THE DAILY NEWS STRUGGLES TO RETURN TO THE STREETS

C O N F I D E N T I A L HARARE 001997

SIPDIS

STATE FOR AF FOR A/S KANSTEINER AND PDAS SNYDER; AF/S FOR
DELISI AND RAYNOR; AF/PDPA FOR RSMITH, DALTON, MITCHELL AND
SIMS
NSC FOR JENDAYI FRAZER
LONDON FOR GURNEY
PARIS FOR NEARY
NAIROBI FOR PFLAUMER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/02/2013
TAGS: PREL PHUM KPAO KMDR ZI KPOL
SUBJECT: THE DAILY NEWS STRUGGLES TO RETURN TO THE STREETS
AS GOZ PRESSURE CONTINUES

REF: REF: HARARE 1943

Classified By: JPOLACHECK FOR REASONS 1.5 b/d

Tyranny Continues
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1. (SBU) Since Sept 24 (reftel) the only independent daily
newspaper in Zimbabwe, The Daily News (TDN),has not
succeeded in getting an edition on the streets. TDN,s
parent company, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ),was
optimistic several times about returning to press only to see
the government crack-down intensify. All the directors of
ANZ residing in Zimbabwe have now been charged with felonies
for running an illegal mass media operation under the
Orwellian Access to Information and Privacy Protection Act
(AIPPA) and now the GOZ is going after individual journalists
for reporting without licenses. As of Sept 24, 16 of ANZ,s
journalists have been charged, and the GOZ has expressed to
ANZ that it intends to charge dozens more. Ironically, in
December 2002, most if not all of these journalists did apply
to the Media and Information Commission (MIC, a body
appointed by and responsible to Minister of Information J.
Moyo),the fees being paid by ANZ, and none of the
applications were acted upon by the MIC. Several ANZ court
challenges are underway, but, as is typical, now that the GOZ
has the situation as they want it, the status quo is
perpetuated by glacially slow courts. The police continue to
hold on to ANZ,s property, and the judge hearing ANZ,s
urgent application has twice reserved judgment. It is not
clear that the charges filed against the individual
journalists are anything more than a form of harassment and
intimidation.

Survival of the Fittest
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2. (C) ANZ is working hard to get some sort of counterweight
to the daily propaganda of GOZ,s two daily newspapers. The
front page of the Sept 26 the South African &Mail and
Guardian8 (owned by ANZ,s parent company) featured TDN
masthead and the headline &We publish the voices Mugabe
silenced8. Inside were several articles by TDN editors.
The edition sold out its Zimbabwean print run and an
additional printing sold out on Sept 29. ANZ is in the
process of putting together an external weekly edition of TDN
as well as placing articles in the three independent weeklies
that are still printing. Discussions with civil society
groups are ongoing to use the internet as an alternative
distribution channel, so that TDN would publish a daily
print-ready internet edition and the hundreds of civil
society groups would print several hundred copies on office
printers for mass dispersion. ANZ is pursuing legal
challenges on factual and constitutional grounds to the MIC,
AIPPA and the police,s actions. ANZ CEO Sam Nkomo told the
Ambassador on October 1 that ANZ owner Strive Misiywa intends
to continue paying all ANZ salaries to prevent the GOZ from
scattering the paper,s human resource base, especially
important in light of a new private but pro-government paper
starting up in December.

The Battle Lost, the War Begins?
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3. (C) COMMENT TDN probably will not be back on the streets
in the foreseeable future. The sentiment within ANZ and
post,s contacts within the government-controlled press is
that Min. Moyo has no intention of allowing TDN to resume
publication. This heavy-handed disregard for the rule of
law, targeted at one of the most popular institutions in
Zimbabwe (independent estimates gave TDN 1 million readers
daily),appears to have galvanized public attention. It is
one more factor taxing the patience of the ever-placid
Zimbabweans though there are no immediate signs that mass
protest is imminent. The GOZ appears to be playing a waiting
game in which they expect Zimbabweans and the international
community to eventually accept this new status quo and forget
there ever was an independent daily newspaper. It is
important that this not occur, and that we maintain the focus
on this outrage and the pressure on the GOZ.
SULLIVAN