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Clampdown
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-20
Monday May 30^th – Sunday June 5^th 2005

THE Government’s continuing persecution of the country’s urban poor again dominated the media, which carried 206 stories on the campaign.

Of these, 124 appeared on ZBH (ZTV, Power FM and Radio Zimbabwe), 29 in the government-controlled Press, 33 in private papers and the remaining 20 on Studio 7.

Although the government papers typically endorsed the exercise to demolish illegally built houses and destroy flea markets, and largely ignored the scale of human suffering – which the private Press captured – all media failed to fully assess the economic cost of the exercise.

For example, the resulting dislocation of society and its effects on industry, as illustrated by the displacement of so many workers, was not explored. Conspicuous too, was the media’s silence on the legality of the so-called clean up, leaving their audiences in the dark over what by-laws the authorities were relying on to implement the clampdown.

The media only raised the legal element in their coverage of court challenges to the exercise.

This notwithstanding, the government-controlled media’s reportage of the persecution was replete with official bias. Most of their stories merely hushed the tragic realities of the crackdown with reports portraying government as compassionate and committed to addressing the people’s plight by creating the impression that the disadvantages of the "clean-up" were nothing compared to the remedies that the authorities had put in place to help the affected people.

ZBH alone devoted 32 stories to reporting approvingly of government’s "commitment to house all" and "providing appropriate structures for informal traders" following the commissioning of 50 000 housing stands in Harare, which it said were part of the 250,000 stands set aside countrywide for the homeless, and the re-opening of Mupedzanhamo flea-market in Mbare. (ZTV 1/6, 6pm & 2/6, 8pm, Power FM and Radio Zimbabwe, 2/6, 6am).

But the state broadcaster never asked the logic behind government’s vicious and abrupt closure of Mupedzanhamo, only to re-open it almost immediately after "restructuring".

Instead, ZTV (2/6, 7am) claimed "accommodation problems faced by many cities and towns are set to be a thing of the past as government will make available 250 000 stands across the country at zero deposit" without reconciling this with the country’s reported two million housing backlog.

The government papers followed suit. They carried seven unquestioning stories in which they reported government as having set aside housing stands for the public and opening new vending complexes for informal traders. No attempt was made to fully inform readers about the location of the stands or the criteria to be used to allocate them. Neither did the papers challenge the authorities’ logic of first making Zimbabweans homeless before declaring that new plots would be available.

Instead, The Sunday Mail and The Sunday News (5/6) passively welcomed the allocation saying it was a "blessing in disguise to prospective house owners" as government had come up with "comprehensive plans" to "boost provision of housing" by relaxing "municipal requirements governing the allocation of stands and construction of houses" and reducing the cost of building a new house by "at least 60 percent".

To present the clean-up as paying dividends, The Sunday Mail reported that police had recovered "fuel with a street value of $55 million" destined for the black market as the authorities’ clampdown moved to Harare’s "crime ridden Highfield high-density suburb".

The government media’s excitement over the alleged success of the clampdown resulted in them failing to establish the exact operational framework of the exercise, which appears to have mutated rapidly to include seemingly ad hoc measures.

This was illustrated by the passive manner in which ZTV (3/6, 6pm & 4/6, 7am), Power FM (3/6, 8pm) and Radio Zimbabwe (4/6, 6am) reported warnings to property owners by City of Harare public relations manager Leslie Gwindi to refurbish and paint their properties or face legal action.

Even the national broadcaster appeared to be setting the agenda of the clampdown by recommending issues that it felt should be investigated. For example, although ZTV (30/5, 7am) Radio Zimbabwe (30/5, 6am) claimed there was a public outcry to have the "clean-up" encompass phone shops because they were charging exorbitant rates, no one was quoted saying this.

In fact, the government media’s partisan coverage of the matter resulted in them relying heavily on the authorities for comment almost to the exclusion of other pertinent sources. See Fig 1 and 2.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution in government controlled Press

Notably, almost all the ordinary people quoted were victims of the clampdown who endorsed government’s operation and called on the authorities to find them alternative accommodation and vending stalls.

