Zimbabwe Continues Tight Grip on Media, Minorities Lack Coverage and Access

BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE – Philani Siziba, 67, is from Plumtree, a town in Matabeleland, a region in southwestern Zimbabwe.

Matabeleland is home to many tribes, but Siziba says the local media has done nothing but dehumanize and denigrate her people, the Kalangas, and their culture.

“Our people are underrepresented, misrepresented and denigrated by the so-called national broadcaster,” Siziba says. “All the radio channels are dominated by one ethnic group.”

She says this means her area receives little coverage and, therefore, little say in local politics and social movements.

“The stations are all based in towns, particularly Harare, and issues that are of concern to us are never covered,” Siziba says. “Television cameras and radio audio recorders only come to Plumtree when a government minister is coming to give statements and solicit for votes. We do not have any say in the content of radio and television.”

Aaron Ncube, 52, a villager from Tsholotsho, a district near Plumtree, says that his family has resorted to outside radio and television channels in order to receive more diverse programming.

“When my son went to work in South Africa in 2006, he brought a satellite dish and some solar panels and batteries,” he says. “Since then, we have been liberated from the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation monopoly.”

He says this has given them information, but not a voice.

“We now watch the South African Broadcasting Corporation channels, and fellow villagers gather at my homestead to watch better programs,” Ncube says. “But the problem still remains that our voices are never heard.” 

Laws in Zimbabwe promise broadcasting diversity. But media advocates say the state-controlled broadcasting company still monopolizes the airwaves and excludes coverage of and access by minority groups. Government officials have promised local radio stations, but progress has stalled because the government doesn’t have the capacity to monitor them yet.

After 31 years of political independence, the 12.5 million Zimbabweans from more than six tribal groups still have to rely on the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, ZBC. 

South Africa, the last country in southern Africa to attain independence in 1994, 14 years after Zimbabwe, now boasts more than 100 community stations broadcasting in many different languages, according to The Financial Gazette, a local newspaper. Other neighboring countries, including Zambia and Malawi, have several community radio initiatives that cater to different people groups.

The main tribes in Zimbabwe are the Shona, which make up 82 percent of the population, and Ndebele, which make up 14 percent, according to Minority Rights Group International, an international nongovernmental organization, NGO. Minority groups include the Tonga, Sena, Hlengwe, Venda and Sotho. The official languages are English, Shona and Ndebele.

Most minority groups live in the country’s periphery along its borders. These areas are mostly remote and have poor communication networks. Newspapers are not easily available, and the majority of people in these areas can’t afford to buy them. Newspapers cost an average of $1 USD, yet the majority of people in rural areas here live on less than $1 USD a day.

ZBC gained its broadcasting authority under the Broadcasting Act, which granted it the sole right to broadcast in Zimbabwe. The Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the act violated Section 20 of the constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression and freedom to impart information, thanks to a challenge to the ZBC monopoly by Capital Radio, a community radio station.

Following the ruling, the government enacted the Broadcasting Services Act, which gives the minister of state for information and publicity the power to issue broadcast licenses based on the recommendation of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe, a body appointed by the minister and the president. The act acknowledges community broadcasting – broadcasting from the community to the community – but only Zimbabwean citizens who live primarily in-country can receive licenses, excluding Zimbabweans who live in the diaspora and broadcasting services that rely on foreign funding.

Zimbabwe also signed in 2001 the African Charter on Broadcasting, which aimed to serve as a blueprint for laws and policies governing broadcast and information technology in Africa to ensure media freedom.

In 2008, Constitutional Amendment No. 19 recognized the importance of access to information by citizens in decision-making and the role of the media in a multi-party democracy, as contested elections that year led to the Government of National Unity, Zimbabwe’s current coalition government that comprises the country’s three leading political parties. Section 100 of this amendment created the Zimbabwe Media Commission to uphold and develop freedom of the press, to promote and enforce good practice and ethics in print and electronic media, to ensure that the people of Zimbabwe have equitable and wide access to information, to ensure the equitable use and development of all indigenous languages spoken in Zimbabwe, and to exercise any other functions that may be conferred or imposed on the commission by or under an act of Parliament.

