(WPFC/IFEX) – The following is a WPFC report: Press Freedom Mission to Zimbabwe May 7 – 11, 2001 International Press Institute, Vienna Media Workers Association of South Africa, Johannesburg South African National Editors’ Forum, Johannesburg World Press Freedom Committee, Washington and Paris Executive Summary: During a four-day mission to Harare, Zimbabwe, organized by the World […]
(WPFC/IFEX) – The following is a WPFC report:
Press Freedom Mission to Zimbabwe
May 7 – 11, 2001
International Press Institute, Vienna
Media Workers Association of South Africa, Johannesburg
South African National Editors’ Forum, Johannesburg
World Press Freedom Committee, Washington and Paris
Executive Summary:
During a four-day mission to Harare, Zimbabwe, organized by the World Press Freedom Committee, it was apparent that journalists and news media there are under intense pressure, especially in the run-up to presidential elections in 2002. Given the complexity of Zimbabwe’s current social and political environment, it is impossible to examine the nation’s press freedom issues outside of the overall political context.
Interviews with government officials, journalists, clergy and non-profit group representatives yielded a picture of efforts by the ruling regime and its ZANU-PF political party supporters to curb scrutiny of government actions and to suppress criticism of the Mugabe regime, especially in the news media. We see a newly adopted broadcast law and a proposed new media law as further evidence of the government’s attempts to restrict reporting and control the news reaching Zimbabwe’s citizens.
Delegates:
David Dadge, International Press Institute, Vienna
Marilyn Greene, World Press Freedom Committee, Washington
Ronald Koven, World Press Freedom Committee, Paris
Raymond Louw, IPI; South African National Editors’ Forum, Johannesburg
Joe Mdhlela, Media Workers Association of South Africa, Johannesburg
Background:
Troubled for some time by reports of increasing pressure and restrictions on independent news media in Zimbabwe, the World Press Freedom Committee initiated an investigative mission to that country. The mission followed a May 3-5 African media conference sponsored by UNESCO in Windhoek, Namibia, on the 10th anniversary of the historic 1991 Windhoek Declaration of press freedom principles, and a May 6 meeting of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, hosted by the WPFC.
At its meeting in Windhoek, the Coordinating Committee delegated representatives to visit Zimbabwe for the purpose of investigating the deterioration of press freedom there.
In Harare, we set out to contact people concerned with and involved in Zimbabwe’s news media, for exposure to the widest possible range of views. Our goals were to obtain a full and objective picture of Zimbabwe’s press freedom situation; to encourage journalists to report independently; and to urge government officials to respect and support the news media’s right to seek and impart information.
Discussions with journalists, government officials, clergy and readers painted an alarming picture of the state of press freedom and, in parallel, the future of democracy in Zimbabwe. Copies of our preliminary findings were distributed at a press conference in Harare.
In our view, the desire of President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party to remain in office is at the bottom of Zimbabwe’s current unrest. The struggle for control results in Mugabe’s unwillingness to entertain criticism and opposition or to respect the rule of law.
A major impediment to a lively and democratic discourse on public policy and social issues is the polarization of the population into two main camps: those who support ZANU-PF and those who oppose it. The Mugabe administration feeds this conflict by stressing constantly that those who do not support his party are disloyal to Zimbabwe — a dangerous confusion of party and state.
I. Factors affecting Zimbabwe’s political, social and media environment
Upcoming 2002 presidential election:
President Robert ‘s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party faces strong opposition from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party. Mugabe has indicated he plans to win, regardless of what it takes. “I am firmly asserting to you,” he told a rally in April, “that there will never come a day when the MDC will rule this country — never, ever.”
The leader of the MDC party, Morgan Tsvangirai, faces trial before the Supreme Court on state charges of terrorism, after he said in September that President Mugabe should step down or risk being removed from office violently. If convicted, Tsvangirai could face a life sentence. But even a sentence of six months would invalidate his right to oppose Mugabe in the upcoming election.
