Africa
Sechaba ka’Nkosi
Angolan journalist Andre Domigos Mussamo went on trial this week, charged with revealing state secrets in an article that never appeared in his newspaper.
Authorities described Mussamo’s critique of President Jos Eduardo dos Santos, based on a provincial governor’s letter, as containing “highly important information of a military nature”. Mussamo, who wrote the article in September, spent three months in detention before an international outcry earned him a release on bail.
Mussamo’s case highlights a disturbing trend among African government officials – a growing intolerance of independent media.
As the international community approaches World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday, Southern Africa has emerged as one of the most dangerous spots in the world for media practitioners.
The situation for journalists deteriorates daily as the region continues its slide towards instability. Most worrying is the status of journalists in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – the four allies involved in the war against Ugandan-backed guerrillas attempting to overthrow Laurent Kabila’s 25-month-old regime.
The annual report of the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) last year named Kabila among the Top 10 “enemies of the press” worldwide. The report said since Kabila’s takeover three years ago, more than 70 DRC journalists have been detained without charge, imprisoned, attacked or harassed.
The “enemies of the press” have been disastrous for independent journalism, says CPJ executive director Ann Cooper: “A free press informs, but their regimes have knowingly acted to suppress information through countless violations against journalists, including censorship, imprisonment, physical attack and even murder.”
In Zimbabwe, journalists who have dared to criticise the current land invasions and the government’s ambiguous stance on the issue have become victims of abuse by the police and the war veterans. President Robert Mugabe has accused the media of colluding with whites and former colonials who, he says, are trying to sabotage his regime.
News-gathering has become tougher, particularly for the independent and foreign media. Last weekend Zimbabweans woke up to news of an attempted bombing of the offices of the independent Daily News.
“The Daily News is the only Zimbabwean news organisation attempting to carry out professional and accurate reporting of the farm occupations on a daily basis,” said a representative of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) in Harare. “Attempts to prevent the paper from operating have implications that reverberate far beyond the rights of the journalists themselves.”
Southern African journalists do not speak with a regional voice. Often it is up to national organisations to take up their plight through international bodies such as the CPJ, Amnesty International and the International Federation of Journalists.
In the case of Mussamo – at the time of his arrest, Cuanza province chief editor of Angolan National Radio and a correspondent of the bi-weekly Folla 8 – the multinational effort bore fruit when he was granted bail after a stint in appalling conditions in a Cuanza Norte penitentiary.
Mussamo became a victim of a government crackdown on the media that began last year, but assumed official status in Januarywhen authorities imposed a news blackout on coverage of the rebel Unita movement.
Misa blames state-controlled media as responsible for the escalating negative sentiment against independent and foreign journalists in countries such as Zimbabwe.
The institute says while there is no direct relation between inaccurate and inflammatory reporting by state media and attacks on journalists, that does not mean there is no connection.
Last year alone, 34 journalists where killed worldwide in the line of duty, compared to 24 the previous year. Nearly half of these were killed in Africa.
While Southern Africa did not account for one death during that period, media and human rights organisations have raised concerns about an increasingly hostile attitude towards journalists in the region. The harassment has assumed a form of physical beatings, death threats and verbal abuse.
In Angola, mysterious trials against journalists have become a usual feature. Last month a Luanda court convicted another journalist, Rafael Marques, for defaming Dos Santos by calling him a dictator responsible for incompetence and corruption within the country’s civil service.
Marques was sentenced to six months in prison, but the sentence was suspended pending appeal.
Marques was tried much of the time without the knowledge of his family or lawyers, after he had embarked on an eight-day hunger strike to protest against his illegal detention. CPJ sources claim Judge Joaquim de Abreu Cangato, one of the people who tried and sentenced Marques, does not even have a legal background.
Conditions are not as dangerous on the other side of the border, but neither are they ideal. Two weeks ago, for example, the Namibian Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Information and Broadcasting, Gabriel Shihepo, hauled two Namibian Broadcasting Corporation parliamentary journalists out of an impromptu press conference, called by the opposition Congress of Democrats, shortly after the party walked out of the National Assembly.
Accompanied by two police officers, Shihepo told the journalists their job was to cover proceedings inside Parliament – only.
In Swaziland, the government has made it impossible to criticise the royal family, leaving many journalists to practise self-censorship.
Former Times Sunday editor Bheki Makhubu was charged with criminal defamation last year following an article describing the king’s most recent fiance as a high- school dropout. Makhubu was ultimately fired from his job.
But it’s not all bad news. South Africa and Botswana have enshrined in their respective Constitutions the most progressive laws governing press freedom and free flow of information, even though relations between the media and authorities have not been perfect.