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Zimbabwe: BBC Reporting a Disgrace Posted: Thursday, January 24, 2008 By Leo Makombe January 22, 2008 The Herald (Harare) NO wonder the BBC was banned from reporting from Zimbabwe as it behaves like a terrorist or spy media organisation if their recent story, "Mugabe faces rival from within party", broadcast on Monday January 14 2008 at 23:56GMT, is taken into consideration. The BBC, it appears, also reported from ignorance, because if they had known that two Zimbabwe weekly newspapers had reported the story, they would not have acted as if it was breaking news. If it is the story of shortages, be it of foodstuffs or money, all newspapers including The Herald and privately owned newspapers in Zimbabwe are covering these daily and weekly. To other fair-minded people, and me the reporter was covering stale news. And for John Simpson to brag that he defied the odds and sneaked into Zimbabwe and managed to shoot video and then report when he had returned to his base is childish, because knowing the security system in Zimbabwe, he was being protected all the time he was in the country so that he could report back his stale news. What would have happened if he had been arrested, as what happened to the e-TV crew of South Africa that was arrested when they were reporting on illegal diamond mining in Mutare? It seems the BBC either wants its reporters to be arrested, harassed or to report stale news. That is news to the BBC. The BBC is now, as I said earlier, behaving like a terrorist or spy organisation. It is now stage-managing events just like it did during past elections, when it stage-managed events for the MDC. This is why the BBC was banned from Zimbabwe, because it was partisan and acting on behalf of the British government who have an agenda against Zanu-PF and the Government it leads, an agenda they have sought to internationalise. It is true that the ordinary Zimbabwean can afford a satellite dish and can tune and view the BBC and many other international television and radio stations. The BBC is not popular; it is just like an other international TV and radio station. The Government of Zimbabwe, which the BBC and other misguided people view as inhuman, allows people to access views from other international broadcasting stations, a situation that does not prevail in some countries the British government openly supports. If the BBC did not know, we also have France24 on satellite, which is competing with the BBC on world news in addition to CNN, among other channels. The BBC can interview all the anti-Zimbabwe people, I say anti-Zimbabwe because these people have nothing to offer the ordinary people in Zimbabwe, like Dr. John Makumbe, whose hatred of President Mugabe has outgrown him that he is so hypocritical that he is employed by the University of Zimbabwe whose Chancellor is President Mugabe. If President Mugabe was so bad, why don't Makumbe and Lovemore Madhuku quit their jobs at the UZ and concentrate on their numerous sojourns that have enabled them to hoodwink the Western world and donor agencies who are pouring money into their various money-spinning ventures? What is more, why haven't they been fired? I have always told my friends that Zimbabweans are very clever in that they can get money from foreigners with minimal sweat. Is the ordinary person in Britain getting the pounds as easy as the likes of Madhuku, Makumbe and the MDC are doing in Zimbabwe? The British public is being taken for a ride by their own government. The British public sweat to pay lazy and unemployable Zimbabweans. What a shame! If ever there should be an uprising it should be in Britain, because their government is wasting money on a cause that does not benefit them. Even the BBC has fallen into the trap. Were the people who were moving with Simpson doing that for free? That is my ordinary cunning Zimbabwe brother at work. Make money from gullible Westerners without breaking a sweat. I also wish to remind the BBC that Zimbabweans do not just vote for anyone just because the BBC or British government says so. People from within Zanu-PF can form as many parties as they want (Edgar Tekere did so and what happened?), but if the ordinary person who has no access to the BBC knows you as we know Zanu-PF, the parties are doomed. Why should someone who has a personal vendetta against Zanu-PF want the whole of Zimbabwe to fight his battles? Zimbabweans know what the British and their allies have done in other countries and they are now wiser and will not be hoodwinked. In all fairness, if there are over a million Zimbabweans in the UK, why doesn't the British government deport them now so that they can vote in the March elections so that the Government is democratically removed from office? No the British government will not do that, they continue poisoning us with the stale news from the BBC, simply because those numbers are cooked up. In Zimbabwe we hold elections, we do not handpick leaders, as was done with Gordon Brown, so which system do the British want to teach us? If there is an illegitimate prime minister/president, it is Gordon Brown. No wonder he did not attend the EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon, he knew it was for elected heads of state and government. Zimbabweans welcome diversity and if it happens that the Young Turks from Zanu-PF form a party that can win the elections, fair enough. We do not have any problems with that. But for the BBC to start campaigning for that stillborn party raises eyebrows, just as we have always queried the BBC's support for the MDC. Already, people are saying the "new" stillborn party is a creation of the West as a replacement to the MDC which is past its sell-by date, thus the proposed party has already lost relevance before its arrival. With the news doing the rounds, it seems the new stillborn party will be a one-man show. Its proposed leader is hardly known in the rural areas where the bulk of the vote is. So please BBC, do not celebrate yet. Disgruntled and power-hungry people from Zanu-PF have been dumped by Zimbabweans and the same will happen to anyone from anywhere who wants to use his disgruntlement to get into power. People will ask you, if Zanu-PF was so bad why did you stay in that party for the past 25 or so years? Coming to the MDC, the reason they lose the elections, like one sister stated in The Herald the other day, is that its membership is made up of people who do not vote. True, everyday at the MDC offices one would think there is a rally as unemployable -- not unemployed -- youths, men and women roam the street outside. Such people have taken the MDC as their employer and the reason they do not want to vote is that when the situation changes for the better, no employer will engage them because they are lazy. They would rather stick by Harvest House and hoodwink gullible opposition leaders, because they know the MDC will not win the elections as they withhold their votes. Tsvangirai, instead of wooing voters, is busy threatening them with Kenya-style violence and boycotting the elections. Whose child is he going to sacrifice and kill? What kind of a leader openly calls for violence against his own people? While Zanu-PF and everyone else in Zimbabwe is calling for peaceful elections, the MDC Tsvangirai faction is doing the opposite. Why threaten people before elections? And why is the BBC silent on this? Would they be silent if it were Zanu-PF threatening violence? Let us not be blinded by being partisan. If it was in other countries, Tsvangirai would have been arrested. He is calling for the equivalent of genocide, yet he fancies himself a potential president. Tsvangirai is so obsessed with power that he is busy decampaigning for himself. He is doing the same thing he has done in the past whereby he has called for sanctions. It appears he does not learn from his mistakes. Tsvangirai is in his last term as MDC president. If he loses in March, as he is likely to, then it will be good riddance for many in his faction. But Tsvangirai seems not to see this. He sees President Mugabe as his enemy and is not seeing the enemy within his own party. |
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