Other opposition party members, as well as journalists, have been charged under the same Southern Rhodesia-era law invoked against Tsvangirai. Upon his election 20 years ago, President Mugabe vowed to eliminate the old Law and Order (Maintenance) Act — used by Ian Smith’s white-settler government against black nationalists and other opposition — but Mugabe’s administration has instead invoked the law vigorously to stifle opposition and criticism.
Land dispute and confiscation of farms:
Government-backed “war veterans,” many of whom are in their 20s and were not yet born at the time of the struggle in then-Southern Rhodesia for majority rule, have waged a bloody war on landowners, killing farmers and confiscating their farms in the name of land redistribution justice.
Violence, political instability and economic crisis:
Paramilitary group attacks on civilians and non-governmental groups including CARE and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation have led to withdrawal from Zimbabwe by the British Council, an important source of culture and information for Zimbabweans, and to possible closure of foreign embassies in Harare. Days after the WPFC delegation’s visit to Zimbabwe, the Canadian government announced sanctions on Harare, suspending new development aid in protest against the increasing violence.
Zimbabwe suffers severe shortages of hard currency and gasoline, and grain shortages are expected soon. Unemployment has soared to near 60%, hospitals and schools are in dire need of supplies and a quarter of the population is infected with the HIV virus.
Zimbabwe’s involvement in the war continuing in neighboring Congo:
Zimbabwe’s backing of the Kabila government’s war against Rwanda and domestic insurgents in the Democratic Republic of Congo has drained the country of people and money. Some 13,000 troops have been deployed to the DRC, at a cost the government places at US $3 million per month, but which others estimate at as much as US $1 million a day.
Government antipathy toward news media:
The ruling ZANU-PF party rejects arguments that the country’s problems rest with the government, calling such assertions “media fiction” and “nonsense.” It attributes Zimbabwe’s economic hardships to what it characterizes as sabotage and lies, being spread by “imperialists, neocolonialists and sell-outs in the so-called independent press” in Zimbabwe as well as “international media bent on derailing the progress of Africans and Africa.”
The government routinely castigates local and foreign journalists for their reports on Zimbabwe, and has brought numerous legal actions against independent media, often invoking the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act, the Official Secrets Act, the Defense Act, the Censorship and Entertainment Control Act and the Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament Act. While under arrest on charges of “publishing information likely to cause public alarm and despondency,” The Standard chief writer Ray Choto and editor Mark Chavunduka were tortured with electrical wires applied to all parts of their naked bodies.
New broadcast law:
Passed in parliament on a fast-track schedule pushed by the governing party and without consultation with media representatives, the new Broadcasting Services essentially gives to the minister of information the power to license, regulate and punish broadcasters in Zimbabwe.
This is seen by journalists and opposition politicians as a crude attempt to control political news in the period preceding next year’s election.
Proposed “Freedom of Information Law”:
The name of this bill belies its contents, which rather than resulting in freedom of information, would severely restrict the free flow of information. It would, among other things, bar foreign investment in the media; require fulfillment of stringent accreditation rules amounting to licensing; and provide for a legally mandated media code of ethics and a two-tiered press council, controlled by the information ministry, to enforce it.
II. Views of Journalists and Government Officials
The WPFC’s first meeting was with presidential spokesman George Charamba, a highly intelligent and articulate man with an academic background in literature and history.
“We have lots of media doers in Zimbabwe,” he told us, “but not many media thinkers.” Because few journalists are trained in that field, he said, the administration seeks to require a minimum level of journalism training before a reporter can be certified to work. Asked what he would do with journalists if named editor of a major paper, he replied, “I would send them to school.”
The administration’s new “Freedom of Information” bill — as yet unpublished — thus includes a requirement for a certain level of training, and for government certification (licensing) before a journalist can work.
Charamba said the goal is to develop journalists who can “conceptualize journalism in a Zimbabwe context.” He did not elaborate on the meaning of that “context”.
Charamba said there is no such thing as an “independent” press in Zimbabwe. Even if a newspaper is “independent” of government control, he said, it is dependent on another power, whether it be business, a civic group, veterans, commercial farmers, the opposition MDC party, the newspaper proprietor or the army.
