The Zimbabwean High Commissioner to Botswana has assaulted a reporter who wrote that a leading Zimbabwean official told a public rally Botswana was to be used as a launch pad for regime change, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) said on Wednesday.
The institute said Hloniphani Chengeta, a journalist for Botswana’s Sunday Tribune, was allegedly assaulted by High Commissioner Phelekezela Mphoko last week Wednesday in full view of the paper’s reporters and its editor Masego Butale.
Misa said it had confirmed the allegations personally with both Butale and with eight of Chengeta’s colleagues. However, the Zimbabwe High Commission in Botswana has flatly denied the allegations. The commission said in a statement to Misa that the rally at which the alleged ”regime change” comments were made never took place.
It also said Mphoko had never assaulted Chengeta. Misa, however, maintained that Chengeta travelled to Zimbabwe on June 1 to cover the widely publicised anti-government demonstrations organised by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Upon his return to Botswana, he filed the story about the rally at Barbourfields Stadium in Bulawayo, attended by a high powered delegation including Information and Publicity Secretary Nathan Shamuyarira.
In the story, Chengeta quoted Shamuyarira as saying he had reliable and independent information that Botswana was going to be used as a launch pad in case of regime change in Zimbabwe.
The day after the paper appeared, Mphoko is alleged to have visited the Sunday Tribune offices, complaining that Chengeta fabricated the story about Shamuyarira and that there had never been such a rally.
Mphoko demanded the newspaper print a retraction and inform its readers that its reporter had lied. When Chengeta refused, Mphoko allegedly threatened to beat him
and also threatened the paper with a lawsuit, but to no avail.
Mphoko returned to the Sunday Tribune offices two days after the initial confrontation and accused Chengeta again of lying and of being both an MDC and United States government agent.
”Mphoko then jumped on Chengeta, pulled him up by the scuff of his neck, pinned him to the wall and pressed hard against Chengeta’s throat in full view of his workmates. One of his workmates came to Chengeta’s rescue,” Misa said.
The institute said it tried to confirm that the rally did in deed take place but unfortunately, no reporters from Zimbabwe’s only independent paper, the Daily Sun, had attended the rally.
The paper is seen by ruling party militants as a pro-MDC publication. There have been numerous reports of Daily Sun reporters being attacked at Zanu-PF rallies.
Misa said Butale and Chengeta reported the matter to the Gaborone police who forwarded their findings to the police commissioner.
The High Commissioner for Zimbabwe has diplomatic immunity. – Sapa