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Rights abuses
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-19
Monday May 10^th – Sunday May 16^th

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.

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