Their control of media coverage, he said, is achieved by barring unfriendly journalists from news events; by making themselves either available or unavailable depending on whether the reporter is a friend; through threats of legal action; by assaults on vendors; and by withholding advertising. “Don’t talk about ‘both’ sides,” he said. “Talk about ‘all’ sides.”
He claims that journalists approach news sources to “confirm a view, not to seek it,” and that resulting stories are lopsided. “I think freedom of expression, guaranteed under our constitution, is the right of the reader, not of the journalist,” Charamba said, adding that the new information bill is designed to benefit the reader by providing mechanisms for the reader to have access to any information in the “public interest,” not just information the government has. Presumably, this might mean that a “reader” could demand to know the name of reporters’ sources and other information normally not considered relevant to FOI laws.
Other features of the planned law:
– A code of ethics for news media.
– A two-tiered press council. The first is a group formed voluntarily by journalists to adjudicate problems and hear complaints. The second, appointed by the information minister, would have judicial power to enforce the code if the authorities are dissatisfied with the action of the “voluntary” body.
Charamba’s boss, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, told us journalists would not be consulted before the media law bill goes to parliament. It is up to parliament, not the public, to make laws, he said.
An indication of what is to come lies with Zimbabwe’s new broadcast law, vigorously opposed by most journalists and much of the public. Among other provisions, it forbids foreign ownership of broadcast media in Zimbabwe, and requires that 75% of all programming be local. No private company or individual may own a broadcast transmitter.
The new act establishes the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Authority with powers to regulate the industry. The ZBA is intended to grant licenses to radio and TV broadcasters, but Information Minister Moyo outlined the procedures that had to be followed for the full implementation of the ZBA. It had to draw up the regulations under which it would operate and produce a frequency plan for the broadcasting spectrum. Moyo said he was unable to say how long this process would take and reacted sharply when he was asked whether it would take a year, (presidential elections are in about a year) saying “That’s political question.”
It was hard to avoid the conclusion that the process would be stretched out so long that licenses for stations likely to be critical of the government might be granted only at a time when the least harm would be done to Mugabe’s presidential campaign, if at all before the election.
Charamba discussed the recent deportation of two foreign journalists — Joseph Winter of BBC and Mercedes Sayagues, a writer for South Africa’s Mail and Guardian newspaper.
He asserted that Winter had his working documents illegally doctored and that Ms. Sayagues was kicked out because she was a lobbyist for the opposition, not a “real” journalist. Both had produced reports critical of the Mugabe government.
He acknowledged that the arrest and torture of two journalists of The Standard showed a “tendency by authorities to overreact” at times. Editor Mark Chavanduka and chief writer Ray Choto were charged with for publication of a story about a possible coup plot being hatched against President Mugabe. Charamba said it is unjustified to torture journalists, “but we have a professional and ethical obligation to make sure it (Zimbabwean journalism) is beyond reproach.”
Pikirayi Deketeke, editor of the government-controlled daily, The Herald, told us that “as long as we’re professional, we don’t have any problems…. What we don’t do is print a story without verifying or balancing.” He sympathized with Choto’s and Chavanduka’s suffering, and noted the January bombing of presses belonging to another independent, The Daily News. No one has been charged with either crime. Deketeke doubted that government people were responsible. “Anything negative is blamed on the government,” he said. “Would the government really be stupid enough to do that?”
“We believe the government has an obligation to explain itself,” Deketeke said. “If it is wrong, they open themselves to criticism.” He said sometimes the government overreacts when it is criticized.
Pointing to a cartoon of himself in the competing paper, The Daily News, Deketeke said, “That’s what newspapers do. If we could laugh about it, it would help.”
Since no on-paper version of the new media bill has been published, he couldn’t comment on it, he said, but he agrees with the no-foreign-ownership aspect of the broadcast bill, and of its rules for high local content.
Deketeke admitted that circulation is down, from 120,000 a year ago, to 80,000 now.
