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Government media and humanitarian crisis
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-42
Monday October 31^st – Sunday November 6^th 2005

THE government media’s status as unbridled conduits of official propaganda was again confirmed by their attempts to suffocate the UN’s concerns over the humanitarian crisis triggered by the widely condemned Operation Murambatsvina.

Instead of clearly reporting the statement on Zimbabwe by the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, the government-controlled media, led by The Herald (3/11), diverted attention from the statement by only reporting it in the context of it being part of a British conspiracy to demonise the country.

The paper contrived to distort comments by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that he had "discussed" the statement with Annan to mean he had "admitted" pressuring the UN chief into issuing a damning statement on Zimbabwe. A BBC documentary on Zimbabwe was also used as evidence that Britain had a "hidden hand in the secretary-general’s statement".

To sustain its agenda, the paper also deliberately manipulated Straw’s assertion that "tens of thousands" of Zimbabweans were still homeless to mean that Britain had "climbed down on its claims that over 700 000 Zimbabweans were made homeless" under Murambatsvina.

ZTV (4/11, 8pm) allocated nine minutes of its 8pm bulletin to Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi to propagate similar claims. ZBH radios (5/11, main bulletins) adopted the same slant. As a result, those who rely on government controlled media for information were left in the dark about the details of the UN statement.

A fair presentation of the issue appeared on SW Radio Africa, Studio 7 (1/11) and in The Financial Gazette (3/11). These media clearly reported that the UN boss was "concerned with the humanitarian situation" in the country and "dismayed" by government’s rejection of international support when a "large number of vulnerable groups, including the recent evictees…remain in need of immediate assistance, including shelter".

But The Herald (4/11) persisted with its frenzied propaganda. It added a new twist to its conspiracy theory by alleging Britain had also "roped in" Prince Charles in its efforts to "pressurise" the UN into "taking action against Zimbabwe". Apart from Charles’ comments wondering "what extra role the UN might play" in addressing the Zimbabwe crisis, no evidence was provided to substantiate the claims.

The US Ambassador Christopher Dell’s comments that Zimbabwe’s problems were due to government’s "own gross mismanagement of the economy and its corrupt rule" and not "drought and sanctions" as government officials claimed, were also narrowly viewed as part of Britain’s "new well-orchestrated campaign" against Zimbabwe.

This also opened a floodgate of personal attacks against Dell, who the official media accused of meddling in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs. The full import of Dell’s arguments was censored.

In fact, the unprofessional manner in which the government media handled the matter assumed offensive extremes when The Herald’s abusive columnist Nathaniel Manheru suggested that Dell was on a sexual escapade when members of the Presidential Guard detained him recently in the Botanical Gardens last month. Said Manheru: "We all know what happens by the margins of the Botanical Garden as night falls. So many of our youthful citizens have been deflowered there, lured by the greenback from generous and flaunting foreigners not given to enjoying sex the conventional way".

He called on the authorities to censure the ambassador, and the following morning The Sunday Mail reported that President Mugabe would summon Dell over the matter. This erroneous assumption ignored the protocol of the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s role that was corrected by The Herald the following day (07/11).

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