February 14, 2002,
To Supporters of Democracy in Zimbabwe
SBS Dateline Program, February 13, 2002
Dear Friend,
The one-hour long SBS TV Dateline Report on February 13 was a false and ultimately implausible attempt to incriminate MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai and to discredit both the domestic movement for democracy in Zimbabwe and the efforts of the international community to ensure that there are free and fair elections on March 9-10.
It has also discredited Australia’s good record of investigative journalism.
Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC, and independent political commentators in Zimbabwe have all completely rejected the core allegations in the program - that Morgan Tsvangirai plotted to assassinate President Mugabe, and that Britain is paying for it.
MDC is preparing to take legal action against SBS TV.
Dickens & Madsen, the reported Canadian source of the allegedly incriminating video tape, is working for President Mugabe, according to the program. Yet Dateline could not get one person at the taped meeting to come on-camera, and did not consider the obvious financial motive for this ‘story’ to now emerge. It is all hearsay, from one source, which is in the pay of Mugabe.
The main allegations were made as voice-overs of the tape, with the replies supposedly from Mr Tsvangirai coming from a conversation that was not fully revealed.
The program gave full voice to President Mugabe’s claim that Mr Tsvangirai had threatened to have him violently removed without reporting that Mr Tsvangirai had been charged on this, had his day in court, and the charge was thrown out. Dateline blatantly ignored the public record.
The interview with farmer and MDC supporter Ian Kay was also used to run Mugabe’s line that the whole struggle is about land redistribution and British colonialism, and that the media have been manipulating the story against Mugabe. There was only passing reference to the massive economic collapse and widespread hunger in Zimbabwe, directly caused by Mugabe’s policies, which is the main reason why MDC would win the election.
ZIC will work to counter the impact of this program in Australia, and continue to contribute to the movement for democrcy in Zimbabwe.
The immediate danger is that the Dateline program will be a pretext for President Mugabe to arrest Morgan Tsvangirai, his only opponent in the presidential elections, and thus close down the main hope of a democratic transition. This could set Zimbabwe aflame with great loss of life.
Peter Murphy, Dr Meredith Burgmann, Mitch Thompson, Margaret Waller, for the Zimbabwe Information Centre Inc Committee