Jonathan Moyo, Minister of State for Information and Publicity:
– Mr. Moyo has been called Zimbabwe’s de facto prime minister, having extraordinary power in matters not just pertaining to information but in all aspects of government, law enforcement, judicial affairs and sway with the president, Robert Mugabe.
– A highly intelligent individual with extensive experience living and teaching in democratic countries (including the United States and South Africa) Moyo clearly knows what democratic governance involves, and is most certainly aware that Zimbabwe does not function in a democratic manner. It is apparent to us that this is precisely the way the Mugabe administration wishes the situation to continue, as it seeks to ensure its own dominance in the 2002 presidential election. Our view is that there is nothing inadvertent, innocent or naive about the authoritarian conduct of Zimbabwe’s current leadership.
Mr. Moyo argued unapologetically for restrictive rules and new laws to regulate the news media. He reacted angrily when asked what government investigators are doing to bring to justice those responsible for bombings at The Daily News, for police torture of Standard editors Ray Choto and Mark Chavanduka and for beatings of AP and SABC stringers by men dressed in army uniforms. Mr. Moyo said no progress had been made. At this point he threatened to walk out of the interview.
Other points in a 21/2-hour interview with Moyo:
There is no need or intention to consult journalists about a proposed “Freedom of Information Act,” as it is “parliamentarians, not journalists, who make the laws.” He said the bill, which has not yet been put on paper, would likely come up at the next parliamentary session, which begins in July, rather than in the few weeks remaining in the current session.
He asserted the bill is “very comparable to FOI legislation found in constitutional democracies around the world … because we are a constitutional democracy.”
Such a law, however, seems to us more a restrictive new media law than a law that will increase access to public information. Among other things, it provides for licensing of journalists and a statutory press council — concepts generally rejected by journalists as infringements on freedom of the press.
The bill will also include NGOs in the definition of “public officials,” he said, thus opening their books and records to scrutiny.
Moyo defended the new broadcasting act, which requires radio stations within three years to fill three fourths of their air time with local broadcast content. Violators will be given variations of warning, he said, perhaps first with yellow cards, then red, etc.
Moyo decried the coverage given the Mugabe administration by independent local media, most recently a story in The Zimbabwe Independent, quoting himself, debunking the Mugabe government in an article written some years ago. Moyo said his comments were “taken out of context and published…by people with an agenda. … It is shameful.” He said The Independent had gotten hold of a private e-mail message. (However, Trevor Ncube, publisher of The Independent, said the comments came straight from a column written by Moyo specifically for the newspaper.)
“Reporting news in a fair, accurate and complete way — that is my dream for Zimbabwe,” Moyo said.
But he added that he is so sure his remarks will not be reported accurately by Zimbabwe’s independent (he calls it “oppositional”) press that he does not answer phone calls from certain reporters and media. “Every story in The Daily News is angled toward the MDC (the main opposition party to Moyo’s ZANU-PF).
Geoff Nyarota, editor-in-chief of The Daily News, said his newspaper is shut out of government news conference. He denied a link with the MDC, but said many of the goals espoused by the party are goals of anyone desiring more openness in Zimbabwe. Calls for free and fair elections and prosecution of crimes are not partisan demands, he said, just normal aspirations of the people. Another editor said, “We might agree with the MDC (opposition party) but that doesn’t mean we support them. It doesn’t mean I will use the newspaper to campaign for the MDC.”
The five members of our delegation accompanied Nyarota to Harare Central Police Station later in the day of our meeting with Moyo. For the second time in a month, Nyarota had been charged with criminal defamation over Daily News reports about a law suit filed in New York against President Mugabe by Evelyn Masaiti, the opposition member of parliament for a rural constituency, and three relatives of victims of violence surrounding elections in June 2000.
The Daily News and The Standard reported that the four sued Mugabe in the USA for damages suffered; the Mugabe government has in turn sued the newspaper for defamation, claiming the newspapers had published “persistent false and malicious reports.”
“This is to harass us,” Nyarota said, noting that even if dismissed, such legal actions cost the paper money, cost him his time and generally distract him and his staff from their work.
