HARARE - President Robert Mugabe (Pictured) is undoing a series of positive developments for the country's media and tightening screws on the fourth estate ahead of elections in 2011.
Mugabe’s Media, Information and Publicity minister, Webster Shamu, and the ministry permanent secretary, George Charamba, have unilaterally appointed nine members from the military into the boards of government-controlled media establishments. The boards of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH), Zimbabwe Newspapers Group, New Ziana, Transmedia and Kingstons, have been stuffed with military officials hardly two weeks after the Commander of the Zimbabwe National Army Lieutenant-General Phillip Sibanda alleged that Zimbabwe’s detractors were employing “asymmetric warfare” using some NGOs and ‘pirate’ radio stations. Charamba and Shamu have also appointed the former principal secretary to the President and Cabinet chairman of the board of Zimpapers, and appointed media hangman, Tafataona Mahoso chairman of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe.
Silencing the opposition
Critics have said that the move was aimed at silencing shrill calls for media plurality and strengthening control on State media as the President suffers plummeting popularity ratings. A recent opinion poll revealed that the President’s support base had dropped to a lowly 10 per cent. Probably more ominous was last weeks readmission of Information Czar Jonathan Moyo to President Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party to rejuvenate the reeling party’s defunct propaganda campaign. Moyo, a hardliner media tyrant, banned four local newspapers and the BBC and CNN after June 2000 parliamentary elections , alleging biased reporting.
The seven month-old inclusive government lifted the ban on BBC and CNN three months ago. The government also notified lawyers for banned newspaper title, The Daily News that their application for a license to publish had been approved after years of legal wrangling. Among the positive developments has been the Finance Minister Tendai Biti’s edict in August scrapping the punitive “luxury import tax” that had severely crippled The Zimbabwean and The Zimbabwean on Sunday newspapers.nterviews to create the new monitoring body, the Zimbabwe Media Commission, have taken place but hit a snag amid reports that they were biased toward Zanu (PF) supporters. Mugabe has sat on names sent to him by Parliament for appointment into the ZMC.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who agreed to join Mugabe in government last February to try to end a political crisis triggered by inconclusive elections last year, has specifically accused Charamba, of “behaving as a commisar of an anti-reform group.” Tsvangirai said he had told Mugabe that he could not allow his own spokesman to exhibit such behaviour if he was genuinely interested in making the government work. Tsvangirai has become target of bitter attacks in the State’s vast broadcasting and newspaper media, tightly controlled by Shamu and Charamba.
Shamu goes too far
Recently the ministry expanded its State-funded newspaper empire to the distinct disadvantage of other media players awaiting licensing, by launching the third State-run daily newspaper, H-Metro. H-Metro was allowed to publish without a licence ahead of other publishing companies such as the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), Zimind Publishers and Financial Gazette, who have been instructed by the ministry to await establishment of the ZMC for them to be permitted to publish their own dailies. Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s MDC party said Shamu had gone a tad too far now through the unilateral appointments into the media establishments, with the MDC describing the action as a threat to the inclusive government and the global political agreement, GPA. The director of the Zimbabwe chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Zimbabwe), Takura Zhangazha described the unilateral appointments as “arbitrary, more political than professional, undemocratic and unnecessary.”
Luke Tamborinyoka, spokesman for the MDC and former news editor for The Daily News said: “Zimbabweans do not deserve the recycling of old characters with a perforated past and a chequered history such as Tafataona Mahoso. They want hope, democracy, prosperity, freedom, dignity, security.” Deputy Media, Information and Publicity minister Jameson Timba said: “Shamu’s unilateral appointments are a threat to the inclusive government.”
Post published in: Opinions