THREE WAVES OF MEDIA REPRESSION IN ZIMBABWE

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Three waves of media repression inZimbabweEverette Ndlovua

a Department of Media and Communication University of Salford,Manchester, United KingdomPublished online: 09 Jun 2015.

To cite this article: Everette Ndlovu (2015) Three waves of media repression in Zimbabwe, AfricanJournalism Studies, 36:2, 25-44

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African Journalism StudiesVolume 36 | Number 2 | 2015pp. 25–44

DOI: 10.1080/23743670.2015.1040431Print ISSN 2374-3670 | Online 2374-3689

© 2015 iMasa

universityof south africa

THREE WAVES OF MEDIA REPRESSION IN ZIMBABWE

Everette NdlovuDepartment of Media and CommunicationUniversity of Salford, Manchester, United [email protected]

ABSTRACTThis article seeks to highlight how the media – especially radio – have always been used in Zimbabwe to consolidate the power of the government. This invariably led to oppositional media emerging from outside the country, giving the populace access to alternative discourses from those churned out by state media. The response to the alternative media run by blacks led the Southern Rhodesian and Rhodesian regimes to come up with repressive legislation that criminalised these media. After independence the state media embarked on consolidating the status quo and eliminating some sectors of the community from coverage – a repeat of the past. Legislation inherited from Rhodesia continued to be used in independent Zimbabwe, where the criminalisation of alternative voices and limitations in access to alternative media are predominant. Such a scenario reveals that there have been three waves of media repression in Zimbabwe, from Southern Rhodesia to Rhodesia and then to independent Zimbabwe, to deny the media their independence.

Keywords: broadcasting, clandestine, diasporic, dictatorial, domination, ideology, indoctrinating, repression

INTRODUCTION Three waves characterise the history of media repression in the country which is now independent Zimbabwe. Evidence shows a massive wave of repression in Rhodesia as far back as the 1940s, when broadcasting was introduced in this part of the world. This repression was escalated by Ian Douglas Smith after his unpopular

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Everette Ndlovu Three waves of media repression in Zimbabwe

Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). Most unexpectedly it has intensified in independent Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe’s black rule. This article examines the mechanics of media repression which has always left the black community at the mercy of the media – especially radio. Rather than being liberating, it has been used by whoever is in control to dominate the masses. The state-owned media have always supported the government of the day, helping to disseminate and consolidate the dominant ideologies of the state, whilst private media tend to challenge the status quo by giving alternative voices a chance to be heard by the masses, thus exposing citizens to alternatives in the political terrain. This article examines the three waves of media repression from Southern Rhodesia to Rhodesia and then Zimbabwe, examining the core elements of repression that tie those phases together, thus making it evident that there have only been changes in administration, not in policies.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKRealism provides an explanatory paradigm with which to understand the three waves of media repression in the country referred to throughout this essay as Zimbabwe (although it has variously been known as Southern Zambezia, Southern Rhodesia, Rhodesia and Zimbabwe Rhodesia).

Realism assumes that power is the primary end of political action (King 2004). A realist perspective claims that any political change is best explained as a product of the relative distribution of power, expressed as access to and control over a range of material resources. Zimbabwe has always been characterised by extreme power differentials, where control of the major institutions of power and infrastructure is in the hands of the political elite, constituted, in turn, by the ruling party of the time. Any party that has ever been in power during these three periods has exerted control over the communication infrastructure, the army, the police, the economy, the judiciary and the legislature. Realism asserts that politicians strive to maximise their power by means of control, in order to secure their own needs and interests prior to addressing the needs of the people. In pursuit of what Lott (2004) describes as national interests and security, dictatorial governments try to control state institutions (including the media), so as to use them to maximise their influence on the populace. D. Moyo (2008, 551) argues that control of the mentioned institutions gives the government the power to influence the masses to adopt its ideologies. The ideologisation of the masses comes about at the expense of democracy, as it does not open a dialogical environment in which the people can deliberate alternatives to improve their lives. Moyo argues that the media, supported by legal and political frameworks, have played a pivotal role in supporting and maintaining the status quo in this country. These instruments of power have helped the government hold onto power, by determining what information reaches the populace in a unidirectional way, without

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the participation of the latter. The major player in this is radio broadcasting, which is a political tool in the hands of the government and is used effectively to limit the democratic space, by controlling access to information and tailoring information to propagate specific ideologies that help to undermine oppositional views and legitimise the views of the ruling party. The party’s views are thereafter accepted as the views of the nation, which must never be challenged.

The media are used to inject ideologies into the psyche of the populace, who end up regurgitating such content without choice. Media repression is therefore underpinned by the Hypodermic Needle Theory, which implies that mass media have a direct, immediate and powerful effect on their audience. This view equates media influence with the effect of an intravenous injection, where certain values, ideas and attitudes are ‘injected’ into media users, resulting in particular behaviour (Fourie 1988). With humans having inherited instincts over which they have no control, they become susceptible to manipulation by the powerful communications stimuli targeting those instincts (Smith 1985, 559).

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This research is based on historical material on media repression in Zimbabwe. The study therefore largely focuses on historiography to illuminate Zimbabwe’s historical media repression – a feature of the political scene since the colonial period.

