secretary for Information and Publicity,
Nathan Shamuyarira and Foreign Affairs Minister Stan Mudenge had
dismissed these allegations. And the Chronicle published Shamuyarira’s
statement in full on the same day, describing the story as "a
motley mixture of wishful thinking, unfounded, ill-founded statements
and plain falsehoods". He noted, "Readers of the Chronicle
are not told what Mbeki actually said", but "are given
a string of statements allegedly made by diplomats and unnamed sources
at places that are not identified", adding "editors should
report news events fairly and objectively and not resort to concocting
comments and views that cannot be substantiated or verified".
Mudenge called Ndlovu "misguided", adding that he [Mudenge]
was "the one who speaks on Zimbabwe’s foreign policy and not
Ndlovu".
While The Sunday
Mirror followed up the story of the rift by quoting Moyo disagreeing
with his senior colleagues on the grounds that their attack amounted
to an attempt to gag the Press from expressing its opinions, The
Sunday Mail carried its own lengthy interview with the junior minister
defending his editor. But Moyo failed to answer Shamuyarira’s argument
that the Chronicle had failed to tell its readers what Mbeki had
said and cynically muddled up the idea of the media’s right to freedom
of opinion with the discipline of reporting fact.
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fact sheet
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