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Weekly Media Review 2011-15
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday April 11th - Sunday April 17th 2011
April 22, 2011
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State
media scramble to cover up gaffe over Troika
The basis on
which the SADC Troika
on Politics, Defence and Security, condemned Zimbabwe's coalition
parties for failing to resolve the country's political crisis,
especially the current wave of violence and other human rights violations,
remained a subject of intense media debate - particularly
in the official media.
These media
presented the Troika's decision on Zimbabwe as a travesty
of justice, which was arrived at using misleading evidence from
the MDC-T. Six of the 12 reports on the topic gave this impression.
The Sunday Mail
(17/4) report, Tsvangirai's tale of lies, epitomised this.
It diverted
attention from the substance of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's
alleged submissions to the SADC Troika, that the state had invoked
Section 121 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act chiefly as
a weapon to prosecute his party members, by questioning the political
affiliation of some of the people he reportedly listed as victims
of that repressive legislation.
The paper reported
Tsvangirai as having raised a "false alarm in the region"
by pretending Zimbabwe risked facing uprisings similar to those
in North Africa and had misled facilitators to the Global
Political Agreement (GPA) that 45 civic society activists recently
arrested for "plotting
an Egyptian-style uprising in the country were members of his party"
and were being "persecuted" by the Attorney-General.
The paper did
not independently establish the political affiliation of the 45,
nor did it identify the remaining 49 individuals who had fallen
victim to the notorious Section 121 that the MDC-T allegedly listed
in its "glossy and fancy report to the facilitation team",
except to dismiss them as being involved in "public violence,
treason, sabotage and banditry".
The Sunday Mail
(17/4) also made use of unidentified sources to support its distorted
report, one of them an alleged member of South Africa's ANC
who was quoted saying it was "highly irresponsible for the
MDC-T to create a false situation such as this with the apparent
objective of misleading the leadership in SADC for cheap political
purposes".
The government
papers carried four opinion pieces discrediting SADC's resolutions
on this basis.
One of them,
by columnist Reason Wafawarova, dismissed the Troika's resolutions
as "a document whose content was manufactured over goat meat
and other 'delicious' traditional dishes . . . "
served at a function at the rural home of SADC facilitator and South
African President Jacob Zuma attended by Tsvangirai shortly before
the Troika meeting.
In six other
reports, the government media amplified denials by the ZANU PF arm
of government that there was a diplomatic row between Zimbabwe and
SADC, particularly South Africa, following Mugabe's criticism
of the Troika (ZBC, 14 & 19/4, 8pm and official dailies, 15/4).
They reported
Mugabe as having "shamed" the private media by "paying
tribute to SADC for its unwavering support" for Zimbabwe and
quoted "political analysts" rebuking the private media
for "creating an imaginary" row between Zimbabwe and
SADC (ZTV, 19/4, 8pm).
The private
media quoted MDC-T officials refuting claims by the official media
that it had misled the Troika and argued that Zuma had no obligation
to submit his report to Zimbabwe's coalition principals before
the Troika meeting.
The Zimbabwe
Independent (15/4) also revealed that Zuma's report was largely
based on the findings of Zimbabwe's own Joint Monitoring and
Implementation Committee and the South African facilitation team
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