Zanu PF media double standards

Information and Publicity Secretary George Charamba and Attorney General Johannes Tomana unashamed to give interviews to media houses they banished into exile.

When it comes to media paranoia Zanu PF is probably unmatched by any other organised political entity other than those in China and the Democratic Republic of Korea.

Since coming to power President Mugabe has banished foreign based reporters from reporting from the country that includes the BBC, ABC, CNN and many others too numerous to enumerate.

Within the country the former ruling party has waged a relentless and vicious fight with media personnel and media houses outside its sphere of editorial control.

Joy TV, The Daily News, The Daily Mirror, SW Radio Africa, VOA News to mention but a few prominent local media houses the Zanu PF regime has banished from its airwaves have all attempted to infiltrate Zimbabwe airwaves and dilute State propaganda churned through the State controlled Zimpapers and Zimbabwe Broadcasting holdings media house and fallen prey of the vicious campaign against their existence by the Zanu PF mismanaged State.

Scores of qualified Zimbabwean Journalists have been arrested and charged under the notorious AIPPA legislation crafted by former Information and Publicity Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo who now ranks among the most loathed Zimbabwean politicians of all time along with President Mugabe, Professor Welshman Ncube, Professor Arthur Mutambara and lately Dr Simba Makoni.

Many have sought and secured refuge throughout the diaspora to escape the relentless persecution from successive Zanu PF regimes since 1980.

Zanu PF intolerance of media that allows airing of multiplicity of political social and economic reviews that are at variance with its own views degenerated into paranoia as it attracted more and more dissention from Zimbabweans negatively affected by the economic malaise caused by a combination of corrupt governance, misguided military and political arrogance and disrespect of national and international covenants on human rights and good governance.

By the time negotiations were undertaken to mitigate the vacuum caused by a failed electoral process the media double standards by Zanu PF had sunk so low that they were considered important enough to warrant special attention in clauses to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that yielded the current coalition government now at the helm of the country’s management.

Although it was agreed between the parties in the GPA that government should free the media industry to free competition and encourage exiled media houses to return to the country through setting up a media friendly environment that encourages freedom of expression in the country, it is taking longer than expected by the restive population in the country and abroad.

While the venom that was being spewed by the monopolistic State owned and controlled media has been drastically toned down the monopoly still remains intact and the institutional framework to spearhead implementation of the desired competitive environment remains elusive and is generating intense and worrisome conflict.

Meanwhile the media houses that Zanu PF zealots once so hated as to bomb and banish into exile have become the most useful defence tools at the disposal of the truant Zanu PF leaders now under the microscope over past political and leadership misconduct.

Under fire Reserve Bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono is not just relying on State controlled media to promote his cause in the struggle to retain a position he said he did not need in August 2008 and would only keep for no longer than a minute if his principal was not happy.

Having splashed millions in bribes to State media scribes and buying up media houses weakened by the relentless State onslaught privately owned media houses, to project him favourably as a side project of the quasi-fiscal approach to economic management that allowed him to create parallel government structures at the Central bank’s establishment, your Governor also planted substantial amounts in online publications.

New Zimbabwe .com and Talkzimbawe.com websites received substantial working capital from the governor whose source of income is so vast he afforded to work at the central bank for nearly two years without drawing a single cent of his hefty salary from the institution.

It turns out he was helping himself to institutional and individual forex deposits in Banks he raided and doled out like confetti to anyone who was willing to sing Gono psalms.

The only local privately owned stable that survived the State repression was the Trevor Ncube weeklies the Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard.

The reason for survival was a combination of the owner being largely resident in neighbouring South Africa and yes you guessed right your Governor dishing out BACCOSI forex loans to the media house and later following the loaned funds through the backdoor as dividends on “his invested loans.”

Now that your Governor as Gono prefers to call himself is in deep mud it is payback time from those that are in the information and publicity sector whom he lavishly sponsored when his stars at the central bank were shinning.

Pity his chief beneficiary was kicked out of Al-Jazeera foreign correspondence team in Zimbabwe after filing biased reports in favour of Mugabe during the vicious runoff campaign and was replaced by the more sober Haru Mutasa and at Talkzimbabwe the editor in Chief jumped off the ship after he was exposed for biased reportage that qualified him for travel sanctions from the UK government where he was spewing propaganda from.

But still there are strategic implants at The Independent, The Herald, The Chronicle, The Manica Post and the Financial Gazette he owns to do his bidding against all odds.

Then there is Zanu PF Chief Whip Joram Gumbo who is a fixed correspondent at the banished VOA News Studio 7 radio News broadcast at 19.00 hrs GMT.

He is not even ashamed that it was his party that exiled the radio station to the USA that he is now exploiting to explain ZANU PF political mischief to the world.

And former Information and Publicity Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo who masterminded the demise of the popular Daily News publication and the banishment of its editor in Chief Geoff Nyarota as well as The Zimbabwean Editor in Chief Wilf Mbanga has been distributing numerous articles for publication in the online media whose owners are frightened stiff at the prospect of returning to Zimbabwe before the AIPPA and POSA legislation he proudly spearheaded legislation of are repealed or amended.

Now that MDC and Zanu PF are in a coalition Government that is overlooking his reputed talent in the communication and media field he has found solace in drowning his sorrows by publishing unedited drivel against the coalition government and instituting legal proceedings against anyone who appears to be gaining political mileage from the coalition.

Sadly he has very few believers if any at all but he is widely read as people do not want to miss reading into his agony and political loneliness.

The irony of it all is that Professor Moyo does not realise that private media offering him acres of space to expose his lack of principle have long concluded that he is a harmless demagogue with little if anything constructive to offer the nation.

The question is why do the Zanu PF architects fail to see the irony between banishing media experts to hostile countries and then following them up to react to damaging reports they are now publishing without fear of repression from the security functionaries in Zimbabwe?

Take for instance the interview Attorney General gave to VOA News recently wherein he boasted he had instructed prosecutors country wide to prosecute and evict White Commercial Farmers refusing to vacate farms they not only bought but have a SADC Court order in their favour to retain and farm on without hindrance from anyone including the arrogant Attorney General and his prosecutors.

It automatically placed him in the same ignorance bracket with Bright Matonga, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, Jonathan Moyo, George Charamba, Patrick Chinamasa, Didymus Mutasa and yes Tofataona Mahoso.

Let not the academic certificates they hold fool anyone, Joseph Chinotimba’s interview on the same station made more sense than what these deluded Zanu PF academics said given similar opportunities to explain themselves and their party agenda for the country.

But it is George Charamba’s interview with Violet Gonda that wins the trophy for Zanu PF media double standards in Zimbabwe.

It will take some doing to beat in the future.