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The urban purge and Tibaijuka's report
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-28
Monday July 25th - Sunday July 31st 2005

UNITED Nations special envoy Anna Tibaijuka’s report on Operation Murambatsvina continued to attract heavy media attention during the week.

The media carried a total of 153 stories on the matter. Of these, 73 were carried by ZBH (ZTV [34], Radio Zimbabwe [20], Power FM [19]), 20 by Studio 7, 30 by the government-controlled Press, while the remaining 35 stories were published in the private papers.

But while the private media carried fairly investigative and balanced reports on the topic, the government-controlled media’s coverage was rigid, characterised by shrill defence of government’s implementation of Murambatsvina while simultaneously parading the clampdown’s mop-up successor, Operation Garikai, as a worthy programme.

For example, ZBH devoted 31 stories (42%) out of the 73 stories they carried on Murambatsvina to condemning Tibaijuka’s findings. The broadcaster and its print counterparts passively peddled as fact unsubstantiated conspiracy theories by government officials and their sympathisers that Tibaijuka’s damning report on Murambatsvina was instigated by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

ZTV alone carried at least five stories propagating this agenda.

For example, ZTV (25/7,8pm) quoted Information Minister Tichaona Jokonya accusing Tibaijuka of having come to assess the clampdown "without an open mind" and saying "she was on a mission to satisfy Tony Blair’s agenda".

It was in this context that The Herald and Chronicle (25/7) reported President Mugabe as having invited UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to visit Zimbabwe "to see for himself the situation on the ground" because as he told ZTV (26/7, 8pm), The Herald and Chronicle (27/7), Tibaijuka’s assessment of Murambatsvina was pre-determined.

The two papers (27/7) quoted him alleging that Tibaijuka had told him "her hands were tied" because "certain people had been planted in her assessment mission to ensure that the report was damning".

Without independently ascertaining the veracity of Mugabe’s allegations, the government Press simply magnified them in 10 other reports they carried on the subject. However, these allegations contradicted those by Annan’s spokesman. He told Studio 7 (27/7) that Tibaijuka had produced the report on her own authority saying, " the report is clear, complete on the situation on the ground and on the humanitarian situation".

Other analysts quoted on the same bulletin also dismissed government’s denial of the UN findings. Director of African Policy Studies, Princeton Leman, told Studio 7 that the government strategy was "to discredit the report and deny what is actually happening". Added Leman: "It’s not the first time he (President Mugabe) has done this. He denied there was a food crisis last year then turned around of course for food aid…"

In fact, The Financial Gazette (28/7) quoted unnamed ZANU PF sources revealing that Tibaijuka had told Mugabe not to "expect nothing short of a bad report given the situation on the ground". The story also revealed that due to divisions within the ruling party over Murambatsvina, some party members had "nicodemously" provided Tibaijuka with information to "recant what they would have said in broad daylight".

The Sunday Mirror (31/7) concurred, saying there was no "collective inter-ministerial drive" on the operation. It claimed that Harare City Council initially planned the operation, which later "spun out of control" when Chombo took the Harare "clean-up" to Cabinet level.

The government media steered clear of these matters.

Their preoccupation with portraying Britain as the brains behind Tibaijuka’s unflattering findings even resulted in them distorting the circumstances leading to the presentation of her report to the closed-door session of the UN Security Council.

For example, The Herald (28/7) wrongly gave the impression that London had bulldozed the report onto the agenda of the Council instead of clearly stating that its tabling was as a result of a procedural vote in which the Council voted 9:5 in favour of the report’s presentation. Instead, it narrowly portrayed the vote as having been only conducted to determine whether or not Zimbabwe should attend Tibaijuka’s briefing.

Similarly, although the Chronicle (29/7) acknowledged the Council’s decision to have the report presented over opposition from China, Russia and African countries, it maintained that Britain and the US had to "force a briefing" after their "spirited campaign" to have Zimbabwe "foisted on the agenda of the UN organ" was "thwarted" by other members.

