On Monday 18 July, Chronicle newspaper reported that Defence Minister “Munagagwa” [that’s how his name was spelled right there in the front page] had declared that the Gukurahundi debate was a closed chapter, accusing “the private media and leaders of other political parties” of “engaging in cheap politics” and “trying to reverse efforts by the national healing organ by opening the Gukurahundi wounds.”

Predictably perhaps, the minister said the Unity Accord signed by President Mugabe and the late VeePee Nkomo “brought the nation together, bringing an end to the sorry chapter of Gukurahundi.”  Then on Thursday 21 July the same paper (Chronicle) carried a story with the headline “Gukurahundi issue sparks fierce debate.” The report was based on a public hearing convened by the Thematic Committee on Human Rights and the Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs, and members of the public spoke their mind about the “Gukurahundi killings.” You have to ask the Minister what his opinion is about this seeing Gukurahundi obviously remains a very open chapter, and it was not the private media nor was it “other political parties” that opened the Gukurahundi book. It was “ordinary” residents who “demanded that the committees should review the political disturbances of the 1980s, popularly known as the Gukurahundi episode,” Chronicle reported.

We know “Munagagwa’s” government colleague Moses Mzila-Ndlovu still has a lot to say about these ’80 atrocities and is not about to let the matter die a natural death. But then that’s Zanu PF’s idea of government of the people, for the people, by the people. Zanu PF speaks and you listen, never the reverse.

Looks like the Gukurahundi chapter remains very open and will not wished away mate. But then the minister’s insistence is perhaps understandable because activists here have fingered him as one of the architects. Sorry Cde. Minister.

According to Julius Malema being poor means not being able to own means of production. He made these comments in an interview on SABC after a public outcry over the ANC Youth League President’s 16 million rand house he is building in Sandton, South Africa. Among Malema’s properties in South Africa includes a mansion in Limpopo province and he drives C63 Mercedes-Benz AMG. Not so bad for a poor man! Malema claims he has acquired these assets using his monthly salary from the ANC. And he is a representative of the poor people?

According to the Oxford dictionary poor means “lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society” … so one wonders whether Julius’s society consider him to be poor with this kind of a lavish lifestyle. If Malema’s definition of poor is true then, for South Africans, what it means is that Mzansi has poor rich people living in mansions.

Tabani Moyo makes some important points in this article on media freedom, or rather the lack of it in Zimbabwe. His final comments are particularly pertinent when he says that Zimbabweans are simply “asking for their right to speak and freely express themselves thus fulfilling the founding aspirations of the liberation struggle which the current government is collectively failing to uphold.”

On 27 May 2011 the improperly constituted Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) called for applications for two free- to- air national commercial radio broadcasting services. A national free- to- air national commercial licence refers to a profit making broadcasting entity that transmits an un-encoded signal throughout Zimbabwe.

Notwithstanding the fact that the legality of the board which called for these licenses is heavily disputed, one also needs to examine the wide reaching nature and effect of this call for licenses.

Due to the non-transparent manner in the management of the broadcasting signal administered in this country, chances are high that the smokescreen call for the licenses will become an extension of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC)’s monopoly.

For example the Zimpapers stable applied for a license in line with the permanent secretary George Charamba’s advice at the organisation’s strategic retreat held in Nyanga early this year. If Zimpapers is granted the licence, it will fit well into the propaganda manufacturing mills of Zanu PF ahead of the elections which will augur well with the government’s intention to maintain state monopoly of the airwaves.

Given that scenario the BAZ’s impartiality and sincerity will be put to severe test considering that Radio Voice of the People (VOP) which was bombed by ‘unknown persons’ on 29 August 2002, is also among the applicants for the two commercial radio licenses. As for the other applicants, it can be anybody’s guess as to who their sponsors are.

The euphoria and excitement that accompanied the call for the applications in question might at this stage be premature.

be wary

On 6 July 2011, the infamous duo of Tafataona Mahoso and Obert Muganyura who are the BAZ chairperson and chief executive officer respectively, painted a misleading picture on the state of incapacity to regulate the prospective new players in the broadcasting sector.

The duo was quizzed on why BAZ had opted for only two licenses in the category of commercial broadcasting contrary to its submissions to parliament in 2009 that the regulator was going to give priority to community radio stations. Muganyura claimed that the regulator had conducted a survey in 38 centres in Zimbabwe and that those surveyed had said BAZ should prioritise commercial radio stations ahead of community radio broadcasters.

One can only wonder as to whether the survey was ever conducted notwithstanding the methodology that was used during the so-called survey which was conducted in a veil of secrecy.  What criterion was used in determining the 38 centers surveyed and how reflective are they in terms of the nation’s preferences?

