(CRN/IFEX) – Zimbabwe’s dwindling independent media was shaken by the delivery of an envelope containing a bullet, a cartoon and handwritten threat to the acting editor of “The Standard”, the only remaining independent Sunday paper serving the South African nation of 12 million. The envelope also contained a March 2006 editorial entitled “The Shame of […]
(CRN/IFEX) – Zimbabwe’s dwindling independent media was shaken by the delivery of an envelope containing a bullet, a cartoon and handwritten threat to the acting editor of “The Standard”, the only remaining independent Sunday paper serving the South African nation of 12 million.
The envelope also contained a March 2006 editorial entitled “The Shame of State Paranoia” from the “Zimbabwe Independent”, the sister paper of “The Standard”, which is published on Fridays. The editorial criticized the intelligence agency and police for arresting several people based on an alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe.
“The large brown envelope was dropped at our offices on Wednesday (31 January 2007) around 3:00 p.m. (local time), and was addressed to the editor of ‘The Standard’,” said special projects editor Iden Wetherell at a press conference on 1 February. Wetherell said the envelope contained the handwritten threat, “What is this? Watch your step.”
Also mentioned at the press conference was a message sent on 31 January, from army public relations manager, Lieutenant Colonel Simon Tsatsi, to both papers, in which he said that he would be leading a team on 13 February to meet the editors in order “to enhance relations”.
Wetherell said he was sure it was a coincidence.
Bill Saidi, currently acting editor in the absence of Davison Maruziva, said he had no idea who had sent the envelope. He added, “When you send someone a bullet, what are you saying? You’re saying, ‘Next time it will be aimed at you.'” Saidi and Maruziva are the former editors of “The Daily News”, which was shut down by the government in 2003. Offices of “The Daily News” were bombed twice by unknown assailants during the height of political disturbances.
A cartoon, published on 28 January in “The Standard”, is at the center of this storm. It shows three baboons laughing while two men stand in the foreground. One man explains to the other, “They’ve just picked up a Zimbabwean National Army pay slip.” The cartoon followed, by a week, a story “The Standard” headlined “Mass Desertions from Armed Forces,” which reported that a high number of soldiers were deserting the army because of poor working conditions and low pay. The story cited a Defense and Security Parliamentary Portfolio committee report that recommended more funds to boost the morale of the armed forces. Soldiers earn a monthly salary that roughly equals US$35. Prices of basic commodities, rent and other necessities require more than twice this amount for a family of six to survive.
Zimbabweans are undergoing extreme hardship under the present regime, which has seen inflation peaking at 1,281 percent, an unemployment rate of 80 percent, and an exiled population of about 30 percent. Agricultural and industrial sectors face devastation, precipitated by the removal of white commercial farmers, under land redistribution launched by the pro-Mugabe War Veterans Association in 2000.
The army is alleged to have been involved in the deaths of critics of President Mugabe throughout his 27-year rule.
Signing himself as “Karl”, the editorial artist of the cartoon in question doesn’t sign his name because, he says, he “doesn’t want to get into trouble”. A freelance cartoonist, he has drawn editorial cartoons for both the “Zimbabwe Independent” and “The Standard” since the departure three months ago of the two newspapers’ longstanding cartoonist, Tony Namate. Namate left to work fulltime on his website. Both cartoonists worked together at the ill-fated “Daily News”.
Contacted for comment on 3 February, Karl said of the cartoon furor, “It is just a storm in a teacup, really. However, I have left it to the acting editor of ‘The Standard’, Bill Saidi, to deal with the matter.”
Asked if he is worried that the bullet threat was directed at him, the cartoonist replied, “If the threat had been directed at me, the envelope would have been addressed to me. I think the editor is the one who is under pressure, so I don’t think it will affect me.”
The same cartoonist was working for “The Daily News” when its printing press was bombed to smithereens in 2001, a few weeks after the bombing of its offices. Isn’t he afraid something similar might happen? “No, I don’t think so,” he replied, “because last time they just went ahead (bombing) without sending warnings.”
But what if the government took him in for questioning? “I would give them my side of the story,” he said.
