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Weekly Media Update 2008/ 20
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
July 27, 2008

Comment
This week the authorities again demonstrated their imperviousness to the spirit of tolerance symbolised by the recent signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between ZANU PF and the two MDC formations aimed at ending Zimbabwe's eight-year political crisis.

This follows the arrest and harassment of two civic leaders for allegedly lying that state-sponsored political violence against MDC supporters, which surged following ZANU PF's loss to the opposition party in the March 29 elections, was continuing.

Radio Zimbabwe (24/7, 8pm) and The Herald and Chronicle (25/7) reported the arrest of Civic Education Network Trust official, Peter Muchengeti, for "peddling malicious falsehoods to the international media and hostile nations to Zimbabwe in a bid to portray the country as lawless". The Herald quoted police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka alleging that Muchengeti was arrested over a document he wrote making "various claims that ZANU PF was perpetrating violence in the Midlands Province".

He cited a document, "Blood by Tracks in Rural Midlands as Violence Continues", which Muchengeti is said to have sent to the private radio station, Studio 7, alleging that the bodies of six people from Matshekandumba Village had been recovered near a railway line 30km from Gweru.

Mandipaka told the official daily that police investigations had "revealed that the purported village is non-existent and that such an incident never happened". Mandipaka also claimed the police had found another document in Muchengeti's office, which falsely alleged that more than 600 people in Gokwe had been assaulted by ZANU PF youths and the Minister of Special Affairs responsible for Land and Resettlement, Florence Bhuka.

Said Mandipaka: "The police do not have any record of such reports, and no such people were either injured or murdered in Gweru." No efforts were made to establish, independently, the veracity of the stories. In a related matter, ZTV and Spot FM (24/7, 8pm) reported the claim by University of Zimbabwe lecturer John Makumbe, that violence still persisted in post-election Zimbabwe during a ZTV current affairs programme, Zimbabwe Today, in the context of the police dismissing as false, reports that they had arrested him over the allegations.

The stations cited Mandipaka contending that Makumbe's claims were "baseless and unfounded" because he had failed to substantiate them apart from referring the police to stories carried in the private weekly paper, The Zimbabwean, and Studio 7. They also reported ZBH boss and Zimbabwe Today host, Happison Muchechetere, "reminding" guests to ZBC programmes "to be people of integrity who do not peddle falsehoods".

No comment was sought from Makumbe.

On Saturday, The Herald (26/7) simply amplified the police claims that Makumbe had failed to substantiate his claims, by quoting Mandipaka alleging that Makumbe's utterances were "meant to cause alarm and despondency", adding that there had been "no cases of violence since the elections ended". But he has made no attempt to refute specific allegations about violence still being reported in the private media.

While MMPZ condemns the rush to report unsubstantiated claims of violence, efforts by the police to stifle debate on what has evidently been a violent period in Zimbabwe's electoral history is regrettable, especially in view of their recent record of silence regarding the extent of the brutality visited upon the Zimbabwean public during the presidential election campaign.

This has been exacerbated by the government media's docile acceptance of generalized police statements as being definitive without conducting their own independent investigations into serious allegations. Their own efforts to suffocate the pre-election violence also marks these organisations as being unreliable sources of information that continue to portray the untruthful image that Zimbabwe has not been traumatised by the massive campaign of violence and intimidation that characterized the period between the country's two elections.

Political developments
This week the government media benefited from a media blackout imposed on the SADC-facilitated dialogue between ZANU PF and the two formations of the MDC to give a one-sided perspective of the fundamental nature of the talks. A Memorandum of Understanding signed by the principals of the three political parties prohibits the negotiators from leaking information relating to the negotiations to the media.

Against this background, the official media simply celebrated the signing of the MoU, narrowly portraying it as the panacea to the country's eight-year-old political crisis without cautioning that this was merely a tentative step towards resolving the deep-rooted problem.

Consequently, they did not explore the impediments that could still derail chances of a successfully negotiated settlement given the ideological differences between the parties. Neither did they question the exclusion of other stakeholders, such as the churches and civil society, from an important process that will have a profound influence on Zimbabwe's political future.

