There is a move away from not interfering in the internal affairs of another country, with the media playing an important role in fostering understanding between countries, President Thabo Mbeki said on Saturday.
”Countries are saying, ‘Let’s move a little bit away from this non-interference in internal affairs,”’ he said at the launch of the African Editors’ Forum in Kempton Park.
Countries are increasingly feeling they owe a duty of support and assistance to one another, and with the adoption of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, they open themselves to action by other countries if they violate principles in that Act.
The same applies to countries that open themselves up to the voluntary African Peer Review Mechanism.
The first two peer-review reports — for Rwanda and Ghana — have been presented and while there will be a strained atmosphere while the reports were discussed, the issues they raise address the interests of the people.
These include access to the president, freedom of the press and the way countries run their affairs. Once problems have been raised, there can be efforts to find solutions.
Countries are moving away from policies of non-interference in favour of openness and drawing on available support, Mbeki said.
”I believe that the African media then indeed become even more critical in that context … helping Africa[ns] to understand each other.”
He stressed the importance of accuracy, objectivity and context because media reports are used to form analyses and responses to developments, and reach decision makers before analyses dispatched in diplomatic pouches.
”If [Nigeria’s President] Olusegun Obasanjo wanted to assist [with problems in Africa], it ought not to be on the basis of half-wrong information from the media.”
Mbeki said it has to be possible for the press to ”tell it like it is”.
”Our media must be able to assist … to tell the truth about the continent, whether it is good truth or bad truth … to create a basis to make sure we do what we must do, as Africans, to change the continent for the better.”
He urged the African Editors’ Forum to identify ways of addressing threats to press freedom and the personal safety of journalists.
He said he had not been aware of the shooting of Deyda Hydara, an editor of The Gambia’s The Point private newspaper and correspondent for news agency AFP, on December 16 last year, for whom the conference held a minute’s silence.
Many believe that Hydara, who campaigned for press freedom, was assassinated.
The Constitutive Act of the AU has a provision on freedom of the press, he said, and suggested that the African Editors’ Forum could have concerns put on the agenda of the executive council of the AU, or work with the commissions on people’s and human rights.
The AU also has certain powers to impose sanctions and without using these powers, the documents signed will have no meaning.
”It can be done,” Mbeki said. ”They can’t say they won’t consider a complaint on the Constitutive Act.
”With regard to acting together to change the continent for the better, a free press becomes an important part of it,” he said. — Sapa