Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe

Monday 18th June to Sunday 24th June 2001

SUMMARY

THE ECLIPSE

Zimpapers and the ZBC uniformly reported that the solar eclipse
provided an opportunity to “kick-start” a revival of the tourist
industry by demonstrating that Zimbabwe was a beautiful, peaceful
and hospitable country. The state media selectively quoted a
handful of tourists expressing their surprise at the peace that
prevailed in the country, while The Zimbabwe Mirror, followed suit
and even regurgitated comments from German tour leader, Arno
Lehnen, who had already attracted wide publicity in the state
media the previous week for his complimentary comments of the
country.
ZBCTV devoted 69 minutes (13%) of its news bulletins in the week
to stories related to the eclipse and an extra eight-minute slot was
allocated to President Mugabe’s painfully contrived “welcome to the
tourists address” after the main news on the eve of the eclipse.
ZBCTV (8pm 18/6) reported a ZRP statement that the police had
deployed more personnel and had stepped up patrols as part of the
country’s efforts to ensure the peaceful viewing of the eclipse. But
it was only in The Herald (19/6) that more of the story appeared in
the form of a report that blended the “high police alert” with the fact
that riot police, which the paper described as “part of the team”,
had been called into action to quell “potentially violent protests
in Mabvuku which were under the guise of fare price hike
demonstrations”.
This front page lead story under the headline, ‘Police Reinforce
Security for Eclipse Period’, was accompanied by a propaganda
statement from Information Minister Jonathan Moyo accusing the
MDC of initiating the protests:
“It is just a group of MDC criminal elements being led by their
party to scare away visitors coming or the solar eclipse,” he
was quoted as saying.
The paper didn’t ask what evidence the minister had for making
such an absurd claim, but did include a comment from the MDC’s
Learnmore Jongwe dismissing it, no doubt in the interests of
balance.
Notably, Moyo’s statement did not appear on ZBC, and The Daily
News (19/6) failed to report the Mabvuku riot beyond an inadequate
picture caption.
The Daily News (20/6) however, did report that the heavy presence
of undercover police and CIO operatives had scared away hundreds
of tourists in Kariba. The same story also noted that thousands of
tourists had gone to Zambia to view the eclipse, a theme taken up
by The Zimbabwe Independent (22/6) which stated that Zambia
had managed to attract the lion’s share of tourists, some 20 000,
compared to a Zimbabwe Tourism Authority estimate of about 5
000 arrivals during the week. Reporting that some hotels had
experienced some cancellations, the paper suggested this was
because Zambia represented a more stable prospect and had
guaranteed fuel supplies. The Herald (23/6) however, noted in its
comment – the second in a week on the eclipse - that major
Zambian cities, including the capital, Lusaka, had better tourist
facilities right in the path of the total eclipse.
The Independent and The Zimbabwe Standard (24/6) respectively
reported that Air Zimbabwe had failed to cope with the sudden
influx of tourists (Independent) and their efforts to leave after the
event (The Standard).

Although there was considerable publicity given to government’s
awareness campaign warning the nation over the dangers of
viewing the eclipse with anything other than solar viewers, some
confusion arose after the media also carried stories that welding
glasses and special packaging foil could also be safely used. This
was further compounded by a story (ZBC, Nhau/Indaba- 19/6)
reporting that the Ministry of Education had donated foil to
schoolchildren in Manicaland to view the eclipse.

FOOD SHORTAGES

Both The Financial Gazette, (21/6) and The Zimbabwe
Independent the next day, gave front page prominence to news of
looming food shortages early next year. The Fingaz pinned its
story on a special report on Zimbabwe’s food supplies just issued
by the authoritative UN Food and Agriculture Organization. It
backed this up with the April bulletin of the SADC food security
unit, also stating that maize and wheat imports were inevitable.
The Independent quoted an Agritex "expert" defending its forecast
that maize would need to be imported under the headline, Agritex
Refutes (Minister) Made's Claims on Country's Food Security. It
reported that Agritex had forecast the country would experience a
maize deficit of 154 570 tonnes by March 2002. While both stories
quoted figures extensively, they differed markedly over the amount
of maize the country would need to import. In citing that 654 570
tonnes would need to be imported, The Independent noted that the
country's 500 000-tonne strategic reserve would need to be
replenished. But the Gazette reported that this still contained 291
000 tonnes "meaning that an actual deficit of about 200 000
tons will still need to be filled in by imports".
And it quoted the CFU's deputy director confirming this. But the
story didn't explain how this matched the figure mentioned earlier in
the story of the need to import 447 000 tonnes of maize. All-in-all,
readers of the Gazette story would have ended up confused by the
figures it quoted, while the high figure quoted in the Independent
sounded alarming. The only safe conclusion was that Zimbabwe
would need to import maize, despite claims by the Minister of
Agriculture that the country had produced enough maize and would
not need to import more. The Gazette story even reported that
government plans were already underway to import 60 000 tonnes
of maize immediately from South Africa.

Meanwhile, ZBC finally caught up with the ongoing debate over the
country's shaky food security situation with its usual denial story
quoting the minister refuting the weeklies' allegations that there
would be food shortages early next year (television and radio 8pm
23/6, and radio 24/6 6am). Minister Made criticized Agritex's
assessment methodology, but failed to comment on the FAO's
report. ZBC made no effort to get a comment from Agritex and
failed to provide any figures about how much maize the country
needed, how much it had produced and how much was held in the
strategic reserve.

POLITICAL VIOLENCE

The Daily News was littered with stories about political violence
during the week, including an attack on an MDC MP inside a police
station (19/6). In another case, it reported that 32 teachers in
Buhera had been “fired” by war veterans and ruling party
supporters, and quoted a Ministry of Education official saying they
were aware of the incident (20/6).
The Financial Gazette also reported a fresh outbreak of political
violence between ZANU PF and MDC supporters in the Nkayi area,
in Matabeleland North. The report quoted spokesmen from the
MDC and the ruling party both blaming each other for starting the
violence.
The state media failed to report any of these incidents, thus
misrepresenting the situation to its audiences, including the
"eclipse tourists". Even the Mabvuku riots received only passing
mention on ZBC, buried in the report about the police stepping up
security to keep the visitors safe (ZBCTV, 8pm, 18/6).

CLAMPDOWN ON FOREIGN JOURNALISTS

The new edict issued the Ministry of Information that now demands
foreign journalists apply for accreditation from their country of origin
at least one month ahead of their intended visit, claimed its first
casualties this week - all from the BBC.
The Sunday Mail (17/6) was the first to report that foreign
journalists had been refused accreditation following the
implementation of the regulation on accreditation gazetted in 1980.
Reporting that a BBC presenter had been obliged to return to
London, The Daily News (18/6) quoted a US State Department
official criticizing the move. The article also quoted the Permanent
Secretary in the Department of Information as saying his office
would no longer entertain foreign journalists who seek accreditation
while in Zimbabwe. The Daily News (18/6) sourced comment from
some of the affected journalists, but did not seek any local
alternative or independent opinion.
ZBC (all stations 8pm 19/6) and ZIMPAPERS (20/6) relied
exclusively on comments from the Department of Information in the
President’s Office in its report on the fact that a three-man BBC
television crew had been deported for failing to obtain their
accreditation in advance. Minister Moyo was quoted saying the
expulsions were not the result of a new law, as had been portrayed
in the media, but was merely the enforcement of existing
regulations. The article referred to a “… troupe of journalists and
conservationists …” that poured into the country from Britain as
part of an effort to discredit Zimbabwe’s involvement in the
Democratic Republic of Congo war.
However, The Independent provided another perspective of the
same event. It reported that Environment and Tourism Minister,
Francis Nhema, who had been due to meet the BBC team, was
irked by their expulsion because he wanted to use the opportunity
to reassure wavering tourists about Zimbabwe's potential as a
tourist destination. The crew had come to do a documentary on the
tourism potential of the country pegged to the eclipse.
The Herald report also noted that the Ministry of Information had
refused to renew the accreditation of The London Daily Telegraph's
resident correspondent, David Blair, who has been in the country
for the past two years. However, neither ZBC nor Zimpapers
attempted to explore the veracity of the minister's claim that the
original law contained a clause insisting that foreign journalists
apply a month in advance of their intention to visit the country.
MMPZ notes that these arbitrary new regulations are a gross
invasion of press freedom, and constitute a violation of Article 19 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this
right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media
and regardless of frontiers."

In view of the impending presidential elections, the new
accreditation laws can only be interpreted as an attempt to stifle
international attention on the state of affairs in Zimbabwe, and
reflect a growing xenophobic paranoia on the part of the ZANU PF
Government. Such anti-constitutional efforts to gag the media
severely undermine any claim that Zimbabwe aspires to being a
constitutional democracy.
The first, a presenter of documentaries, was reported by The Daily
News (18/6) to have returned to London with an accompanying
comment from the permanent secretary in the department of
information saying his office would no longer entertain foreign
journalists who seek accreditation while in Zimbabwe.
Ends

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