Fuel for the Fire
By Andrew Green Posted Fri, Oct 20 2006
An unidentified woman looks through a window as she pleads with riot police officers as they patrol the street in Lusaka, Zambia, Monday, Oct. 2, 2006. Police moved into a Lusaka area that had seen unrest overnight when young people threw stones at passing cars Monday. President Levy Mwanawasa appealed for calm late Sunday after police in Lusaka clashed with supporters of populist firebrand Michael Sata. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
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As Zambian police stormed the offices of The Post to arrest Fred M'membe for defaming President Levy Mwanawasa in early November 2005, it seemed a reprise of similar raids during the past 15 years. But as police entered the building, reporters did not flee as they had in the past. Instead, the flustered staff stonewalled officers, giving M'membe, the paper's editor and CEO, time to strategize with his lawyers.
The threat of police raids is not new to the paper. When Joe Kaunda, the publications editor, first began working at The Post 11 years ago the fear of government reprisals was insidious, he says. Despite four years of relatively placid relations between the media and government, some of that unease has returned. But the prospect of a media rights setback has not only reconciled Zambia's journalists and their advocates to going another round with the government, it has primed them for it.
There was hope M'membe's trial would finally resolve lingering questions regarding Zambia's press freedom and the government's renewed intimidation of journalists. The government's decision to opt out of the trial on February 14 by entering a nolle prosequi – an official entry by the prosecutor announcing the case will not proceed – was an anticlimax. Without a court decision or an official government statement, it is unclear whether the arrest remains an isolated event or if it heralds the beginning of another crusade against Zambia's journalists by their own government.
The Post, based in Zambia's capital, Lusaka, is the country's only daily independent newspaper. Founded with the intent to challenge government policy, it has often been the country's only semblance of free press during the past 15 years. Since its inception in 1991, The Post has been victim to a string of arrests and raids. M'membe has been jailed more than a half-dozen times, though never successfully prosecuted. Scores of other Post reporters have been detained or questioned.
The newspaper's relationship with the government improved after Mwanawasa barely won a fiercely contested 2001 presidential election. To shore up support following that election, Mwanawasa, a member of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) party, began wooing the independent media, specifically The Post. He adopted the paper's anti-corruption campaign as part of his “New Deal” agenda and opened his administration to its reporters.
But it was destined to be an ephemeral alliance, says Kaunda. “When [Mwanawasa] was elected, we decided we have to accept him as head of state and find out his positions on certain issues,” he says. “But The Post has never had permanent friends, and we've never had permanent enemies.” When support for some of Mwanawasa's policies does not translate into consistent government cheerleading, “he feels his presidency is being threatened.”
At the time of his arrest, M'membe's criticism, which called the president foolish and lacking humility, was particularly pointed because Mwanawasa was gearing up for the recent September 28 presidential election. Ironically, following the election, supporters of Mwanawasa's opponent, Michael Sata, incited by suspicions of electoral fraud, protested outside The Post's offices in response to a September 30 article titled “Levy headed for victory.” The piece speculated that the incumbent would win the election, though it was officially unconfirmed at the time. Sata's supporters claimed M'membe and The Post worked with the government to give an impression of a MMD victory. Despite protests and riots in Lusaka, Mwanawasa was officially declared the winner, with almost 43 percent of the vote. Sata and his supporters still claim that large numbers of ballots from his strongholds, such as Lusaka, were lost.
Despite the recent protests against The Post and M'membe, his arrest remains a visible sign of dwindling government-media relations. If Mwanawasa meant to send a message when M'membe was arrested, he could not have chosen a more explicit target. M'membe is the face of Zambia's media freedom movement. He is extremely popular among Lusaka's workaday population and has been honored repeatedly by the international community.
But M'membe is not eager to attach symbolic importance to his arrest. He dismissed it as “an incident,” not the opening salvo in a new battle with the government. “It doesn't distract us from the fact that we have to work with [the government], whether we argue with them or not,” he says.
His message is not so assuring for members of the independent media who lack The Post's popularity and financial security. Zambia has developed a close-knit cadre of professional journalists and media scholars, many of whom have suffered politically motivated harassment and violence. They work primarily in the booming radio industry, at media advocacy organizations or as freelance journalists and cannot afford a protracted fight with the government. They were buoyed by an assumption, borne of four years of improving relations, that the role of the independent media was secure. If they were wrong and recent government actions signal a new wave of media harassment, the repercussions could threaten not just their jobs, but also the country's transition to a freer and more open society.
The administration does not intend to do anything so radical as purging the independent media, a spokeswoman from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services, who cannot be named per government policy, explained in an interview shortly after M'membe's arrest.
