The South African media are covering the events in Zimbabwe with ”too much sensationalism”, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Friday.
”There has been a tendency on many of these occasions to make generalised statements without checking the facts. When we investigate these statements we find [them] to be untrue, but the public is already under the impression that this is happening,” Pahad said.
Giving the example of reports on Thursday that Angola had agreed to send several thousand police to help Zimbabwe’s security forces, a claim later denied by Angola, Pahad said much reporting happened without fact-checking.
He criticised the South African media for what he called ”massive coverage” of the viewpoints of foreign governments outside the African continent and the contrasting thereof with the South African government’s viewpoints.
”It is not our intention to make militant statements to make us feel good and satisfy governments outside the continent,” Pahad said.
”We are committed to deal this situation in a way that enables us to create a situation for Zimbabweans to find a Zimbabwean solution.
”The South African media have to play a better role in trying to assist us find a solution,” Pahad said.
He said one viewpoint in Zimbabwe, ”rightly or wrongly”, was that the recent events were orchestrated from abroad to ensure regime change.
”I must say some of the ways the South African media has dealt with this issue does give me the feeling that some of us are intending for regime change to take place in this fashion,” Pahad said.
He called on the media to work with government in trying to find a solution in the neighbouring country.
His statements followed the Zimbabwean government’s threats to ”act against” a few Western journalists left in the country.
No moral authority
Meanwhile, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) faction leader Arthur Mutambara said on Friday that only fellow Africans and not the West have the moral authority to speak out on Zimbabwe.
”We appreciate the support from Western powers but the double standards of the West undermine our struggle … The only ones who have the moral authority to speak out on Zimbabwe are Africans.”
Mutambara was speaking at a seminar on the Zimbabwean crisis organised by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in Johannesburg.
Unity among opposition groups was the only way liberation could be achieved in Zimbabwe, he said.
”Many are under the illusion that there is division in the opposition movement in Zimbabwe, but the past two weeks have shown the world that our core aim is to liberate our country.”
Addressing the seminar before Mutambara, Cosatu secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi said: ”It is a great tragedy that we still have two factions of the MDC.
”One of the basic lessons is that without unity we cannot get anywhere.” — Sapa