According to Baker (1994, 276), historiography is the process of critically examining and analysing records from the past. As Garraghan (1946) points out, historical research is not a mere accumulation of facts and dates, or even a description of past events: it is a flowing, dynamic account of past events which involves an interpretation that attempts to recapture the nuances, personalities and ideas that influenced these events (ibid.). One of the goals of historical research is to communicate an understanding of past events and how they influence the present. The historical approach situates itself well in researching persistent media repression, where the same people have been affected under different administrations. It involves examining and analysing literature that is informed by historical documents – in this case, with a view to understanding how control over resources has helped the political powers to use the media in subduing divergent voices. Document analysis is appropriate for any research that covers a number of years or requires historical information (Mintzburg in Bryman 1989). As such, document analysis is appropriate for researching the three waves of media repression in Zimbabwe, dating back to the days of Southern Rhodesia. With very few people who lived through the three phases still alive and able to give interviews, relying on historical publications was deemed the most feasible option.

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MEDIA ACTIVITY IN PRE-INDEPENDENT ZIMBABWEThe land that lies between the Zambezi and the Limpopo rivers, now known as Zimbabwe, was once referred to as South Zambezia. It was named Rhodesia in 1895 after Cecil John Rhodes, the British empire-builder who was pivotal in colonising parts of southern Africa for the British. Rhodesia was designated Southern Rhodesia in 1901, a year before the death of Rhodes (see Weitzer 1990). On October 1, 1923, the British government officially established the government of Southern Rhodesia. In the years to follow, the media would play a role in the battle to control people’s minds in an attempt to consolidate the settlers’ grip on power in this part of Africa.

In the 1940s a trade unionist, Roy Welensky, advocated for white Rhodesia’s independence from Britain, in order to safeguard white dominance over blacks in this country. He fought for the formation of a federation between Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi) (see Banda 2003, 29). Arguments in favour of the federation were advanced through the media, especially the sympathetic newspaper the Northern News, on the premise of forming a large and powerful economic unit in central Africa.

The divergent nationalist voices that emerged as opposition to the federation between Rhodesia, Zambia and Malawi were never given a platform. Ideologies were injected into the minds of Africans in a unidirectional way, during a time when African nationalism was beginning to emerge on the continent. Africans – especially in the two protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland – were opposed to the federation, as they felt they would become subservient to the more economically powerful European-dominated colony of Southern Rhodesia, and doubted they would be able to achieve self-government under such conditions.

From 1957 to 1960, the Southern Rhodesian African National Congress (ANC), a black-led organisation which was vehemently opposed to the federation, sought to obtain political control for the black African majority, with no success. Black discontent was growing. To make the situation even more volatile, in 1951 the government introduced the unpopular Land Husbandry Act, which gave officials the power to dictate where blacks could farm and live. Those who defied the authorities were heavily penalised and/or imprisoned. This act led to the depletion of highly valued herds of cattle and land for cultivation. Families and entire villages were uprooted and forced into African reserves to make way for white farms, where they could only stay if they agreed to work as labourers. This deprivation led to the emergence of discontented voices among blacks. It gave the Southern Rhodesian ANC reasons to confront the government – something which created fear among whites, especially after the 1959 disturbances in Zambia, and incidents of violence against whites in the Congo. As a consequence, a security crackdown in Rhodesia occurred as a pre-emptive strike against further nationalist activity in the country.

That year the government of Rhodesia introduced the Unlawful Organizations Act (UOA), which outlawed certain organisations. It banned the Southern Rhodesian

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ANC and other organisations whose activities could potentially disturb public order, prejudice the tranquillity of the nation, endanger the government, or promote feelings of ill will or hostility between the races (see Weitzer 1990). The UOA outlawed any organisation that was controlled by, affiliated to, or participated in the activities or promoted the objectives or propagated the opinions of any organisation that challenged the colonial powers. This included any literature associated with those outlawed organisations. Attendance at meetings or the possession of books, writings, accounts, documents, banners or insignia relating to an unlawful organisation was subject to prosecution. According to Weitzer (1990, 42) between 1960 and 1965, 1 610 Africans were prosecuted and 1 002 were convicted under this law.

The year 1959 also saw the introduction of the Native Affairs Amendment Act, which prohibited any native from making statements or acting in a way likely to undermine the authority of the white government or bring into disrepute government officials, chiefs or headmen. As Weitzer (1990) points out, the act abolished meetings of 12 or more natives without the permission of the Native Commissioner. Organising political activities in rural areas became difficult for black nationalists. Their freedom of speech was severely repressed, making them feel like second-class citizens in the land of their birth. They were denied access to the media, which were controlled by whites. Most black leaders were subsequently incarcerated.

The control over the minds of the black communities intensified even further. In 1941, the Director of Information in the colonial administration, Harry Franklin, set up an African radio station in Lusaka to broadcast into Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. During this period an agreement was reached with the administrators of Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, that Lusaka would be the centre for broadcasting to Africans in the three territories under the proposed federation. Such broadcasts were undertaken purely for propaganda purposes, to ensure black people’s loyalty to the colonial regime. The radio broadcasts developed as a tool of British imperialism, not as avenues for democratic participation. After all, Africans in Rhodesia were, according to Mamdani (1996), never considered equal citizens with something to contribute to the development of the colony. As Moyo (2000) laments, they were merely subjects of manipulation, not equals to engage with on an intellectual level. As a result, citizens were subjected to information that legitimised white domination. Broadcasting sought to promote white supremacy and undermine the quest for African liberation. It justified the domination of Africans by whites, on the pretext that whites had come to Africa to spread civilisation to so-called savages, who spent precious time doing nothing but stabbing spears into each other.

