-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Yarker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2002 11:34 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: re: "Mugabe murder plot one bizarre tale"
Dear Sir/Madam,
In his article “Mugabe murder plot one bizarre tale” (Feb. 23rd), Martin Patriquin claims that the Australian public tv program Dateline’s Feb. 13th documentary alleging an MDC coup plot is “an almost fawning take on Mugabe's government, with European media darling Morgan Tsvangirai painted as the bad guy.” Anybody who has read the transcript of the program or listened to the program in its entirety – as I have three times (the full transcript is here: http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/transcript.php3?date=2002-02-13&title=Killing+Mugabe+-+The+Tsvangirai+Conspiracy and I downloaded the full audio portion of the program when it was available on MP3) – can readily see that the reporter Mark Davis’s perspective is sharply anti-Mugabe. Much time is allotted to MDC and white farmer spokesmen to make their case. As for Davis’s “fawning” over Zanu-PF/Mugabe, would this be an example (from the transcript)?:
Voice of Davis:
“Scenes like this are rarely seen internationally. The victims aren't MDC supporters they are suspected members of the ZANU PF. Although the violence hasn't all been one sided, most of the international reporting of beatings and gang violence has been. Unquestionably the MDC has gangs of its own...with bashings, bombings and murders to their name. But these groups are now largely overwhelmed by their Zanu counterparts...and the main victims are ordinary MDC supporters in the countryside.
(at a Camp) “At secret locations throughout Zimbabwe, known MDC members are taking refuge, together with workers who lived on white farms and are suspected of MDC sympathies.”
Similar burnishing of Zanu-PF’s image and wide-eyed apologetics can be found throughout the program, like here, for example:
Davis: Could you say publicly you are an MDC supporter out there?
MDC SECURITY MAN: Here? Then that would be the end of your life. Saying out publicly that you are an MDC supporter here, it is just like a death sentence.
…
Davis: What about the people in the villages who are too scared to say they represent MDC?
ROBERT MUGABE: Which people?
Davis: I've met dozens of people who would be terrified to proclaim they support MDC.
ROBERT MUGABE: Well I don't know, there may be some people who are too scared, but they voted for the MDC and the MDC is in parliament. As a party in parliament we expect it to behave in an orderly fashion.
But perhaps the adoring genuflection to Zanu/Mugabe is best captured in this passage, near the end:
Davis: Defeating Mugabe at an election should not be a huge task. He's been there for 22 years, he has corrupt ministries, a devastated economy and supporters who think that bashing people up is a way to get their vote. And yet the MDC is given no more than a 50/50 chance of beating him. And the reason lies here. Tsvangirai's electorate isn't white farmers and international institutions. It's black, rural and poor. Whether they are greedy or needy for land, Mugabe brings certainty, while Tsvangirai promises complexity and a threat to uproot those who have found a new life on the land.
We can be forgiven for wondering whether the “corrupt ministries” in question didn’t vet and touch up the final copy themselves.
But to be fair, Patriquin didn’t call the Davis doc “fawning” toward the Zim government – rather, “almost fawning.”
The Free Press lives!
Jim Yarker
1103-4 Park Vista
Toronto, ON M4B 3M8
e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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