We publish in this edition crime statistics of which the government would prefer that the rest of us remain ignorant. We also provide a further revelation about the R43-billion arms deal, centred again on the extraordinary ability of one or more Shaik brother to profit from arms contracts.
We do so primarily because publication of both sets of information is manifestly in the public interest. Moreover, we consider that our principal duty is to you, the reader.
These two considerations will continue to weigh heaviest with us as an atmosphere is conjured up by elements of the state and ruling party clearly intended to curtail what we may or may not report on as journalists or know as members of the public.
This week saw draft legislation, dealing with the powers and privileges of Parliament, come before a special parliamentary committee with the proposal that what it terms “false or misleading reports” on the proceedings of Parliament or its committees be punishable by up to three years in prison. The draft law would give Parliament, not the courts, the power to impose such a sentence on an errant journalist.
In view of Parliament’s evident inability in a few recent instances (the case of Minister of Justice Penuell Maduna is the most celebrated) to cope with quasi-judicial proceedings against its own members, there is little reason to be confident of its ability to do so impartially against a journalist, particularly one not liked by the ruling party.
Fortunately, this provision is contained in what is only draft legislation. Good judgement may yet prevail. But we consider ourselves warned. A battle royal may lie ahead to ensure that journalists reporting on Parliament should not be exposed to punishment by nakedly partisan politicians.
We hesitate to place in the same category the plea to journalists on Thursday this week by the three agencies investigating the R43-billion arms deal that newspapers share information with investigators before publication in order to avoid situations in which suspects might be tipped off or witnesses terrorised into silence. No South African newspaper, we are sure, would want to undermine the ability of the agencies concerned to roll up the perpetrators of corruption. But a disturbing degree of complicity in the policing function is being asked of journalists. Moreover, journalists are being asked to give primacy to a set of considerations often in direct conflict with their principal function to keep the public informed of relevant fact and opinion.
Those newspapers agreeing to the request from the three agencies will have to manage their relationship very carefully indeed.
The most damaging instance of curtailment of information remains the moratorium on crime statistics. It represents a misjudgement by the leadership of the police and government. This error is all the more shameful for the fact that, as court papers filed this week reveal for the first time, the government’s own inquiry into crime statistics specifically recommended that there be no moratorium on crime statistics.
We the voters among us, anyway are adults. And we expect to be treated as such. If crime is bad in part of a city, we would like to know it so we can avoid it or put pressure on the responsible authorities to clear it up.
That is the role of information in a democracy: it is the spur with which the public can compel their leaders to act appropriately. Interfere with that flow of information and you damage democracy. Interfere with the purveyors of that information we journalists and you could inflict exactly the same damage.
Aids orthodoxy accepted
Aids dissidents would no doubt like to see themselves as the heirs to Charles Darwin, who was ridiculed by the British scientific establishment for even suggesting there may be a link between monkeys and humans. But, as the interim report of the presidential Aids advisory panel makes clear, for every Darwin there is a Piltdown man.
The government has, for all practical intents, accepted that HIV causes Aids. Advocating abstinence, care and condoms not to mention a project which will provide about 90?000 pregnant women a year with nevirapine to curb transmission of HIV to unborn children assumes that HIV and Aids are linked. And as the minister of health now reminds questioners, South Africa is in its second year of a five-year plan to combat the HIV/Aids epidemic.
So why maintain the farce preserved in this latest emission from the presidential Aids advisory panel? The report amounts to little more than a record of differing sides’ arguments and debates. The report’s stated aim of reflecting as objectively as possible the deliberations, opposing views, areas of consensus and gaps in knowledge is fulfilled. But these were already widely known.
Much of the report is important, albeit self-evident how best to reduce transmission, the most appropriate ways of treating people with HIV/Aids, the need to reduce poverty and cut down the incidence of opportunistic infections and sexually transmitted diseases. There needs to be further research on co-factors in causing Aids, and on how HIV damages the immune system … the list goes on.
But has anything come out of the whole exercise that would not have emerged if the panel had never been convened? No.
People whose energies could have been better spent saving lives have been distracted by an enterprise that now needs to be put quietly to death. It detracts from the many ways that South Africa is to the fore in battling the scourge of HIV/Aids.
Let us end the presidential panel with a final report and free scientists to get on with research and officials to get on with policy.