We posted last week on the "Illicit Reporter" from the Economist, reporting undercover in Zimbabwe and said that that reporter, and many others, were derelict in their duty of reporting on the Mugabe Regime's reign of terror against democratic forces.
I would like to add a corollary to that critique today by saying that while these reporters are missing the big story, that of the Mugabe regime's meticulously calculated and brutally (and sadistically) executed campaign, underway since March 11th, to wipe out the pro-democracy civil society and political movement, they are also contributing to perpetuating the myth--a myth promulgated by Mugabe and the ZANU-PF thugs themselves--that the "real story" is the supposed disunion within the opposition MDC, and their supposed propensity for violence.
In his last missive from Zimbabwe, on which we did not blog last week, the illicit reporter from the Economist carries Mugabe's water for him when he subtitles his series "our online reporter finds the opposition in disarray," without pointing out that that opposition has been the object since March 11th of a savage Mugabe-orchestrated reign of terror that has resulted in thousands of persons being beaten, hundreds being arrested and hospitalized following torture, and at least 2 being killed.
As I write, and you read, this, 39 middle and senior leaders of the MDC languish in remand prison. The party's leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, its secretary general, Tendai Biti, its information officer, Nelson Chamisa were all sadistically beaten by Central Intelligence officers masquerading as police officers. Our illicit reporter apparently does not see a cause and effect relationship between the regime's campaign and the problems that the the opposition is experiencing.
But at least the illicit Economist reporter does not adopt the entire Mugabe and Zanu-PF narrative in his reporting, i.e. that the MDC is not only in "disarray" but that it is also a pack of violent thugs.
Unfortunately, Michael Wines of that august American journal of record, the New York Times, makes both erroneous (and libelous) charges against the MDC in his front page article yesterday.
Yesterday's article by Wines (one of those who writes from a Joburg perch) is a prime example of what a colleague of ours likes to call "majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors" (translation: giving undue attention to insignificant issues while missing the big story).
Mr. Wines, who has turned in some decent copy during the past 2 months of the government crackdown, totally misses the boat on this occasion and is guilty of swallowing hook, line and sinker (please excuse the double aquatic metaphor) the bankrupt narrative of ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe.
Wines reports as fact the Mugabe narrative with regard to the Movement for Democratic Change, i.e. a) that the party's split is itself an issue worthy of a title on page 1 and b) that the split is the consequence of the MDC President's propensity for, and advocacy of, violence.
The very title of his article, "Opposition splits as Zimbabwe slips" focuses on a story that is no longer news or at the very least very old news (Welshman Ncube, whom Wines interviews, is the SG of the break away group which quit the MDC October 12th, 2005) and ignores the Mugabe reign of terror unleashed since March 11th that has resulted in thousands of arrests, hundreds of injuries and hospitalizations of persons who were the object of state-sponsored violence and torture and hundreds of abductions. That is the story Mr. WInes has missed.
Majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors.
It is a story of a security apparatus that arrests the lawyers who are representing the victims of the organized and state sponsored terrorism and of a police force that defies the court orders to release those lawyers and other victims and to allow them access to medical care.
It is the story, coincidentally, the eve of WInes' report, of the President of the Law Society of Zimbabwe, Beatrice Mtetwa, the acting President of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, Irene Petras, and the 80 year old chief of the Human RIghts NGO Forum, Eileen Sawyer being beaten by security forces (Tuesday) as they attempted to undertake a peaceful march to present a letter to the Minister of Justice, the disgraceful Patrick Chinamassa, to demand a minimum respect of the rule of law.
Mr Wines should have taken the precaution of reading the MDC report on party violence that he misrepresents in his own story because, if he had, he would have known that far from assigning culpability to Tsvangirai and his officers, the report concluded that there was no official support or condoning of violence and, rather, that the attacks were the work of Central Intelligence Officers who had (and have) infiltrated the party.
Mr. Wines also might have troubled himself to become informed of the fact that the security apparatus did not in fact arrest those widely recognized to have been implicated in the violence but instead arrested known MDC activists, to whom there were no links to the violence.
Mr. Wines might have informed himself in addition that the M.O. of the regime (committing violent acts and blaming them on the opposition) is not a new one, and dates back to the 2000 constitutional referendum (lost by Mugabe) and the 2002 Presidential elections (won by Mr. Tsvangirai and stolen by Mugabe)--although its use has accelerated in recent weeks as CIO officers toss petrol bombs and then round up all opposition figures in the areas and charge them under the country's "terrorism act".
It is embarrassing that a NY Times journalist allows himself, in this way , to be used by those who seek to take the international community's eye off the extermination campaign underway and conducted by Mugabe and his thugs against the legitimate opposition, and onto the non-issue of "opposition disunity".
If it were only embarrassing, however, it would not be so bad.
It is also DANGEROUS because the lives of all of those from the democratic forces who are languishing in remand prison (or, as it seems may be the case, in secret torture camps around the country) are being put at risk because their story is not getting out.
