The bomb attack on an independent radio station in Zimbabwe was the fourth on a media organisation in the past three years, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) said on Thursday.
”The attacks on media establishments are without doubt meant to silence the media and ultimately the whole society,” the media freedom organisation said in a statement.
An independent radio organisation in a Harare suburb, Voice Of People Communications Trust, was bombed in the early hours of Thursday morning.
”Although the police have begun investigations which we believe might lead to the arrest of the culprits, past examples of investigations of attacks on media establishments are not encouraging at all.”
The bomb destroyed all the equipment and virtually incapacitated the operations of the aspiring radio station.
A group called the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) issued a statement condemning the bombing, calling the act ”a cowardly and desperate attempt to silence independent and alternative sources of information to the Zimbabwean public”.
The MMPZ said the bombing was a blow to Zimbabweans’ constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of expression and that it further eroded the nation’s democratic aspirations.
”An attack on any media institution is an attack on us all,” said the MMPZ.
In 2000, an art gallery above the Daily News offices in Harare was bombed, the newspaper’s printing press was bombed in Harare in 2001 and its Bulawayo office was petrol-bombed earlier this year.
”This excludes incidences of physical attacks, arrests and intimidation,” said Misa.
”Misa-Zimbabwe takes note that these heinous crimes are being committed against a background of an already bad media environment.”
The body urged the police and government to work together to discourage such crimes.
”We pray that at least this time, the culprits of this crime will be apprehended.”
No-one was hurt in Thursday’s blast but the 10-room, single-storey house was gutted, with its roof collapsed, rooms blackened and windows blown out.
”Everything is gone, computers, office equipment the production equipment,” said Sarah Chivumbu, treasurer of Voice of the People Communications Trust.
”There is nothing left.”
She would not speculate on the motive for the attack or the identity of attackers.
A private security guard at the building said three men had held him up with a firearm. They told him not to struggle because, ”you don’t want to die for a cause you know nothing about”.
Two of them smashed the windows and then threw bombs inside, he said.
Police were on guard at the house in Van Praagh Avenue and refused to allow journalists near the site until forensic and ballistics officers had carried out investigations.
Agence France Presse reported that VOP used Zimbabwean journalists who produced programmes in local languages and then sent computer sound files abroad, from where they were broadcast on shortwave back to the country.
That system was devised to help VOP avoid falling under oppressive media legislation enacted by President Robert Mugabe in mid-March, just two days after he was re-elected in a vote that was widely condemned as mired in fraud and violence.
Under the media law, journalists are barred from reporting on meetings of the cabinet or other government bodies. The law also obliges journalists to seek accreditation from a government panel and places severe restrictions on foreign reporters working in the southern African country.
Those who violate the law face stiff fines and up to two years in prison. VOP’s output focuses on health, politics, Zimbabwe’s beleaguered economy, and education.
”Our main strength is that we broadcast in local languages to reach rural people who may not have access to other information,” said VOP chairperson Faith Ndebele.
According to a statement by Misa-Zimbabwe, the bombing of VOP comes against a background of an acrimonious relationship between the authorities and the station. The government accuses VOP of ”tarnishing the image” of the country through its reporting.
On 4 July 2002 the police raided the radio station. The police accompanied by officers from the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) and armed with a search warrant, raided the VOP in search of a transmitter and anything used in broadcasting.
The Misa statement noted that after failing to find the transmitter the police confiscated 133 tapes and files from the office. The tapes and files that the police had taken had since been returned. – Sapa, AFP