(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a 27 November 2001 WAN press release: Pretoria, South Africa, 27 November 2001 For immediate release Zimbabwe Risks Civil Conflict Without Free Press: Mbeki The President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, warned today that civil conflict could explode in Zimbabwe if full press freedom is not ensured in the run-up […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a 27 November 2001 WAN press release:
Pretoria, South Africa, 27 November 2001
For immediate release
Zimbabwe Risks Civil Conflict Without Free Press: Mbeki
The President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, warned today that civil conflict could explode in Zimbabwe if full press freedom is not ensured in the run-up to presidential elections next March.
In a private meeting in Pretoria with Board Members of the World Association of Newspapers, Mr Mbeki said: “The people of Zimbabwe need to say this was a fair election contest. The press freedom issue is getting worse and exacerbates as we get closer to these elections.
“If the outcome is not accepted by the people of Zimbabwe, the situation will be even worse and you have the danger of civil conflict”.
President Mbeki told WAN that the special Zimbabwe committee of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) needed to revisit the country to try and ensure that democratic election conditions, particularly freedom of the press, were respected. He said that all attempts by international committees to achieve this objective so far had failed.
Talking more broadly about the future of Africa, President Mbeki said “what causes instability is the inability of people to express themselves freely so they take up arms”.
The Zimbabwean government has been widely criticised for its attacks on the independent press. In recent months, authorities have arrested local journalists, expelled foreign correspondents, and accused some journalists of assisting terrorists.
The Board of WAN, meeting in South Africa, today awarded its annual Golden Pen of Freedom prize to Zimbabwe’s most prominent press freedom advocate, Geoffrey Nyarota, the Editor of the Daily News.
President Mbeki said that press freedom was a major part of the whole process of democratisation in Africa and he recognised that in several countries, the independent press continued to be repressed.
In the Congo, for example, it was “critically important” for peace to have the “greatest possible open political debate. If you have parties that are banned and newspapers that are restricted, you do not have the conditions for inter-Congolese dialogue.”
In Angola, President Mbeki feared continuing violence against the press. He urged Angolan leaders to reject military solutions and achieve a negotiated settlement to the Angolan conflict.
“If we don’t address the problem of democracy in this country, the harassment of the press will continue”. He said that the press had been instrumental in uncovering corruption by war profiteers and warned that the press “would continue to get hit” if the war continued.
The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 17,000 newspapers; its membership includes 70 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 93 countries, 17 news agencies and eight regional and world-wide press groups.