Gerry Jackson, a radio and television broadcaster who has lived and worked in Zimbabwe for 30 years, is enmeshed in a struggle to launch her independent Capital Radio, an enterprise that opened in September and broadcast for just six days before government police raided the premises and seized her transmitter. Moyo says the station is “illegal” and a “pirate.” Jackson says the government, through the new and draconian broadcast law, makes it impossible for independent stations to start up or function. She is challenging the law, but believes that “Capital will not be a reality until the government changes.”
Jackson, like other journalists in Zimbabwe, hold out hope that the courts will help right things. But, she said, only the Supreme Court seems to have resisted interference by the ruling party. But the government has ignored several Supreme Court decisions, including one authorizing her radio station, and some judges known for their integrity have been fired or forced to resign.
The broadcasting field is hobbled not only by government interference, Jackson said, but also by a lack of trained personnel. She said fully half of Zimbabwe’s independent journalists have left the country in the past year, finding no promise of career satisfaction at home. “You can’t do investigative journalism because you can’t find out anything,” she said. “It’s been almost impossible to get the government to speak to you.” In addition, she said, journalists have been unwilling to stand up. “Everyone’s become spineless. .. people are too scared to talk.”
Basildon Peta and Abel Mutsakani, both editors at the respected Financial Gazette and leaders of the 400-member Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, say they will lead a journalists’ virtual boycott of the government’s proposed new media law. “We reject it in its entirety. We want a new process in which we are involved,” Peta said. “We can’t have a process where a minister sits in his office and decides something so crucial.” He said the union will work toward the bill’s defeat in Parliament. “We’ve decided to engage them. We know it will cause us problems, and I’m not optimistic we will succeed in blocking it. But we must stand up. We have to put up resistance or they will interpret our silence as agreement.” He attributes the government’s interest in new media restrictions to the regime’s “desperation, in advance of the 2002 election.”
“One thing we’re sure of,” said Mutsakani. “The media will not be bound by it (the new law).”
Peta said the WPFC mission represents important support and encouragement for journalists in Zimbabwe. “We feel threatened. We are very afraid. I think you people will have a great impact. The more you come and ask these people questions, the more they will know the world is watching.”
Trevor Ncube, publisher and chief executive of the weekly Independent and the Sunday Standard, indicated that Mr. Moyo, the minister of information, was once a harsh critic of President Mugabe, and wrote articles critical of Mugabe for publication in the weeklies.
Like Geoff Nyarota of The Daily News, Ncube received a summons to Central Police while the WPFC mission was in Harare. For the second time in as many years, the newspaper faces criminal charges — under the old colonial Censorship Act — for publishing Reuters photographs showing naked bodies. The latest photo, published in The Independent’s Jan. 12 edition and captioned “Bare Buns,” shows a back view of a group of nudists on a beach in New Zealand.
The newspaper’s photo editor was obliged to appear at the police station, be fingerprinted and interrogated and file a plea — a process consuming 11/2 hours, slightly less than the time spent at the station by Geoff Nyarota two days later.
“This is nonsensical,” said Ncube. “The intention is to harass us, to keep us away from publishing the newspaper and to remind us that Big Brother is watching. It forces us to spend money we don’t have. It forces us to spend time on irrelevant issues.”
Likewise, he said, such actions waste police time, and investigators often sympathize with the journalists. “The first time, he said, “the police were laughing.”
Ncube recalled that when Robert Mugabe first ran for election to the presidency, he vowed to eliminate restrictive media laws imposed by the Ian Smith white settler regime. Instead, he said, Mugabe has found the laws convenient for his own use, and has taken no action to repeal them.
Like Mugabe, Ncube said, Moyo “is not a democrat. Jonathan confuses the party with the state. If you criticize the party, your patriotism is questioned.”
Ncube expects increasing pressure and difficulty in the months leading to the 2002 elections, which could be scheduled by March. “We don’t know what the day holds for us when we wake up. … This is a government that has never been tolerant of the independent press. This is a party that has always been intolerant of a free and independent media. They will continue to shoot the messenger.”
