Posted on 12/08/2002 3:18:02 AM PST by Clive
To whip up fervour for Robert Mugabe's land seizure programme, state broadcasting has for the past four months unleashed a jingle “Chave Chimurenga” (war has begun) every half hour. Recently, at 10.30 p.m. the presenter of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s sole classical music programme broke into Saint Saens' "Danse Macabre" - the Dance of Death - with the war mantra. The independent Daily News carried a cartoon depicting a skeleton dancing to the jingle. The oft- repeated Chave Chimurenga underlines the increasing crudeness and violence of the regime’s internal propaganda machine which, from Mugabe’s viewpoint, is having at best varied success, and almost none among the urban middle class. But on the international front, analysts say Mugabe’s Information Minister Jonathan Moyo is making headway, largely because of support from South Africa. Pretoria now claims the violent election in March, widely regarded as rigged, was "a credible expression of the will of the people" and Foreign Minister Nkosazana Zuma said recently that even if "mistakes were made" Mugabe deserves Western finance.
The break-up last month of a meeting in Brussels of European and African-Caribbean-Pacific parliamentarians because the EU refused to admit Zimbabwean ministers “has fallen into their laps like manna from heaven,” commented Nigel Bruce, former editor of the South African Financial Mail, who was present. Andrew Moyse of the Harare-based Media Monitoring Project noted that the Zimbabwe ministers arrived in Brussels well-prepared with pamphlets. “They are sanitising Zanu PF and cleaning up their image,” Moyse said in an interview. Noting that most people - except in the major cities - had no access to independent newspapers, Moyse said he believed that state broadcasting was obtaining mass acceptance of Mugabe's land policy. “That message is beginning to sink in - you don't have access to alternative sources. There is a certain degree of success among the less well informed,” said Moyse. But on the wider issue of good governance, Zimbabweans were not being swayed, he said, adding, “People are not that stupid.”
In a tacit admission that he is losing the battle for hearts and minds, Mugabe recently promulgated regulations barring anyone gesturing at or making offensive comments about the presidential motorcade. Under the new regulations, Mugabe’s armed escorts can impose on the spot fines or make arrests. Similarly, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change says proof of Mugabe's mounting internal unpopularity lies the unceasing reign of terror by ruling party militants and the green bombers youth militia, the blatant use of food to secure votes even in supposedly secure Zanu PF rural strongholds. The ruling party hopeful in a pending parliamentary by-election in Harare's Kuwadzana suburb offered to sell Zanu PF card holders not only maize meal and bread but green vegetables at the controlled prices. This prompted MDC gibes that he had a singularly appropriate campaign slogan: “Vote for the Cabbage.” The propaganda is surely absurd, and surely pernicious. Kelvin Jakachira, a member of the national executive of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists was quoted recently in the independent Standard newspaper as saying that the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation was “sowing the seeds of genocide … portraying whites as evil people responsible for the shortages in the country”. Jakachira deplored the Hondo ye Minda (war in the fields) mass advertising campaign and said, “We do not want what happened in Rwanda to be repeated here.”
Despite the jingles and incessant radio appeals, black Zimbabweans have not taken up plots and farms either because they lack funds for inputs, or because they need to stay near towns to queue for what food is available. UN agencies say up to 7 million people - half Zimbabwe's total population - are in danger of starving before hoped-for next harvests in April. And agronomists report that more than half of the land seized from whites in the past three years is lying derelict. The propaganda aimed at denying Zimbabweans the right to see and discuss the realities of their worsening situation lies the shadow of Mugabe’s crackdown on the press through the ill-named Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, under which 13 journalists have already been arrested. The Independent Journalists’ Association has challenged the act in the Supreme Court as a violation of entrenched constitutional rights of free expression and free association. "The state should not be placed in a position where it is able to use public resources to restrict the free exercise of the right to criticise it by the public," lawyer Sternford Moyo told five appeal judges headed by Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, a former minister and strong supporter of Mugabe. It will be months before the Supreme Court rules on the challenge.
Footnote: My application, in terms of the Act, to continue writing from January 1 was lodged on October 31. My lawyer awaits a reply from the state’s Media Commission.
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