To avert a crisis, just rename it!

By Muckraker | 3h ago

THE government’s public relations machinery is in a tangle over the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) resolution of December 5. Foreign Affairs spokesman John Mayowe was on Friday quoted by the Herald denying the existence of the report.

“Government would also want to refute erroneous reports in some sections of the media claiming an adverse report on the human rights situation in Zimbabwe. Government is not aware of such a resolution ...,” he told the Herald.

The Sunday Mirror quoted Information permanent secretary George Charamba as saying the government had received “no communication indicating any resolution, let alone an adverse one ...”

William Nhara, principal director in the Ministry of Public and Interactive Affairs, had earlier told Voice of America radio that the report was influenced by the British and would not be adopted by the African Union heads of state in February. The commissioners had been bought, he claimed.

But a more senior official, Information minister Ambassador Tichaona Jokonya, indicated that government, or at least himself, had seen the report.

“What do you expect from them (ACHPR)? They are looking for money and what better way to make money than to vilify Zimbabwe?” he told ZimOnline on Thursday.

He said the report had not been made public but had been leaked to the media. In fact it has been on the ACHPR website since Christmas.

While in the government’s scheme of things such reports only become authentic after they land on the president’s desk, their content doesn’t change just because Charamba and Mayowe pretend they don’t exist!

Keep Reading

Meanwhile, has the Herald apologised to Mayowe for making it look as if he thinks Banjul is in the Central African Republic?

Throughout his Herald column on Saturday Nathaniel Manheru was under the impression that the abbreviated version of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights was ACPHR. This sort of carelessness suggests that this columnist is not subject to the authority of an editor, something his regular foul language confirms.

Manheru thinks our criticism of the Herald indicates it is the market leader in news. Why else would we make constant reference to stories in the state-owned paper, he asks?

The answer is obvious to everybody except him: because all the other papers have been banned! As its circulation figures for 1998-2003 show, the Herald could never survive in an open market.

As for Nhara, what is this electoral reject doing suggesting other people have been bought when he was pro-pointless ministry as a consolation prize for failing to sell his asinine views to the voters?

Does anyone recall unsubstantiated allegations by the Herald last June that the United States and Britain were behind the drought in Zimbabwe?

The Herald said climate change had been artificially induced to effect regime change.

“The overt and covert machinations by Zimbabwe’s former colonial ruler, Britain, which has declared its intentions to effect illegal regime change in Harare, have given credence to the conspiracy theory,” the Herald said.

It said the US Famine Early Warning System had predicted famine in Zimbabwe six months before it occurred.

“The prediction, which was the exact opposite of other forecasts, seems to confirm that the conspiracy to remove the Zimbabwean government has gone chemical.”

In other words the Herald wanted us to believe its patriotic weather forecasts and not the more accurate information from scientists!

The country was this week preparing for floods in southern districts. Meanwhile the whole country has received more than normal rainfall to date. We now await a story by the Herald claiming that the Americans and the Brits have withdrawn their unconventional weather-weapon following President Mugabe’s forays in the Far East where he secured interceptor weather-missiles from China.

By the way, have you noted how state journalists are required to insert the word “illegal” whenever they speak about US/UK attempts at regime change? Has anybody ever asked their handlers what illegality they are referring to?

It is as bad as the foolish claim that MDC leaders went to Washington and instructed the US administration on how to draft a sanctions law. You have to be really ignorant of how the US Congress works to get away with that one!

The ghost of Jonathan Moyo still looms large at ZBH’s Newsnet. Staffers there have not forgotten the unceremonious dismissal of soccer commentator Charles Mabika after Nigerian soccer star Jay Jay Okocha in a game where Zimbabwe was thrashed 3-0 at home.

Robson Mhandu, introduced as a veteran soccer analyst on the main news last Friday tried to convince the nation that there was nothing wrong with Zimbabwe losing 2-0 to Egypt in a preparatory match to Africa Cup of Nations.

“It was actually a blessing in disguise ...” because the coach did not want to give away his strategy. He also told us the 1-1 draw against Zambia last month was a positive development because “we held Zambia who are an African powerhouse here in Africa and beyond ...”

Dear Robson, the national team simply failed to score in those matches. Does he want us to believe that coach Charles Mhlauri’s brief to his strikers was “do not score lest we give away our strategy”? This is patriotism gone mad!

This is what happens when “veteran broadcasters” are so afraid of the truth that they would rather portray themselves as ignorant pundits of the sport.

