How Amanpour and CNN lost to Mugabe- By Rashweat Mukundu
Mugabe stuck to his well known script, Amanpour and CNN fumbled all over. Thus after the highly expected interview of Mugabe by senior CNN Journalist, Christiane Amanpour, on Thursday 24 September, it came out, in my view, to a victory for Mugabe, if we take it as a contest. Amanpour failed to rise above the familiar frames of the western media’s analysis of Zimbabwe, dictatorship, hunger, land, and white farmers. These are part of the issues, but more of symptoms of a deeper problem which we hoped CNN would probe. We expected Amanpour to bring these issues to the interview but in a way that makes it impossible for Mugabe to waive them away so simply. We expected more facts, events and names. And they are many that Mugabe cannot run away from.
Yes, the Zimbabwe crisis is also about land among many other things, but this is more a symptom of a deficiency in democracy that Mugabe demonstrated very early in his rule. It is this failure to understand history and looking at Zimbabwe in compartments that has been the failure of the western media for so long and indeed the Achilles heel of Amanpour when she met Mugabe. Amanpour stated clearly that her Rhodesian journalists’ friends really enjoyed the first ten years of Mugabe’s rule. In those ten years Mugabe presided over the massacre of thousands of Ndebele’s who happened to support an opposition party and belong to an ethnic group other than his. It is therefore wrong for CNN to say Zimbabwe’s crisis is a year 2000 phenomenon and only so because Mugabe started grabbing farms from white farmers. Amanpour thus sunk into a familiar tune that Mugabe was well prepared for, giving a full lecture of history which Amanpour was, again, unprepared for. Statistics is there all over the internet on how Mugabe’s government abused donor funds and some resettled farmers sank more into poverty. Mugabe’s views were never seriously challenged.
In any case lets us talk of the crisis in Zimbabwe since 2000. The most affected and those who have suffered the most are the majority of poor Zimbabweans. If there are a people that Mugabe has failed the most and dehumanised the most it is his fellow black Zimbabweans. Any questioning and framing of the Zimbabwe crisis should, as a consequence, start from this stand point. Mugabe should have been asked about the many MDC supporters who were murdered, again their names are there, about Jestina Mukoko and others who were kidnapped in December 2008. Those who did this are still free, and Zimbabwe courts have been clear that this was wrong. Hundreds of cases of MDC supporters who lost their lives are recorded and should have been brought to Mugabe by CNN. Their killers are walking scot free and many are known by name. This should have been brought to Mugabe. The Daily News was bombed 3 times, 60 000 copies of the Zimbabwean newspapers were burnt in 2008, four newspaper were shut by decree and remain closed while Mugabe’s government is launching one daily paper after another, while denying others that space. These are double standards that should have been brought to Mugabe as undermining the unity government. There were many scenes of violence that were captured by the media in the 2008’s controversial June Presidential by-election that Amanpour should have pinned Mugabe on.
Mugabe is a dictator yes, but one who has created a very sophisticated dictatorship that is not only about power grabbing but distorts and deploys historical narratives for its benefit. It’s a dictatorship that sinisterly divides society along race, ethnicity and ideology. If the western media intends to report Zimbabwe they should not engage Mugabe in a turf of contested history but talk of the practicalities and realities of life in Zimbabwe, that story Mugabe cannot dismiss that easily. It is for this reason that the western media has to change its frames of analysing Zimbabwe and Mugabe, and see the majority of victims of Mugabe’s government not only a statistics but the real victims of this crisis. The violence on ordinary Zimbabweans is not a land issue, but has always existed well before 2000. A proper analysis needs to go beyond land reform, to look at what Mugabe has done to his own people, the cases of corruption that should have been brought out, the collapse of Kondozi farm, a classical case of the phoney arguments by Mugabe that land reform is about equality and prosperity, the diamonds fiasco in Manicaland.