Due to the low literacy rate among blacks, radio was the medium of choice. The few indigenous listeners availed themselves of community sets provided at chief’s courts and administrative centres. Following the introduction of the so-called ‘saucepan special’ (the first popular mass-produced radio set in Africa, preceding the invention of the transistor), in 1949 nearly half the African households along

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the line-of-rail had radio sets, and in urban areas 80 per cent of blacks had become listeners (Mytton 1983, 36 and 53).

The power of radio was demonstrated by some listeners at the time of the introduction of the ‘saucepan special’ in the following appreciative words:

The news which we listen to through our wireless sets have taught us many things and some of these are: agriculture, building villages at a suitable place, digging and building wells and dams, digging latrines in villages, caring of children, educating girls, how to improve livestock and many other things. The Broadcasting Officer should know that we bought wireless sets in order to use them and we are doing so. (Mytton 1983, 28)

Radio selectively determined what information the natives accessed, so as to ensure that they were never corrupted by external forces such as Moscow, which was at that time broadcasting communist ideologies into Africa. By 1958, Radio Moscow was broadcasting to Africa on a regular basis, followed by Prague Radio and Radio Peking, which began regular African transmissions in 1959 (see Mosia et al. 1994, 4).

By the following year, East Germany, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria had started broadcasting into the continent. Africa was in the thick of an international ‘war of words’, where the main themes were colonialism, white minority regime, apartheid and capitalism. Under such circumstances there was a need, on the part of the colonial powers, to control the minds of the indigenous people who were likely to be motivated to engage in nationalistic activities that would destabilise the colonies. Broadcasting was the only way of getting to the masses and controlling what they knew, what they thought about, and what they did.

Broadcasting from Lusaka, therefore, served to bombard the natives with ideologies and entertainment to keep their minds off what Franklin (in D. Moyo 2000) described as ‘mischief’. Colonial Development and Welfare funds were made available for the setting up of broadcasting institutions in the various colonies, to combat the spread of communist influences through direct counter-propaganda (Armour 1984, 362).

The extension of the media to the native population was especially designed to interpret government policy for the black population, and to make them employable in the new economies as skilled labour (Van der Veur 2002, 82–86). Considering that the majority of Africans were illiterate, broadcasting was the only way of reaching them in their own languages – something which was considered crucial for the governance of the colony and something that would certainly be embraced by subsequent administrations.

The natives had no say in what was being published in the media – especially not as regards what was being broadcast. This was a deliberate form of media repression in which only the voices of the masters reached the subjects. Evidently, the media catered to the needs of the white settlers by ignoring news of interest to the African majority. Much of the early news was about events occurring in the metropolis, from

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politics to sports, while events on the African continent were ignored. The needs, aspirations and hopes of Africans were never publicised. However, news about crime by blacks was prominently covered. All coverage was still mainly geared towards white readers and advertisers, which was not surprising since all media executives were white, as were all the editors, copy editors, reporters, advertising and circulation executives. This fact had important implications for media content.

The media therefore played a role in persuading people to see the federation as a progressive idea that would improve the lives of all. In 1953, the federation was formed against the will of the black people. This federation came to an end in 1963, after ten years of crisis and turmoil. Following the break-up of the federation, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi) became independent. Ian Douglas Smith would not allow Southern Rhodesia to be independent. On November 11, 1965, he led his party (the Rhodesian Front [RF]) to a decisive victory against the Rhodesia Party (RP), and issued a unilateral declaration of independence. The colony of Southern Rhodesia became Rhodesia, in an election in which Africans did not participate. This was the beginning of yet another episode of repression which was to lead to intensified political activism that would haunt the government up to 1980, when Zimbabwe was born. It set the stage for further intensified repressive tactics by the subsequent administration on the very people it supposedly liberated.

CONTROL OF BROADCASTING IN RHODESIA The second wave of media control was orchestrated by Smith after his unpopular UDI in 1964. The UDI came at a time when the war of liberation had intensified and black nationalists had set up radio stations outside the then Rhodesia, as they could not broadcast from within the country due to repressive laws. The aim, according to Mosia et al. (1994, 1), was to help African liberation movements report their activities and broadcast alternative information to counteract the false and malicious propaganda broadcast by colonial radio stations. These nationalist radio stations highlighted the plight and suffering of the Zimbabwean masses under the yoke of colonialism and racialism, in addition to mobilising public opinion and support for their cause by appealing to friendly countries, organisations and individuals. The stations helped to mobilise the people to embark on a massive resistance to white domination and to join hands with the liberation movements. These stations also supplied information to the combatants in the battlefield in code that could not be understood by the enemy. The radio stations created a two-way information flow between blacks inside and outside the country, unlike the Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation (RBC), which communicated via a one-way system. Such stations domiciled in the diaspora gave the natives an alternative political voice to that of the colonial powers, thereby affording them an opportunity to engage intellectually in the fight against white domination.

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The Nasser regime in Egypt gave airtime to Zimbabwe nationalists over its external service as early as 1958 (see Mosia et al. 1994, 11; Windrich 1981, 1). Radio Tanzania granted airtime to both the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) radio Voice of Zimbabwe (VOZ) and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) radio Voice of the Revolution (VOR) from as early as 1963. Kwame Nkrumah also extended the use of the new Ghana Broadcasting short-wave transmitter to ZANU until his fall in 1966.

