A small victory
By Iden Wetherell Posted Oct 1 2002
Editor's Memo, The Zimbabwe Independent, July 19, 2002:
Nothing more reveals the paranoia and insecurity felt by this regime than the arbitrary way they have dealt with Andrew Meldrum, vindicated in the courts this week yet threatened with deportation by a spiteful government that long ago lost the battle for hearts and minds.
I first met Andy shortly after his arrival in Zimbabwe in 1980. He impressed me as a conscientious journalist keen to acquit himself well in the challenging environment of a society in transition. Unlike many of the foreign correspondents already based here he carried none of the baggage of the past and, if anything, was anxious to give the country's new rulers a fair hearing. But like anybody following events here over the years, he witnessed a once hopeful beginning turn sour as a result of greed, corruption and a nonwillingness to accept democratic norms. His reports in The Guardian inevitably reflected the growing dissatisfaction of a society oppressed and plundered by its wayward rulers. Yet his reporting remained balanced and fair. As the BBC's John Simpson noted on Monday, it would be hard to find a more objective correspondent. When he became a target of the ministerial cronies around President Mugabe, Andy accepted his fate philosophically and gracefully, as viewers of CNN and the BBC will have seen. There were no indignant outbursts, on a principled stand shared by all Zimbabweans.
“This was a victory not just for me but for freedom of the press,” he stated after his acquittal on Monday. But, unbeknown to him and his wife Dolores, the Minister of Home Affairs had 12 days earlier signed an order canceling his permanent resident status.
The vindictive move was unprecedented. Permanent residents have hitherto enjoyed the rights and protection afforded to citizens. John Nkomo showed inexcusable weakness in acceding to the demands of the hardliners around Mugabe in arbitrarily withdrawing the rights of somebody who had lived in this country for 22 years without once breaking its laws. Andy has acquired a home and an adopted family. He has put numerous dependents of employees through school and college. He has shown nothing but kindness to friends and colleagues. I have often sought his invariably sensible advice. To be given 24 hours to leave everything that was dear was a cruel and undeserved fate which tells us more about this misanthropic regime than about its victim.
On Wednesday he was given leave to appeal to the Supreme Court and his deportation order will be suspended until the outcome of the appeal is known. That is, however, only a temporary reprieve. They are clearly determined to get rid of him. I recall saying goodbye to a number of academics and journalists at Salisbury airport in the 1970s as the roll call of the Rhodesian Front's prohibited immigrants mounted. Guardian correspondent Peter Niesewand was among them. Then in 1977, I found myself included on PK van der Byl's hitlist.
What this purge of the media and opposition activists revealed most was the changing fortunes of the RF regime. No government confident of its political security acts to remove critics in violation of their legal rights.
The Mugabe regime is demonstrating precisely that insecurity that weak governments everywhere betray. Andy Meldrum was found by the courts to be innocent of the charges brought against him. This was despite clumsy ministerial pressure on the prosecutor and a catch-all legal framework designed to trap all possible transgressors.
It was the government's showcase trial under draconian new laws designed to “prove” that foreign correspondents peddle “falsehoods” about Zanu-PF's record of violence and misrule. In the event the court found no such thing. Meldrum had behaved like any reasonable journalist would be expected to in filing his story, the magistrate ruled. The refusal of police to answer queries from the press was a significant factor in scuttling the state's case. [Police spokesman Assistant Commissioner] Wayne Bvudzijena was understandably not called to the witness stand.
It was a signal defeat in particular for Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, who drew up the profoundly defective Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. He has proved to be a sore loser as well as a liability to the regime whose foolish mantras he parrots. Sadly, the only lesson he and his malevolent master are likely to learn from all this is the need for “more fire.” Having lost this one he will be all-the-more determined to prosecute others.
President Mugabe himself appeared confused by the outcome. At first he acknowledged from Cuba that the courts should decide Meldrum's fate. “A person who has committed a crime must be tried,” he insisted on arrival in Havana. When told Meldrum had been acquitted, he declared that it would create “gridlock.”
In other words, court verdicts are useful only where they convict, a point his host would have appreciated. As for Andy, this must be a time of great anxiety. As if the ordeal were not bad enough, he and Dolores must now face an arguably worse fate. This is his home. Ties and friendships built up over 22 years are not easily severed. But he has at least one consolation. He has stood up for all of us in the media and civic community, been vindicated in the courts and shown the world what a mean-spirited regime we are dealing with here. Together with his successful hearing before Justice Anele Matika on Wednesday, Andy has secured from the country's courts a good measure of justice. Whether that persists remains to be seen. For the time being he should savour his small but significant victory. It is a victory for all Zimbabweans in their quest for truth and justice.