A well respected journalist like Amanpour was expected to go deeper, bring out examples, the horror and scenes that Mugabe cannot deny. She should have avoided narratives of history that are not in dispute but give it to Mugabe in black and white from the perspectives of the majority of Zimbabweans. The interview turned to be a successful Public Relations exercise and godsend for Mugabe. This is because we have heard it all before and Mugabe reinforced his message at a world stage. But the real story of Zimbabwe’s majority rarely finds space and it is one that Mugabe cannot deny nor justify by whatever means or explanation. He can easily explain the land reform on the basis of history, but he cannot explain the kidnapping of Mukoko, the bombing of the Daily News among other many things. The international media will become relevant when it sees the Zimbabwe crisis from this holistic perspective. As for Amanpour we hope she can be better prepared next time.//End//
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Friday 25 September 2009
My Dream Plans for US$500m- Rashweat Mukundu
My Dream Plans for US$500m
Thursday, 17 September 2009 16:40
SOMETIME back on a cold weekend day of June 1985, my mother gave me Z$35 to pay rent to our landlord in Cherima, Marondera. I knocked on the kitchen of Amai Munyaradzi, a big woman whose steps and breathing I could hear hundreds of metres away. Amai Munyaradzi was ensconced at the fireplace with her husband, Bitoni Silipa.
Silipa worked at the GMB in Marondera and was a devout Christian. He always sang loudly, every evening, calling the whole street to the saviour. On many occasions I had however seen him sneak into the wooden and almost collapsing cabin of Susan, who lived at the end of Rusvingo Street, but I never told anyone.
As I handed the money to Amai Munyaradzi , Silipa leapt with tremendous force to lift from his chair, almost falling into the fireplace as he attempted to grab the money. The Z$35 was consumed by the fire.
I was shocked and quietly left the room. I never told my mother or anyone until now.
This incident reminds me of Finance minister Tendai Biti and RBZ Governor Gideon Gono wrangling over the IMF US$500 million. The IMF loan, for me, came at the right time for Zimbabwe, more so for this unity government. Unfortunately as Zimbabweans, we are reminded daily that we are being governed by a very disunited family that is all to eager to show, at every opportunity, that they are in a forced marriage.
Under Sterp — the economic recovery programme of the unity government — the sourcing of resources for both public and private sector revival is mentioned as key. This document, despite its overtly private sector deterministic approach to economic recovery, nevertheless contains the main ingredients that have so far brought a semblance of stability and if continued, some hope for citizens.
What can be drawn from the arguments of the two men is that the two parties are still very much driven by self-interest. I don’t agree that Zimbabwe should decline the US$500 million simply because we are poor and cannot repay the money.
My understanding is that Zimbabwe has so far received more than US$1 billion in loans that will attract even higher interest rates than the IMF loan. Secondly I don’t agree that this money should be used to refinance another so called agricultural mechanisation programme, simply to give more farm machinery to some high-placed officials to abuse and use as campaign tools.
Those who are into commercial farming must now go to the banks and negotiate for loans. While they are producing for the country, they are foremostly creating personal wealth. If there is to be any support to them, let it be in areas that don’t hit the pocket of the taxpayer.
Zimbabweans, long left out of the management of their resources, are again left baffled as the IMF loan opens another battlefront — an unnecessary one. First Zimbabweans need power, water, affordable housing and functional hospitals.
If the IMF loan is to be repaid by the taxpayer, then the loan should simply go to those areas of concern to the taxpayer. This loan can pay off all of Zesa’s debts and finance the refurbishment of Hwange Thermal Power Station and support Hwange Colliery to increase its capacity.
Thousands of Zimbabweans died needlessly in 2008 and 2009 as a result of cholera. Cholera is a disease of poverty. Almost all cities and towns in Zimbabwe have a critical water shortage. Again I believe citizens are prepared to pay for clean water rather than die of cholera. The IMF loan can finance the refurbishment of water reticulation in cities and towns.
A few months ago, prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai toured Harare Central Hospital and was told the hospital needed nearly US$40 000 to repair a non-functional boiler, apart from shortages of drugs and staff. I would not mind if part of this loan goes to repairing that boiler and buying other critical equipment for hospitals in Zimbabwe.
Again as citizens, we will pay back the IMF loan rather than die from lack of drugs and health equipment. Hundreds of Zimbabweans have also died in the past few months in needless accidents, mostly as a result of bad roads.
As citizens we also would not mind paying toll fees to use better roads. Zimbabwean schools have no books, a dangerous scenario that is creating a generation on illiterates that will be of no use in the next few years apart from being criminals and loafers. Again let the IMF loan buy text books for schools and citizens will not mind paying for the future of their children.
Rather than abuse citizens with all the economic jargon of this and that, Biti and Gono can save us better by directing this loan to things that matter in our lives. And citizens will pay back the loan through their taxes.
I am reminded that as I left the kitchen of Amai Munyaradzi I heard her shout, “Yaa” followed by another “Yaa” from Silipa. The two of them were “happy” but neither had gained. I hope Biti and Gono don’t take us though this zero-sum scenario. Leadership and sensitivity are necessary for the sake of long suffering Zimbabweans.