The MMD's attitude toward the media has not changed since the party entered power, the spokeswoman says. “We went with liberalization of the economy and encouraged private investment in the media industry,” she said. “There is a bright future for the independent media.” Her comments deviated little from a standard line: If media privatization is part of a broader strategy to liberalize Zambia's economy, then the government has demonstrated its commitment. The airwaves are open to investors and publications must only register with the National Archives before printing.
Her position obscures the government's actions during the past five years. Although Mwanawasa is more receptive to the independent media than his predecessors, he does not intend to endorse the media freedom movement, as evidenced by efforts to tie media expansion exclusively to economic development. The government hopes to pacify local journalists and international monitors by professing commitment to industry expansion, thus sidestepping thorny human rights issues attached to occasional incidents of repression.
In part, this pose reflects a colonial legacy, in which the media was used to whitewash local discontent. Zambia's post-independence government is apprehensive about a completely autonomous media's power over popular opinion, especially near elections. Lumping the media together with the country's other industries justifies the administration's instinct to regulate its content.
Zambia's reporters and media activists are fighting to reframe the issue and compel the government to respect journalists. They say this will happen only if independent media expansion is recognized as intrinsic to the country's democratic, not economic, development.
A handful of local media watchdog organizations run a campaign to draw attention to the cause. They sponsor a barrage of radio programs and speaker series, which are publicized on hand-painted sheets along Lusaka's busiest roads. The crux of the argument is tailored to shame their government and prick the international conscience. They argue that Zambia's geographically disperse and overwhelmingly impoverished residents need an independent media to channel information. Newspapers and radio stations should serve as forums to discuss developmental issues, such as food shortages. If an independent media were to flourish, the argument goes, Zambians would be more engaged in their nascent democracy.
The MMD made the same argument before it came to power. The party's 1991 manifesto sketched out its intended policy positions on a range of issues. Section (v), which covers the mass media, reads: “The MMD believes that freedom of expression and the right to information are basic human rights. As such, journalists will have to play an important role in promoting democracy and development in an MMD-led government.”
As the MMD has retreated from this position during the past 15 years, the media community has learned not to place all of its emphasis on shifting governmental rhetoric and drawing international attention. Instead, they have rallied their own resources to strengthen the capacity of journalists, hoping a larger, more diversified media will overwhelm the government's attempts to regulate them. A conglomeration of media houses and advocacy groups formed the Media Trust Fund, which distributes small grants to advertising-poor, community-media organizations. They have helped sponsor small, community-based radio stations, which have proliferated in Zambia's rural outposts.
Though these developments have partially shifted the landscape in the media's favor, veteran media advocates say this will not be enough to withstand an onslaught of government harassment. Although media heads can resist minor policy pronouncements, a wave of arrests, sieges and license revocations would halt recent progress.
The media community is convinced that until their rights are legally guaranteed, they will always be fending off harassment, regardless of promises by the party in power or how the media deploy their resources. Following the disappointing conclusion to M'membe's trial, advocates are accelerating their efforts to shore up the media's legal defenses and end their dependence on political benevolence.
In the summer of 2005, an initial draft of the country's revised constitution received favorable reviews from the media community, primarily because it included press and media freedom guarantees. This is Zambia's fourth constitutional revision in 41 years, but it's the first time these guarantees have been so explicit. Their inclusion is due, in large part, to the broad composition of the Constitution Review Commission (CRC) – the body charged with assembling the document. In constructing the CRC, Mwanawasa reached outside the usual government coterie to include private citizens, including three journalists. But the document has its flaws. Media freedom exists only as a subordinate clause of a larger freedom of expression article. There is also no mention of the Freedom of Information Act or privatizing ZNBC, the only countrywide broadcaster – two pet projects of media advocacy groups.
Despite their initial satisfaction with the document, media advocates are aware that lobbying for constitutional change is unpredictable. Ultimately the president retains final prerogative over what is included in the constitution and is likely to eliminate most of their recommendations. Three years of delays in the review process have only exacerbated a growing belief that the introduction of explicit media rights may not be on the horizon.
In the muddle of ongoing constitutional revision, Dickson Jere says a significant victory was overlooked. Jere, a veteran freelance journalist who has written for the BBC and Agence France-Presse, was one of the three journalists who served on the CRC. He asserts that when the group included media and press freedoms in the draft constitution, it was an unparalleled affirmation of the media community's struggle. Even if media rights are ultimately excluded, Jere says Zambians have demonstrated their support for journalists and media advocates who refuse to be cowed into submission by the government. Those in power cannot long ignore the popular will, he says. Progressive media legislation may not come this year. But it will happen soon.