JOHANNESBURG - The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has urged South Africas ruling tripartite alliance to desist from intimidating the media or issuing threats against journalists saying such hostility towards the Press would eventually lead to suppression of the media as is the case in Zimbabwe.
COSATU spokesperson Patrick Craven said in a statement that such an approach would be detrimental to South Africa s political development. Attempts to threaten the media workers into censoring politically embarrassing stories could well be the first step in a descent towards Zanufication, dictatorship and a banana republic. There must be no return to those days, Craven told The Zimbabwean on Tuesday.
Craven spoke following an ill-tempered dispute between the ANC Youth League spokesman Floyd Shivambu and a group of prominent journalists who have accused the league of threatening them. COSATU is part of the ruling alliance that is led by President Jacob Zumas ANC party and also includes the South African Communist Party. While calling for cordial relations between journalists and politicians, Craven also warned the media that they were not above criticism.
He said: Cosatu will always take a critical view of the media, especially the South African print media which is owned by just three giant private companies and generally serves the interest of big business. We shall not hesitate to complain whenever the media is distorting the truth, slandering individuals or misrepresenting the workers movement and its allies.
Zimbabwe is regarded as one of the worst places for journalists in the world after President Robert Mugabes previous government enacted several media and security laws that it used to arrest journalists and close four independent newspapers including the countrys then biggest circulating paper The Daily News that was shut down in 2003.
The power-sharing government formed by Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai last year has promised to restore basic rights and freedoms including press freedom. But the administration has been criticised for its lack of urgency on media reforms.
Post published in: News