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Government media censorship
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-21
Monday June 6^th – Sunday June 12^th 2005

THIS week the government media censored news of the job stay-away announced by the Broad Alliance, a coalition of civic organizations and the opposition MDC, to protest the inhumanity of the government’s purge of poor urban inhabitants living in allegedly illegal homesteads.

This latest violation of Zimbabweans’ rights to be adequately informed – in this case about the sentiments of their compatriots – once again illustrates the government’s determination to suffocate any news that may reflect badly on its policies and activities.

Nothing demonstrates this better than the very titles used by the government media to describe the authorities’ evidently inhumane blitz on its hapless victims. "Clean-up" and "murambatsvina" merely portray a necessary technical operation devoid of any requirement for implementing a humane and civilized policy. That "murambatsvina" has caused so much destitution, homelessness and grief are facts that cannot be expected from media organisations that are obliged to defend government policies however cruel and inhumane they may be; which is why the sheer scale of human suffering caused by the blitz on Zimbabwe’s urban populations cannot be found this week – as in any other – in the government-controlled media.

This too, is censorship of the very worst order, particularly because government’s precipitous action is a burning issue that so seriously affects, at the very least, hundreds of thousands of people. All that can be gleaned from the government media are sterile piecemeal reports of the authorities "clearing" various urban sectors without any effort to assess the extent of the suffering; the numbers made homeless and destitute and the extent of the material losses incurred.

That the private media have not managed to tackle this topic successfully indicates lack of diversity, limited resources and a reluctance on the part of the authorities to provide such information, let alone a credible explanation for inflicting such an inhumane exercise on the urban poor.

It is the duty of the media, particularly the public media, to demand answers to these all-important questions. But the government media have only carried stories that ameliorate the devastation of murmbatsvina and have failed beyond measure to report fairly the extent of the suffering and why it was necessary.

Predictably then, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings only reported on the planned stay-away when the protest had flopped. Even then, ZTV (9/6, 8pm) only made reference to the issue in the context of its attack on the MDC, which it accused of "deciding to dine and wine with the enemy while Zimbabwean issues are under discussion" by boycotting the official opening of Parliament.

Instead of fairly reporting the party’s reasons for boycotting Parliament, ZTV merely claimed the MDC’s decision "coincided with the party’s unheeded call for a stayaway over the current clean-up campaign in a bid to sabotage the economy".

This unprofessionalism was also apparent on Radio Zimbabwe and Power FM, which also ignored the Alliance’s calls for the stayaway in their main news bulletins.

The Herald and Chronicle (6/6) adopted a similar stance.

The two government dailies also indirectly referred to the planned protest in the form of a police threat to deal "ruthlessly" with anyone who would participate in the "illegal" stayaway planned for "some time" during the week. No dates were provided as the papers claimed the details of the stayaway "still remained sketchy by last night", although the previous day The Standard (5/6) had provided details of the civic protest.

The Herald (8/6) only provided the dates for the protest the day before it was due to take place - buried in its article on murmbatsvina on page two.

The Sunday Mail (12/6), which had ignored the matter the previous week, led with the failed stay-away claiming that its failure had resulted in the organisers dissociating themselves from it. But there was no evidence in the article to substantiate this.

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