Hard on the heels of the torching of the South African truck and its cargo of 60,000 copies of the Africa Day edition of The Zimbabwean on Sunday, the message from the military junta is clear – they are terrified of the power of the pen.
Since the beginning of time, evil has feared the power of the Word. Mugabe and his henchmen are no different. Their days are numbered, as The Zimbabwean continually reminds them, and their instinctive reaction is to destroy that message.
The tariff barriers – 40% of the invoice value payable in foreign currency – may be a bit more subtle than burning the truck of papers and thrashing the drivers. But its effect is the same – an information black-out for people inside the country.
By forcing us to pay the massive duty in foreign currency, the Mugabe junta has admitted the failure of its fiscal policies. Its money is worthless and it prefers to trade in other people’s currencies.
George Charamba, the permanent secretary for information, has vowed to introduce other measures to stop The Zimbabwean and its Sunday sister from getting to readers inside the country. He has been quoted as saying: We hope no-one gets hurt. This sinister statement from the man who is paid by the taxpayers to promote the free flow of information will one day return to haunt him.
The attack on media freedom is an all-out one.
It is known that the military junta has hatched plans to send illiterate soldiers to disrupt the distribution of private newspapers throughout Zimbabwe. This will take the form of assaults on vendors selling the newspapers and those caught reading them.
Already Zanu (PF) thugs have been going around ordering Zimbabweans to remove satellite dishes from their roofs so that they cannot watch international news stations.
For a long time now the thugs have been confiscating shortwave radio receivers and jamming and bombing foreign radio stations such as SW Radio Africa, VOP and Voice of America.
There is also the question of the Daily News application for a licence from the Media Information Commission, which has been gathering dust since the beginning of the year. This is despite the Thabo Mbeki-mediated agreement between Zanu (PF) and MDC negotiators, which stipulates that the application must be processed within 30 days. This just shows that this agreement, among others, was negotiated in bad faith.
Further evidence of the junta’s fear of the truth is, its continued harassment, assault, arrest and imprisonment of media practitioners – including local and foreign journalists, photographers and technicians.
The continued denial of access by the MDC to public state-owned radio, television and newspapers makes a mockery of the SADC protocol on elections. which guarantees equal access to the media.
Word:
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favour granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
2 Corinthians 1;8