President Thabo Mbeki chided sections of the African media on Saturday for suggesting Africans could not be trusted to promote democracy without Western guardianship.
”(They) felt no sense of shame in demanding the G8 (industrialised) countries should not support the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) if our countries do not implement the wishes of these countries.”
”All this makes for very distressing reading,” he told a conference of Africa’s editors in Midrand.
The two-day meeting brings together about 100 editors from around the continent to debate the media’s role in Nepad, the African Union (AU), and in the pursuit for democracy.
The event was organised by the SA National Editors’ Forum (Sanef).
Opening proceedings, Mbeki accused some media of wanting the continent’s future to be decided by the richer countries of the world.
”In exchange for full stomachs they will feed, we must be ready to sacrifice our liberty and independence.”
Mbeki said media criticism that the AU had limited the effectiveness of the peer review mechanism under Nepad was ill-informed.
This came after a decision last year to use the Constitutive Act of the AU — instead of the voluntary Nepad peer review system — to discipline members not practising good governance.
”The media responded to this by going on the offensive, alleging that we were trying to compromise the effectiveness of the peer review system,” Mbeki said.
He identified two reasons for the criticism.
”Our critics were obviously ignorant of the provisions of the Constitutive Act, while they pretended that they were making informed comments.”
It was absurd to argue that press and other democratic freedoms should be protected by the peer review system as it was a voluntary process, Mbeki said.
”Strangely, this is what evidently irate and alarmed members — certainly of the South African media — proceeded to do.”
The second reason for the criticism was the view of some media that Africa could not be trusted to promote democracy without the guardianship of the West.
Mbeki said the critics was clearly convinced that Western countries would have more leverage over Nepad than over the AU.
It might be easier for some media to position themselves as a protest movement and make demands about what African governments should do with regard to press freedom.
”I would suggest that you should rather take advantage of the opportunities that have emerged to help … entrench democracy throughout Africa,” Mbeki said.
He suggested editors should focus on the establishment of the Pan African Parliament, and study the protocol currently being legislated by African parliaments.
They should also pay attention matters such as processes to set up the AU’s economic, social and cultural council.
”The question you face is whether you will …once again become an instrument of liberation by being reflective, critical, and a partisan of the truth — no longer victim to the hegemony of the sensational,” Mbeki said.
He concluded by asking: ”Will you become embedded among the African masses … as activists of the African renaissance — or will the rebirth of Africa pass you by?” – Sapa