Still, despite government’s strident initial criticism of the UN’s ‘biased’ report, government media’s audiences would have been confused when ZTV (27/7, 8pm) and The Herald (28/7) passively quoted Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga denying government had "condemned" the report. They made no effort to explain this represented a contradiction of government’s previous position.

Similarly, the same reports failed to reconcile the authorities’ attacks on the UN report with invitations to the UN from Vice-President Joyce Mujuru and Matonga to complement government efforts in realising its "national reconstruction programme".

Not surprisingly, the government media’s attempts to ignore Murambatsvina’s devastation and project government as committed to providing shelter and vending stalls to the victims of its purge exactly mirrored the official focus on reconstruction.

To this end the official media carried 50 glowing stories on Garikai.

The stories were hardly informative as none of them gave a detailed inventory of the government’s reconstruction programme. These media just bombarded their audiences with meaningless statistics and projections that were sometimes at odds with reality.

For example, ZTV (26/7,8pm) did not question government’s claim that it would complete building "100 houses in four weeks" in Victoria Falls "despite fuel shortages" crippling the country.

Neither did ZTV (28/7,8pm), Radio Zimbabwe (29/7,6am) or Power FM (29/7,8pm) question in what capacity Acting Commander of Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) Perence Shiri was commenting on issues pertaining to Garikai, an allegedly civilian exercise. The stations merely reported him as commending "the commitment shown by Mashonaland East Province in the construction of houses, factory shells…under the current reconstruction programme" and urged it to meet government’s August 31^st deadline. There was no attempt to discuss the practicability of this deadline.

Rather, ZTV (25/7,8pm) and The Herald (26/7) passively reported Acting Foreign Affairs Minister Stan Mudenge saying the deadline was "achievable" and "real people who were staying in shacks are going to live in real houses".

The government media’s partisan approach in handling the topic was evident in their sourcing pattern, which was dominated by official voices. See Fig 1 and 2.

Fig 1. Voice distribution in the government Press

The 10 foreign voices quoted in the government Press were supportive of government while Moyo and the MDC’s voices were only quoted in the context of ZANU PF MPs’ response to their motions in Parliament.

Fig 2. Voice Distribution on ZBH

Nearly all the ZBH sources were quoted rubber-stamping Garikai or vilifying the UN report.

Except for 10 reports in the Mirror stable, which echoed the official media’s position, the rest of the 45 stories carried by the private media endorsed the UN report.

The Financial Gazette (28/7) and The Standard called on government to accept its mistakes and mend fences with the rest of the international community.

In fact, The Standard reported that despite spirited protestations against the UN report, ZANU PF’s politburo was scheduled to meet to discuss the findings "as pressure mounts on President Mugabe to fully comply" with the UN recommendations. It quoted unnamed diplomatic sources saying members of the international community had endorsed the report and were treating its findings seriously.

In addition, it also reported that owners of Whitecliff Farm, Eddies Pfugari Properties, had filed contempt of court charges against Chombo for defying an earlier court order barring his ministry from building houses at the farm.

Contrary to the official Press’ narrow coverage of the clampdown, the private media continued to highlight the misery caused by Murambatsvina and exposed government’s continued demolitions and evictions of people in Chipinge and Porta Farm and the inhumane treatment of those removed from government’s holding camps.

The government media ignored this news or focussed on Joyce Mujuru’s announcement that Murambatsvina was over (The Herald, 28/7). The Herald (25/7) gave the impression that Porta Farm residents were voluntarily "relocating" to their rural homes.

However, Studio 7 (27/7) revealed that church leaders were battling to establish where government had taken those it had forcibly removed from Porta Farm and transit camps and that the police were barring civic groups and aid agencies from assisting Murambatsvina victims.

The station (26/7) also reported that a 40-year old man had died outside a Tsholotsho district administrator’s office after he and about a 100 others were dumped by the authorities following their removal from Bulawayo churches that housed them.

The report lacked police confirmation.

The varied themes the private media covered on the topic and the professional manner in which they handled the subject were reflected by their diverse sourcing pattern. See Figs. 3 and 4.

Fig. 3 Voice distribution in the private Press

Fig 4. Voice distribution on Studio 7

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