Back to Index

International relations
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-44
Monday November 1st - Sunday November 7th 2004

THE four-day visit by a Chinese delegation presented the government-controlled media with the opportunity to spruce up government’s battered international image.

They gave the impression that despite the alleged plot by the imperialist West to turn the world against Zimbabwe, the country still enjoyed support from members of the international community, among them China.

And as the week drew to a close, Power FM (6/11, 1pm), Radio Zimbabwe & ZTV (6/11, 8pm) and The Sunday Mail (8/10) added Equatorial Guinea to this list of friends after President Mugabe reportedly got a "hero’s welcome" on arrival at Malabo for his three-day State visit to that tiny West African country.

But despite the government media’s calculated efforts to use China and Equatorial Guinea’s friendship as a measure of Zimbabwe’s acceptance into the international fold, the private media gave a different picture.

For example, SW Radio Africa (3/11) and The Financial Gazette (4/11) revealed that trouble was actually brewing for the authorities with reports that the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), angered by the humiliating deportation of its senior officials, was mobilising civic groups in the region to "seal entry points into Zimbabwe for four days" from December 4 to 8 in a move the Gazette noted could trigger a diplomatic rift between South Africa and Zimbabwe.

In the same bulletin, SW Radio Africa also reported on plans by the Southern African Trade Union Co-ordinating Council (SATUCC), which represents 13 labour bodies in the SADC region, to hold a meeting in South Africa to discuss the COSATU deportation, among other issues.

The government media largely ignored these events.

The Sunday Mail for example, only referred to COSATU’s threat to barricade Zimbabwe’s borders as part of its response to the planned protest against government’s poor human rights record.

Without treating the matter fairly, the paper simply slandered the pending COSATU action on the unfounded grounds that the labour body was being coaxed into taking such action by the "British government using Anglo-American interests in the region".

The paper fingered the new British ambassador to Zimbabwe, Dr Rod Pullen, as working with four sister embassies in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique to "coordinate and make real" COSATU’s plans.

Except for Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, the rest of the story’s sources remained unnamed.

Earlier, The Herald (3/11) attempted to link Pullen to the underground pressure group, Zvakwana, on the absurd basis that a letter he wrote to Social Welfare Minister Paul Mangwana seeking a meeting to discuss support social services programmes arrived "on the same day" as a Zvakwana letter to the minister protesting the deportation of the COSATU officials.

In fact, the government media’s obsession with attacking any criticism levelled against the authorities also resulted in The Herald (1/11) passively allowing its "political commentators" to launch personal attacks against a senior ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) official, Patrick Balopi, for accusing President Mugabe for running down the Zimbabwean economy.

The commentators appeared especially rankled by the fact that BDP executive secretary Botsala Ntuane supported Balopi, saying it was "within his rights" to criticise Mugabe.

Meanwhile, the Independent reported the European Union parliamentarians (MEPs) as having resolved to bar ruling party politburo member Kumbirai Kangai, who is on the list of the 95 associates of President Mugabe banned from travelling to the EU under its targeted sanctions regime, from attending the EU-ACP meeting due to be held in the Netherlands later this month.

The paper quoted the co-spokesman on Foreign Affairs and Human Rights in the European Parliament, Godfrey van Orden, as saying there were making "representations to the Dutch government" that Kangai should not be given a visa as it would be "quite wrong for politicians such as ourselves to sit down in a meeting with a banned individual".

But despite such developments, ZTV (5/11, 6pm) still sought to give the impression that Zimbabwe’s international stature was improving as Western powers were beginning to recognise government as legitimate.

Australian Ambassador John Shepherd was reported as having told Vice-President Joseph Msika that his country respected the Zimbabwean government because it was legitimately elected.

Msika was quoted humbling the Australian envoy, accusing his country of working with Britain in "demonising" Zimbabwe.

Visit the MMPZ fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP