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Zimbabwe Media Watchdog's Weekly Report for 19-25 September

Posted on: Saturday, 1 October 2005, 18:00 CDT

Text of "Weekly Media Update" published by Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe on 1 October

Content

1. General comment

2. Food security and the blame game

3. Economic decline

1. General comment

The government media's status as unreliable sources of information was again affirmed by their failure to expose a new wave of violent farm invasions, leaving the responsibility to the niche market private media.

For instance, The Standard (25 September) reported that armed gangs led by state security agents and other government officials had seized farms in Chipinge and Nyazura after brutally assaulting farm workers and harassing the owners. In one incident, the paper reported, Ashanti Farm manager Allen Warner was severely assaulted after a failed attempt by a senior official of the Central Intelligence Organization, Joseph Chiminya, to shoot him with an "Uzi light machine gun". The gun reportedly "jammed" when he tried to fire it.

In another case, a senior official from the Zimbabwe embassy in London allegedly invaded Brackenridge Farm with "12 police officers in tow" and instructed the owner to "vacate the farm at night". Four of the police officers were reportedly armed with AK-47 automatic rifles. The Standard presented the violence as being linked to National Security and Land Reform Minister Didymus Mutasa's incitement against white commercial farmers during his address to the Masvingo land audit committee two weeks ago.

Mutasa reportedly told the committee that the few remaining white farmers should be "cleared out" because they were "dirty" and "filthy".

However, the paper reported Mutasa as having distanced himself from the mayhem, saying farmers should report the invasions to the police.

Studio 7 (21 September) and The Daily Mirror (24 September) carried similar reports although they did not link the invasions to the hate language attributed to Mutasa. The Daily Mirror quoted the evicted farmers as having said invaders told them that they had no "rights to the land" under the 17th Constitutional Amendment.

The failure by the government media to report these disturbing new developments buttress arguments that they are complicit in these incidents of violence, racial bigotry and incitement precisely because they have allowed government officials to break the law with impunity. This grave dereliction of duty by the public media reinforces demands for the establishment of alternative mass media free from government control to record accurately the realities of Zimbabwean society.

2. Food Security and the blame game

The country's tenuous food situation - made more alarming by recent revelations of poor preparations for the 2005/6 farming season - continued to be a highlight of the media during the week.

In all, the media carried 136 stories on the topic. Of these, 70 appeared on ZBH (ZTV 39, Power FM 14, and Radio Zimbabwe 17) and 11 on Studio 7, while the government-controlled papers published 30 stories and the private press 25.

Although ZBH had previously highlighted how the inadequate farming preparations risked worsening Zimbabwe's insecure food situation, their stories this week contradicted this impression by projecting government as having taken great strides to rectify the problem. However, none of the stories matched the authorities' rhetoric on the matter with facts on the ground.

For example, all ZBH stations (19 September, 8 p.m.) reported the reassurances by the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) that the country had "enough grain reserves to last until the next harvest despite the drought", without challenging the board to back its claims with reasoned statistical evidence. Consequently, the national broadcaster's audience remained no wiser as to how much maize, if any, the board was holding in its reserves.

Instead, ZTV (19 September, 8 p.m.) and Power FM (20 September, 6 a.m.) supinely cited the GMB blaming fuel problems and poor road networks for the unavailability of the maize nationwide.

In fact, nearly all 70 stories ZBH carried on Zimbabwe's food and agricultural problems diverted attention from government's poor management of the sector by blaming it on other factors. These included agro-based businesses 'linked' to former white farmers who were accused of allegedly scaling down production of agricultural inputs in protest against land reforms (ZTV 25 September, 8 p.m.) and some millers who were blamed for "sabotaging the government's effort to feed the nation" by withholding maize meal (Power FM 19 September, 6 a.m.).

Resettled black farmers were not spared either. ZTV (20 September, 8 p.m.), Power FM (21 September, 6 a.m.) and The Herald (21 September) reported Gono describing as "criminal" their inability to maximize maize yields per hectare as compared to Chinese and South African farmers. However, government's complicity in the fall in agricultural production through its chaotic land reforms was left unexplored.

Only The Sunday Mail (25 September) broke ranks with its stablemates by fairly assessing the matter in its comment, Address real issues facing new farmers. The paper disagreed with Gono's attempts to blame the farmers alone for low production. It argued that "some of the reasons for non-maximum utilization of land go back to the Government and to his (Gono) office", adding that until the "real issues affecting farmers" are addressed "yields will continue to be low" as farmers "cannot take shortcuts and still get maximum yields".

Otherwise, like ZBH, the rest of the 25 stories the government press published on the subject absolved government while blaming farmers for the country's agricultural problems. For example, although The Herald (19 September) and Chronicle (22 September) cited the shortage of inputs as responsible for what is expected to be poor yields in cotton and tobacco, The Herald (20 September) paradoxically blamed farmers for the grim outlook.

The paper accused the farmers of not doing much to "boost agriculture", saying they should not just wait to "be spoon- fed...expecting government to lay on everything, from fuel to fertilizer".

Responding to farmers' concerns over fuel shortages, the paper urged them to emulate other "businesses" that were not "wringing their hands in despair" over the issue but sourcing "free funds" to import their own fuel "either directly or through agents".

The Herald (22 September)'s comment, Unproductive farmers must lose land, echoed these views. It amplified official statements attacking resettled farmers for failing to fully utilize land given them saying government should repossess such land as recommended by several land audits, including the Charles Utete Report.

However, it did not challenge government why it continues to conduct so many land audits without implementing their recommendations.

Instead, The Herald and Chronicle (23 September), sought to portray government as implementing sound measures to ensure high productivity. The papers merely quoted Agriculture Minister Joseph Made saying the increase in the producer price of wheat from 1,749,128 to 6,920,780 Zimbabwe dollars per tonne would ensure that "wheat production remains viable and provides an incentive for farmers to continue producing the crop," without seeking comment from farmers.

Similarly, ZBH carried at least five stories that passively quoted government officials and their sympathisers praising the enactment of the 17th Constitutional Amendment saying it will "enhance" agricultural production, as it would bring to "finality" wrangles over land ownership.

The government media's partisan coverage of the matter was reflected in their over-dependence on government voices as shown in Fig 1 and 2 in line with their agenda to absolve the authorities of blame.

Fig 1 Voice Distribution on ZBH

Government - 48

Farmers' - 6

Organizations - 13

Business - 6

Alternative - 6

Professional - 6

Fig 1 Voice distribution in government press

Government - 18

Alternative - 5

Business - 4

Farmer - 6

Foreign - 1

MDC - 1

ZANU-PF - 1

In contrast, the private media gave a more informed analysis of the problems affecting agriculture and the country's food security. Almost all the stories attributed the problems to government's chaotic land reforms and skewed macro-economic policies, as well as its continued denial of the existence of a humanitarian crisis in the country.

For example, Studio 7 (19 September), The Financial Gazette (22 September), The Zimbabwe Independent (23 September), The Standard and Sunday Mirror (25 September) exposed the complete disdain with which the authorities viewed the starving masses. They reported President Mugabe as having denied that Zimbabweans faced starvation, saying they were a "very happy" people whose problem was their dependency on maize when they could eat "heaps of potatoes" and "rice" the country had in stock.

As the Independent columnist, Muckraker observed, Mugabe, at a stroke, managed to combine the crudely insensitive comments of the 18th century French queen, Marie Antoinette, who called on her people to "eat cake" if they could not find bread, and colonial Rhodesian leader Ian Smith, who boasted of having "the happiest Africans on the continent".

The private media viewed Mugabe's statement as a reflection of his detachment from reality and his insensitivity to the plight of suffering Zimbabweans.

In addition, Studio 7 (19 September) carried two other stories in which it cited Mugabe denying there was a humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. For example, it reported him as having refused humanitarian assistance from the UN during his meeting with the world body's secretary-general, Kofi Annan, in New York. Citing unnamed UN officials, Studio 7 reported that Mugabe had only agreed "under pressure from Annan" to have the UN bring in food but only "to complement" his government's efforts.

The government media all censored these reports, including Mugabe's bizarre comments, which attracted media coverage around the world.

Studio 7 (21 September) also revealed that the country's food crisis had caught up with the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA), which had started to send mostly junior officers on forced leave as it was unable to "provide three meals a day". The station quoted an unnamed army official saying because of these problems the ZNA had even suspended recruitment.

Although the private Press gave more space to official sources, it balanced government's perspective with independent comment from alternative sources, farmers, foreign experts and MDC voices. See Fig 3.

Fig 3 Voice distribution in the private press

Government - 12

Alternative - 3

Farmer - 5

Foreign - 4

MDC - 1

Similarly, Studio 7 attempted to balance government assessment of the country's food insecurity with perceptions of mainly international relief organizations and the opposition MDC as shown in fig 4.