Following his UDI in1965, Smith used the Broadcasting Act, 1957, to obtain a state monopoly over all broadcasting in Rhodesia, to ensure that the natives only received broadcasts from the RBC, the mouthpiece of the government.

Under the Smith regime there was censorship of both the media and the entertainment industry – movies, books and newspapers were censored. Self-censorship was commonplace among the state-owned media: journalists were not free to report on issues as they were, either through loyalty or for fear of recrimination. Smith used the 1960 Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA) to prosecute journalists and individuals for making statements which might cause despondency (Windrich 1981). This legislation allowed for the detention of offenders without trial, the deportation of individuals deemed a security risk, and the banning of publications that did not support the Rhodesian government. This legislation is believed to have led to the execution of many nationalists, as well as the banning of a number of black publications.

The Emergency Powers Act, 1964, was introduced to give the state powers to clamp down on the media and on individuals who held divergent views to those of the government. This legislation empowered the regime to create emergency laws as it saw fit, giving birth to the Emergency Powers (Censorship of Publications) Order of 1965, which played a crucial role in censoring publications. The 1970 Official Secrets Act provided the regime with powers to suppress unpleasant information about its policies and to combat resistance from black nationalists and white liberals alike (Ndlela 2003, 185). It prohibited the disclosure of information considered prejudicial to the safety of Rhodesian interests and potentially useful to the enemy.

Under the Smith regime, the broadcast media were under strict government control. Smith exercised effective political control though guidelines stipulating that under no circumstances were African opposition movements given access to airtime. The RBC was part of Smith’s propaganda machinery which determined what blacks had to know, how they had to know it, and what they did not have to know.

After the UDI, legislation was passed by the Rhodesian parliament to promulgate the 1965 Emergency Regulations Act. This act prohibited turning on a radio in a public place ‘if it picked up broadcasts that might endanger public safety or interfere with public order’ (Moyo 2008, 15). According to Zaffiro (1984), anyone found guilty of making it possible for others to hear an objectionable broadcast or speech, statement, poem or song, could be jailed for up to two years and fined the

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equivalent of $1,400. All those who were seen to be engaged in political activities inspired by these so-called illegal broadcasts were imprisoned in high-security jails like Khami Prison, Hwawa Prison and Gonakudzingwa Prison. There are reports of some prisoners being castrated in those jails, and others being tortured to death. Some were never accounted for.

Author Julie Frederikse found a confidential RBC memo, dated August 28, 1978, signed by T. W. Louw, the RBC’s director of news, listing a number of organisations that could not be mentioned by Rhodesian radio and television staff. These included ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People’s Union), ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union), the Patriotic Front (an alliance of ZAPU and ZANU), the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANU’s guerrilla wing), the Zimbabwe People’s Liberation Army (ZAPU’s military wing) and the Zimbabwe People’s Army.

Government broadcasters were under directives to refer to Mugabe and his guerrilla counterpart, Joshua Nkomo, as ‘terrorist leaders’ or ‘leaders of terrorist organisations’. Their political parties were similarly referred to as ‘terrorist’ movements and their followers, especially the guerrilla fighters, as ‘terrorists’ or Magandanga in Shona and Amalwa ecatsha (cowards who could not engage publicly) in Ndebele. The successes of the freedom fighters were never mentioned in the propaganda war waged by the Smith regime (listen to http://www.thenewrbc.com/pages/radio.html).

Smith understood that radio was one of the most powerful tools in the ongoing ‘war for men’s minds’. He jammed the nationalist short-wave frequencies and prohibited all but FM receivers in rural areas. These FM receivers were short-range and could only receive broadcasts from the RBC. The sale of radio batteries was also regulated, and listening to any station but RBC in rural settlement hamlets or ‘keeps’, where an estimated 750 000 Africans had been moved, was prohibited.

Smith distributed the affordable so-called saucepan radio receivers to reach a huge number of Africans, in order to counter nationalist broadcasts. He promoted FM broadcasts and his government described owning an FM receiver as a status symbol, while deriding listening to short-wave stations as a sign of backwardness. Every family was encouraged to own an FM radio as a sign of civilisation: jingles that were played on the channel emphasised that point. Thousands of FM receivers were distributed to traditional chiefs, who would distribute them to their subjects to make sure everyone listened to the RBC’s propaganda messages (D. Moyo 2008).

Broadcasting for Africans was inundated with entertainment in the form of musicals and comedy. The most popular programme was Kwaziso/Ukubingelelana (Dedications). There were also educational programmes like ‘The women’s corner’ and ‘The farmers’ magazine’. Another popular programme was Mabhuku nevanyori, Ingwalo labalobi (The writers’ forum). With books also being censored, these programmes concentrated on publications that were apolitical or portrayed the authorities in a positive light. News dealt with government successes in promoting

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the welfare of the nation, and the army’s successes in the battle with the so-called terrorists. According to a former Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation broadcaster who commented on condition of anonymity, the death of a soldier was glamourised as follows: ‘Corp. Jack Stevens died in action. In the process so many terrorists were killed.’

Whites-only broadcasts were full of politically engaging programmes which kept the colonial masters fully engaged in what was going on in political circles around the world.

