Posted on 11/17/2003 8:00:36 AM PST by Clive
Author and veteran Southern African journalist Bill Saidi should be enjoying the fruits of the liberation he so fiercely fought for as a young reporter on the African Daily News, Rhodesia's only black daily in the early 1960s.
But the bitter irony is that Saidi (66), editor of the Daily News on Sunday, is being crucified by his first editor and mentor, Nathan Shamuyarira, now Zimbabwe's information minister.
A tinge of mischief lights up in Saidi's eyes when he talks about African governments. He seems to have a penchant for annoying leaders. He was sought by Rhodesia's Ian Smith on treason charges for inciting black people against the government. While in exile, he was fired from the Zambian Times on orders from President Kenneth Kaunda in 1975 for his "anti-establishment" reports.
Recently, Saidi was detained without trial for defying President Robert Mugabe's decree that all journalists be licensed to practise their craft.
Defiant as ever, Saidi says aspects of the Access to Information & Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) violate the right to freedom of expression guaranteed in the constitution. Licensing journalists is tantamount to censoring and controlling the flow of information, he says, because Harare can withdraw at will the licences of journalists judged to have published the "wrong" information.
On October 25, police raided the Daily News offices and arrested him and 17 colleagues on charges of running a newspaper without a licence. The paper had been shut down in September by armed police, leading it to challenge the AIPPA in the supreme court.
Saidi quotes Zimbabwe's constitution: "Except by way of his consent or by way of parental discipline, no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of his freedom of expression, that is to say, freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information."
Further, he says, s ection 3 states that the constitution is the country's supreme law and that "if any other law is inconsistent with this constitution that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void".
That was the basis on which his paper appealed to the supreme court in September. "The court refused to hear our argument," he says. "It instead ordered that we should comply. The next day the police shut down our business and confiscated 127 of our computers, which are still at Chikurubi prison."
Yet Saidi and holding company Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) CEO Sam Nkomo were not about to give up. They applied for a licence from the Media & Information Commission, which was rejected outright.
"We appealed to the administrative court on October 24. It ruled in our favour and allowed us to publish while we waited for a licence, to be issued on November 13," says Saidi.
The next day Saidi and his staff went back to work and printed 50 000 copies, which sold out in two hours. The police again shut down the newspaper and arrested its employees, then all ANZ directors.
But the battle to get the Daily News back on the streets continues. "Our next step is to file an application to the administrative court for its October 24 order be enforced pending the appeal. This would allow us to publish while the appeal process was proceeding."
Though they have been released, the charges against Saidi and the 17 journalists are still pending.
"We are now expected to be engaged in a protracted legal battle to get the paper back on the streets, " he says.
Saidi was forced into exile, in Zambia, in 1963, where he witnessed that country's independence the next year.
"In Zambia, Mugabe and the late Joshua Nkomo visited often and gave us hope that Rhodesia would soon also be free. We continued the fight from outside the country. When Ian Smith's government took over, we were devastated," says Saidi.
He returned to Zimbabwe at independence in 1980 and joined The Herald as assistant editor. The new Zimbabwe government bought the paper from the Argus group, now Independent Newspapers. He then joined the Daily Gazette as editor, where he broke the story of Mugabe's affair with his secretary, now his wife, and was fired as a result. He joined the Daily News in 1998.
Saidi says he doesn't deliberately look for trouble, but trouble seems to follow him everywhere he goes.
"I saw a dead body for the first time when I was 10 and it traumatised me. There was a general strike and the dead man had been killed by strikers for supporting the system.
"That people could kill someone for not agreeing with them unsettled me and I began to think a great deal. My mother told me always to be my own man and to stand up for what I believed in. I guess that made me a bit dogmatic about right and wrong," he says.
Saidi's message is that the situation in Zimbabwe should not be allowed to set the tone for Africa.
But not nearly as devasted as Zimbabwe has been after Mugabe took over. Ian Smith's government was saintly compared to that of the murderous thug, Mugabe. I can't even hope bozo learned anything from all these years of experience.
He returned to Zimbabwe at independence in 1980 and joined The Herald as assistant editor. The new Zimbabwe government bought the paper from the Argus group, now Independent Newspapers. He then joined the Daily Gazette as editor, where he broke the story of Mugabe's affair with his secretary, now his wife, and was fired as a result. He joined the Daily News in 1998.
Saidi says he doesn't deliberately look for trouble, but trouble seems to follow him everywhere he goes.
Actually, he and trouble are old friends. He got what he wanted, but it wasn't what he expected.
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