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International relations
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-23
Monday June 5^th 2006 – Sunday June 11^th 2006

THE official media continued to gloss over the country’s pariah status and the international community’s efforts to find a solution to the crisis by portraying Harare as otherwise enjoying good relations with the world.

The government Press carried 23 stories peddling this slant, while ZBH had 28.

Almost all their stories used sporadic business deals that the government has allegedly signed with companies from Asian and African countries to simplistically portray the international community’s concerns over the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe as only stemming from Britain and America’s agenda to remove President Mugabe from office.

To buttress this notion, they weaved conspiracy theories that presented the two countries as clandestinely working with NGOs to effect regime change in the country.

Against this background ZTV and Spot FM (6/6, 8pm) deliberately misinterpreted Swedish Ambassador Sten Rylander’s call for dialogue between Zimbabwe and the international community as a sign that other EU countries were prepared to work with Harare had they not been dragged by Britain into its ‘bilateral’ dispute with Zimbabwe "over the land issue".

The stations quoted government official Joey Bimha calling for the revival of "earlier friendship between Sweden and Zimbabwe" in order to "build the bridges". But instead of discussing what exactly had strained relations between the two countries, the reporter only touted the "US$50million fuel facility" signed between Zimbabwe and a French bank, and a "Euro50 000 donation" from Greece as "signs that better things are in the making for Zimbabwe and the EU".

The next day the Chronicle ironically attacked Britain for financially supporting "humanitarian programmes" and "not a dime for development" in a bid to "give a hungry person fish so they keep on coming for more instead of teaching them how to fish for themselves". Based on these assumptions, the paper then projected Britain’s involvement in the NGOs’ "civil society leadership development programmes" as confirmation that it was covertly working with civic bodies to effect regime change in Zimbabwe.

Such conspiracies found greater space in The Sunday Mail (11/6). The paper claimed that the UK and US had adopted a new strategy (that did not involve the opposition MDC this time) to oust President Mugabe. The plan, it said, involved the two countries "clandestinely" working with the International Crisis Group (ICG) to create a " false impression" of the situation in Zimbabwe, as well as instructing the IMF to "stop" financially assisting the country so as to create an "implosion" they hoped "will force President Mugabe out of office".

Apart from citing anonymous diplomats and sections of the ICG report, there was not a shred of evidence supporting the supposedly revised "Zim regime change strategy" of the West.

Although the official media gave space to foreign voices, these were either used to portray Zimbabwe as enjoying good relations with the international community or to give the impression that those who had earlier been misled by Britain into isolating Harare were abandoning that position. See Figs. 1 and 2.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution in the government Press

Fig. 2 Voice distribution on ZBH

The private media gave an alternative perspective on the subject in the 18 stories they carried on the subject. For instance, they contradicted the government media’s notion that relations between Zimbabwe and the international community were thawing.

Instead, they showed the international community as still concerned with the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe and were thus trying to find a settlement to the six-year old crisis.

The Zimbabwe Independent, for example, revealed that South African President Thabo Mbeki had "dispatched" his Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils to meet his Zimbabwean counterpart Didymus Mutasa for "talks on a possible summit" between him and Mugabe "to address the local crisis".

However, Studio 7 (9/6) quoted analyst Obrey Matshiqi expressing scepticism on the success of such initiatives saying similar diplomatic efforts had previously failed.

In addition, while the official media narrowly interpreted British Ambassador Andrew Pocock’s statements that he was exploring ways of normalising relations between his country and Harare to mean that Britain now wanted to unconditionally engage Zimbabwe, the Independent revealed otherwise.

It quoted Pocock noting that Britain can only restore its relations with Zimbabwe if it changed "track, …policies and give its people the life, prospects and future they deserve".

An unnamed diplomat concurred in The Standard (11/6) saying relations between Zimbabwe and Britain will remain strained because there haven’t been "any change in policies so far to address the crisis Zimbabwe is facing."

The private media’s attempts to give a clearer picture on the international community’s perception on the crisis in Zimbabwe and its efforts to find a solution to the problems was mirrored by the amount of space the private papers gave to foreign voices. See Fig 3.

Fig. 3 Voice distribution in the private Press

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