There were also religious programmes which played a major role in encouraging submissiveness among blacks, as they were told not to worry about the things of this world but to focus on the hereafter (Matthew 6:34) – this, while the settlers plundered the land. Among other rhetorics used to enforce obedience, the Bible was quoted:

Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eye service, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. (Ephesians 6:5) (Rev. Mthombeni, interviewed by the author, 17 September 2010)

The Bible was therefore used as a very powerful oppressive medium among black people who embraced it to a great extent. One anonymous commentator is reported to have said that the white people ‘made us close our eyes to pray. By the time we opened our eyes after saying Amen, we were holding the Bible while the whites were holding the land.’

Smith understood that for him to win the war he had to find a way of dividing Africans along tribal lines. He capitalised on traditional ethnic animosities between Shona and Ndebele-speaking listeners and resuscitated those antagonisms. The RBC reported on tribal rivalries and leadership feuds within the liberation movements, highlighting bloody clashes between ZANLA (a ZANU military wing which was predominantly Shona and ZIPRA) and a ZAPU military wing (predominantly Ndebele). Smith believed that heightened tribal tensions would draw the attention of the struggle away from that of white domination, which was an issue in the country. The regime also set up a Ndebele radio station, Radio Mthwakazi, at Montrose studios in Bulawayo in 1975, using the powerful ‘Big Bertha’ transmitter which had earlier been used to jam BBC transmissions from Francistown. The government controlled communication to ensure that it was in tune with the colonial masters’ priorities, denying natives a voice. As Hyden et al. (2007, 1) point out, the way political actors allow freedom of expression has an influence on the way media personnel behave. The broadcaster only echoed ‘his master’s voice’, rather than being independent. This was one of the reasons why black nationalists waged the protracted war that led to Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. Unfortunately, after independence, a third wave of media repression emerged.

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HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF (THE SAME DEVIL IN A DIFFERENT GOWN)The third wave of media repression came about when Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980 after a protracted, bloody and vicious armed struggle that affected nearly every citizen in the country. There was cause for celebration at independence, as people hoped that a new era had dawned – expectations were high, the future looked bright and citizens were hopeful. Unfortunately, ZANU, once it came to power, did exactly what it had fought against during the war of liberation. As Raftopoulos and Savage (2005, 123) observe, Rhodesian-style full state control was immediately asserted. The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) was quickly brought under ZANU control. Zimbabwe established a communications policy and legislative infrastructure whose main purpose was to complement the construction of the ruling party, ZANU-PF’s, hegemony through the media (Chuma 2010, 91). The ZBC was staffed predominantly with former ZANU-PF guerrilla fighters who had operated the nationalist diasporic radio station the VOZ. The first Zimbabwean Minister of Information, Dr. Nathan Shamuyarira, said the decision to put into key positions comrades from Maputo, who had been running the VOZ radio, was to enable them to direct policy (Mosia et al. 1994). This ensured the successful propagation of the ruling party’s ideologies to the masses, who were mainly in the rural areas. Radio became the medium of choice for reaching them.

Again, it should be emphasised that during the war leading to Zimbabwe’s independence, most schools in the rural areas where the majority of the black people lived were closed down and the literacy rate was severely hampered by more than 15 years of fighting. Mugabe, just like his predecessor, knew he could reach the illiterate masses in the rural areas through radio to propagate ideologies that would strengthen his grip on power (see Adolphs 2006, 80, who defines ideology as entailing dogmatic positions in the context of a political agenda, and sets of individual and collective beliefs).

Radio is by far the dominant and most important mass medium in Africa, Zimbabwe included. Its flexibility, low cost and oral character suit Africa’s conditions very well, as it links with the aural and oral history of the land (Gunner et al. 2011, 1). Radio links publics, cultures and communities thanks to its main advantage, which is its ability to overcome communication barriers such as poverty, illiteracy and linguistic diversity (Mano in Gunner et al. 2011, 103). Most importantly, when complemented by the African oral tradition, word-of-mouth messages, which are also spread through platforms like mobile phones, reach a lot of people. This therefore makes radio the medium of choice for propagating important information from rulers to subjects. As a trusted medium in Africa, radio is the ideal instrument for diffusing ideologies and policies to the masses, hence the immediate move by Mugabe to control it as a propaganda tool. As Aoaf (in Gunner et al. 2011, 104) states,

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mass communication content in Africa abounds with propaganda, demagogy, cheap entertainment, empty promises and far-fetched ideologies of dubious significance or relevance to society.

Radio proved to be the dominant means of communication, as broadcasts in vernacular languages were understood by the masses. Mugabe used the medium to consolidate unequal power relationships which supported the domination of the masses by his party.

At independence, most former RBC staffers resigned and were replaced by largely ZANU cadres. ZAPU media specialists and followers were systematically excluded from key posts at the ZBC. Others privately complained of continuous scrutiny and harassment by ZBC managers who were all ex-VOZ broadcasters or ZANU members. Ex-combatants from ZANLA (ZANU) were favoured over others for positions in broadcasting because of their ideological and political reliability. They were always the preferred candidates over highly qualified and experienced ZAPU media workers or Zimbabwean students returning from overseas training.

A key ex-VOZ appointment to the ZBC was Comrade Charles Ndhlovu (aka Webster Shamu), who was made Director of Programming. Prior to working for ZANU he had been employed by the RBC Africa Service, where he is reported to have been a target of death threats for his collaboration with the Smith regime. He joined the party in 1973, after allegedly being kidnapped, and re-surfacing in Lusaka. By 1976, when VOZ shifted its operations to Mozambique, Ndhlovu was one of its directors. He was brought into ZBC management in March 1980, turning the broadcaster into ZANU’s radio VOZ, serving as the eyes and ears of the government, and positioning himself to promote ZANU’s philosophy.