Table 4: Voice distribution on Studio 7

Government - 6

Foreign diplomats - 5

Povo - 4

Alternative - 1

Professional - 1

MDC - 5

3. Economic Decline

The country's continued economic meltdown also featured prominently in the week with both sections of the media highlighting indicators of economic decline.

However, most of the 68 stories that the official media carried (ZBH [43] and government papers [25]) were piecemeal and failed to address holistically the causes behind the economy's freefall.

ZBH's reports in particular were largely reactionary and premised on fault-finding rather than problem-solving. For instance, ZTV (21 September, 6 p.m.) did not investigate the economic rationale behind pharmaceutical companies' drug price increases by more "300 per cent since the beginning of the year" or relate the increases to the country's economic meltdown.

Rather, the station resorted to regurgitating government threats against the firms with its reporter commenting: "...government has warned the sector to stop increasing prices in this manner."

Threats against industry also appeared in The Herald (22 September). The paper supinely reported the central bank claiming that it was owed about 212m dollars by exporters "who have either not remitted their export receipts or submitted their foreign currency declaration forms". Without investigating the reasons for this, the paper simply quoted the RBZ threatening exporters to "immediately pay up" by "end of business on Friday 30 September 2005" or risk "punitive" penalties such as "forfeiture of entitlement to foreign currency accounts retention until such a time that outstanding amounts have been paid".

ZTV (22 September, 8 p.m.) carried a similar story. However, it did also quote the chief executive officer of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC), Innocent Makwiramiti, saying that although some businesses were guilty of this, he also held the RBZ liable for "inefficiency...when processing papers..."

The private media was more revealing in its 23 stories (private newspapers [17] and Studio 7 [6]) on the country's economic problems. The reports tackled issues such as government's continued failure to solve the fuel and foreign currency shortages and the country's failure to attract foreign investment due to government's controversial policies.

For example, The Standard reported analysts saying, contrary to claims by Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa that the country had "bottomed out" and was "ripe for economic take off", Zimbabwe was headed for the worst times as "industrial capacity utilization has deteriorated to between 25 and 30 per cent while many firms are filing for bankruptcy".

Studio 7 (21 September) carried a similar story and quoted economist John Robertson attributing the poor showing of some industries to the decline in agriculture since businesses that relied on raw materials from agriculture were "almost out of business."

The Independent revealed that the country's platinum mining giant Zimplats had threatened to close down due to government's contradictory economic policies. The paper reported that government had made a "sudden U-turn" by revoking an agreement with the mining giant that exempted Zimplats from paying withholding tax. Now the government wanted the platinum miner to pay the tax, calculated at 400bn Zimbabwe dollars including penalties.

Zimplats' chief executive officer Greg Sebborn told the paper that the "impact" of the latest development "will be severe, not only to Zimplats' operations but on investor perceptions in general" as the "agreement was specifically crafted to attract large-scale investment in the country".

In addition, the paper, Studio 7 (22 September) and SW Radio Africa reported on the fresh controversy surrounding the origin of the 120m dollars that government used to offset its 295m dollars arrears to the IMF to avoid expulsion. These media reported Zimbabwean businessman Mutumwa Mawere as having written to the Fund, including the World Bank and UN, complaining that government had used "proceeds" from his "expropriated companies", which "generate 100m dollars per annum" to pay the arrears.

None of the media carried concrete evidence from Mawere to substantiate the claims.

However, Studio 7 (24 September) reported the IMF saying it would investigate the source of the funds but would not say whether or not the investigations were prompted by Mawere's complaint.

The government media ignored the matter. The Sunday Mail, for example, only reported Reserve Bank Governor Gono defending his decision to pay the IMF instead of "putting the money to local use" as demanded by industrialists because the business community had "'pleaded' with him to make the payment". He also told ZTV (22 September, 8 p.m.) that had Zimbabwe been expelled from the Fund, "the catastrophe (would have been) beyond what the ordinary man realizes".

Meanwhile, as the media, especially the government ones, spiritedly debated the 'disappearance' of eight soccer players in the UK following a friendly match between Highlanders and CAPS United football clubs in Bradford, it was only Radio Zimbabwe (23 September, 8 p.m.) that linked the disappearance to the economic decline.

It reported that the players were "suspected to be seeking economic refuge."

Source: BBC Monitoring Africa

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