In the same meeting Muganyura confirmed that the country has capacity to license 56 community radio stations as per his position and plan submitted to the same Committee in 2009. Why then is Muganyura and his comrades in the Ministry of Information, permanent secretary George Charamba and Minister Webster Shamu reluctant to give the people of Zimbabwe their space to access and disseminate diverse views through their own community radio stations.

the ruse of broadcasting and state security

The paranoid Zanu PF personnel stationed at the Ministry of Information and those at the Zanu PF headquarters have been peddling misleading statements for too long that broadcasting is a state security concern hence the need to keep it tightly controlled as a monopoly. This is a misplaced notion because the people of Zimbabwe know better that broadcasting is a developmental agent which, if freed will positively contribute to our knowledge index and nation building.

Jonathan Moyo, George Charamba, Webster Shamu, Tafataona Mahoso and Obert Muganyura among others of like thinking, should sober up and realize that Zimbabwe is not their private entity but it belongs to its inhabitants. To this reality, they need to wake up and smell the coffee on what’s happening elsewhere – private broadcasters and community radio stations continue to mushroom and proliferate throughout the region and Africa as a whole save for Zimbabwe and Eritrea.

In 2008, for example, the DRC had 41 radio stations and 51 TV stations in Kinshasa alone out of a total of 381 radio stations and between 81 and 93 TV channels throughout the country. In 2006/7 Benin had 73 radio stations while Uganda has more than 120 and Mali 200. South Africa has an aggregate of more than 1000 TV and radio stations combined.

the monitoring incapacity myth

Muganyura argued that the regulator did not call for applications for more licenses because it does not have the capacity to monitor and control the new players in the country.

Everyone knows that this office has become an office of excuses on why it has been failing to issue licenses for new players since 2001. However it never occurred to me that it could one day fall this low and shallow in its deceptive tendencies.

If BAZ does not have capacity to monitor and control new players one will be quick to ask how the government managed to intercept and shut down Capitol Radio on 5 October 2000? How did the government intercept Radio VOP signals leading to the arrest of the radio station’s six trustees in 2006? It equally sobers one’s mind how the same government is intercepting and jamming external radio stations such as Voice of America’s Studio 7, SW Radio Africa and Radio VOP from broadcasting in Zimbabwe. That argument is pedestal.

Zimbabweans are not a gullible lot. All they are asking for is their right to speak and freely express themselves thus fulfilling the founding aspirations of the liberation struggle which the current government is collectively failing to uphold.

Tabani Moyo

Tabani Moyo can be contacted at rebeljournalist [at] yahoo [dot] com

Here are some questions raised in Parliament recently:

HON. MUDIWA asks the Co-Ministers of Home Affairs if they are aware that the people in Mutsago, Mukwada and Chiadzwa are walking distances of 20km to get to and from their homes when travelling to and from Mutare because the police are denying public transport entrance into these areas.

HON. S.S. KHUMALO asks the Minister of Energy and Power Development to state: i) the Ministry’s position regarding ZESA’s actions in forcing un-metered clients to pay bills in full yet there would be receiving no electricity due to load shedding; and ii) the Ministry’s position on the high electricity tariff rates which are unaffordable to many Zimbabweans considering their meagre incomes.

HON.SARUWAKA asks the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development to explain to the House when the rockfall that covered the Jombe Road, in the second week of January 2011, is going to be cleared as the boulders still lie on more than one lane of the road which makes driving on the road a real hazard for cars , especially lorries and buses that ply this steep and winding route in the Mutasa Central Constituency and whether the Ministry was waiting for an accident to happen before responding to the numerous pleas that have been lodged with Provincial Offices in Mutare.

Excerpts from SOUTHERN AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARY SUPPORT TRUST (SAPST)

Imagine if we banned all mention of the phrase “what lessons can we learn” in Zimbabwe? Essentially our dictatorship wants to turn us into unquestioning dumbos. It’s up to us to resist them.

Zimbabwe ‘Egypt uprising’ activists in treason trial

The trial of six Zimbabwean activists charged with treason for attending a lecture in February about the Egyptian uprising is due to open in Harare.

The seminar by a university lecturer asked “what lessons can be learnt” – which the prosecution says means they were planning a similar revolt.

Charges were dropped against 40 other activists arrested at the same time.

The six accused face the death penalty if found guilty of treason. They all deny the charges.

Read more

I hear some treason trials are starting in Zimbabwe today. This is just ridiculous! How can anyone go to jail (or face death) for watching a video? Or more correctly, trying to see a DVD? Almost as fantastical as a Harry Potter movie (which is also in the news).

The people who should be on trial for treason are senior leaders of armed and uniformed groups (which are paid for by the Zimbabwe tax payer) who tell the tax payer who they will, and who they will not, take orders from. As if that body was their personal property, and they are a warlord living in anarchy.

If they will not take orders from the person the tax payer appoints to represent them, they should say so and leave the job – the one they cannot do. To say who they will and will not take orders from, and then stay in charge of that body of armed men, is treason. So dangerous to the country that the punishment for that crime is still hanging.