Robert Mugabe’s Never Ending Battle with the Media

Michael Hedges April 6, 2005

British journalists are arrested, Swedish correspondent deported and exiles short-wave radio station jammed as Mugabe’s reign over Zimbabwe continues. Go To Follow Up & Comments

Two British-Sunday Telegraph journalists were arrested March 31st for covering the election without proper accreditation. Toby Harnden and Julian Simmonds were traveling with an opposition candidate when arrested. A Reuters report suggested the two would be deported. Both appeared in court Tuesday pleading not guilty to immigration and media law violations. Prosecutors blocked a magistrate's order allowing bail.

Swedish television correspondent Frederik Sperling was arrested last Friday (April 1) as “prohibited immigrant” and deported, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA). Two days earlier Sperling, who works for Sveriges Television (SVT), was detained and questioned by police after visiting a farm confiscated from white owners in Mugabe’s infamous “land reform” program.

In February three Zimbabwe journalists, AP correspondent Agnes Shaw, Jan Raath of the Times and Bloomberg correspondent Brian Latham, left the country after questioning by police and threats of prosecution. 

The Zimbabwe government’s heavy hand with international media threatened to derail an England-Zimbabwe cricket series when several British sports journalists were denied visas last November.

Robert Mugabe’s contentious relationship with media, particularly, but not entirely, international media, and particularly, but not entirely, British media, keeps media watchers and, maybe, a few governments up late at night. He has money, power and powerful friends. He dismisses the yelping critics as working on behalf of the “white West,” neatly separating the world into supporters and traitors.  And he has held power for 25 years, largely unfettered by Western calls to democratize the former British colony once known as Rhodesia. 

The government-run newspaper in Harrare ran full-page ads before the election blazing “Bury Blair,” referring to British Prime Minister Tony Blair who provides Mugabe useful demon for the county’s ills. All electronic media in Zimbabwe is government controlled, ignoring a Supreme Court decision five years ago calling the monopoly unconstitutional.

The rhetoric attracts world-wide media attention and at every opportunity journalists scour Zimbabwe for new, even more ridiculous sound-bytes about land reform, human rights, press freedom, HIV/AIDS and the hand of Tony Blair. That election and its run-up brought media attention again to Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe.  

The Zimbabwe government has complained that foreign press only give time and space to the opposition. The BBC has been banned from Zimbabwe since 2001. “It really does not make sense to allow the BBC when they already perceive the elections as not free and fair,” said cabinet spokesperson George Charamba before the election.

“All that goes to show that the British media borrow its attitude and politics from the British government,” said Charama on the arrest of Harnden and Simmonds, according to a Reuters account. He added that they needed to be reminded that Zimbabwe is no longer a British colony,

Mugabe’s government accredited 212 foreign journalists out of 280 applying to cover last weekends’ election. The BBC was, again, not included, nor journalists from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and South African radio stations Talk Radio 702 and 567 CapeTalk. CNN, APTN, ITV and the Financial Times were allowed in.

Last November the Zimbabwe parliament passed an amendment to the 2002 Access to Information and Protection to Privacy Act (AIPPA), effectively baring foreign journalists and consigning all reporting to journalists working for state-run media with government approval. International journalist organizations complained but the government minister in charge of “information and publicity” said the law conforms to “the norm worldwide.” The minister, Jonathan Mayo, was unceremoniously dumped from the government in December for failing to “win the hearts and mind” of Zimbabweans to the government’s cause. Mayo also lost the fight over the decision to accredit British journalists covering the Britain-Zimbabwe cricket series.

A London-based radio station run by Zimbabwean exiles, Short Wave Radio Africa, reported to Zimbabwe’s Media Monitoring Project (MMPZ) that its program was jammed on March 16th. The jamming may have occurred as early as March 7th. MMPZ called it “the latest deliberate assault on freedom of expression.” According to a press released by the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) a spokesperson for the station said the jamming came from inside Zimbabwe, from the Thornhill airbase near Gweru where the government has a transmitting facility. The US government agency that oversees its foreign broadcasting, the International Broadcasting Board (IBB), said Zimbabwe received the jamming equipment from China.

President Mugabe has supporters within the African community nations. Tanzania President Benjamin Mkapa claimed in a BBC interview that western criticism stems from the seizure of white-owned farms. Some African leaders still see him as a revolutionary hero who has earned their respect by doing and saying what would also like to do and say. The South African government prefers a policy of “constructive engagement” with Zimbabwe.

ftm Follow Up & Comments

Billions For Propaganda, Little For Staff - April 12, 2006

Robert Mugabe’s government will “prop up” the Zimbabwe government news agency with a reported Z$250 billion (€2.08 million), according to offshore broadcaster SW Radio.  New Ziana staffers immediately reacted to the news by threatening a strike.

“We know they want to buy luxury vehicles as well as increase their own salaries. We the workers are not going to benefit from the exercise. We have tried to reason with these old men and women but they think that since they are the managers, they are the ones who think they can pave the way forward,” said unnamed agency workers, quoted by African News Dimension.

Earlier this week, New Ziana CEO Munyaradzi Matanyaire told a government committee the agency is deep in red ink because “the client base had dwindled to almost zero,” quoted by NEWZIMBABWE.COM.

The government wants the agency to front a new shortwave and television broadcast project to “target our people in the diaspora to counter the negative publicity from those countries,” said Matanyaire, who added that President Mugabe’s press secretary George Charamba said the project has the “support from the highest level and I repeat from the highest level.” More than half of the government offered funding to New Ziana – about €1.3 million – is earmarked for the new broadcast service.