Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE) BBC reports from Zimbabwe as 'ban' lifted

BBC reports from Zimbabwe as 'ban' lifted
by Mduduzi Mathuthu
30/07/2009 00:00:00

THE BBC made its first unhindered report from inside Zimbabwe on Wednesday after almost eight years. The BBC has filmed secretly in Zimbabwe on many occasions, although Zimbabwean authorities claim it was never banned.

Andrew Harding filed a generally upbeat three-minute report saying “things are picking up here. It’s hardly boom time but this broken nation is trying ....” He was granted an interview with Zanu PF chairman John Nkomo at the party’s headquarters in Harare.

World news editor, Jon Williams, writing on the BBC website, said: “Ten days ago, I made a journey I thought I might never make - to Harare, Zimbabwe.

“Eight years ago, we had a disagreement with the then Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo. Eever since, the BBC has operated undercover in Zimbabwe.

“But five months after President Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai formed an inclusive government, this week, for the first time since July 2001, BBC News is back in Zimbabwe - openly and legally.”

While noting that reporting undercover takes great courage and commitment and has produced some memorable journalism, Williams said “it is no substitute for being able to operate transparently.”

He added: “Inevitably, part of the story becomes how our teams are trying to avoid being found and arrested, rather than focusing on the people of Zimbabwe.”

Harding and his production team visited a supermarket where he says they filmed secretly a year ago. Then, it was an “eerily empty supermarket”, but “today, the contrast is staggering. The shelves are packed with food -- local and imported.”

And on a Harare street, the reporter was mobbed by Zimbabweans “surging with optimism”.

One man told Harding: “We can (now) buy bread, we can buy meat. It was a long time since we were able to buy meat. Schools were closed for a long time. There is a change and there is a future.”

Nkomo received the reporter by saying “welcome to my party headquarters”. He insisted President Mugabe was committed to a power sharing deal brokered by regional countries after last year’s disputed election results.

Nkomo said: “He is a principled man. Once he agrees on a programme, he wants that programme implemented as per agreement. I don’t think there are any hardliners in Zanu PF. Zanu PF has committed itself to this whole thing, and we believe it is in the interest of Zimbabweans that the agreement succeeds.”



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advertisement
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




The largely upbeat report concluded with a clip showing a man being bandaged on his right hand – the victim of an axe attack by Zanu PF thugs, the report said.

“Zanu PF has not lost its taste for intimidation …,” Harding reported.

The BBC’s last Zimbabwe correspondent Joseph Winter fled the country in 2001 after his work permit was revoked and a gang tried to force its way into his home.

In July of that year, the BBC’s former reporter, Rageh Omaar, filed from Zimbabwe – the last time the corporation will do so freely.

His report infuriated Information Minister Jonathan Moyo who fired an angry letter to the BBC’s regional bureau chief Miton Nkosi in Johannesburg, accusing the news organisation of misquoting Mugabe.

Moyo said: “The time has come for the BBC to follow and uphold in Zimbabwe the same professional and ethical standards it follows in Britain. That is the bottom line, nothing less or more.”

Citing a report on Mugabe's speech at the opening of Zimbabwe's parliament, Moyo stormed: "To my utter shock and disappointment, Omaar alleged in his report that President Mugabe '… vowed to continue with the forcible acquisition of white farmland ...' or something to that effect.

"These words were nowhere in the President's speech. The President made it clear that land would be acquired as it has been, in terms of the laws of Zimbabwe," Moyo said, adding that Mugabe had, in his address, made specific reference to a recent Supreme Court decision.

Mugabe said the Supreme Court made a landmark judgement at the beginning of that month, which should speed up the process of land acquisition.

"Under the circumstances, and given many previous examples of deliberate unethical and unprofessional conduct by the BBC, which we have brought to your attention, Please be advised that the Department of Information and Publicity has suspended all accreditation of BBC correspondents in Zimbabwe pending agreement, if at all possible, on an ethical and professional code of conduct," Moyo’s letter concluded.

Zimbabwe’s new Information Minister Webster Shamu said last week it was time "to put behind us the mutually ruinous relationship of the past".

The thaw in relations comes after talks between the Zimbabwe government and the BBC's world news editor Jon Williams and Africa bureau editor Sarah Halfpenny.

"We agreed that whatever communication problems which the BBC and the officials of the Zimbabwe (government) may have had in the past, the Zimbabwe government never banned the BBC from carrying out lawful activities inside Zimbabwe," Shamu said.

"For the purposes of the record, I restate the main points of our meeting. We acknowledged the need to put behind us the mutually ruinous relationship of the past."

Labels: ANDREW HARDING, BBC, NEOCOLONIALISM

posted by MrK @ 2:44 PM