Instead, The Herald (22/7) emphasised that the signing of the MoU had shown Zimbabwe's detractors that the three political leaders "did not have fundamental differences that could not be resolved amicably through dialogue" while an editorial in the same paper argued that the MoU had given "us a new imperative to reach out to each other in love ".

No attempt was made to reconcile this stance with their previous venomous attacks on the MDC and its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, especially in the period leading up to the June 27 presidential election. This contradiction was more pronounced in the way the official papers narrowly portrayed the talks as solely an initiative of President Mugabe's benevolence since he was willing to talk to his "younger rivals who do not share the pain that came in birthing this nation" despite his overwhelming electoral victory.

Similarly, ZTV & Spot FM (22/7, 8pm) reported Zimbabweans as having "applauded" the signing of the MoU, saying it "marks the beginning of new era that will see the nation coming together to build a better Zimbabwe" while the vice-chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Joyce Kazembe, told Spot FM (22/7, 1pm) that the MoU would "map the way forward for Zimbabwe's development" without explaining how this was so.

Spot FM (22/7, 8pm) also claimed that the stock market had "already responded" to the signing of the MoU, citing investors who claimed they were "confident" that the development would lead to the recovery of the economy.

The government media emphasized ZANU PF's preconditions to the talks with The Herald (25/7) approvingly reporting the ruling party as having "classified" as "non-negotiable" the "irreversibility" of land reforms, "non-interference" in the affairs of Zimbabwe by the West and the recognition of Mugabe as the country's legitimate president based on the June 27 presidential run-off.

In addition, they narrowly gave the impression that the parties were discussing the formation of a government of national unity despite the fact that the MDC has been on record saying it considered any such authority being a transitional government leading to fresh elections.

In other reports, the government media distorted and downplayed the addition of more service chiefs and government officials to the EU sanctions list, especially those allegedly responsible for the violence against the opposition ahead of the June 27 poll. The Herald (25/7) only highlighted the inclusion of two senior managers of the Reserve Bank, Munyaradzi Kereke and Mirirai Chiremba and even ignored mentioning that one of its former staffers, Caesar Zvayi, had been added to the American sanctions list.

These reports formed part of the 101 stories the government media featured on the topic.

Despite the secrecy surrounding the talks, the private media gave more intelligent and measured analysis of the negotiations, pointing out that the signing of the MoU did not automatically translate into a negotiated settlement as depicted in the official media.

They highlighted the weaknesses of the MoU, while reconciling its signing to the events leading up to the March 29 and June 27 elections. The Independent (25/7), for example, observed that the signing of the MoU was neither a "bolt from the blue" nor an act of goodwill by Mugabe, but a result of pressure exerted from "all sides, including, of course, the collapsing Zimbabwean economy".

The Financial Gazette (24/7) agreed, recalling that until a few days ago Mugabe and ZANU PF were using hate language and living in denial about the consequences of their "political egotism" and "meaningless bravado".

The private media argued that the signing of the MoU alone was unlikely to bring a quick solution to Zimbabwe's problems. ZimOnline (23/7), for example, cited Tsvangirai saying it did not guarantee a quick and lasting solution to the country's crisis as the negotiations could only succeed if political violence was brought to an end and the rule of law restored.

Further, the private media and The Sunday Mail (27/7) recorded civil society expressing outrage over their exclusion from the process, and the media blackout imposed on the dialogue. National Constitutional Assembly chairman Lovemore Madhuku, for example, told The Sunday Mail: "It is not the business of political parties to debate the issue of a new constitution. It must be debated by the people and political parties must facilitate the process," while SW Radio Africa (22/7) reported local media watchdog, MISA, arguing that the media blackout impinged on the right to "freedom of expression, access to information and freedom of the media".

