(HERALD ZW) NewsDay slapped with US$100m lawsuit
September 21, 2013
Farai Kuvirimirwa Court Reporter
ZANU-PF Central Committee member Cde William Mutomba and businesswoman Mrs Smelly Dube have filed a lawsuit against NewsDay, claiming US$100 million in damages after the paper allegedly published a defamatory article against them.According to papers filed under case number 7561/13, Alpha Media Holdings (Pvt) Ltd, their suspended editor Constantine Chimakure, reporter Blessed Mhlanga and lawyer Mr Valentine Mutatu, of Mahuni and Mutatu legal practitioners, are cited as first, second, third and fourth respondents, respectively.
Papers filed by Sachikonye-Ushe legal practitioners indicate that the matter arose after the newspaper published an article titled ‘Supreme Court brings finality to Midkwe Wrangle’ on September 4 which they said injured their feelings and impaired their dignity in society.
It is alleged that the article written by Mhlanga was full of malicious falsehoods where he confirmed that Australian born Lee Waverley Jones was the legitimate owner of Chaka Gold Plant situated in Kwekwe.
“Jones had accused Mutomba of grabbing the mine from him. All along Mutomba’s company had been conducting illegal mining activities at the mine,” read part of the article.
The lawyers argue that Mhlanga deliberately lied that the Supreme Court had ordered the plaintiffs to vacate Chaka Gold Plant and mine when it had dismissed an appeal filed by Midkwe Minerals (Pvt) Ltd.
The lawyers further argue that Cde Mutomba and Mrs Dube were not parties to the dismissed appeal.
“The third defendant (Mhlanga) deliberately and maliciously lied that Cde Mutomba and Mrs Dube had taken the law into their own hands by illegally and forcibly ‘grabbing’ the said mine from Australian born Jones.
“Mhlanga, acting in connivance with other defendants involved the first plaintiff (Cde Mutomba) when he is neither a director nor a shareholder of Midkwe Minerals,” read the papers.
The papers indicated that the article portrayed the pair as people who were abusing their respective Zanu-PF and influential business positions by illegally wrestling away from legitimate owners which they say is not true.
“The malicious falsehoods exposed the plaintiffs who are public figures, to ridicule and contempt from their business and political associates, relatives, workmates and acquaintances, who have since shunned them.
“Words in the context of the article were understood by readers of the newspaper that the plaintiffs were people who were illegally acquiring properties in the name of Zanu PF,” Cde Mutomba and Mrs Dube argued.
It is further indicated that the duo suffered damages in the sum of US$50 million apiece for which all the respondents are jointly and liable.
Labels: DEFAMATION, NEWSDAY, PROPAGANDA
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(HERALD ZW) Charamba dismisses NewsDay story
September 2, 2013 Shingirai Huni Local News
Chief police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity
Peter Matambanadzo Senior Reporter
POLICE have dismissed as false a story published by the NewsDay at the weekend claiming that police officers chanted Zanu-PF slogans at the Harare Agricultural Show, insinuating that the force was partisan.
Chief police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charamba denied the claims by the NewsDay, whose editor was recently suspended for peddling falsehoods, that the members of the force chanted Zanu-PF slogans at the agricultural show that was officially opened by President Mugabe on Friday.
She said the story in the NewsDay’s Saturday edition headlined “Cops chant Zanu-PF slogans, . . . as state aligned organisation steal the show,” was meant to further the interests of the private daily newspaper’s paymasters and to confuse Zimbabweans.
“The ZRP is a patriotic force and will not be perturbed by reporters who bootlick their paymasters and write falsehoods and frame stories to confuse the generality of Zimbabweans. After all is the ZRP not allowed to celebrate when they win gold medals?” Snr Asst Comm Charamba asked.
The report came a day after NewsDay suspended its editor Constantine Chimakure for allegedly writing falsehoods.
This was after the newspaper recently published two false stories in succession concerning former South African president Cde Thabo Mbeki and MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, which stories the group said did not conform to set ethical standards.
NewsDay on Wednesday and Friday last week carried two stories under the headlines “Mbeki speaks on Zim polls, chaotic land reform” and “Mugabe offers Tsvangirai VP Post” which have both been denied by Cde Mbeki and Mr Tsvangirai.
Chimakure was suspended to facilitate investigations into unethical journalistic practice.
Snr Asst Comm Charamba said the story authored by John Nyashanu was misguided and the police never chanted Zanu-PF slogans.
“The Zimbabwe Republic Police sports persons are athletes at heart and in flesh and celebrates victory through a Zimbabwean symbol,” she said.
“A fist is a symbol of black power and it was in line with our winning of three gold medals at the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show exhibition. A fist is an international recognised symbol of black power.”
Snr Asst Comm Charamba said from time immemorial up to the time of the first Olympic Games, the first African to win gold in athletics, Jesse Owens, a black athlete was disqualified after raising a fist in celebration.
“We all talk to God in different ways. We all pray in different ways but for the African sports person, he gets his inspiration and energy from God to compete and celebrates by shooting his right fist to heaven to say ‘God take the Glory’ and the Zimbabwe Republic Police is no exception,” she said.
