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By Emily Batty
2 December 2010
Since Mugabe placed media restrictions in Zimbabwe, it has become almost impossible for Journalists to report there. Zimbabwe, is in total devastation, so reporting the truth is now needed more than ever. Correspondent, Emily Batty explores the dangers involved for Journalists and others, as well as the ethics of reporting undercover.
Picture a place where your neighbours are dying all around you. Each day your prime minister sits down to luxury meals but you struggle to feed your children and then go hungry yourself. Where the government is corrupt and the rest of the world is made blind by banning Journalists from around the globe. It’s not an imaginary place. This is Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe was once known as the ‘Gem of Africa’ but now it tells a very different story. Today it is a country crying out for help under Mugabe’s ‘Reign of terror.’ Some say it is the greatest humanitarian disaster the world has ever seen. Eighty percent of adults are unemployed, over half the population is facing starvation and the life expectancy has decreased to thirty five.
Here in the UK we turn on our televisions and see images of starving children in Africa, depicting the scenes of famine in Zimbabwe. We read an Article concerning the political corruption of Robert Mugabe from an inside source. It is this information that we as an audience take for granted. The lengths people go to produce these stories are unimaginable. Journalists are risking their lives every day to report the ‘truth’ so the rest of the world might open their eyes a little wider.
Musa Vendi is a Zimbabwean living illegally in South Africa. She is working as a maid to earn money for her two small children who are living with her mother in Zimbabwe. As she fled the country illegally she must travel back through a river when she visits her family as she is not allowed over the border. In a deeply emotional interview Musa said: ‘‘It is so difficult for me, when I cross the river I am very scared, there are crocodiles and peoples that are killing peoples on the other side but I must go or my children will have no food.’’
Severe restrictions have been placed upon press freedom within Zimbabwe in an effort by Mugabe to block the truth. Newspapers such as the ‘Daily News’ in Harare have been closed down since the ‘Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Bill’ was passed in 2001. This has made it illegal for a Journalist to report from Zimbabwe without a license (which is impossible to obtain unless you support the ZANU-PF.) Clause 16 of the act made it illegal to publish or say anything that could be seen as ‘undermining the authority or insulting’ the President. This law has meant Journalists are being forced to report ‘undercover’ in order to get stories from Zimbabwe.
When asked about Mugabe, Musa said: ‘‘he is a bad ruler, he kills many of the peoples, and if I was in my country now I would not speak to you because his men will hurt you, they do very bad things they do not want people to know the truth. They should know the truth.’’
This would therefore mean that Journalists are placing themselves and others in danger, breaking laws in order to report the ‘truth.’ Some may see this as brave or courageous, a Journalist’s duty. Others would say that this is highly hypocritical.
How can a Journalist report the ‘truth’ and their words be trusted when they are prepared to deceive people and put their lives in danger to do this?
Musa Vendi has made it very clear in her interview that if she was in Zimbabwe at the time she would never have spoken to a Journalist. She said: ‘‘I cannot tell the truth there because they find out and will hurt my family I would not do that.’’
So if Journalists in Zimbabwe are operating in disguise people like Musa could be deceived into giving information. If they were found doing this by one of Mugabe’s soldiers, they could face torture, imprisonment and even death.
Is this morally and ethically right, does exposing the truth have more worth than the loss of a single life and so, is world ignorance or world awareness more important?
One man with an answer to these questions and a strong opinion is David Coltart is a MDC (movement for democratic change) member of parliament and a human rights lawyer. He was first elected to represent the Bulawayo South constituency in June 2000, and was re-elected in March 2005 with a 76% majority. Coltart is seen as a major threat to Mugabe’s ZANU-PF. Moven Maachi, Mugabe’s late defence minister once said in an interview ‘‘Coltart is the one behind everything…he is the one causing our problems.’’ (Quote from ‘Degrees in Violence)
Being such an influential figure in the movement against Mugabe’s regime, Coltart has some strong opinions especially over Journalism in Zimbabwe.
When asked whether he feels that the price of a single life had more value over the exposing of the truth he said: ‘Firstly if people do not report at all, people will continue to die in their thousands, only through vigorous reporting will the world be made aware, so even if you save one life by not reporting you will actually commit thousands to a certain death.’ He then went on to talk about the working practice of a Journalist and said: ‘Good Journalists such as David Blair who reported intensively in Zimbabwe are able to protect their sources and in doing so protect themselves and others from danger…Zimbabwe is in desperate times and reports are essential now.’
The future for Zimbabwe is an uncertain one but undercover reporting seems unavoidable. The Zimbabwe crisis is more than public interest. It has become public duty. The need for exposing the truth speaks for itself. Although there may be a price to pay for obtaining this information, world ignorance would be a much greater cost and there would be even greater repercussions