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Government media's timidity
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-27
Monday July 5^th – Sunday July 11^th 2004

THE government media’s timidity in demanding accountability from the ruling party leadership when they publicly make potentially harmful pronouncements was exposed by the manner in which they handled President Robert Mugabe’s closing address at the Fourth ZANU PF National Youth Congress. These media merely carried President Mugabe’s speech without analysing it. For instance, The Sunday Mail (11/7) quoted President Mugabe telling his party youths that they should "mount a vigorous campaign across the country to push Tony Blair’s midgets out" as ZANU PF "wanted to teach them a lesson across the whole country that Zimbabwe will never be a colony again". No attempt was made to disentangle the embedded meaning of such statements.

In fact, suspicions that ZANU PF youths, who have previously been accused of orchestrating violent campaigns against members of the opposition in every election, would again feature prominently in the ruling party’s campaign strategy seemed to be confirmed by the Zimbabwe Independent (9/7). The private weekly reported that government has set aside an unbudgeted $500 million for the current expansion and renovation of the controversial youth training camps in preparation for the 2005 March elections. The renovations, said the paper, would see an increase in the number of youths recruited. About 6 000 youths, who will undergo a crash programme, would graduate before next year’s elections.

Reportedly, government would also use the camps as bases for ZANU PF militia as well as housing the party’s youth wing during the election. An unnamed senior training officer in the ministry of youth was quoted confirming the story saying the plan was "to make up for the time lost during the reconstruction (of the camps)".

And as if to give a foretaste of what probably awaits the country during next year’s polls, the paper reported that ZANU PF had turned Rusape "into a no go area for the opposition" by deploying graduates from the camps "to harass any suspected MDC supporters". One of the victims was quoted claiming that he was detained and tortured for four days for allegedly "reading newspapers sponsored by British premier Tony Blair". He was carrying the Zimbabwe Independent and The Financial Gazette.

MMPZ notes that as long as such political intolerance is allowed to flourish unabated, prospects of a free and fair 2005 election would remain an illusion.

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