Mugabe was vehemently opposed to anyone other than ZANU having control of and access to broadcasting. He argued against allowing pluralism in broadcasting on the grounds that ‘[y]ou don’t know what propaganda a non-state radio might broadcast’ (in Maja-Pearce 1995, 123). Just like his predecessor, Smith, Mugabe ensured that no other political parties gained access to the airwaves by refusing opposition parties air-time. Whenever such parties received coverage, it was invariably damaging to them. It would seem that Mugabe had learnt a lot from Smith. All songs which made reference to any other political party were banned from the airwaves. At Montrose Studios in Bulawayo, a significant archive of revolutionary songs from ZAPU’s war compatriots are reported to have been physically destroyed by former ZANU cadres who had been deployed to the station to eradicate any material referencing the former’s contribution to the war of liberation. One former music librarian at the station lamented:

I watched helplessly as the ZANU thugs deployed to Montrose studios went through the catalogues pulling down every record and tape that made reference to ZAPU or Joshua

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Nkomo. They put them on the floor and danced on them to make sure they broke into pieces. They were singing ZANU songs that despised the contribution of the Ndebele people in the liberation struggle. After what seemed a lifetime they left the music library for us to do the cleaning up. My heart sobbed as I started cursing myself for not having predicted that such a barbaric act was going to take place. I would have hidden this material and smuggled it out of the station for safe keeping. (interview with the author, 17 June 1992)

The station, which was by then predominantly Ndebele and situated in the opposition ZAPU stronghold, was given guidelines to play songs and programmes praising Mugabe and his ZANU-PF, and denigrating Joshua Nkomo and ZAPU. One of the most popular hate songs was by Thomas Mapfumo, entitled Nyarai kana makundwa (Shut up, you losers). Other songs from the likes of Elijah Madzikatire and the Harare Mambo Band fuelled the fire. Basically, most musicians jumped onto the gravy train to enjoy short-lived popularity. Next, the ruling party began repressing divergent voices and using broadcasts (especially radio) as a tool for political control, mass manipulation and ideologisation. They used the station to destroy any oppositional voices, thus flouting the very democracy the ruling party had promised to safeguard. Just like the RBC, the ZBC became the ruling party’s voice and helped ZANU-PF consolidate its grip on power, in a calculated exploitation of the communication infrastructure, forcing stations to give one view of events instead of a balanced view, as would be expected in a democracy.

This action by ZANU-PF is better explained by Ziegler and Asante (1992), who argue that once governments begin to control the media and compel them to serve primarily as instruments of official propaganda, the media lose their rightful role. This view is supported by Windrich (2010, 74) who argues that the legacy of the RF’s censorship and propaganda has come to define broadcasting control and uses under Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF government. As was the case in Rhodesia under Smith, the new government turned the ZBC into its propaganda machinery, against its own ethos of informing, educating and entertaining the populace. Mugabe, who was paranoid about plurality, focused on media control in a way that denied the rest of the citizenry a free voice – a situation the ruling party opposed during the political conflicts leading to Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 (Chari 2006). State control of radio and television served to legitimise Mugabe’s government and to destroy the opposition, especially former compatriots in the liberation struggle, such as ZAPU. This happened to be at variance with what the people expected, and led musician Fanyana Dube to sing a song ‘Kwavha Gondo kwagara Zizi’, i.e., an eagle has been replaced by an owl (considered evil in African folklore). A former ZBC employee who declined to be named described Mugabe as ‘the same devil in a different gown’. In all respects his ZBC came to resemble Smith’s RBC.

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MUGABE TIGHTENS CONTROL OVER DIVERGENT VOICES Communication is important for national development (Hyden et al. 2007, 2). An independent state can enjoy phenomenal growth if it has dynamic, modern communication infrastructure that keeps the population informed, involved and educated, by being able to interact and share ideas that are crucial to their social, political and economic advancement.

Unfortunately, Zimbabwe has displayed the dubious distinction of enjoying a continuous tradition of developing, implementing and perfecting legislation that restricted and sought to close down the democratic space, while the trend elsewhere has been to do just the opposite (Lush and Kupe 2005). The government limited access to broadcasting in order to prevent the emergence of divergent voices that might counter state hegemony and usher in the need for action that can potentially facilitate the introduction of a democratic process in the country, through dialogue and unhindered citizen participation.

According to Jafari (2005), Mugabe, like his predecessor, has a gross appetite for restricting the rights of journalists to express themselves freely; the rights of opposition political parties to access media and to hold rallies and meetings; and the rights of citizens to assemble freely. These rights are expected to be protected under the Constitution of Zimbabwe, as well as international covenants to which Zimbabwe is a party. But Mugabe considers divergent voices to be anti-government because of how they project the activities of the opposition.

As D. Moyo (in Gunner et al. 2012, 51) points out, in 2001 Mugabe’s government withdrew accreditation for BBC journalists because of their critical reporting on issues taking place in Zimbabwe. This act was followed in 2003 by the closure of independent papers such as the Daily News. The limited media space in independent Zimbabwe has seen history repeating itself. The Zimbabwean government’s actions forced many journalists to flee the country, to operate offshore – from the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, Botswana and various European countries. Some of these former broadcasters work for private radio stations in the diaspora, while others have changed their profession through sheer frustration, opting to do care work, or become nurses, bankers or engineers.

