Writing stories on the sex lives of presidents has become a dangerous occupation for Southern African journalists, writes David Lush
Just last month, the publisher and two editors of Zimbabwe’s Financial Gazette were arrested, interrogated and charged with an offence which has hardly seen the light of day since the fall of Ian Smith’s Rhodesia — all because of a story alleging that President Robert Mugabe had married his secretary, which he later admitted to anyway.
Now the managing director and the editor of Zambia’s The Post newspaper find themselves charged under similarly ancient legislation for publishing a story in which a Zairean trader claimed to be President Frederick Chiluba’s lover. Chiluba — a born-again Christian who has publicly urged Zambians to be monogamous — denies ever knowing the woman, nor the child she claims he fathered.
Following publication of this story, leaders and supporters of Chiluba’s Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) took to the streets, burning copies of The Post and threatening to beat up anyone found selling the paper. M’membe was arrested at the paper’s Lusaka offices on Monday morning, and both M’membe and his editor-in-chief, Masautso Phiri, spent the night in jail before appearing in court, charged with defaming the president under Section 69 of the Penal Code.
Elias Rusike, Trevor Ncube and Simba Makunike, respectively the publisher, editor and deputy-editor of Zimbabwe’s Financial Gazette, endured similar police hospitality for a story claiming that President Mugabe had married his secretary. Shortly after first light on May 13, detectives swooped on the homes of Rusike, Ncube and Makunike and took the three in for questioning, and trashing their offices in the process. After more than 48 hours in police detention, the three executives appeared in court, charged with criminal
While outrage at the Gazette’s revelations has been confined largely to the environs of State House, even fellow journalists feel The Post went too far with its story. Respected media academic and chair of the Zambian press association, Francis Kasoma, told IPS that the development of press freedom in Zambia had reached a “dangerous stage”.
To a lesser extent, The Namibian newspaper has also suffered moral whiplash for publishing details of The Post’s story during Chiluba’s state visit to Namibia last week. Callers to radio phone-in shows urged the Namibian government to act against journalists responsible for causing the nation such an
At the close of his Namibian trip last Saturday, Chiluba reiterated his pledge not to muzzle the Zambian press, but added that it was not for the media to “create rules for democracy”. “Even if leaders are wrong, it is not African to insult them in public,” he
M’membe — a distinctly African, self-confessed Zambian patriot — disagrees. “Even the ruthless Zulu dictator Chaka could be critcised openly,” M’membe wrote in an article published by the Media Institute of Southern Africa in December. “Whenever a voice of opposition is raised … the first instinct of African leaders is to smear it with the filth of colonialism, capitalism or imperialism.” Or in M’membe’s case, Section 69 of the Penal Code.
In a report published in January, Amnesty International criticised Zambia and Zimbabwe, together with Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda — countries related by legal systems shaped by British colonial rule — for criminalising dissent through the use of often out- dated legislation which contravened international human rights standards. “The use of such charges is often as much about restriction and intimidation as prosecution and actual imprisonment,” said the Amnesty report.