|
Back to Index
Weekly Media Review 2011-20
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday May 16th - Sunday May 22nd 2011
May 27, 2011
Download
this document
- Acrobat
PDF version (374KB)
If you do not have the free Acrobat reader
on your computer, download it from the Adobe website by clicking
here
Media
slow to report SADC rights court mothballing
The removal
of Zimbabwe's power-sharing crisis from the agenda of last
weekend's SADC extraordinary summit in Namibia
due to the absence of South African President and SADC facilitator,
Jacob Zuma, diverted media attention from pertinent developments
that emerged at the meeting.
Chief among
these was the SADC leaders' decision to extend the suspension
of the SADC tribunal for a further year pending another review of
its mandate and functions.
The tribunal was already under suspension since last August, triggered
by SADC leaders' reluctance to enforce the regional court's
2008 rulings that declared Zimbabwe's controversial land
reforms unlawful, which the ZANU PF government at the time refused
to honour.
The national
broadcaster, ZBC, and most of the private media did not report this
important development, which threatens to undermine the court's
current mandate to provide justice to SADC citizens when all legal
avenues in their own countries have been exhausted.
They only woke
up to the newsworthiness of the development several days after the
summit. For example, the national broadcaster, ZBC, reported the
news three days later, while it took the private electronic media
seven days to realise its importance.
Only SW Radio
Africa (20/5), The Herald (21/5) and The Sunday Mail (22/5) provided
contemporary reports on the tribunal's suspension.
But The Herald
(21/5) and The Sunday Mail (22/5) reported this news from a ZANU
PF perspective. The papers passively quoted ZANU PF Foreign Affairs
Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi revelling in the decision: "So
today, we have completely and totally dissolved the tribunal".
The government
media also presented the rescheduling of SADC's hearing on
Zimbabwe's power-sharing problems as a diplomatic victory
for President Mugabe without coherently explaining how.
ZTV (21/5, 8pm),
for example, reported how President Mugabe had "seconded SADC
Troika Chair's motion to postpone the meeting" in the
midst of "much noise and lobbying to have Zimbabwe grilled"
and "put in the corner" by "foreign funded hostile
media".
Earlier, all
ZBC stations (20/5, 8am) reported sources solely attributing the
deferment of discussions on the Zimbabwe crisis to Troika Chairman
Rupiah Banda's observations of a "number of inaccuracies"
in the Livingstone report without linking it to Zuma's absence.
The private
media largely concentrated on publicising the suspension of the
discussions, which have now been provisionally scheduled for South
Africa in June.
Download
full document
Visit the MMPZ
fact
sheet
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