But media advocates say that despite these legal advancements, broadcasting in Zimbabwe still lacks diversity.

To mark World Press Freedom Day last month, the Media Institute of Southern Africa, MISA, a regional NGO that promotes free, independent and pluralistic media, issued a statement condemning the continued tight grip on broadcast media in Zimbabwe.

“MISA-Zimbabwe notes with great concern that 10 years after the crafting of the African Charter on Broadcasting (ACB) and enactment of the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA), Zimbabwe is still far from fulfilling the three-tier broadcasting system as envisaged under the Charter,” according to the statement. “The three-tier system comprises public broadcasting, private commercial broadcasting and establishment of community radio stations.”

The theme for the MISA-Zimbabwe 2011 commemoration of the day was: Broadcasting Reforms on the Agenda: Free the Airwaves Now! Although the majority of the member states of the Southern African Development Community, a regional coalition committed to economic well-being, social justice, freedom, peace and security, have an array of privately owned broadcasting stations and community radio stations, the state-controlled ZBC continues to dominate Zimbabwe’s airwaves, according to the MISA-Zimbabwe press release.

ZBC has four radio stations and two television channels. One of the television channels broadcasts only within a 70-kilometer radius of Harare, the capital. Two radio stations are based in the capital, and the other two are based in Bulawayo and Gweru, which are also major cities.

Minority groups living in the country’s periphery say this excludes them from the media in terms of both coverage and access. Many don’t understand the three languages used in ZBC broadcasts and have to learn them if they want to receive news.

Frank Jabson 38, program manager for the Creative Centre for Communication and Development, an organization in Bulawayo that aims to give marginalized groups a voice, bemoaned the stranglehold on the broadcasting sector by the government, saying that it was an affront to the minority groups in the country.

“The media is supposed to play the role of educating, entertaining and inform[ing] the citizens, but how can this be possible when people are not familiar with the language used by the media?” he asks. “The government must open up airwaves so that communities are free to set up local radio stations for programs of their choice and in the language they understand.”

Jabson says that despite 31 years of failure by the ZBC to provide radio and television signals to all the corners of the country and to provide programs for all the country’s tribes, the government still has the audacity to maintain a closed fist in the issuing of licenses to community radio stations. 

Henry Masuku, 29, national director of the Zimbabwe Association for Community Radio Stations, the umbrella body of community radio stations and initiatives here, says he is disgusted at the way the government has been making false promises about issuing licenses to community radios in the country. 

“The Unity Government comprising of the three leading political parties is taking ages to resolve the crisis in the broadcast media, particularly with regards to the licensing of community radios,” he says. 

He says this leads to a lack of information and, in turn, development.

“This has created uninformed communities that cannot take charge of what is happening around them,” he says. “The lack of community radio stations has caused impoverishment, marginalization of minority groups and the general lack of development.”

Masuku says that if the current situation continues, members of his association will be left with no option but to make use of the airwaves with or without licenses, a situation that may attract conflicts with the government. He says there already have been incidents.

“Capital Radio was banned and its equipment pulled down,” he says. “Pachindau People’s Radio located in the mountainous area of Chimanimani had its equipment dismantled and taken by the police. Other stations – Radio Dialogue, Community Radio Harare, Wezhira Community Radio and Kumakomo Community Radio – have all been shut down by the government using the draconian media laws.”

Godfrey Malaba, Bulawayo spokesman for Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, ZANU-PF, one of the parties in the Unity Government, defended the continued grip on the broadcast sector by the government and accused Western countries of interfering by hosting radio stations that are hostile to the government.

“There are several stations such as Voice of the People (VOP), Voice of America that continue to broadcast into the country,” Malaba says. “If they stop, then the country may also start to have local radio stations.”

Bright Matonga, the ZANU-PF legislator for Mhondoro-Ngezi in northern Zimbabwe, who is also a member of Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Media, Information and Communication Technology, told journalists last month that the government was not yet ready to free the broadcasting airwaves because it had no capacity to monitor and control them.

MISA-Zimbabwe urged the government on World Press Freedom Day to undertake comprehensive media reforms to allow new private players into the broadcasting sector. Advocates say community media initiatives would be ideal to serve the interests of Zimbabweans and especially minority groups here.