The fact is that the governments of Zimbabwe and Namibia have entered into an agreement to co-publish a weekly regional newspaper for distribution in all southern African countries from July 1, 2004. It will be called the New Sunday Times. However, it still is not on the streets.
It will be based in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, and will be edited by Moses Magadza, currently the Assistant Editor of Zimbabwe’s state-owned national daily, The Herald.
The head of Namibia's government-owned bi-weekly New Era newspaper (the Namibian partner in the regional venture), has scoffed at suggestions that the planned regional publication will be a propaganda tool to counter "anti-Zimbabwean stories". Interviewed by The Namibian newspaper, New Era Managing Director, Protasius Ndauendapo, said the joint publishing venture was conceived from "purely business principles".
‘African values’
The cooperation agreement signed between the two governments, however, say the purpose of the paper is "to counter the threat of the global media to African values". Critics have labeled the newspaper as a propaganda tool for the state presidents of the two countries - Sam Nujoma of Namibia and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. The two countries have close ties – Namibia recently made use of Zimbabwean advisors in expropriating unused commercial farm land in Namibia, and during a recent trip to Zimbabwe, Pres. Nujoma pledged to defend Zimbabwe militarily against ‘imperialists’ – despite the fact that no country has threatened war against Zimbabwe.
African values in this context are of course to be understood as only those values held by the Zimbabwean government (and now perhaps also those of the Namibian government).
Pluralism and diversity of opinion and debate among Africans in these countries presumably no longer count as African values – particularly when they do not harmonize with the views of these governments. These and other democratic values defended by the most popular and widely read newspaper in Zimbabwe were removed from the public agenda by Prof. Moyo’s hand-picked Media and Information Commission (MIC), when they closed down the Daily News by force. The MIC also recently closed down a second privately-owned newspaper, The Tribune.
Monitoring e-mails
In addition, the Zimbabwean government has now instructed Internet Service Provider’s in the country to monitor individual e-mails and to reveal to the state all sources of ‘objectionable’ and ‘anti-national’ messages. Zimbabwe's state-owned telecommunications company, TelOne, has now proposed that Internet service providers (ISPs) monitor all their customers' e-mails. But the ISPs have yet to agree.
The Zimbabwe Internet Service Providers Association (ZISPA) told the IRIN news service it was seeking clarity on a proposed amendment to the existing franchise agreement between TelOne and ZISPA members. None of ZISPA's members had signed the proposed contract amendment and "there is no monitoring of any sort of any e-mails at the moment". The ISP’s, who are trying to resist the move, also say that they do not have the capacity in terms of sophisticated software and person power to monitor the contents of email traffic in the country.
Online obstruction
The threat of monitoring the Internet has resulted in a flurry of activity on the side of Africans in Zimbabwe, who presumably do not have African values, because they are now busy giving each other information on how to obstruct "Jonathan’s peeping Tom’s". Online suggestions include that the government can only interfere with e-mails originating from or destined for local ‘zw’ domains and users are being encouraged to switch to international domains, such as Yahoo and Hotmail.
Also it is advised to use terminals at Internet Cafe’s instead of using a PC registered to your name or your employer’s name. En masse flooding of emails on email tracking systems by including sentences containing sensitive words such as: ‘It is time for mass action: mobilise and fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic’, are also being highly recommended. This would hopefully cause the peeping Toms having to read thousands of such messages and eventually losing interest.
These are very serious matters as internet communication is one of the few remaining areas for civil society interaction in Zimbabwe.