Ncube is asked, “Will elections be free and fair?” His response: “Absolutely not. The ZANU-PF party is now reworking its strategy. It will be violence plus outright rigging. They’ll make sure there is no foreign press, no international monitors. Because if you do a free and fair election, there is no way ZANU-PF can win.”
Moyo, says Ncube, is “responsible for keeping the party alive. He’s given it a new lease on life. But that strategy depends on violence, because they’ve failed to win the hearts and minds of the people.”
“This is a very abnormal situation. The rule of law has been thrown out the window. People have started to appreciate the value of the independent media. They indicate that they do appreciate the role we play: exposing corruption, human rights abuses, misgovernance. People value transparency and accountability and those are the values included in press freedom. People are choosing with their feet, by not buying the government papers. They are sick and tired of the government.”
Ncube thanked the press freedom delegation for its interest in Zimbabwe’s media situation. “What you’re doing is great,” he said. “I urge you not to move your eyes off this country in the next few months. It’s going to be a war zone. We need international friends to make noises, to lobby for us. To bring to attention that the situation in Zimbabwe is going to get out of hand. It would be sad if our friends forgot about us. Sometimes we feel very alone.”
Sarah Chiumbu, Zimbabwe director of MISA, says Zimbabwe’s media are “in crisis.” Until two years ago, she said, MISA seemed to be making progress in communicating with the then-ministry of post and telecommunications, predecessor of Moyo’s department. The turning point, she says, came with the arrest and subsequent torture of Mark Chavanduka and Ray Choto, editors of The Standard weekly newspaper, and with the strengthening of the opposition MDC party.
At that point, she says, the governing party became “really scared, and things started going downhill.” Just 48 hours before the January bombing at The Daily News, she said, Jonathan Moyo had labeled that newspaper a threat to national security. Moyo has never condemned the bombing, she said. It was a question about the status of an investigation into the bombing that angered Moyo during his meeting with WPFC. “Has Scotland Yard ever solved the bombing of BBC?” he retorted.
In recent weeks, MISA has spearheaded an advertising campaign against the new broadcasting bill, attacking its constitutionality. MISA is also campaigning against the specter of the proposed “Freedom of Information” bill, attacking expected provisions for:
– Licensing. Journalists with current credentials must surrender these and apply anew. Likewise, foreign correspondents must leave the country and apply for new credentials from home.<br.
– Hiring. Zimbabwe broadcast entities must hire Zimbabweans over foreigners.
– Statutory media council to hear and punish complaints against news media — and also against NGO publications.
“What we’re afraid of is that they’ll get rid of all the foreign correspondents” prior to the 2002 election, Chiumbu said. “They want to create a blackout.” Zimbabwe’s journalists face great risks in providing fair coverage, she said. “If you’re BBC” and anger officials with your reports, “the worst thing that can happen is they will deport you. But if you are Zimbabwean, they can throw us in jail. … So there will be self-censorship.”
Recently, Zimbabwe’s Roman Catholic clergy have been outspoken against increasing violence and the policies of the Mugabe government, taking out large advertisements in both the government and private media to convey their message.
“We need national dialogue,” the ad reads in part. “We need to listen to what all groups in society have to say. All citizens must be allowed to speak freely what their concerns are, fathers and mothers, farmers and industrial workers, the young starting out in life and the old who have seen life and its troubles.
“This national dialogue, the media — both print and electronic — should help facilitate. To do this the media and media workers must be allowed to work in an atmosphere of freedom. There must not be any threats of physical violence against them.”
The Rev. Oskar Wermter, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops Conference, told us that citizens of Zimbabwe tend to stay away from politics and political discussions, because they see these as dangerous areas. “Their attitude is ‘leave me alone,’ ” he said. An indicator of the outlook is Zimbabwe’s very low voter turnout, generally only around 15% of the eligible population.
Wermter said the Mugabe regime has attempted, successfully, to identify his party with the nation of Zimbabwe in people’s minds. People now think of the government and the party as one, he said, and “anyone who disagrees with him is an enemy of the state.”