Itar-Tass news agency reported on Sunday that Malta was the happiest place on earth while Zimbabwe and Ukraine seem to be the most unhappy, according to an annual World Database of Happiness, compiled by Rotterdam’s Erasmus University’s Prof Ruut Veenhoven.

Seventy-four percent of Maltese people said they are happy, and the rate was 73% in Denmark, Switzerland and Colombia.

Iceland, Ireland and the Netherlands are quite happy places as well, and Canada, Finland and Ghana end the world’s top 10 with 63% of happy people.

The report said money was not the main factor in happiness. For in-stance, the United States was ranked 16th on the world happiness list after Guatemala and Uruguay. The leading European nations, the United Kingdom and Germany, were ranked 21st and 22nd.

The survey says in Zimbabwe, no more than 20% of the citizens are happy. Remember President Mugabe's statement in an interview with AP last September “My people are very, very happy... We feel that we have actually been advancing rather than going backwards."

In fact less than 20% are happy in Zimbabwe. As Prof Veenhoven said, “it’s not all about money”. People are unhappy with misrule which crushes the spirit, discourages enterprise and spreads misery.

The Herald this week inserted the following into a report on preparations for President Mugabe’s 82nd birthday: “President Mugabe is revered as a shining example of an African statesman who has stood firm in the defence of the poor ...”

Indeed he has: As Ambassador Dell inconveniently pointed out, Zimbabweans are poorer today than they were in 1953. Mugabe has been absolutely consistent in his promotion of poverty!

As he snoozes in his deck chair on an exotic beach somewhere in South-East Asia this week, we wonder whether the president will reflect upon the fate of the victims of Operation Murambatsvina who have still not recovered from the state’s assault upon their homes and livelihoods.

One way of averting a crisis is to rename it. The government media has decided to refer to “challenges” rather than crises. So the country faced a number of “challenges” last year, none of which were solved.

The Herald’s business desk help-fully itemised them as “inflation, foreign currency shortages, dwindling exports, unemployment, falling production levels, incessant price hikes and a generally poor performance in most sectors of the economy ...”

So this year there are even more “challenges” which won’t be solved because of the complete absence of honesty in facing them. Far from tackling them “head on”, as the official press naively hopes ministers will do, they are likely to remain unresolved.

Inflation, for instance, the product of tax-and-spend policies, will keep going up so long as the state fails to curb its expenditure. Creating new ministries and chambers of parliament that nobody wants only compounds the “challenges” which prevent the “turnaround” that some people keep forecasting.

And then they talk about the “circus” in the MDC. The circus, it would appear, is closer to Herald House than Harvest House!

Anyway, life’s a beach.

Have you noticed how seamlessly MDC leaders have put aside the national interest to engage in a battle which the rest of the country has no interest in? Tsvangirai, Sibanda, Ncube, Chimanikire, Chamisa and Sikhala are so engrossed in their petty quarrel that they cannot detect the nation's disgust. They have completely failed the public they were elected to serve while they entertain the state press with interviews about how awful the other side is.

A statesman would long ago have bridged these differences and knocked heads together. All successful political parties are broad churches comprising divergent interests. Intelligent and inclusive leaders hold these centrifugal forces together. Watch Tony Blair or Thabo Mbeki.

But Tsvangirai has decided Mugabe-style fashion the party in his own image by crushing opposition to his leadership and engineering a supine congress. As South African political commentator Steve Friedman noted last weekend with regard to another leadership spat: “Good leaders are people who are able to work with people who are very different. Bad leaders get threatened by that and try to drive away talents which they need.”

It is a disgraceful episode and Zanu PF must be watching in admiration how their lessons have been learnt. But the country is not amused and the MDC’s friends need to say so. Morgan; Welshman; get off the ground. You should know better.

Finally, with the opening of previously sealed documents at the Public Record Office in London, the nationalist credentials of President Mugabe have been exposed to examination. Writing from detention in 1970 to Harold Wilson, Mugabe pleads with the British PM to give his wife Sally a British passport.

“Although my wife has had to use a Ghanaian passport, she is first and foremost a Rhodesian and therefore a British subject,” Mugabe claimed. “My wife belongs to Rhodesia, where I am, and not to Ghana where your government wants her to go.”

The letter was published in the Sunday Times’ Hogarth column. The supplicant is now proposing to withdraw the passports of those he disagrees with!