Diaspora radio stations – just like the revolutionary radio stations during the liberation struggle – are giving a platform to oppositional voices. Their objective is no longer liberation from colonial occupation, but a new form of liberation from what L. Moyo (2012) refers to as emerging forms of oppression, perpetrated by the former liberators on the people they are supposed to have liberated. This serves to qualify the statement that Zimbabwe is an independent country without independence.

As Soley and Nichols (1987) explain, message restriction generates an environment in which underground communication strategies are nurtured. These

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clandestine or diasporic radio stations are alternative media whose remit is to give a voice to the voiceless and to counter the hegemony churned up by state media in an independent country. Society’s lack of openness is, according to Soley, the surest predictor that clandestine (diasporic) stations will appear, whether the non-democratic government is a military junta, communist or capitalist. That happened in Rhodesia, and it has happened again in independent Zimbabwe.

THE GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO ALTERNATIVE MEDIAThe Zimbabwe government has imposed repressive measures to curtail the free flow of information. It inherited repressive statutes from Rhodesia and augmented them with further stringent laws that are detrimental to democracy, such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Official Secrets Act, the Public Order and Security Act and the Criminal Law Act, all of which are out of place in a democratic society (see D. Moyo 2010). Those who violate the AIPPA’s provisions, mainly in the private media or among foreign journalists, face fines and up to two years in prison. Many journalists have been charged under the AIPPA, accused of publishing false information. Most interestingly, none of them are from the state media – something which raises concerns about the selective application of this law in a land where democracy and equality are expected to prevail.

In 2000, Capital Radio, the first alternative radio station in Zimbabwe, was attacked and closed down at gunpoint, forcing its founders to relocate to the UK to start Short-Wave Radio Africa (SWRA). By August 2002, the government had become so paranoid about external Zimbabwean radio stations that it raided the offices of the VOP in Harare and looted vast amounts of material. The offices were then destroyed by a bomb in an event widely attributed to state security forces (Windrich 2010, 83). The then Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo, said: ‘Something went wrong and they bombed themselves so they could blame the government.’ In the same breath he described the station as a pirate radio sponsored by Western imperialists to cause disharmony in the country.

Wachanga (2007) observes that in an environment where unsanctioned information systems emerge, the government tends to erect communication barriers to counter alternative media influence. The government of Zimbabwe is believed to have sourced equipment to jam SWRA’s signal, along with that of other diasporic radio stations (including Voice of America’s Studio 7 and VOP). Observations made by BBC Monitoring, in the week commencing 18 April 2005, show continued but intermittent interference with SWRA’s short-wave broadcasts. BBC Monitoring observed what appears to be interference specifically targeted at both the 15145 and the 12145 kHz frequencies used by SWRA. The first 30 minutes of SWRA’s programming on the evening of September 1, 2010 – a news programme called

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Newsreel – was rendered inaudible by interference which stopped as soon as the programme ended.

Newsreel’s jamming has been repeated several times since. The government continues to stretch the financial resources of the impoverished state to counter these broadcasts. It has failed to ignore those radio stations which significantly counter government ideologies and empower people to make informed decisions. According to a Paris-based organisation, Reporters Sans Frontières, the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) (a Harare-based independent watchdog) said the jamming of SWRA broadcasts is being carried out from Thornhill airbase outside the south western town of Gweru, between Harare and Bulawayo, where the government has a transmission station. According to the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), a United States federal government entity, the equipment being used for the jamming comes from China, which has close trade links with Zimbabwe, especially in the telecommunications domain.

According to Jackson (interview with the author, 16 September 2011), this continued interference has forced the station to operate on multiple frequencies to evade what Biener (2008) refers to as ‘Bob’s Fire Dragon’ – the Chinese-sourced jamming technology used by Bob (Mugabe). The government admitted it was behind the jamming of clandestine radio frequencies when the then Deputy Information Minister, Bright Matongo, told parliament Zimbabwe would not allow foreigners to invade its airwaves without authority – sentiments echoed by the likes of ministers Patrick Chinamasa, Obert Mpofu and Webster Shamu.

According to Jackson, the station had to suspend its short-wave signal for a while and operate on medium-wave, which gave it a strong signal in South Africa (home to an estimated three million Zimbabweans) and some southern parts of Zimbabwe. SWRA launched a massive use of short-wave frequencies on April 18, 2007, to strain Zimbabwe’s jamming resources and overshadow the News24 external short-wave service which the Mugabe regime was planning to launch (Biener 2008). As a way of further countering the ‘anti-government rhetoric’ from diasporic radio and influencing international public opinion, News24 was meant to be a 24-hour external news service whose primary mission was ‘to tell our own story’, as the then Information Minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, reportedly put it.

When Moyo was Information Minister he went to the extent of accusing Western nations of creating clandestine radio stations and described the tone of the stations as inflammatory, fanning tribal divisions and ethnic hatred among Zimbabweans to make the country ungovernable (D. Moyo 2010). He likened diasporic radio broadcasts to those of the Rwandan station, RTML, which stands accused of having fanned the tribal hatred leading to the 1994 genocide. On this basis, the government has criminalised the diasporic radio stations and their staff have been threatened with punitive action, should they be caught.

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The government has also tried to put pressure on regional governments to condemn these foreign transmissions, calling on the South African Development Community (SADC) to take a stand against ‘offensive’ broadcasts. The Botswana government was accused of allowing transmitters to be erected on its soil, to relay diasporic radio signals into Zimbabwe. The government of Botswana has, however, consistently denied hosting such transmitters, and has even invited Zimbabwean authorities to come and verify their claim – something the Zimbabwean government has never done.

