Dare we hope for change?

The country needs to shed [its] negative image of the past, he told the parliamentarians, adding that there was a need to disseminate information on the inclusive government.

It is not clear whether Charambas utterances reflect new thinking in the government. In the past, state security agents have bombed news presses, set alight newspaper trucks and tortured journalists -dare we hope that this marks a change of heart or is this a temporary moratorium simply to get some good international press?

Charity begins at home. The government must first engage the Zimbabwean media, both inside and outside the country. How can they expect to cozy up to the international community while muzzling their own people? At the very least they should respond by accepting enquiries from the private media and not behaving as childishly as they have in the past. Charamba himself puts the phone down when he receives a call from The Zimbabwean, as does Wayne Bvudzijena, the police spokesperson.

Charamba told the parliamentarians that the government was in touch with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the US based Cable News Network (CNN) with a view to getting them back into the country. No such contact has been made with the exiled Zimbabwean media. In fact, the government continues to arrest journalists on frivolous charges and persecute any independent media operating in the country.

In the past, the government has arrested and deported foreign journalists and kidnapped and tortured local journalists. We carry a story elsewhere in this newspaper about how journalism has been criminalised in Zimbabwe. This behaviour and the impact it has on the countrys image at home and abroad must first be addressed.

The anti-democratic stance on the media taken by the Zimbabwean government must be rectified before any fairy tales and glamorised projections can be offered to convince foreigners that all is well in Zimbabwe.

Charamba himself was responsible for threatening The Zimbabwean with destruction and for the introduction of the punitive 70% luxury import duty (now 55%) that is still crippling this newspaper every week.

The poor image that Zimbabwe has cannot be remedied by projecting another image internationally first the government must implement the agreed terms of the Global Agreement. This includes enforcement of the rule of law, cessation of all farm invasions and arbitrary arrests of journalists!

Do not, therefore, fling away your fearless confidence, for it carries a great and glorious compensation of reward. For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised. For still a little while (a very little while), and the Coming One will come and He will not delay.

But the just shall live by faith [My righteous servant shall

live by his conviction respecting mans relationship to

God and divine things, and holy fervour born of faith and

conjoined with it]; and if he draws back and shrinks in fear,

My soul has no delight or pleasure in him. Hebrews 10,

35 38 (Amplified Bible)