In addition, the papers carried seven editorials and opinion pieces that supported the exercise.

Fig. 2 Voice distribution on ZBH

Similarly, ZBH stories were dominated by official comments, all defending the operation. Professionals such as the government-controlled Scientific and Industrial Research Development Centre (SIRDC) and pro-governments analysts also supported the operation.

Although ZBH appeared to have made attempts to balance official opinion with that of the opposition MDC on the clean-up exercise, its insincerity was clearly illustrated by the way it misrepresented and editorialised the MDC’s contribution. For example, ZTV (1/6, 8pm) only stressed the MDC’s purported acknowledgement of the "on-going clean up exercise" but ignored the party’s strong objections to the manner in which it was being conducted.

This was only revealed later in the bulletin when the station quoted MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai dismissing the exercise as an "an indiscriminate abuse or assault on the people’s basic survival…actually making a lot of people destitute, desperate…where there are no jobs, no options of basic survival."

The government media’s attempts to portray the opposition party as supporting the crackdown were also evident in the Chronicle (30/5 and 31/5). The paper claimed that the MDC dominated Bulawayo City Council, which has always conducted annual demolitions of "illegal tuck shops in Cowdray Park", supported the "clean-up" but was only distancing itself from the exercise "to avoid a backlash during the (council) elections" scheduled for September.

The city’s MDC mayor, Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube was not given space to respond to the allegations. But the Zimbabwe Independent (3/5) did, and quoted him categorically refuting that his council supported the clampdown. The Standard (5/6) also quoted the MDC’s Gweru mayor, Cecil Zvidzayi, saying his council was equally against the operation.

But the official media remained relentless in its distortion of the MDC’s position. Commenting on the opposition party’s plan to sue government over the crackdown, ZTV and Radio Zimbabwe (3/5, 8pm) cynically accused the MDC of being "insensitive to the plight of ordinary people as they are wasting billions of dollars on court cases instead of funding developmental projects that benefit the people".

However, Studio 7 (30/5, 1/6 & 3/6) reported the opposition party as having launched an appeal for assistance to help those affected by the crackdown.

The three reports by Studio 7 formed part of the 53 stories that the private media carried on the authorities’ assault on the country’s urban poor.

Except for an editorial in The Daily Mirror (1/6) endorsing the destruction of people’s homes under the operation, the rest of the private media’s stories were informative as they brought to the fore the tense political atmosphere, public outcry, human suffering and rights abuses sparked by the exercise.

Unlike ZTV (30/5, 6pm, 8pm), Radio Zimbabwe (3/6, 6pm & 8pm) and The Herald (3/6), which reported more people as "voluntarily" and "willingly" pulling down their illegal structures and therefore "complying" with the government exercise, Studio 7 carried six stories that revealed that it was actually a result of coercion and fear.

For example, the station (3/6) reported the police as ordering "people to tear down their own homes at gunpoint".

Besides, it was only the private media that exposed the policy contradictions riddling the authorities’ implementation of the exercise. For example, Studio 7 (2/6) questioned government’s demolition of Hatcliffe Extension, an official holding camp of former inhabitants of squatter settlements set up as a joint project between the Harare City Council, the World Bank and USAID.

In the same vein, the Zimbabwe Independent (3/6) noted that when "all these illegal settlements mushroomed across the country we had the same self-righteous government in power". The Standard (5/6) raised similar sentiments and revealed plans by civic and political organizations to protest against the operation.

Radio Zimbabwe and Power FM (5/6, 8pm) only reported a call for mass action in the context of the authorities’ calls "for members of the public to desist from violence and stayaways being perpetrated by the MDC".

The critical manner in which the private Press handled the matter was reflected by the way they sought to balance the authorities’ comments with independent views as shown in Fig 3.

Fig. 3 Voice distribution in private Press

However, as Fig 4 shows, Studio 7’s stories were unbalanced because they lacked official comment, especially on allegations of the aggressive and violent nature with which the government operation was being conducted.

Fig. 4 Voice sourcing on Studio 7

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