admin
But now, South Africa is debating a new media Bill which proposes a Media Tribunal to discipline and punish journalists who abuse freedom of the Press, because media self-regulation has not worked.
The United States of America is the biggest preacher of the gospel of the “unfettered and independent Press”, but it runs a whole centre and agency called the Centre for International Media Assistance whose mission is to parcel out sponsorship to journalists and mass media services of other countries to make sure that they are not independent or free from US imperialist influence. That centre is funded by the US State Department and allied to the notorious National Endowment for Democracy, which is involved in funding media activists and NGOs in Zimbabwe and elsewhere.
Therefore, when the US sanctions legislation called the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA) was first announced in 2001, it included US$6 million to “assist” mass media houses and journalists in this country. Every time that illegal sanctions legislation has been renewed, it has always included a fund to bribe, induce and corrupt journalists and the media in Zimbabwe and involve them in agitating for illegal regime change and in fabricating lies to justify illegal sanctions.
Last week, a story which I have been following and publishing since the 1990s finally came to the fore in a dramatic way, with Cde Happison Muchechetere’s Press conference (aired on October 6 and 7 2010 on ZTV) and Mr Joram Nyathi’s Financial Gazette article (October 2010) entitled “SW Radio’s lies lay bare”.
Muchechetere announced that some staff and journalists working for Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings had been corrupted by certain powerful forces, including political parties, political factions and individual politicians. Joram Nyathi reported how some local journalists, NGOs and media activists were feeding almost hourly lies to the British-funded pirate radio station called SW Radio.
l In Bikita, according to Nyathi, war veteran Cde Jabulani Sibanda and his alleged “gang” were reported to have burned David Hallman’s two huts from a distance of more than 90 kilometres and on investigation it turned out that the arson involved a dispute over a neighbour’s wife and had nothing to do with war veterans or Copac, as SW Radio alleged. The same SW Radio report went further to claim that 25 Copac meetings had been cancelled in Masvingo Province as a result of violence by war veterans.
l In Manicaland, there was a similar pattern of SW Radio lies in which 23 Copac meetings were allegedly cancelled. According to Nyathi, the Masvingo and Manicaland fabrications were supposed to be rehearsals for climax events in Harare and Bulawayo where the foreign embassies, the political factions, the NGOs and the media activists had enough forces on the ground to foment riots similar to the Maputo (Mozambique) bread riots or the civil servants’ strikes in South Africa which took place around the same time. Fortunately, the people refused to participate in the set-up which had been designed for SW Radio and other regime change media.
In other words, Muchechetere is saying the only national broadcaster in Zimbabwe today has been infiltrated through the use of dirty money taking advantage of the poverty and terror induced through 10 years of illegal sanctions and financial warfare which have hit working people the hardest. That is a security risk of serious proportions.
Joram Nyathi, on the other hand, is saying that the voice of the povo in Zimbabwe has also been subverted and tarnished by the so-called “champions of democracy” who fear the power and will of the majority and now want an excuse to retreat to the partisan negotiating table where the povo cannot see or hear. They wish to craft a constitution there based only on party parity.
The question which arises is: What do nations do when the foreign-funded corruption of journalists and media houses threatens a popular constitutional process and contaminates the only national broadcaster for the purpose of achieving illegal regime change? Do citizens understand the seriousness of these revelations? Do they just sit back and watch?
How does a terror channel financed by the same powers who have maintained illegal sanctions upon the people for 10 years manage to fabricate stories from Mashoko and Bikita in Masvingo and Mai Musodzi Hall in Mbare, Harare? Nyathi correctly describes the SW Radio fabrications as “terror bulletins”. What do nations do with foreign-sponsored terror bulletins against their people?
These can happen only through the massive corruption of many journalists, some media houses, some NGOs and some politicians.
For the first time in the judicial history of Zimbabwe, former Judge President of the High Court Rita Makarau included in her speech opening the 2009 judicial calendar a recognition that some journalists and media houses had played a significant role in a foreign-inspired campaign to demonise and demean the Zimbabwe judiciary.
Deputy Chief Justice Luke Malaba also complained that the enthusiasm with which the now suspended Sadc Tribunal had attempted to condemn and reverse Zimbabwe’s popular land reform programme had been inspired by false media reports originating from Zimbabwe and the region. (Watch this space for Part B)
Online Reporter