Even within its own ranks, Zimbabwe’s ruling party has shown it is intolerant of ambitions hinting at expansion of the country’s tiny independent press.
It counts for very little that the government already controls all broadcast media, and that reporters who work for privately owned publications live in fear of arrest and harassment.
Last week a Zanu-PF MP was suspended from the party for allegedly courting the publishers of the country’s only independent daily newspaper, which was forcibly closed by the government seven months ago. Very popular with readers, The Daily News was a thorn in the side of President Robert Mugabe’s government, which accused it of being an opposition mouthpiece.
The journalist-turned-legislator — Kindness Paradza — is accused of seeking British funds in a bid to acquire a controlling stake in a weekly newspaper that he helped set up almost two years ago.
Britain, the former colonial power in Zimbawe, has had opprobrium heaped on it by Mugabe, who views it as having spearheaded Zimbabwe’s international isolation.
The country has been uncomfortably pinned in the spotlight since the start of 2000, when the seizure of white-owned farms by so-called war veterans gained international attention. Reports of political violence, two problematic elections and widespread food shortages have done little to remove Zimbabwe from the headlines.
Paradza is also being held to account for speaking out against repressive media laws in his maiden speech to Parliament last month.
The MP’s suspension, says Abel Mutsakani of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Zimbabwe, confirms what is now well known. ”It’s more of the same, what we’ve seen in the last 12 months, where the government wants to control the media —even sacrificing one of their own.”
As the international community marked World Press Freedom Day, the fuss surrounding Paradza’s business plans has again focused attention on how the media, like other institutions in Zimbabwe, have been emasculated and politicised by the government.
The vice-president of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, Njabulo Ncube, says media freedom in the Southern African country has been eroded to an even greater extent than was previously the case.
Three pieces of legislation, especially that compelling both journalists and media houses to register under a state-appointed commission, have made it difficult for independent voices to be heard.
”Aippa [the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act] directly resulted in the closure of The Daily News, throwing into the streets over 200 media workers,” observes Ncube.
However, a journalism lecturer at the National University of Science and Technology, Ronit Loewenstern, believes reporters have only themselves to blame for the dearth of press freedom in the country.
She says that in South Africa, journalists working in the 1980s disregarded race and colour to stand up to media repression during the apartheid era.
But, she adds, by the time her journalism students are in the second year of a four-year course, many have lost hope and elect to pursue a career in another sector of the communication industry: ”There is no oomph and guts in the media fraternity in Zimbabwe.”
The results of a 2003 global survey released last month by a Washington-based media watchdog, Freedom House, point to a different reality.
The survey lumps Zimbabwe with Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea, concluding that reporting conditions in all three states remain dire. It says authoritarian governments there use legal pressure, imprisonment and other forms of harassment to severely curtail the ability of independent outlets to report freely.
In a development guaranteed to raise the ire of Zanu-PF officials, it now appears that the information void created by the closure of The Daily News is being filled by foreign broadcasts. One of them is Voice of America’s (VOA) Studio Seven programme, specifically aimed at Zimbabweans. Broadcasting in Zimbabwe’s three national languages, the hour-long shows were launched last year.
Last weekend Studio Seven extended its week-day news programmes to Saturday and Sunday.
With parliamentary elections 10 months away, however, the government is readying for a fight.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo — last year’s recipient of the Golden Raspberry award for enemies of press freedom — has labeled Studio Seven ”subversive” and has threatened its correspondents with unspecified dire consequences. He has also criticised neighbouring Botswana for hosting a VOA transmitter.
Although they create opportunities for journalists, such foreign-based stations are no substitute for a solid and diverse media in Zimbabwe itself.
Ncube says as a result of the present narrow media landscape, reporters’ ability to bargain for better salaries has also been severely undercut. ”We’re now in a cul-de-sac,” he observes. ”We simply accept whatever employers offer us.”
This situation, he says, has given rise to ”brown envelope journalism” where reporters approach business people and personalities for funding, to give them publicity. In this scenario, female journalists appear particularly vulnerable to abuse, Ncube adds.
The plight of The Daily News‘s former employees further illustrates the lack of job opportunities.
In a statement on April 30 the workers detailed the financial hardship they have endured, despite an undertaking made by the publisher to continue paying their salaries for up to two years.
And, there is little prospect of the media losing its shackles soon. The only beacon of hope is talk that another independent daily newspaper has been registered and will be launched before the end of the year. — Inter Press Service