Thursday, 17 September 2009 16:40
SOMETIME back on a cold weekend day of June 1985, my mother gave me Z$35 to pay rent to our landlord in Cherima, Marondera. I knocked on the kitchen of Amai Munyaradzi, a big woman whose steps and breathing I could hear hundreds of metres away. Amai Munyaradzi was ensconced at the fireplace with her husband, Bitoni Silipa.
Silipa worked at the GMB in Marondera and was a devout Christian. He always sang loudly, every evening, calling the whole street to the saviour. On many occasions I had however seen him sneak into the wooden and almost collapsing cabin of Susan, who lived at the end of Rusvingo Street, but I never told anyone.
As I handed the money to Amai Munyaradzi , Silipa leapt with tremendous force to lift from his chair, almost falling into the fireplace as he attempted to grab the money. The Z$35 was consumed by the fire.
I was shocked and quietly left the room. I never told my mother or anyone until now.
This incident reminds me of Finance minister Tendai Biti and RBZ Governor Gideon Gono wrangling over the IMF US$500 million. The IMF loan, for me, came at the right time for Zimbabwe, more so for this unity government. Unfortunately as Zimbabweans, we are reminded daily that we are being governed by a very disunited family that is all to eager to show, at every opportunity, that they are in a forced marriage.
Under Sterp — the economic recovery programme of the unity government — the sourcing of resources for both public and private sector revival is mentioned as key. This document, despite its overtly private sector deterministic approach to economic recovery, nevertheless contains the main ingredients that have so far brought a semblance of stability and if continued, some hope for citizens.
What can be drawn from the arguments of the two men is that the two parties are still very much driven by self-interest. I don’t agree that Zimbabwe should decline the US$500 million simply because we are poor and cannot repay the money.
My understanding is that Zimbabwe has so far received more than US$1 billion in loans that will attract even higher interest rates than the IMF loan. Secondly I don’t agree that this money should be used to refinance another so called agricultural mechanisation programme, simply to give more farm machinery to some high-placed officials to abuse and use as campaign tools.
Those who are into commercial farming must now go to the banks and negotiate for loans. While they are producing for the country, they are foremostly creating personal wealth. If there is to be any support to them, let it be in areas that don’t hit the pocket of the taxpayer.
Zimbabweans, long left out of the management of their resources, are again left baffled as the IMF loan opens another battlefront — an unnecessary one. First Zimbabweans need power, water, affordable housing and functional hospitals.
If the IMF loan is to be repaid by the taxpayer, then the loan should simply go to those areas of concern to the taxpayer. This loan can pay off all of Zesa’s debts and finance the refurbishment of Hwange Thermal Power Station and support Hwange Colliery to increase its capacity.
Thousands of Zimbabweans died needlessly in 2008 and 2009 as a result of cholera. Cholera is a disease of poverty. Almost all cities and towns in Zimbabwe have a critical water shortage. Again I believe citizens are prepared to pay for clean water rather than die of cholera. The IMF loan can finance the refurbishment of water reticulation in cities and towns.
A few months ago, prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai toured Harare Central Hospital and was told the hospital needed nearly US$40 000 to repair a non-functional boiler, apart from shortages of drugs and staff. I would not mind if part of this loan goes to repairing that boiler and buying other critical equipment for hospitals in Zimbabwe.
Again as citizens, we will pay back the IMF loan rather than die from lack of drugs and health equipment. Hundreds of Zimbabweans have also died in the past few months in needless accidents, mostly as a result of bad roads.
As citizens we also would not mind paying toll fees to use better roads. Zimbabwean schools have no books, a dangerous scenario that is creating a generation on illiterates that will be of no use in the next few years apart from being criminals and loafers. Again let the IMF loan buy text books for schools and citizens will not mind paying for the future of their children.
Rather than abuse citizens with all the economic jargon of this and that, Biti and Gono can save us better by directing this loan to things that matter in our lives. And citizens will pay back the loan through their taxes.
I am reminded that as I left the kitchen of Amai Munyaradzi I heard her shout, “Yaa” followed by another “Yaa” from Silipa. The two of them were “happy” but neither had gained. I hope Biti and Gono don’t take us though this zero-sum scenario. Leadership and sensitivity are necessary for the sake of long suffering Zimbabweans.
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