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SADC summit
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-13
Monday April 2nd 2007 - Sunday April 8th 2007

THE government media continued to distort the outcome of the SADC summit in Tanzania by projecting it as a diplomatic victory for Zimbabwe while simultaneously censoring information that suggested other developments.

As a result, all 23 stories on the matter (ZBC [8] and government papers [15]) highlighted SADC's call on the West to lift "sanctions" and for Britain to honour its land reform obligations while censoring the circumstances leading to SADC's appointment of SA President Thabo Mbeki to mediate between government and the opposition. Neither did they query Mugabe's claims of SADC support for his government's "bashing" of the opposition leadership or explore the implications of the region's decision to task its secretariat to assess the country's economic woes.

The nearest these media came to discussing Mbeki's role was when The Herald (6/4) sought to discredit the MDC officials meeting Mbeki as the opposition's "pre-emptive" strategy meant to give a distorted picture of the country's crisis and thereby influence Mbeki to "come up with a pre-conceived position" in his mediation efforts.

Otherwise, they vilified the MDC and the West for their alleged plans to effect "illegal" regime change in the country.

For example, The Herald (2/4) columnist Reason Wafawarova portrayed the MDC as having been disowned by SADC by equating its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, as being in the same league as Jean-Pierre Bemba, Alfonso Dhlakama and Jonas Savimbi: "subversive individuals that needed to be tamed and reformed into acceptable Africans".

In fact, the official papers' efforts to present the problems bedeviling the country as a creation of the West resulted in The Sunday Mail and Sunday News (8/4) simplistically interpreting US revelations that it was taking measures to foster democracy in Zimbabwe as a "confession" of its "plot to topple President Mugabe". While the papers reported the US as having denied the allegations, they insisted that "recent political disturbances" were part of "the US-sponsored machinations to illegally remove the Zimbabwe government from power".

Although the official papers' sourcing pattern appeared balanced as shown in Fig 1, they remained pro-government in their approach. For instance, most of the MDC voices were quoted in stories that malign the opposition as "stooges" of the West.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution in the government Press

In contrast, the private media's 30 stories on the SADC summit did not only dispute official claims on the meeting but also assessed Mbeki's chances of resolving the country's crisis. Of these, 13 were carried by the private electronic media and the rest by private papers.

For example, Studio 7 (3/4) reported analyst Aubrey Matshiqi saying the fact that SADC had chosen Mbeki to deal with the matter was enough evidence of how the region had "hardened its stance on Zimbabwe". The Zimbabwe Times (3/4) quoted Mbeki himself expressing optimism in SADC's position, saying he was "quite convinced" that it was "the only way to solve the Zimbabwe political crisis".

And contrary to Mugabe's boast that SADC had failed to raise a finger over the beating of MDC leaders, the private media disclosed that this was not the case. Citing Mbeki's interview with the UK-based Financial Times, The Financial Gazette quoted Mbeki saying: "The region believes there are political problems (in Zimbabwe) . . . and people said quite openly that they are disturbed to see these pictures of people beaten up".
It then carried excerpts of the interview in which Mbeki expressed his views on the problems in Zimbabwe and part of the initial steps of his mediation efforts.

However, the paper's comment was doubtful of the SADC initiative. It dismissed the summit outcome as a "damp squib" and ruled out any "prospects for success" in Mbeki's mediation saying the fact that SADC chose him to resolve the crisis despite his previous failed efforts made its decision "pass for a horribly bad joke".

The Zimbabwe Times (3/4) and Studio 7 (4/4) also reported MDC national executive member Eddie Cross and US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell expressing disquiet over the summit. Dell, for example, told Studio 7 that SADC's failure to publicly censure Mugabe allowed the ruling party to spin the story and claim "great victory".

However, Zimdaily (2/4) reported MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai expressing confidence in Mbeki's new initiative "considering that he is now acting on behalf of SADC". So did Zimbabwe Independent columnist Iden Wetherell.

The private media dented its coverage of the subject by its sparse sourcing (See Fig 5).

Fig. 2 Voice distribution in the private Press

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