Nehanda Radio was flooded with e-mails from angry Zimbabweans asking why a channel serving them in the diaspora could allow Mugabe unchallenged propaganda space on its channel.
Makawa apparently never made a single attempt at asking Mugabe any difficult questions on current problems instead choosing to soothe the aging dictators ego with historical questions.
‘I have never seen such drivel in my life,’ wrote one viewer, ‘Zimbabweans watching wanted to hear answers to their problems and all we got was this Zimbabwean interviewer speaking with an American accent and clearly showing us he was scared of his guest.’
Others took offence at the way Makawa tried to gloss over the Gukurahundi massacres by saying a few hundred were injured or killed when several reports have put the number at over 20 000 Ndebele’s killed. While there was nothing wrong in Makawa tracing Zimbabwe’s history, it was his reluctance to question Mugabe on current problems in the country that irked many.
Only on one occassion did Makawa ask Mugabe what he would say to suffering Zimbabweans. Mugabe’s answer that they have goats and cattle to eat showed that Makawa was out of his depth in this intervew. He never followed up to ask what Mugabe meant, nor investigate Mugabe’s implied statement that town dwellers were foreigners from Malawi and Mozambique who knew nothing about the liberation struggle, several viewers pointed out.
In 2002 Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu PF party splurged £60 000 on a propaganda supplement in the New African Magazine. They followed that up with a £1 million full magazine supplement in the same publication to defend their brutal crackdown on the opposition in the aftermath of the March 2007 Save Zimbabwe campaign rally.
African TV stations like OBE in the United Kingdom have shown a reluctantance to run critical stories on Zimbabwe. OBE for example often has its crew visit Zimbabwe at governments expense to film various beauty pageants, musical gala’s and other tourism functions. The Zanu PF government is very happy to pay for positive publicity and it remains unclear what the deal with the Africa Channel on Mugabe’s interview was?
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