Constitution responses on media raise eyebrows
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 13 May 2011 08:21
By Faith Zaba
JOURNALISTS who write stories critical of the government and the president
should either be jailed or hanged. These are some of the views expressed by
villagers in Zanu PF’s stronghold of Mashonaland West during the
constitution outreach meetings.
According to documents obtained by the Zimbabwe Independent this week with
responses from consultation meetings in Chegutu, Kadoma, Makonde, Zvimba,
Kariba and Hurungwe on the specific rights the new constitution should
guarantee to the media, the majority view was that government should
regulate the press.
Some villagers went as far as suggesting that the media sector should fall
under the Defence ministry, instead of the Media, Information, and publicity
ministry, while some meetings proposed that there be one newspaper and one
broadcasting company in the country. Others wanted the number of newspapers
to be limited. Villagers at Pumara farm said there should not be privately
owned media.
In Kadoma they said foreign media should be banned and local news should not
be published or broadcast outside Zimbabwe.
The majority of meetings in the six towns said no foreign journalist should
be allowed to practise in Zimbabwe and media organisations should only be
owned by indigenous Zimbabweans.
At a meeting at Nyamupfute in Makonde, the document said, villagers proposed
“life imprisonment for false reporting on the country” arguing that “bad
publicity negatively impacts on tourism and revenue inflows”.
A meeting at Open Space in Chegutu suggested that government critics should
be “killed” and at Fort Martin, also in Chegutu, the villagers said
journalists should be constructive and practise truthful reporting and
should be Zimbabwean and those “who by-pass should be sentenced to death”.
At Benhura Primary School in Kadoma, the villagers advocated for the “death
sentence for people who write false stories about the country”.
In Makonde they said media critical of the government should be banned.
Another view which came out at several meetings, particularly in Mugabe’s
rural home in Zvimba 110 km west of Harare, was that “journalists who peddle
falsehoods should be prosecuted”. They also said information should be
censored before publication.
“Media (should) be nationally responsible and not criticise,” said villagers
at a meeting at Zvimba Resettlement. In Chegutu, villagers said journalists
should name their sources in their reports.
Several meetings in the province said journalists should be patriotic and
pro-government. The villagers said they wanted news that unite people and
promote peace, national development, cultural and traditional values.
Close to half of the meetings held in the province said “pirate radio
stations”, singling out Voice of America’s Studio 7, should be “outlawed”.
In Chegutu, 55 of the 112 meetings supported that view, so did 38 of the 88
meetings in Hurungwe and 52 of the 116 in Kadoma, 17 of 41 in Kariba.
Of interest were the contradictory demands at the same meetings where some
people said press freedom should be guaranteed in the new constitution and
others proposed censorship of the media.
At Kagoro business centre in Chegutu, the list of proposals included freedom
of the press, truthful reporting, media censorship, promotion of peace,
unity and development, no cartooning or disparaging of the president and
unlimited access to information.
Meanwhile, Zanu PF and the two MDC formations were this week, according to
our sister publication NewsDay, haggling over how they will compile data
that would be used in drafting the new constitution.
The parties reportedly failed to agree on the methods to compile the data
with Zanu PF demanding a quantitative method against the MDCs wishes.
The quantitative process entailed that the more an issue was raised, the
more important it became. The MDCs wanted a qualitative method in which the
substance of the contributions is what must be considered.
As a result of the haggling, the MDC-T allegedly threatened to walk out of
the constitution-making process, which would lead to a new constitution and
free and fair elections to end a decade-long political and economic crisis
in the country. Zanu PF reacted angrily to the MDC-T pullout threat with its
spokesperson Rugare Gumbo saying the party would notify Sadc facilitator of
the Zimbabwe political talks, South African President Jacob Zuma, and
continue the constitution-making process with the smaller formation of the
MDC and civic organisations.
Sources in the three parties last night told the Independent that frantic
efforts were underway to patch-up the differences in the collation of the
constitution-making data.