Wermter said that Mugabe, himself a Catholic, “tries to use the Church.” Happy to accept invitations to high-profile Church functions where he can stand up and speak without interruption, Mugabe nevertheless has refused to meet privately with the bishops to discuss their concerns. “He is definitely avoiding them. He cannot accept advice and is not prepared for general dialogue. That is the tragedy, because it is important that these things are pointed out, and taken seriously.”
When a delegation of the International Bar Association expressed concerns about the rule of law in Zimbabwe, Wermter said, Mugabe became enraged and “lambasted them.” Likewise, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo walked out of a meeting with the International Federation of Journalists, and came close to leaving his meeting with our press freedom group.
“They are becoming increasingly xenophobic,” Wermter said. Foreigners coming here and speaking out in itself angers them. This old system is not going to die without fighting back,” he said. The bishops are worried, he said, that “violence could engulf the whole country in civil war.”
III. Delegation Press Conference and Conclusions
The final appointment in our four-day mission to Zimbabwe was a press conference at the Meikles Hotel in Harare. Fifteen journalists came to the event, and asked very few questions.
The WPFC delegation released its preliminary findings:
Preliminary Findings of Press Freedom Delegation to Zimbabwe
Members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organisations, meeting on Sunday, May 6, 2001 in Windhoek, Namibia, delegated representatives of the International Press Institute, the Media Workers Association of South Africa, the South African National Editors Forum, and the World Press Freedom Committee to go to Zimbabwe to look into the situation of press freedom.
The delegation arrived in Harare May 7. It has made the following preliminary findings:
From conversations with government officials, the delegation learned that the government is in the advanced stages of drafting a “Freedom of Information Act” that is in fact a press law to control the news media through such devices as licensing of journalists in the guise of accreditation and the establishment of a government-created and controlled two-tier (statutory and “voluntary”) press council system.
The delegation has found that in recent months, journalists in Zimbabwe have come under severe pressure from the government, which has reacted harshly to the media’s attempts to report on developments in the country.
Throughout this period, violence against journalists has increased; foreign journalists have been expelled, and the government has sought to preserve the monopoly of the Zimbabwean Broadcasting Corporation. Furthermore, government ministers have verbally abused journalists in public and used criminal defamation laws to silence critical reporting. Ministers have threatened to single out journalists individually as targets for attack.
In particular, the bombing at the offices and printing press of the Daily News this year and last and the subsequent failure to condemn these acts or institute a timely and full investigation has profound implications for the way in which the government views the media. The government has appeared to condone violence against journalists. This has created a climate of intimidation in the country.
The decision to rush new broadcasting legislation through Parliament has created a situation in which independent broadcast news stations appear to be precluded in advance of presidential elections next year.
Press freedom is supported by the rule of law; the erosion of the rule of law actively undermines this. Journalists have been victims of lawlessness.
The delegation calls on the government of Zimbabwe to:<br.
– uphold the rule of law;
– meet its international obligations to the principles of press freedom and freedom of expression;
– ensure the safety of journalists and carry out full and proper investigations of abuses against press freedom;
– cease its campaign of intimidation against the news media;
– uphold the judgment of the Supreme Court which removed the monopolistic rights of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. (In the event of the government's continued failure to uphold this judgment, it should submit the new Broadcasting Act to constitutional scrutiny. If it passes that test, the government should ensure that the new ZBA be appointed speedily, and that it accelerates the regulatory processes to enable other broadcasting stations to begin airing well in advance of the 2002 election);
– halt the use of criminal defamation suits against journalists and remove from the statute books insult laws granting special protection to officialdom.
Conclusions:
We feel confident that this effort was indeed worthwhile. We went to Zimbabwe, demonstrating that the international community does care about the survival of democracy and freedom there. We gave our ears to all sides, seeking information and opinions as any good reporter would. We gave our encouragement and offers of help to journalists struggling to do their jobs in a very difficult environment. And we gave notice to those in government that we will monitor their actions closely in the coming months, and expect them to uphold the universal rights of Zimbabwe’s citizens, including its journalists, to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