Political violence
Despite a provision in the MoU calling on each of the signatories to "issue a statement condemning the promotion and use of violence . . . and . . . take measures necessary to ensure that the structures and institutions it controls are not engaged in the perpetration of violence", the parties had not yet done so during the week and none of the media has questioned this omission. The 11 reports that the government media carried simply denied the existence of politically motivated violence, mostly against the opposition, and presented such claims as a pretext by the MDC and the West to discredit the country to justify international intervention.

One report appeared in The Herald and Chronicle (23/7), accusing white former commercial farmers - who have taken their legal battle to stave off government's seizure of their farms to the SADC Tribunal - of "faking injuries", allegedly inflicted on them by ZANU PF supporters.

The heavily opinionated propagandist report cited the authorities contending that the farmers' conduct was "a ploy to demonise ZANU PF and government and whip up emotions in order to win sympathy from the tribunal". The papers claimed that one of the farmers, Ben Freeth, who had a "bandaged head" and followed the court proceedings in a wheelchair "stage-managed" the event to "ratchet up pressure on Harare" as he was later seen at the airport in Namibia and South Africa without a wheelchair and "walking normally".

Instead of substantiating their allegations, the papers again cited a New York Times (26/6) story that wrongly presented ZANU PF activists as having broken the legs of an 11-month old baby when the child was actually suffering a disability as proof. They lied that the US-based publication was "forced" to retract the story when the paper had done so willingly after its own investigations revealed the truth.

The private media reported political violence as still persisting despite the signing of the MoU.

They carried 21 reports on the matter, recording 17 incidents.

These included the alleged abduction of two MDC drivers in Buhera South, and the eviction of suspected MDC supporters in Chiweshe by a traditional leader, Chief Negomo (Studio 7, 22 & 25/7).

However, these incidents lacked police confirmation.

The Zimbabwean (24/7) reported efforts by government to suffocate reports of political violence in the country. It reported the police as now "editing" all violence related-stories carried in The Herald. The paper quoted The Herald news editor Isidore Guvamombe as telling participants at a workshop in Masvingo that all their violence stories were now being "cleared" by police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena for "security reasons".

Figs 1 and 2 show the sourcing patterns on ZBC and the private electronic media.

Fig 1: Voice distribution on ZBC

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the private Press

Economy
The government media promoted the image of a normal ZANU PF government going about the business of economic restoration and fulfilling its electoral promises. The official media continued to present government's basic commodities supply side intervention programme, Baccossi, as being a key to ending Zimbabweans' economic misery.

The Herald (24/7) quoted a Namibian businessman, Raymond Chamba, announcing that Zimbabwe would import more than 1,000 tonnes of basic commodities under Baccossi. Chamba said the goods had been secured through a credit line from a bank in Namibia. But there was no attempt to explain how this would work, or question how far the consignment would go in fulfilling critical national demand.

In the same way, the Chronicle (22/7) and Spot FM (23/7, 1 & 8 pm), approvingly reported the programme as cascading to the provinces, quoting people in Matabeleland North "welcoming" it on the basis that it was "alleviating shortages of basic commodities on the market".

Although the government media reported indicators of economic decline like cash shortages and the soaring cost of living, they did not link these to government's economic mismanagement or Zimbabwe's political crisis.

Instead, they simply fed off official rhetoric promising solutions to these problems without questioning the economic rationality of these interventionist measures. These reports formed part of 70 stories the official media carried on the topic.

In contrast, the private media continued to highlight the extent of Zimbabwe's economic crash and questioned the adequacy of government's measures to resolve it.

For example, the Zimbabwe Independent's Muckraker columnist argued that the 'people's shops', where government sources commodities from South Africa and then sells them for a fixed price to ruling party supporters, distorts the economy. It noted: "This produces an artificial economy that is designed to impress local consumers. But at the same time it compounds inflation and unemployment. It is not sustainable".

The private media's 39 reports on economic issues contained several indicators of economic decline, which they attributed to government's poor economic policies. These included constant price hikes, commodity shortages, industrial decline, high unemployment and the declining value of the Zimbabwe dollar.

Figs 3 and 4 show the voice distribution in the government press and the private electronic media.

Fig 3: Voice distribution in government papers

Fig 4: Voice distribution in the private electronic media

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