The Zimbabwean government has also approached South African authorities to find and close down South African-based Zimbabwean community Internet radio station, Radio Mthwakazi FM, run by a group of Johannesburg-based Zimbabweans from the country’s western region of Matabeleland. The station was officially launched in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, towards the end of March 2010. The government is accusing the station of fanning tribalism in the country, but Gerald Ngulube, Mthwakazi FM station’s global director, denies the allegation. In an interview on 11 April 2011, he said that the Mthwakazi people are concerned about the erosion of their history, arts and culture, especially in the region of Matabeleland, and that this radio station aims to revive and promote the culture of the region which is currently being ignored by the government. He saw the cultural domination of Matabeleland as an assault on the people’s identity, which is designed to make the Ndebele people insignificant in the country of their birth.

Different forms of overt and covert threats are also directed at people working for these stations, as well as at their listeners inside Zimbabwe. For instance, an informant who lives in an affluent Harare suburb claims to have been detained for a week by the police in 2008, for having been seen in possession of a mobile phone with SMS messages from SWRA (interview with the author, June 19, 2012). To date she does not know how the police knew she was subscribing to SWRA’s SMS service. She has as since terminated her link with SWRA, as she believes her phone is bugged.

SWRA stringers, civil society and political activists have reportedly been harassed by security agents. NGOs have been attacked for supplying radio sets to the people. In a repeat of what happened during Smith’s rule, government officials are against citizens listening to outside broadcasts, accusing the British and Americans of sponsoring a ‘radio for free project’, which is seen as a way of encouraging rural people to listen to anti-government messages from diasporic broadcasts. Security agents have been confiscating radio sets (distributed by NGOs) from teachers and other individuals in rural areas. On January 22, 2007, VOP reported that state security agents had confiscated at least 42 radio sets from locals. Teachers are generally considered key opinion leaders in rural areas, and they form the core of intelligentsia in such places (see Infoasaid Zimbabwe, September 2011). The government has been uneasy about rural teachers and the power they wield in shaping public opinion,

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and they have been the targets of attacks in elections during the past few years. Their possession of radio sets which receive so-called clandestine broadcasts is considered a threat to national security.

The government also owns the only broadcaster in the country, the ZBC, which has five radio stations and one television channel. The ZBA, which falls under the government, has awarded broadcast licences to Star Radio, owned by a government subsidiary ZimPapers, the company operating the country’s major newspapers, which politically support President Mugabe and ZANU-PF. The station is managed by Admire Taderera, a former ZBC presenter whose political affiliation is unquestionable. The other licence was awarded to ZiFM, a station run by the then ZANU-PF Manicaland Provincial Secretary for Finance and former ZBC employee and now Deputy Minister of Information, Supa Mandiwandzira, who was also implicated in the ZANU-PF and CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation) sting operation against Roman Catholic Bishop, Pius Ncube, in 2007. Other bidders who do not have any political affiliation to the ruling party were denied licences. This reiterates Mugabe’s stand against freeing the airwaves, indicating his unwavering stance to effect a third wave of media repression in Zimbabwe.

CONCLUSIONThe media landscape in Zimbabwe has gone through three waves of repression, from Southern Rhodesia to Rhodesia and then Zimbabwe. The governments of Sir Godfrey Martin Huggins, Garfield Todd, Sir Edgar Whitehead, Winston Joseph Field and Ian Douglas Smith used radio as a tool to indoctrinate black natives into accepting white domination. After independence in 1980, the Mugabe regime adopted the same approach by using the media – especially radio – to indoctrinate black Africans into accepting the domination of one group of blacks by another. The Rhodesian governments used legislation that criminalised listening to short-wave broadcasts. The Zimbabwean government continued with the same legislation and described independent broadcasters as agents of the enemy, who wanted to reverse the gains of independence. While the Rhodesian governments provided saucepan radios that received only FM broadcasts, the Zimbabwean government has embarked on a massive hunt for short-wave radio receivers in the country, confiscating them on the grounds that they broadcast anti-government sentiments. To further limit the democratic space in Zimbabwe, the Mugabe government has embarked on a massive assault on the independent media, which he blames for his dwindling popularity. Like Smith, Mugabe is critically aware of the power of radio in the struggle to shape the minds of citizens and influence public opinion abroad. This has given rise to relentless efforts to control radio and use it as a tool to maintain control of citizens’ minds. The country is experiencing its third wave of media repression, where the media – especially radio – are being used to manipulate the masses for the benefit

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of those in power. This makes Mugabe and Smith ‘partners in crime’ and shows that Mugabe is nothing but ‘the same devil in a different gown’. This situation defines Zimbabwe as having independence without independence.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

EVERETTE NDLOVU is a media academic who draws on over 20 years’ experience as a media practitioner in radio, TV and print. He is an award-winning multi-documentary and feature producer, making films during his spare time under EN Media Productions. As a broadcaster, he is passionate about new media technologies and the impact of user-generated content, which forms part of alternative media. Dr Ndlovu has published journal articles on this topic. He presently lectures in new media and digital culture, alternative media, media institutions and ecologies, TV and film history and theory, media texts and audiences and global radio.

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THREE WAVES OF MEDIA REPRESSION IN ZIMBABWE

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