The Zimbabwe government is getting more desperate by the day to hang on to power, with that country’s Minister of Information, Jonathan Moyo,=, taking things too far by referring to journalists as ”mercenaries”, says the New National Party.
NNP media director Carol Johnson said Moyo’s statement is not only ludicrous, but also ”flies in the face of a free media as protected in our Constitution, as well as different African and United Nations charters”.
”Moyo wants to scare journalists and by doing this he is also making targets of them.
”Desperate dictators always look for someone to blame when they can no longer take the pressure. Listening to Moyo, it seems as if the end is near for this oppressive government,” Johnson said.
French news agency AFP reported earlier on Wednesday Moyo had threatened legal action against foreign media organisations and their local corespondents, saying some of them were ”mercenaries” working to topple the regime of President Robert Mugabe.
”Mercenaries of any kind, whether carrying the sword or the pen, must and will be exposed, and they will suffer the full consequences of the law.
”Over the last four years or so … a number of [local] journalists have found the promise of dirty American money too tempting and irresistible, at the expense of their own country.
”Concrete evidence in this regard has been coming up in recent months and it is mounting,” he reportedly said. — Sapa