Snr Asst Comm Charamba also said the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show Society was not a state organisation as inferred by the story.
“This was evidenced by the attendance of countries that imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe who were also exhibiting at the show,” Snr Asst Comm Charamba said.
“The ZRP won on merit contrary to Nyashanu’s wild assumptions. After all, who is he to determine what police should do?”
The police chief spokesperson said there was no need for the police to bootlick President Mugabe as alleged by Nyashanu, but to honour and respect the President who is the Head of State and Government and Commander- in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and guest of honour at the occasion.
“Perhaps there is a better judgment that John Nyashanu should learn from his suspended Editor, Constantine Chimakure, for writing falsehoods,” she said.
“He is certainly following the footsteps of his discredited mentor. What a shame to the media fraternity!”
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, NEWSDAY, PROPAGANDA
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(NEWZIMBABWE) Zimbabwe: Mbeki anger over UNISA lecture 'falsehoods'
30/08/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
COMMENT The origingal 'Newsday' article Mbeki speaks on Zim polls, ‘chaotic’ land reform
August 28, 2013is found here. The full text of the Thabo Mbeki speech is found here. The Newsday editor has now been suspended, see here: AMH suspends editor over Mbeki, Tsvangirai stories. - MrK
FORMER South African President Thabo Mbeki has angrily rejected a newspaper report claiming that he criticised Zimbabwe’s land reforms and accused President Robert Mugabe of “setting a bad example”.
Mbeki, speaking through a spokesman on Friday, said the report in Zimbabwe’s NewsDay newspaper a day earlier was “nothing but a mischievous cut and paste job of quotations intended to communicate falsehoods to achieve particular political outcomes ”.
He accused the paper of “twisting and manipulating the truth” my misrepresenting his comments made during a lecture at UNISA on August 23, a day after the former President had attended Mugabe’s inauguration ceremony in Harare.
On Thursday, NewsDay published comments attributed to Mbeki and later picked up by other media organisations.
The newspaper said “Mbeki also took a swipe at Mugabe’s chaotic land reform programme, saying the Zanu PF leader had ‘set a bad example which we don’t want any country in Africa to follow’.”
The paper quoted Mbeki as saying: “The way the land reform was done offended other players in the world. I told them (Mugabe and Zanu PF), they could not listen; they did what they wanted with their own country.
“They set a bad example which we don’t want any country in Africa to follow. So they must pay a price. I think this is the reason why, apart from diamonds, there is too much attention on Zimbabwe.”
But an audio of Mbeki’s address, released by the Thabo Mbeki Foundation on Friday, showed the former President had been misquoted.
What Mbeki actually said [SEE TRANCRIPT] was: “Many years ago and as part of the leadership in this region, we engaged the Zimbabwean leadership – President Mugabe and others – in a very sustained process to discourage them from the manner in which they were handling the issue of land reform.
“We were saying to them, ‘Yes indeed we agree, the land reform is necessary, but the way in which you are handling it is wrong.’ We tried very hard, ‘No, no you see all of these things about the occupation of the farms by the war veterans, this and that and the other, all of this is wrong’, that’s what we were saying. But fortunately the Zimbabweans didn’t listen to us, they went ahead.
“The consequence of it is that, I have looked at at least four books that have been written about the land reform in Zimbabwe, all of which say in fact the process of land reform in Zimbabwe has given land to at least 300-400,000 new land owners, the peasants of Zimbabwe at last own the land. The programme succeeded and has this direct benefit on these huge numbers of Zimbabweans...
“But I think the reason there has been this kind of focus on Zimbabwe is that for many years now, the political leadership in Zimbabwe have been communicating a message which many among the powerful players in the world find unacceptable.
“I was saying earlier that we opposed, we tried to discourage Zimbabweans from taking the particular steps they took with regard to land reform, acknowledging that it was indeed necessary to have land reform, and I was saying they ignored us. It is, I think, exactly the manner in which they came at that question of land reform that offended other forces in the world who said, ‘This is wrong, we don’t like it’.
“And unlike us who said, ‘Well, they are not listening. They have done what they want to do about their country, we have to accept that’, these others said, ‘They have set a bad example which we don’t want anybody else in Africa and the rest of the world to follow, so they must pay a price for setting a bad example.’ Bad example, bad in the instance of the interests of these other people, not bad in terms of the interests of the people of Zimbabwe.”
The statement by the Thabo Mbeki Foundation added: “With regard to Zimbabwe’s land reform process, former President Mbeki said that though SADC agreed with the Zimbabwean government about the imperative for land reform, it did not agree with the manner in which the process was carried out. He added that this disagreement notwithstanding, the land reform process in Zimbabwe has proved successful.
“The fact that SADC, of which South Africa is a member, expressed a contrary opinion to the government of Zimbabwe at the time must surely have come as a shocking surprise to NewsDay, but shocking as this revelation might be to NewsDay, it is no justification to twist and manipulate the truth.”
The Foundation later circulated, “in the interest of truthful reporting based on sound journalistic ethics”, a transcript of the relevant part of Mbeki’s address and a full hour-long audio of his speech.
Labels: NEWSDAY, PROPAGANDA, THABO MBEKI
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