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Conspiracies
shroud AU report
Media Monitoring
Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-27
Monday July 5th – Sunday July 11th 2004
GOVERNMENT claims
that reports of gross human rights abuses levelled against it were
mere fabrications of Western ‘imperialists’ opposed to Zimbabwe’s
land reforms were disproved by the African Union’s Commission on
Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) damning
report on the country’s poor human rights record. The report,
which was discussed and "noted" by the African Union (AU)
Council of Ministers ahead of the summit of AU heads of State and
government held in Addis Ababa, followed ACHPR’s visit to Zimbabwe
shortly after the 2002 Presidential poll, to investigate allegations
of rights abuses.
It is Africa’s
harshest criticism of the government of President Mugabe’s human
rights excesses to date. The report censured government for the
arrests and torture of opposition MDC MPs and human rights lawyers,
the arrests of journalists, the stifling of freedom of expression
and crackdown on other civic liberties.
But instead
of highlighting and discussing details of the report openly, the
official media merely relapsed into government propagandists by
siding with the authorities in distorting and concocting conspiracy
theories on the matter. These media also censored alternative views
on the significance of the findings, which officially adds the African
voice to the ranks of other countries outside the continent that
have openly voiced their concern about government’s poor human rights
record.
To counter the
credibility given to the allegations of human rights violations
in the country by the commission’s report, the government media
tried to vilify the reputation of the ACHPR. They did this by accusing
it - without any shred of evidence- of having produced the damning
report in collaboration with government’s perceived local and international
enemies.
However, the
private media was more informative. They exposed ACHPR’s findings
and details surrounding the AU’s debate on the report. They also
analysed the report’s underlying diplomatic implications on Zimbabwe’s
efforts to retain the support of the continent, especially as it
faces mounting pressure from the international community for it
to reform.
In their initial
reports, the government media led by The Herald (6/7) swiftly
went for the ACHPR’s jugular vein, arguing that the commission’s
work had been dictated to by government’s perceived enemies like
Britain, the opposition MDC and local civic groups and NGOs, such
as Amani Trust. Government officials, their sympathisers and unnamed
analysts were used to foster this allegation.
The Herald,
for example, heavily relying on Foreign Affairs Minister Stan Mudenge
and unnamed diplomatic sources, claimed the report had borrowed
"the language of Britain and its allies",
and that it was "similar to reports produced by the British-funded
Amani Trust, which is well-known for its anti-Zimbabwe stance and
falsifying the situation in the country". Said one
unnamed source: "The hand of the British in this matter
is evidenced by the leaking of the report to some British media".
ZTV (6/7, 6pm) quoted more "observers"
supporting this argument. It also quoted Information Minister Jonathan
Moyo lambasting the former Law Society of Zimbabwe President, Sternford
Moyo, whom he alleged was "one of the Commission’s sources,
who has no integrity".
Moreover, The
Herald passively misinformed the nation that the AU had rejected
the commission’s report when, in actual fact, the union had only
deferred the publication of the report following Zimbabwe’s claims
that it had not been accorded the right of reply.
ZTV, Power FM
and Radio Zimbabwe (6/7, 6pm) even distorted this position further
by claiming that the AU had dismissed the commission’s report as
"inaccurate".
However, it
emerged through the Zimbabwe Independent (9/7) that, contrary
to government media’s claims, the AU had not rejected the report
but had postponed its release by seven days, within which Zimbabwe
said it would have responded. Subsequently, the report would then
be finalised and presented to the AU member States. The paper also
quoted one of the report’s authors, South African academic Barney
Pityana, dismissing government claims that it had not seen the report,
saying according to the commission’s practice, its findings are
presented to the "relevant African state as soon as they
were completed".
Another SADC
delegate corroborated Pityana’s claims saying, "If the
Zimbabweans arrived here (Addis Ababa) ignorant of the report, they
were the only delegation in that position. We have reason to believe
the report reached Harare at least six months ago".
Studio 7 (9/7)
quoted Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum’s Albert Musarurwa dismissing
Mudenge’s claims that government was unaware of the existence of
the report, as it had been handed over to the Justice Ministry some
time in February.
Musarurwa said
Mudenge’s apparent bureaucratic delaying tactic merely hinged on
the fact "that the document should not have been presented
to the Ministry of Justice but instead to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs".
The Herald
(9/7) also acknowledged the fact that the report had been sent to
Zimbabwe in February this year. But in an effort to downplay this
and support Mudenge’s allegation that he had not seen the report,
the paper then claimed that the commission had violated protocol
by sending the report to the Justice Ministry instead of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs. It then continued to peddle government’s unfounded
conspiracies at the expense of the commission’s findings. The paper
quoted Mudenge claiming that a Tunisian delegate, who is a former
member of the ACHPR, had told him "in confidence"
that the report was not compiled by the commission but by a "certain
non-governmental organisation in Harare and one member of the commission
pushed for its endorsement". He did not identify the
commissioner or the responsible NGO.
The Sunday
Mail (11/7) columnists William Nhara, the faceless Lowani Ndlovu
and Tafataona Mahoso joined the attack on ACHPR’s credibility. For
example, Ndlovu alleged that the document demonstrated that the
AU and the ACHPR have "been infiltrated by spineless
running dogs of (neo-colonialists) who are following the footprints
of Judas Iscariot in pursuit of 30 pieces of silver".
Nhara agreed: "There is an axis of neo-colonialism permeating
the structures of the AU and real Africans like Zimbabwe should
stand up and fight". The validity of the columnists’
views was not tested.
However, MDC
spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi was quoted on SW Radio Africa (7/7)
saying the government claims that the British had compiled the ACHPR
report "was subscribing to the racist view that blacks
can’t think or act on their own".
The Standard
(11/7) concurred. It observed: "No sane Zimbabwean would
disagree with such general truth so eloquently expressed… It is
common knowledge that the Zimbabwe authorities have allowed over
the past years human rights to be violated with impunity".
But the government
media’s hypocrisy in handling views that seemingly exposed government’s
bad governance was fully underscored by their silence on the UN
secretary general Kofi Annan’s strong criticism of intractable rulers,
which the Zimbabwe Independent viewed as a "thinly
veiled criticism of President Mugabe" and other such
rulers. The private weekly quoted Annan saying at the opening of
the AU summit; "Let us pledge that the days of indefinite
one-man or one party governments are behind us. There is no greater
wisdom and no clearer mark of statesmanship than knowing when to
pass the torch to a new generation".
Nevertheless,
except for The Financial Gazette (8/7), none of the media
fully discussed the underlying implications of the damning ACHPR’s
report in relation to the support Zimbabwe has all along been getting
from Africa, which has studiously supported Zimbabwe on various
international platforms, parrying attempts by the international
community to censure it for its alleged rights abuses. The paper
quoted analysts observing that the report "signifies
a clear break with the continental body’s tradition of unquestioningly
accepting Harare’s version of events … ever since the political
and economic crisis deepened in 2000".
But as government
continued to dismiss the ACHPR findings on human rights abuses as
an invention of its detractors, private radio stations continued
to unearth more such cases. For example, SW Radio Africa (5, 6 and
7/7) carried seven stories on rights violations by the ruling ZANU
PF and state security agents against government’s perceived enemies.
It recorded five incidents.
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